**The following contains spoilers for all five of the “Jurassic” movies. Caution when reading.**
I’ve written in individual reviews- most recently, my review of his “Ready Player One”- of my affection for Steven Spielberg’s work in the sci-fi genre. The one outlier in that run of genre films has always felt like “Jurassic Park” and its 1997 sequel, “The Lost World: Jurassic Park.” The premise is decidedly sci-fi, but the way he approached it in at least the first film felt more akin to “Jaws” or his TV movie, “Duel.” That’s probably because the “Jurassic” franchise, which he has still helped shepherd through five films now, fits into its own area for Spielberg that has more to do with how some of his contemporaries came through the Hollywood ranks than delving into larger ideas like he has in “A.I.,” “Close Encounters” and “Minority Report.”
Before I get too far into what I’m talking about, though, let it be said that yes, the “Jurassic” movies DO, in fact, have ideas at their center that mostly adhere to what really good sci-fi does. The central hook of Michael Crichton’s original premise in his book, which was the basis of Spielberg’s original movie, was not just how genetic engineering and science could bring back dinosaurs, but a larger cautionary tale about man wielding scientific breakthroughs indiscriminately, and without thinking of the consequences. As Ian Malcolm tells John Hammond, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” That caution to the wind extends not just to the scientists behind Jurassic Park but Hammond himself in the first film, although that brings up a contradiction in his thinking we discover in this year’s “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.” With that at the center of the film, Spielberg made a funhouse of terrifying adventure when one man, Dennis Nedry, shows how greed can undermine even the best intentions, and cost lives when the park goes down, and Hammond is left flying blind in his worst nightmare scenario. One of my favorite moments watching any film was when “Jurassic Park” in 1993 on opening day, and during the kitchen scene with the raptors, someone in the packed theatre was moving in the row behind us, and scared my mom by brushing up against her hair. Spielberg’s surgical execution of the set pieces and suspense moments while taking visual effects to a new level almost makes the science fiction ideas less important, but if that hook wasn’t as well-executed as it is, we’d be talking about “Jurassic Park” the same way we do, say, Roland Emmerich’s “Godzilla.” In other words, we’d be trying to forget it.
As the sequels have commenced, starting with Spielberg’s “The Lost World: Jurassic Park”, the ideas have continued to (mostly) be at the center of the adventure, although it has taken some digging to find them. Rewatching “The Lost World” in 2015, what I liked about the movie in 1997 came through as strong as what still doesn’t work, along with narrative ideas on not just big game hunting that Spielberg and writer David Koepp put through the first part of the film, but the idea of man’s responsibility to nature, and whether wild animals should be allowed to remain, undisturbed, in their natural habitat, and the consequences that can happen when man decides it can try and contain the power of nature for its own amusement (such as, bringing a T-Rex to San Diego to put in a zoo). This is a bit of a natural extension from the original film, but it’s also Spielberg doing his own riff on “King Kong,” and even if the film doesn’t entirely work, I do think time is kind to the things that matter most to Spielberg in his telling of this story.
The “Jurassic” franchise is kind of a weird one, actually. None of the films beyond the original is legitimately great, and it’s basically each film following the same, basic blueprint, even if there are ideas unique to each one. Not only is that part of why I’m actually kind of excited about what “Fallen Kingdom” led to, but it also points to what I think Spielberg’s larger interest in the franchise stems from. If you’re familiar with Spielberg’s history (and if you aren’t, HBO’s terrific “Spielberg” documentary from last year is a great place to start), you know that, unlike some of his contemporaries, his formative early years of instruction came not from school or making low-budget films, but in directing television for Universal studios before he turned to features with “The Sugarland Express.” Most of his contemporaries made low-budget features, sometimes for a producer like Roger Corman, before they made a name for themselves as a filmmaker. Once Spielberg hit it big with “Jaws,” he was basically king of the coop, and could kind of do whatever he wanted. TV was his film school and his apprenticeship, and he never really got to scratch that itch with exploitation and B-movie experience, and I think that’s where the “Jurassic” series fits into Spielberg’s career. (What I’ve read about a famous “Jurassic Park 4” draft he commissioned from John Sayles and William Monahan in the ’00s points to this.) In 1993, he set up the template for the franchise, and has had a hand in the direction it has followed since, but he’s let other filmmakers do their own spins on it, and put their own stamp on it. If him directing “Lost World” doesn’t entirely fit into that, it’s because I think he had to direct “Lost World” himself after “Schindler’s List” in order to get his legs from under him again as a filmmaker after that emotionally-draining experience. After that, though, he was more than happy to let under people play in his sandbox.
Rewatching it again last week, Joe Johnston’s “Jurassic Park III” feels even more like an anomaly in the franchise then it already did. Rather than look at the ramifications of dinosaurs and man’s co-existence from a sci-fi perspective, we just a simple adventure film about parents looking for their son in a hostile environment who enlist Dr. Alan Grant to lead them. No larger idea exists in the film, and that’s perfectly fine (although Grant’s ideas about raptors do set up what we see Owen doing with the raptors in “Jurassic World”)- I like the idea of just having fun with this premise in this manner, and I kind of hope we see more in that vein moving forward. The problem Johnston’s film has is that it was rushed through production, even when he and Spielberg scrapped the script they had weeks before filming was to start. I will always defend the way Johnston staged the scene in the aviary, but it’s one of the very few things this movie has going for it (even Don Davis’s score is painfully generic to listen to), and even at 93 minutes, the film doesn’t have enough going for that to be the only thing worth watching the film for.
Colin Trevorrow’s “Jurassic World” in 2015 is both a reboot of the franchise, as well as a genuine sequel to the original three films. It poses that someone made John Hammond’s original vision of Jurassic Park work, and the park is thriving. They have figured out a way to train dinosaurs enough to allow a more personal and up close experience for crowds, and don’t need a lot of coaxing to get these predators to bark on command like they did before. Again, the film deals with fundamental questions of man vs. nature, keeping animals in captivity for entertainment and the perils of genetic engineering and playing God, and it’s (in my opinion) the strongest of the sequels because Trevorrow’s film is the most confident in how it goes about its business while also building on the ideas set before it in the previous installments. I understand where people view the script, and characters, as underwritten, or written problematically, and I get that, but the set pieces he stages, and images he puts on the screen, are some of the most iconic in the franchise’s run. Also, composer Michael Giacchino is allowed to do his own thing with John Williams’s themes, which is a big improvement over its predecessor in the series.
This brings us to J.A. Bayona’s “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom”. I watched it a second time on opening night, and I will admit that I enjoyed it more than my initial review let on. More than any other film in the series, there is genuine beauty in the images Bayona puts on-screen here, especially when Owen and Claire are with a team on the island trying to round up dinosaurs before a volcano erupts on the island. Jurassic World is long closed, and a debate is going on about whether the dinosaurs created in a lab have the same rights to exist as regular animals. This is one of the reasons I enjoy what Spielberg has done with this franchise, and why it fits in with the traditional idea of sci-fi- he’s using fantasy to illuminate reality, and in addition to the notion of animal rights, we also see black market animal sales in the second half of this film while the scientists and money people continue to pervert nature through unnatural genetic modification to make more lethal predators. Owen and Claire help shut down part of this operation, but also unleash dinosaurs on the world, as a whole, ushering in a new age of dinosaurs and man co-existing with one another.
I’m kind of excited about where Spielberg and his directors have the “Jurassic” franchise heading in its 25th year. This is not high art cinema, but that never has felt like the point, either. This is about Spielberg indulging a part of himself that he never really got to in his younger days, and giving other directors a shot to collaborate with one of the great titans in modern cinema in an exciting manner, regardless of how goofy the films get. Now that all bets feel off after “Fallen Kingdom,” I’m curious as to which directions Spielberg is going to take this series as he affords more filmmakers the chance to continue envisioning a world where dinosaurs, once again, rule the Earth.
Viva La Resistance!
Brian Skutle
www.sonic-cinema.com
