The Jurassic Park franchise has just made a massive return to the big screen, both in financial return and narrative callback. Returning members of the original cast interact with the new cast of dinosaur ranchers and science fans. The sixth film in the franchise is a controversial piece, but the franchise is unquestionably going strong.
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The most common joke at the expense of the Jurassic Park franchise is to point out the inability of mankind to learn from its mistakes. People keep trying to bring back dinosaurs and bend them to human will, only to be savagely devoured by each new defiance of time and entropy. Whether it’s a theme park trying to make bank showing them off, or a military-industrial complex goon trying to weaponize them, it’s a losing proposition. The only constant is that whoever tries to make use of these beautiful giant reptiles will find themselves brutalized, typically alongside countless other innocent bystanders. Yet, again and again, people cannot resist the allure of trying to solve their business or governmental problems with reconstituted monstrosities from the distant past. Many mock this detail as a logical inconsistency, but perhaps this common foible is actually more realistic than the alternative.
In the narrative of the ongoing franchise, everyone knows that mankind successfully bred dinosaurs from the blood sample in the nineties. By 2015, the recreation of the park decides that mankind is sick of regular boring dinosaurs and resolves to make cool new ones. Arming the deadliest creatures ever to walk the Earth with even more powerful natural weapons might sound like the height of hubris, and it is. Of course, the guests, employees, and manufacturers of this mad stunt pay the price for this absurd decision, but those at the top largely get what they wanted. The people running the Jurassic World amusement park ignored safety in pursuit of profit, even with the example of history behind them. While this seems silly to anyone with their head on straight, real companies, professionals, and governments make this deliberate mistake several times per year.
It’s not ridiculous to see global megacorporations or military contractors take wild risks in pursuit of personal profit or financial gain. While the franchise hasn’t chosen to lean too heavily into social commentary, portraying the people in charge as evil undercuts the suggestion of incompetence. Like much of real life, the people in charge don’t care who gets hurt, so long as there are no consequences for them. Believing them to be stupid or suggesting they’re failing to learn from their mistakes is the most charitable interpretation of their actions. Instead, they seek to intentionally harm others with their actions, or carelessly expose others to harm in pursuit of financial gain.
In both of the first two Jurassic World films, scientists take it upon themselves to genetically enhance dinosaurs. The first group seeks to make them more interesting to a fickle crowd, desperate to consistently increase quarterly profits and keep shareholders happy. The second team seeks to improve the deadliness of a dinosaur in order to sell it off to the highest bidder as a lethal weapon.
The first Jurassic World sees the Indominus Rex ordered into existence by the board of the theme park’s headquarters. It’s an example of corporate myopia, lack of concern for human life, and the desire for profit over people. Fallen Kingdom introduces the Indoraptor, which blends the existing Indominus with Velociraptor DNA to make it more obedient for military applications. Weaponizing live animals has been a fairly common practice for generations, but the pursuit of genetically crafting deadlier beasts is inarguably unethical. In both cases, these decisions don’t work out, but the logic behind them is fairly solid. It’s evil but perfectly well-reasoned.
Perhaps the appeal of the Jurassic Park franchise goes well beyond the natural love of dinosaurs. Perhaps one of the most common complaints about its narrative is actually one of its greatest strengths. Tons of people read tales of pharmaceutical companies, landlords, and entire national infrastructures actively choosing to risk or guarantee harm to innocent people every day. Rather than being unbelievable, it would almost be impossible to believe that a company would pass up the chance at monetizing dinosaurs. Based on the world around us, the Jurassic Park franchise is actually tragically one of the most realistic disaster franchises. Can any of us really look at the companies and governments we live under every day and imagine them not weaponizing dinosaurs, even if the last few didn’t work out?
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