One of my favorite parts of the Jurassic Park series is how they treat the events of past films as actual history. I realize that’s like saying Han Solo is your favorite character because he’s a deadbeat dad. Stick with me.
We’re obviously here to see dinosaurs. When it comes to these movies, I’m like Werner Herzog in The Mandalorian — I would like to see the baby dinosaur.¹ The sooner the better. The movies know this.
The first film is ground zero, the DNA from which everything else sprung. None of the other films have yet to top its canon — because it’s impossible — but that hasn’t stopped them from trying. Which is why the new films have dinosaurs in places like New York, where they are scientifically unexciting. One might even say boring. The new films honor decisions made previously, even dumb ones. I genuinely appreciate that. The Rise of Skywalker would’ve been a lot better if J.J. Abrams hadn’t overflowed the toilet trying to flush The Last Jedi.²
But even as disposable as its plots feel — let’s be real; they’re just there to manipulate people into dino-fueled danger — Jurassic Park stubbornly treats it all as real. Even though nobody cares! Frankly, I don’t think even the films are that interested in their own lore. Every once in a while, they trot out the Asian scientist to remind us that, oh yeah, this all ties together somehow. The commitment to the bit is kinda inspiring. It’s more than Fast & the Furious can say.
The newest film makes an effort to show how this is all one ongoing chain reaction of causality from the moment Colonel Sander’s doppelgänger smooshed together Disney World and dinosaurs. I love it. But it also brings me to the point of this article: Why in the name of Pete do these characters keep going back? The disasters of the past are well-documented. In HD, even. And yet, people keep putting themselves in extreme danger, as though they have no idea. As though it’s never happened before. Even though the most famous dinosaur — Tyrannosaurus rex — is famous specifically because it’s super good at eating other things.
