The Trouble With "Jurassic World"

​Written by John Edward Betancourt

Sometimes I am extremely late to the party when it comes to blockbuster movies. Usually it's because my schedule is simply packed to the brim and I forget to get my butt to the Alamo Drafthouse to watch said movies, but once in a great while I make a conscious choice to avoid a particular film until it arrives on home video or cable because I'm nervous that it may not live up to my expectations.

One such movie that falls into that category is Jurassic World, simply because I am a huge fan of the original film and while the trailers made it look like it was going to be a fun ride, let's be honest, the sequels to Jurassic Park had their share of issues because a film as sublime as JP is a hard act to follow. But the time finally arrived to watch the fourth entry in the series on cable the other day, and after sitting through it, I have to say that while I enjoyed it...I did have one fundamental issue with the plot, specifically the film's "villain"; the Indominus Rex. I get that this genetic hybrid is made to drive the plot and give a reason for the park to fall to pieces and all, but in reality, this creature simply should not exist and here is why.

First and foremost, InGen, the parent company behind Jurassic World, is already a safety nightmare in this universe, and has been involved in several big time safety accidents. Plenty of people died on their watch in the first film when things went haywire at Jurassic Park and they were also responsible for letting a fully grown T-Rex run amuck through the streets of San Diego. So it would make sense for the governments of Costa Rica and the United States to give the company incredible oversight safety wise when they reopened the park on Isla Nublar and that kind of observation would be on going. Again, they've seen what these majestic creatures have done in the past, and I doubt they would be good with this ever happening again. Which boils down to one thing, regular safety inspections at the park would have revealed the creation of Indominus Rex and that project would have no doubt been shut down quickly.

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But even if we ignore that, the film's main reason for the creation of this super-dino still doesn't add up, since InGen claims they need something new and exciting to continue to drive up profits in order to keep the park open. Now it's definitely plausible that it costs an incredible amount of money to operate Jurassic World, but there is little chance that InGen is running out of money. After all, this is the only company that has successfully managed to clone a species extinct for 65 million years; so imagine what that kind of breakthrough would do for science, and the company's bottom line.

Any breakthrough that InGen's research and work helped bring to the medical or scientific field, and in turn would bring a profit to any particular company...InGen would receive a cut of that on a regular basis, allowing them to rake in the dough and funnel portions of those profits into operating costs at the park. In addition to that, think of how many countries, companies, or interested private parties would be wiling to pay the company scientific grants simply because of the fact that they have created a slice of living history for mankind to study and learn from. The price for such research would be handsome to say the least and it's one that the scientific field would be willing to pay. The bottom line when it comes to this? With that kind of cash flow pouring in, the Indominus Rex would be nothing more than a fleeting thought. 

If anything, the film should have focused on Hoskins and his attempts to weaponize the dinosaurs since that would have been in line with the core themes that made Jurassic Park so magical; the fact that we simply cannot control nature regardless of our best attempts. But alas, it is what it is, these plot holes exist and while they are still clearly bugging me, I don't want to detract from the fact that Jurassic World is still a fun ride and it does a wonderful job of recapturing the awe and wonder of the first film when we absolutely believed that dinosaurs could still roam the earth; I just wish that the same care that went into nostalgia, went into the plot as well. 

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