Headcanon accepted.
OK Chris Pratt, but we’re going to need you to try those lines like this now:
Without any depth to the story or characters worth caring about, there’s nothing to engage in. Again, bringing this back to Zara’s death (which, if you’ll remember, is supposedly the subject of this article), we don’t know anything about her. Who is she, outside of Claire’s assistant and someone who’s getting married? Every character, even Genarro, who appears in Jurassic Park gets some depth, and the other characters react when they die. Zara’s death gets so little reaction from everyone else in the cast and means so little that, if it didn’t take so long and make me so uncomfortable, I probably wouldn’t have noticed.
The relationship Jurassic World has with Jurassic Park is ultimately similar to the relationship Zack Snyder’s terrible Watchmen film had with the comic on which it was based: a near fetishistic reverence for the aesthetics of the original without any real understanding of the elements that made it great. Jurassic Park is intelligent without being too complicated, engaging, exciting, well-written and intense, whether on your first watch or your 10th. Jurassic World is vapid, underwritten to the point where it might as well have been made up on the spot, and wears out its welcome halfway through the first viewing.
Jurassic Park was such a monumental film for me as an 11-year-old that over 20 years later I’m working on getting a tattoo inspired by it. You may think that makes me a nerd (I am) or a weirdo (depends on your definition), but it speaks to the immense power the film had on me, and that’s what many creators strive for in their work every day. While an incredibly enjoyable experience, Jurassic World is not a movie that would inspire me to tattoo my body.
Read our full, non-spoilery Jurassic World review on The Mary Sue - Jurassic World Is Enjoyable But Lacks the Heart of the Original.
Someday we’ll get tired of seeing Chris Pratt’s precious little face kissing dinosaurs. Today isn’t even close to that day.
