Today’s review isn’t so much about Jurassic World as it is about changing your life.
Genre: Action-Adventure
Premise: In order to draw in more customers, a dinosaur theme park genetically modifies a T-Rex to make it bigger, badder, and scarier. Yeah, like that’s going to turn out well.
About: Universal’s been desperate to make another Jurassic Park film for years. The problem was always, “Why would an audience want another Jurassic Park movie?” The last one was terrible. And there are only so many ways to go back to that park. But Universal stayed the course, believing in their product, and boy did it pay off this weekend. The movie made 205 million dollars. Some say it even saved the summer movie season, as the box office numbers this summer have been dismal. One of the biggest gambles for Universal was the hiring of director Colin Trevorrow, a director with only one feature credit to his name, the well-received but microscopic indie film, “Safety Not Guaranteed.” Spielberg himself signed off on Trevorrow.
Writers: Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver and Colin Trevorrow & Derek Connolly (story by Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver – some characters by Michael Crichton)
Details: 124 minutes
If you had told me four months ago that Jurassic World was going to gross 200 million dollars on its opening weekend and have the largest global opening of all time (north of 500 million), I would’ve said, “Yeah, and I’m a stegosaurus.”
Yet, improbably, the franchise many thought was out of pterodactyl juice, has positioned itself to be the number 1 grossing film of the year. That’s in a year that has The Avengers 2 and Star Wars 7! We’re still a ways away from that announcement, but however the raptor claws choose to slice it, it’s gotta be considered the biggest surprise of the year. I guess people still really like dinosaurs!
The plot for Jurassic World is pretty much this: Genetically-spliced killer dinosaur gets loose on an island. It starts killing everything.
This dinosaur’s potential appetizers include Owen, a rough-and-tumble grease-monkey who’s been training raptors to obey human commands. There’s brothers Zach and Gray, both struggling with the impending divorce of their parents. And then there’s Claire, the uptight manager of Jurassic World who, as Zach and Gray’s aunt, has been charged with taking care of them for the weekend.
Claire is really the centerpiece of the movie, as these two poles (Owen on one side and Zach and Gray on the other) try to warm the ice queen up. If you really break it down, Jurassic World is about how life doesn’t always go as planned and the importance of learning to accept that and adapt to it.
And dinosaurs killing each other of course.
I’m sure you’d like to hear what I thought of Jurassic World but, to be honest, you could look at 20 other reviews online and get a close approximation of how I felt. This is a big dumb movie meant to be enjoyed with the lights turned off. Both in the theater and in your heads. It’s not groundbreaking but it’s better than you expect it to be, nudging itself into the “second best” position of the four Jurassic Park films. Which means Trevorrow outdid one of Spielberg’s entries. Not bad for someone who’s never made a blockbuster before.
So all that’s fine and dandy. But there’s a much bigger story here for those paying attention. And it’s a story that could change your lives. A guy wrote and directed a dirt-cheap indie film with one special effects scene and was handed the reins to a major studio franchise. I want you to think about that for a second. I mean really think about it.
Tomorrow, you could start developing a feature film. In five months, you could be shooting it. In a year, you could be in Steven Spielberg’s office discussing the success of that film and be offered a major franchise. Sound impossible? We JUST saw it done. And now that it’s BEEN done, you can bet your ass that studios are going to give chances to MORE up-and-coming directors with only one small film on their resume.
I mean, have you heard some of the names being considered for the next Spider-Man film? The director of Napolean Dynamite. The director of Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl. This is happening. The ride has started. Get on it!
But why is it happening? Well, here’s how I see it. The special effects industry has things figured out on their end. So studios feel confident they have that covered. They know the computer wizards are going to give them those “wowee” shots they can highlight in a trailer to bring audiences in.
What the studios don’t have covered is good storytellers, people who understand how to build a story, how to create suspense, but most importantly, how to arc characters.
Movies, at their core, represent our connections with people. We must connect in some way with the souls who are taking us on this journey. And during that journey, those souls must learn something through the experience they’re put through. They must come out on the other side better people in some way, giving hope to the human experience – that we are capable of becoming better versions of ourselves.
It sounds like screenwriting book bullshit but I would say the ability to show character change in a convincing and emotionally compelling way is what separates the men from the boys. Because anyone can write an action scene. Anyone can scribble, “And then the T-Rex crushes the copter in half with its jaws.”
But not everyone can take the character of Claire, establish her inability to connect in any emotional capacity, and then use the story to challenge that flaw until, in the end, she figures out how to open up. It’s just not done in the vast majority of amateur screenplays I read. And, often times, it’s the reason one’s story leaves so little emotional impact. If everyone in the story is the same at the end as they were at the beginning, then what was the point of telling the story in the first place?
But I don’t want to get hung up on negatives. I’m just thrilled to see what was once thought to be impossible opportunities now presenting themselves regularly. The industry is always going to be hard up for great storytellers.
Make your movies. Let them see what they’re missing. Then celebrate when you get that call from Spielberg.
[ ] what the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the price of admission
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: If you want to make big sci-fi movies like Jurassic World, write or direct an indie film with some sort of sci-fi storyline. Colin Trevorrow doesn’t get the Jurassic World call if Safety Not Guaranteed is about a horrible-with-women CEO who falls in love with a Speed Dating coach. His movie was about a guy who claims he’s going to travel back in time. This might seem obvious but I see a lot of writers writing in genres that have nothing to do with the genre they eventually want to make big movies in. So just be smart about that.
