Is Jurassic Park lost in the jungle?

The other day, I saw the trailer for the upcoming Jurassic World: Rebirth. I couldn’t help but bored. Maybe it’s the sheer amount of visual effects. But no, that wasn’t the case. There was a line about “the secret site” of Jurassic Park made my eyes do a barrel roll. This is the third “Site B” story in the franchise. Or at least, it appears to be another one.

The Site B involves some other island site that no one surprisingly talks about. This island contains some sort MacGuffin. In Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Ian Malcolm goes to the island to find his girlfriend. In Jurassic Park 3, the MacGuffin is a stranded boy. It appears in this movie, the characters are searching for eggs.

The origin of Site B

When Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park in 1990, there was no such thing as Site B. Everything took place on the same island. In fact, there is a pivotal scene in the book where Alan Grant fights off two Velociraptors in an egg hatchery.

The book ends with two pivotal plot elements. I’ll wrap them in a spoiler in case you ever intend to read the book. It’s quite different from the movie. Read the spoiler for the breakdown, but do yourself a favor and read the book. It’s quite good.

After Jurassic Park smashed box office records, Spielberg called Crichton to ask for a sequel. Crichton was stumped. There was no possibility of a sequel, nor did he intend to write one. But money being money, he wrote The Lost World.

It is not a good book. For a book that features dinosaurs, it’s quite tedious. It was so dull that David Koepp, the writer of the screenplay adaption, rewrote the ending for the movie. Crichton “solved” the problem with Jurassic Park’s ending by inventing a new place called Site B.

The problem with modern Jurassic Park movies

I have seen every Jurassic Park movie on the big screen. This move is no exception. I intend to see it with my son, and I expect that I won’t like it. There is a reason for this, and it’s not nostalgia. Jurassic Park movies don’t have anything to “say”.

Crichton’s original book is a searing indictment on venture capitalists using technology they did not understand. In the book, Jurassic Park is built on the cheap. John Hammond is not a kind old grandfather. He’s a penny-pinching bastard who exploits everyone in his orbit. He is arrogant and spiteful. Furthermore, he thinks he can control an ecosystem, but as you know, things go very bad. While corporate espionage starts the disaster, it is arrogance that ensures the destruction of the park. The book concludes not with a changed Hammond. Rather, he is spiteful of everyone around him, including his grandchildren.

The following movies drop all the weighty themes. It’s just people chasing MacGuffins while being chased by dinosaurs. Jurassic World: Rebirth looks to be no exception. It looks like a basic thrill ride. Thrill rides are fun, but even the scariest rollercoaster can grow tiresome over time.

The latest Jurassic World movies tried to raise some greater themes, but it also collapses in on itself. At the end of the day, it’s a monster movie with another name. Honest Trailers does it right.

But hey, dinosaur movies are fun. Like I wrote, I still see it and be entertained by it. I just can’t promise that I won’t be bored.