Jurassic World Dominion: Critique 5/5

*****SPOILERS*****

  

False Alarms: Humans

 

Sattler is divorced. Was this done just to get her and Alan together like the fans wanted, rather than the divorce making sense in the story? Jurassic Park 3 and Jurassic World both have divorce as a topic so it does feel stale.

Yet. In Jurassic Park 3, Sattler tells Grant to call her whenever, and then she says he’s the best, looking forlorn as he drives away. So, it’s clearly shown that Sattler is interested in Grant.

Although this could also have been fan service. But it does establish the possibility of their romance in-world. This was half the franchise ago so it would be weird not to do anything with it.

Hence Sattler and Grant’s coupling in Jurassic World: Dominion isn’t out of the blue.

 

The film ends with a montage showing the events after the characters had fled Biosyn.

A reporter says that Wu solved the ecological disaster. Yet, at the start of the film, Sattler was worried that the locusts would cause an ecological disaster. Going from something could happen to something has already happened, especially when it’s something as massive as a global ecological disaster, would take a lot of time. The time between Sattler’s worry and flying Biosyn does not account for this.

But the montage has images that clearly happened straight after the Biosyn incident. These are shown after the reporter’s news, which would have happened a lot after the Biosyn incident. This means that the montage wasn’t in chronological order. (Whilst not the end of the world, it was nonetheless disorientating.)

However, from a purely visual perspective, the images in the sequence were in the right order. The events’ chronological order had no importance on the greater scheme of things so putting them in the most visually appealing order was sensible.

 

I was surprised to see Maisie living with Owen and Claire. Why would she live with them when Iris raised her?

Maybe Maisie didn’t trust Iris because when Iris didn’t fight her dismissal hard enough to stay with Maisie? Plus, Maisie’s experiences with Owen and Claire in the previous film definitely would have created a deep bond of trust and mutual care. Maisie definitely had affection for Iris but perhaps it couldn’t compare.

Maisie needed to be kept hidden in the middle of nowhere so she’d be safe from nefarious people. Perhaps Owen and Claire thought Iris, an old lady, would be unable to handle this. Also, being older, Iris had a higher chance of dying sooner than Owen or Claire. Perhaps they feared Iris would die before Maisie was old enough to look after herself?

Iris knew Maisie was a clone of her mother all this time and kept it to herself. Maisie could have seen this as a massive betrayal, leading to the destruction of trust. If she felt like that, Maisie would have fought living with someone she perceived as deceitful.

All of these are valid reasons. It could be a mixture of these reasons.

 

How did the staff evacuate?

So far, the only way in and out of Biosyn’s valley within tall mountains is via aircraft. Yet they had pterosaurs flying around that attacked aircraft. Sure, they had a system that could deter the pterosaurs, but this would need activating. But everyone got up and left immediately, which meant no-one activated the deterrent. So all these evacuees would have been killed.

But then we Biosyn’s boss Dodgson flee via the hyper-rail. It travels through a mine which could easily lead to the other side of the mountain, whether because that’s the extent of the mine or additional tunnelling. Anyway, it’s safe to assume the other Biosyn employees fled via the hyper-rail, too.

 

 

False Alarms: Creatures

 

Due to the way arthropods breathe, it’s always been assumed that their size is limited by the amount of oxygen in the air. Carboniferous arthropods were massive because people think that period had a higher concentration of atmospheric oxygen. As such, the audience complained that this film’s giant locusts aren’t realistic.

            However, some new research suggests that the Carboniferous oxygen concentration was similar to now. Thus, oxygen concentration doesn’t limit arthropod size. As such, there’s no reason why these giant locusts wouldn’t be able to respirate in the current atmosphere.

Also, Biosyn is at the helm of genetic research. If they wanted giant locusts, what’s to stop them genetically engineering their giant locusts to be better adapted to survive Earth’s current atmosphere?

 

Next, dinosaur questions.

The farmed triceratops babies are kept locked in restraints. However, there are massive gaps between the babies. It seems like wasted space, but maybe the restraints can be changed as the triceratops is growing. Hence the gaps between the babies: room for them to grow.

Santos targets a laser at Owen, making the raptor chase him outside. Then a second raptor joins the chase. But this second one was in the streets so it clearly didn’t see Owen get targeted. So how could he know? Perhaps it’s just following the lead of the first one? Also, Lions and wolves manage to coordinate which animal they’re hunting, so there’s no reason why these raptors can’t, too.

We see small, feathered raptors in the Biosyn lab. Ramsey says that Biosyn uses whole, untouched genomes, leading to feathered dinos. A subtle explanation about why InGen dinosaurs had no feathers. The t-rex with Biosyn doesn’t have feathers, meaning this t-rex doesn’t have a complete genome: if they’re so proud of their complete genomes, why do they have a t-rex without its one? However, at the start of the film, a news reporter says that Biosyn had the sole rights to capture and relocate dinosaurs. So, this featherless t-rex was clearly created by someone else.

 

The mercenaries from the previous film took few animals to the mainland. How, then, did the mainland become so dinosaur populated?

Perhaps some of the dinosaurs managed to swim to the mainland? Perhaps people made new clones (if InGen and Biosyn could do it, why not others)?

But still, dinosaurs are large. It usually takes larger animals a long time to reach sexual maturity, longer than the gap between the two films provides. Some evidence suggests at least some dinosaurs grew extremely fast, so maybe those kind of genes were inserted into all the dinosaur genomes? People would flock to see baby dinos and large dinos, so InGen would want a quick growth rate so their dinos spent less time in the less profitable in-between stage.

The mainland being as populated as it is brings loads of questions with unsatisfying yet logical solutions.

 

 

References

 

There were many references to previous films. Most, of course, are in reference to the very first Jurassic Park.

            Maisie and co are in an upside-down car, just like the kids in the first Jurassic Park film. Also, the car teetered on the edge of a ledge.

They need to turn the power off and on again to reboot the system. Malcolm uses radios to coordinate with Sattler. The buttons of the system are the raised square red-green buttons. All just like in Jurassic Park.

Dodgson, the character causing all the trouble in this film, is eaten by a Dilophosaurus inside a vehicle. All this is just the same as Dennis in Jurassic Park.

 

The Park trilogy as a whole also get in on the action.

Owen wrangles duckbills in the snow in this film. Just like how a duckbill is wrangled in Jurassic Park: The Lost World.

            There were many car chases in this film. Too many for me, personally, but they all fit with the story. Plus, they referenced the car chases in the first two Jurassic Park films.

            Claire’s ejector seat with parachute gets stuck in a tree. Just like Eric’s glider parachute gets stuck in a tree in Jurassic Park 3.

 

Other films get a look in, too.

The first prehistoric creature seen in this film is the mosasaur, just like Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

            The giganotosaurus’ mouth lowers next to the car. This mimics the Jurassic Park t-rex and the Jurassic World Indominus-rex. Plus, the Giganotosaurus swivels the upside-down car with its snout, just like the Jurassic Park t-rex.

            When they fly away in a helicopter at the end of the film, music is playing. The same as every other time in every other film that ends in the helicopter.

 

 

Conclusion

 

I think it’s quite clear what my overarching view of this film is.

The number of issues this film had was impressive. Putting all those problematic points together really drove home how disappointing I found the end product.

The good points were rather special. Without these, I wouldn’t have bought the DVD and I’d flip any channel showing it. But the good points don’t save the film, though at least they mean it’s no longer a disaster. (To be honest, the ‘dragon’ alone would have made me watch it again.)