Horror.com Forums - Talk about horror. - Jurassic Park 4: Jurassic World

I'm sure some of the older members here recall that I have an unconditional love for Jurassic Park and even, to an extent, its sequels (The Lost World is vastly underrated and Jurassic Park III had its moments).

And of course, for the last 14 years there have been rumours flying around about the 4th installment. I imagine most of us have seen the trailer now, but just in case...

Most reactions so far seem...cautious. Most people agree that the opening half of the trailer - as we see John Hammond's vision realised - is pretty darn spectacular. I love the look of the park, the Monorail, and THE GODDAMN SHARK FOOD.

On the note of sharks, however, there are two VERY divisive aspects in the latter half of the trailer. Some believe the shark has well and truly been jumped.

1) The Hybrid Dinosaur
2) The Trained Velociraptors

I, however, am pretty damn okay with it. Perhaps I'm blinded by nostalgic devotion, but here are my thoughts on why this is a good next step.

The theme of the entire series is Man vs. Nature. In the first film, this came from our reliance of automation and computer technology. The second film takes a far more military approach as we try to take nature by force. Both expose our naivety. The third installment draws more parallels between man and nature by emphasising the theme of family. In any case, humanity's ambition and reckless self-assuredness forms our downfall.

Now they could simply rinse and repeat one of the aforementioned ways of exploring this theme, but instead they've taken the next logical step. Crichton was writing at a time when we were experiencing a feeling of mastery due to our ability to map and recreate DNA. Two and a half decades on, we're in a world where we can manipulate DNA. Of course, after the thrill of mastery over recreating dinosaurs wane, we would move to creating dinosaurs. The GM Food of the animal kingdom.

The Diabolus Rex (this new dinosaur) is true to Crichton's ideals in that they take his themes, his concerns and his criticisms of genetic science into the 2010s. Same theme, new idea.

2) As for the trained raptors, think about it. The films have all established the Raptors as highly intelligent creatures with some level of societal structure. In the first film, they were created and immediately caged in a tiny enclosure - a creature with self awareness would resent this and grow bitter. They didn't kill for fun, they killed for revenge. Likewise in The Lost World, they are allowed to grow and form their society on this island and suddenly new creatures come along and start fucking shit up. They owe us no loyalty. In the third film, same issue - raptors gotta eat and we're easy prey they've never seen.

However, with Pratt's character portraying a behavioural researcher/trainer for the Raptors, it stands to reason that like a Lion tamer they have formed some bond with him. If they are treated right and exposed to humans with kindness from a young age, of course they could be trained. We get dogs to hunt foxes, we could get raptors to hunt another dinosaur IF done properly.

In short, I'm optimistic. It's a new film with new ideas but it seems to be staying true to the essence of the series, without being a mere rehash.