JURASSIC WORLD

At the end of the movie, one of the main characters and probably the de facto boss of the theme park asks, "And what do we do now?"

To which some bright spark sitting near me said, "A shedload of paperwork, probably."

I hope that's not a spoiler.

Winners and I went to see the film, Jurassic World tonight. I was quite excited, Winners wanted to debate creationism, and the rest of the cinema just wanted to see massive dinosaurs tearing up the screen and roaring like there's no yesterday. They wouldn't have been disappointed.

It occurs to me now though, that all of the Jurassic Park films are about the same thing - the question of who is in control. Do we have control over nature? Does nature have control over us? What does it feel like to be in control? What does it feel like when we realise we're not? The plot formula's then pretty simple, in all four films: try to wrestle for control of the situation, you get eaten limb from limb; believe you've got control, you get hunted by velociraptors who, guess what, rip you to pieces. Stand in wonder at the colossal scale and appreciate the power with gentle respect, get the pecking order right (without stealing embryos, eggs or baby tyrannosaurs) and you might just be alright when the thing with big teeth blinks at you through the leaves. Either that or make sure you're under sixteen - that makes you pretty much invincible in a 12A movie.

The control question is reflected in the lives of the characters too. Once you see it, it's difficult to see anything else. Jeff Goldblum loses control of Julianne Moore who's rushed off to take photos of stegosaurus in The Lost World. John Hammond loses control of the company to his nephew, Vince Vaughn loses control of his bolt cutters and Sam Neill has seemingly no control at all over his dream on the Kirbys' plane, when a velociraptor actually turns to him and says "Alan."

Jurassic World cleverly interwove a lot of homages to those films into this one. In fact, it's clearly a film made with the greatest respect, love and nostalgia towards the first one, which even after twenty two years is still the greatest dinosaur movie ever made. I won't give you any spoilers, you know, just in case you want to go and see it. There are laugh-out-loud moments of utter daftness, and there are other moments when you genuinely get carried away with the effects. There are other moments still when you wonder - "Why on Earth do they keep building these theme parks?" or "Whose bright idea was that?"

But that's it, isn't it? That's the control question right there. Is it us? Or are we just carried away with the illusion of control, just as Ellie Sattler protested across the restaurant table in 1993. Is it 65 million years of evolution; is it nature, continually finding a way to show us who's boss? Or is it that awesome T-Rex? Will life find a way?

Winners wasn't really in the mood to discuss much of the film as I drove him home. I was thinking about that line in Jurassic Park where Goldblum says, "God creates dinosaurs, God destroys dinosaurs, God creates man, man destroys God, man creates dinosaurs..." and then Laura Dern says, "Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth."

All Winners said was, "I hope we never find a way to clone dinosaurs."

I could not have agreed more.