How another 'Jurassic' sequel draws conclusions about the franchise

The 1990s were awfully cynical. The art created during the decade serves to reflect that.

Even though Steven Spielberg’s 1993 adaptation of “Jurassic Park” fed into that collective coolness, largely as a rebuke of corporatism and crass marketing, there was still enough whiz-bang wonder to make the film an event.

But cynicism knows no bounds, it seems, so nothing could prepare the culture for the calculated nastiness which formed the dark heart of the franchise as it trudged along, culminating with this month's release of “Jurassic World: Dominion.”

The film bookends a series where — in a span of 29 years — the idea of dinosaurs living among humans went from a tale of cautionary amazement to a sideshow, then visited greater ethical quandaries in a synthetic satire that still falls prey to the very thing it attempts to defang.

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Audiences 29 years ago had no idea what was in store. We had been dazzled by computer-generated imagery in “Terminator 2” two summers earlier. But the notion that whole herds of dinosaurs could be conceived from code seemed impossible. Spielberg, perhaps the most effective filmmaker ever, happily rose to the challenge and delivered.

Our mouths went agape the same way they did for the characters onscreen. But not because of the spectacle, I would argue, but the smaller details. The creatures worked because Spielberg understood we connect to non-human portraits through the eyes. If there is a soul in these beasts, the eyes are the porthole. If the filmmaker figured this out through earlier films like “Jaws” and “E.T.,” he manipulated the audience to optimal impact here.

Plus, CGI effects calibrated the lighting and how the images were composed, so they simply looked consistent. Amazingly, digital effects have rarely looked better than they did in 1993! Since then, the solution filmmakers have taken to get around this — including this new “Jurassic” film — is to simply make every image darker and murkier so the blemishes cannot be detected. Regrettably, nothing else can be seen either.

Another thing Spielberg understood is that dinosaurs were not the bad guys. They operated off genetically-modified instinct. They are a source of tension and suspense, but ultimately greed was the real existential threat.

Sure, Wayne Knight plays a grubby little criminal who triggers the crisis in the film. But John Hammond, even with Richard Attenborough’s kindly demeanor and Santa Claus cuddliness, is the real villain. Scientific innovation is a stated desire, but maximizing profit is his ultimate goal.

Lest we not forget that the catalyst for getting the main characters to the dino-island is the insurance company’s well-founded belief that corners were being cut and liability was being incurred. Heck, Attenborough doesn’t even need a third-act reveal. His intentions hide in the open.

That’s a lesson Spielberg also gained from “Jaws,” choosing to make the real fight — evoking Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People” — where rational men are bullied and cajoled by the powers that be; quelling legitimate dissent without regard to the public good.

With “Jurassic Park,” the disregard of global well-being and scientific ethics are the lofty issues. In the end, a rich guy traps average people — including his own grandkids! — on an island where survival is quite unlikely.

Spielberg always came back as producer (where the profit points are, baby!) but only directed the first sequel, “The Lost World.” That film, celebrating a quarter-century since its release this summer, is pretty derivative stuff. But with darker themes involving mercenary gangs, and a climax that proved no one was safe from unchecked corporate aggression. Not even suburbanites in Southern California. Another critic likened it to Spielberg’s other darker sequel, “The Temple of Doom.” An apt analogy.

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When the series rebooted with “Jurassic World” in 2015, there was a more pronounced irony to the proceedings. The park was now open, but the corporate overlords (embodied by the icy Bryce Dallas Howard) wanted to make the dinosaurs bigger and more lethal as the crowds had grown bored with “ordinary” dinosaurs.

The film wore this meta-joke like a badge of honor, even including a lowly scientist who lamented the “nostalgia” he felt for the earlier Jurassic Park iteration. He wore a shirt with the first film’s logo if you couldn’t take the hint.

Funny stuff that fed a '90s-bred cynic like myself, who could appreciate a dumb blockbuster because it had a nice way of making fun of itself.The obvious model for this is the self-winking “Gremlins 2,” which remains the great meta-comedy of modern Hollywood.

Which leaves us now with “Dominion” and a world where dinosaurs roam outside the park. Some of the ideas in the film, like the black market where the rich trade these rare creatures for sport, beg for more on-screen contemplation. Instead, the new iteration focuses on a bioengineering firm started by Hammond, and now run by creepy tech-bro Lewis Dodgson. As played by Campbell Scott, Dodgson is like a malevolent Tim Cook in charge of a Monsanto careening amuck.

“Dominion” spends a great deal of time with not only the dinosaurs on the (not) Monsanto compound, but a new creation of genetically-modified locusts designed only to eat crops not raised with the company’s seeds. Honestly, that’s a hilarious idea for a corporate horror film — where an entity literally unleashes a plague onto the public who will not do its bidding.

A number of critics are grumbling that the film makes its dinosaurs somewhat secondary. That’s fair; you buy a ticket to see a “Jurassic” movie, you want to see big lizards eating people. But we’ve now had six movies that have done this.

“Dominion” is more interested in science being co-opted to destroy civilization. I will grant you the message is messily delivered and has to compete with motorcycle chases and airplane rescues. But I give it a solid “B” for effort.

None of this is to ignore the fact that a piece of corporatized entertainment with an IP worth billions of dollars has the audacity to call any one person or industry out for unchecked greed and destruction. But sometimes a good message is sitting there right in the unlikeliest of places.

In real life, James Owen is a lawyer and executive director of energy policy group Renew Missouri. He created/wrote for Filmsnobs.com from 2001-2007 before an extended stint as an on-air film critic for KY3, the NBC affiliate in Springfield. He was named a Top 20 Artist under the Age of 30 by The Kansas City Star when he was much younger than he is now.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: How another 'Jurassic' sequel draws conclusions about the franchise