Now that I’m older I realize a lot about these books that I loved when I was a kid and how they got kind of bastardized. Hollywood doesn’t understand/care that the whole story is about arrogance and greed leading to obvious shortsightedness that turns into a nightmare. They just saw scary dinosaur adventure and turned that into a franchise.
I loved the books, the whole chaos theory and paleontologists showing up and basically calling the idea idiotically dangerous was the story.
I actually really like that they made Hammond this kindly ol’ Grandpa rather than the mustache twirling capitalist villain of the book. To me, it sorta emphasizes that it’s the system everything’s operating under (capitalist extraction for-profit) that’s doomed the park from the get-go, and even the best intentions of it’s creators can’t prevent that.
I’ve seen critical interpretations of the flea circus dinner monologue as Spielberg speaking through the character, trying to reckon with his impact on the real world through his films and an attempt to reconcile his need to make art with the industry’s commercial nature. Famously he was doing post-production of Schindler’s List at the same time as filming JP, and apparently really going through it.
I do agree with you that we probably could have done without the rest of the franchise, although in some perverse way they kinda reinforce this anti-capitalist theme almost every movie intentionally or not.
Now that I’m older I realize a lot about these books that I loved when I was a kid and how they got kind of bastardized. Hollywood doesn’t understand/care that the whole story is about arrogance and greed leading to obvious shortsightedness that turns into a nightmare. They just saw scary dinosaur adventure and turned that into a franchise.
I loved the books, the whole chaos theory and paleontologists showing up and basically calling the idea idiotically dangerous was the story.
In defense of the movie tho-
I actually really like that they made Hammond this kindly ol’ Grandpa rather than the mustache twirling capitalist villain of the book. To me, it sorta emphasizes that it’s the system everything’s operating under (capitalist extraction for-profit) that’s doomed the park from the get-go, and even the best intentions of it’s creators can’t prevent that.
I’ve seen critical interpretations of the flea circus dinner monologue as Spielberg speaking through the character, trying to reckon with his impact on the real world through his films and an attempt to reconcile his need to make art with the industry’s commercial nature. Famously he was doing post-production of Schindler’s List at the same time as filming JP, and apparently really going through it.
I do agree with you that we probably could have done without the rest of the franchise, although in some perverse way they kinda reinforce this anti-capitalist theme almost every movie intentionally or not.