Save the whales. Save the elephants. Save the dinosaurs?
That is exactly the message the fifth installment of the blockbuster Jurassic Park movie franchise meant to convey.
“An animal rights message is hidden within plain sight of [the] blockbuster sci-fi film, ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” claims an article in Livekindly.co.
The allusion isn’t even subtle. In an interview with the Washington Post [as reported in the Livekindly.co article], co-writer and executive producer Colin Trevorrow drew parallels between ‘Fallen Kingdom’ and the way animals are treated by humans.
“We have a relationship with animals on this planet that is tenuous and is strained. They suffer from abuse and trafficking and the consequences of our environmental choices,” said Trevorrow.
For those not familiar with the theme of the Jurassic Park media franchise, the series was first debuted in 1993 and centered on the disastrous attempt to create a theme-park filled with cloned dinosaurs. The theme park is located on a fictional island off the coast of Costa Rica called Isla Nubar. The ensuing films follow the trials and tribulations experienced as a result of the theme park’s bumbling scientist-creator mucking about with genetic experimentation.
The most recent incarnation debuted in the summer of 2018 and picks up three years after the 2015 “Jurassic World.” A dormant volcano on Isla Nubar is about to erupt, threatening the lives of the cloned dinosaurs living on the island.
While Dr. Ian Malcolm, one of the original characters, believes the impending destruction of the cloned dinosaurs is nature’s way of dealing with the mistakes of the park’s creator, others disagree and form the Dinosaur Protection Group and begin a campaign to “save the dinosaurs.”
When the plan is rejected by the government, the group decides to rescue the dinos on their own.
Of course, during their escapades, the motley crew of dinosaur activists run into poachers with nefarious plans for the dinosaurs.
Trevorrow explained that, for this element of the film, “we looked at real animal trafficking in the world and what the process is. First, there’s capture and then there’s going to be an auction of some kind, a sale. We were following something that felt grounded in the reality that we know. It’s a rule that we have that we don’t want the dinosaurs to do anything that real animals wouldn’t or couldn’t do.”
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Fallen Kingdom’s message is the subliminal messaging.
“To find a way to build essentially a children’s franchise about how we have a responsibility to the creatures that we share the planet with, felt like a worthwhile thing to do,” concluded Trevorrow.
