(Jurassic Park, Steven Spielberg, 1993)
When I first started writing this I was sitting in an airport in Philadelphia. It was 4 AM in Eugene, I basically hadn't slept, and I had two hours before my plane boarded. I figured I had two choices: I could either keep reading Dorian Gray and struggle to maintain focus on it, or I could try to hammer out a blog while I had the time. So there I was, in Philadelphia International Airport, writing about dinosaurs, trying to keep my eyes open. Needless to say, I couldn't stay focused on this any longer than I could on Dorian Gray, so I eventually gave up and just sat there and stared into space. Now I am sitting in a Starbucks in Lake Placid on my first full day off from camp and facing a very similar situation. I can either sit here and try to focus on Dorian Gray while my friends talk to each other, or I can try to write about dinosaurs. As is almost always the case, dinosaurs won.
My review of Jurassic Park is going to come with another "when Caroline was a little girl" story. When I was a little girl I was not what most people would consider normal. My favorite color was black, I was absolutely fascinated by the great disasters in history (Titanic, Pompeii, etc.), and I was obsessed with dinosaurs. That meant that when Jurassic Park came out I was dying to see it. Much like my later confusion about why I wasn't allowed to watch American Beauty, I was utterly shocked and devastated when my mom told me that she wouldn't take me to see it in theaters. You see, in my mind dinosaurs were not and could not ever be scary, a feeling that my mother understandably questioned. What I didn't realize was that Jurassic Park was not a film about dinosaurs and humans getting along, but rather a film about dinosaurs devouring the very people that brought them back into existence.
My mom's ban on Jurassic Park didn't last long, though. She told me that she would allow me to see it, but only after she'd seen it first. And even then I had to watch it in broad daylight with all the lights on so as to not give myself nightmares. I could not understand what all the rules were for, but I really wanted to watch some dinosaurs so I didn't really care. After she watched it, she was hesitant. She told me that she thought it was scary, but that my dad had said that I would probably love it, so she'd allow me to see it. Not surprisingly, I was overjoyed.
Now, dear readers, we reach the point in the story that truly highlights the oddity that was me as a child. I watched Jurassic Park intensely (and in broad daylight, as requested by my mother), and I loved every second of it. I was so excited to see the dinosaurs that I'd seen in books on a television screen, moving and interacting with each other (I'm also not entirely sure that I understood that the dinosaurs in the movie weren't actual dinosaurs). I was also unfailingly on the side of the dinosaurs. When the people in the movie were scared of them and trying to kill them, I was mad. It was impossible for me to understand that I was supposed to be rooting against the giant, murderous reptiles in favor of the people. I didn't want to do it, and I wasn't going to.
Now, many years later, I kind of feel the same way. For the most part the humans in Jurassic Park are douchebags who deserve to be tormented by prehistoric monsters. The people that survive that movie are the people who deserve to survive, and the ones who get ripped apart pretty much deserve what's coming to them. I still cheer when the Tyrannosaurus rex saves the main characters from the velociraptors, and I still think to myself "see, dinosaurs really aren't that bad." I understand that this is not popular opinion, but my inner 5-year-old still holds on to it. It doesn't matter how old I get, whenever I watched Jurassic Park I'll always want the dinosaurs to win, and I'll always be happy when the helicopters fly away the the dinosaurs are left to live on their island in peace.
When I first started writing this I was sitting in an airport in Philadelphia. It was 4 AM in Eugene, I basically hadn't slept, and I had two hours before my plane boarded. I figured I had two choices: I could either keep reading Dorian Gray and struggle to maintain focus on it, or I could try to hammer out a blog while I had the time. So there I was, in Philadelphia International Airport, writing about dinosaurs, trying to keep my eyes open. Needless to say, I couldn't stay focused on this any longer than I could on Dorian Gray, so I eventually gave up and just sat there and stared into space. Now I am sitting in a Starbucks in Lake Placid on my first full day off from camp and facing a very similar situation. I can either sit here and try to focus on Dorian Gray while my friends talk to each other, or I can try to write about dinosaurs. As is almost always the case, dinosaurs won.
My review of Jurassic Park is going to come with another "when Caroline was a little girl" story. When I was a little girl I was not what most people would consider normal. My favorite color was black, I was absolutely fascinated by the great disasters in history (Titanic, Pompeii, etc.), and I was obsessed with dinosaurs. That meant that when Jurassic Park came out I was dying to see it. Much like my later confusion about why I wasn't allowed to watch American Beauty, I was utterly shocked and devastated when my mom told me that she wouldn't take me to see it in theaters. You see, in my mind dinosaurs were not and could not ever be scary, a feeling that my mother understandably questioned. What I didn't realize was that Jurassic Park was not a film about dinosaurs and humans getting along, but rather a film about dinosaurs devouring the very people that brought them back into existence.
My mom's ban on Jurassic Park didn't last long, though. She told me that she would allow me to see it, but only after she'd seen it first. And even then I had to watch it in broad daylight with all the lights on so as to not give myself nightmares. I could not understand what all the rules were for, but I really wanted to watch some dinosaurs so I didn't really care. After she watched it, she was hesitant. She told me that she thought it was scary, but that my dad had said that I would probably love it, so she'd allow me to see it. Not surprisingly, I was overjoyed.
Now, dear readers, we reach the point in the story that truly highlights the oddity that was me as a child. I watched Jurassic Park intensely (and in broad daylight, as requested by my mother), and I loved every second of it. I was so excited to see the dinosaurs that I'd seen in books on a television screen, moving and interacting with each other (I'm also not entirely sure that I understood that the dinosaurs in the movie weren't actual dinosaurs). I was also unfailingly on the side of the dinosaurs. When the people in the movie were scared of them and trying to kill them, I was mad. It was impossible for me to understand that I was supposed to be rooting against the giant, murderous reptiles in favor of the people. I didn't want to do it, and I wasn't going to.
Now, many years later, I kind of feel the same way. For the most part the humans in Jurassic Park are douchebags who deserve to be tormented by prehistoric monsters. The people that survive that movie are the people who deserve to survive, and the ones who get ripped apart pretty much deserve what's coming to them. I still cheer when the Tyrannosaurus rex saves the main characters from the velociraptors, and I still think to myself "see, dinosaurs really aren't that bad." I understand that this is not popular opinion, but my inner 5-year-old still holds on to it. It doesn't matter how old I get, whenever I watched Jurassic Park I'll always want the dinosaurs to win, and I'll always be happy when the helicopters fly away the the dinosaurs are left to live on their island in peace.
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