The Evolution of Jurassic World, Part 1

I often forget that the 1993 original Jurassic Park is a horror movie.

Every other Jurassic Park movie, including the latest installment Jurassic World, has lost that title.  Instead, they are action movies – not that there’s anything wrong with this, of course.  But it makes them different, and in doing so, the original stand out. 

When I hear the quiet thud of the T-Rex moving through its paddock, I still get that heart-thump of adrenaline, even after countless viewings.  That first roar as she steps between the cars still makes me cringe, and I still watch Ellie’s trip through the jungle as they out-run the raptors through clenched fingers.  And that scene in the kitchen, where the raptors hunt the two kids, still gives me chills – even now, at 27, I watch it curled with my feet on the couch and a blanket over my head like I did when I was seven years old and experiencing it for the first time. 

I love Jurassic Park.  And now, since Netflix recently put all three of the original movies up, I’ve been re-watching all of them, with the addition of Jurassic World of course.  In doing do, I’m struck even more by the original – as terrifying as it is, Jurassic Park is also a deep, complicated movie about the ethics of genetic engineering and humanity’s control over nature. 

Part of what’s so terrifying about Jurassic Park is the illusion of control over nature.  This is a fairly straightforward concept to start: Humans can’t control nature. The end.  We can’t control the weather – as evidenced by the ongoing wildfires in California.  We can’t control animals – as evidenced by so many species that are slowly going extinct around us. And we can’t control so much more about our planet, about ourselves.

Something about that lack of control fundamentally bothers us, and so Jurassic Park, with its careful genetic manipulation and park control and monitoring systems, tries to address that.  Things inevitably go wrong, of course, otherwise we wouldn’t have a movie.  But the way things spiral out of control offers commentary on that lack of control and the acceptance it requires in order to live peacefully. 

Control offers humanity a variety of benefits.  Safety, stability, no surprises, and more – think about the basics of the American dream.  Those boil down to being able to control your life.  There is nothing wrong with that. 

But control has a dark side.  

Consider this:  A 2015 article in Women’s Health magazine discusses new advancements in genetic manipulation and in vitro fertilization.   Part of this includes screening for genetic disorders; if a parent is a carrier, doctors can now ensure that embryos do not carry those genetic markers, thus ensuring that a potential child will not have that disorder. 

Thus, a national conversation about genetic engineering is booting up as the possibilities of science catch up with the fiction of movies and imagination.  Questions of control lie at the heart of this issue: Can we control the genetics of humans in an effective, non-dangerous way?  And where does control intersect with ethics?  After all, using genetic engineering to eradicate a disease is a different goal than using it to control eye color or sex.  So where’s the line?

To me, an essential element of the line you shouldn’t cross lies in proceeding without ethics to guide you. 

It’s a slippery slope, this ability of genetic engineering, and I’m not trying to channel Ian Malcolm when I say that.  Fixing a genetic disorder makes sense; fixing it only for those who can pay through the nose is questionable.  Allowing parents to ensure their baby will be born healthy makes sense; allowing them to engineer the ‘perfect child’ is questionable. 

But people will disagree with me.  What I see as questionable others may find perfectly acceptable, and that’s part of the problem.  There is no black and white answer to the subject of ethics – it’s easy to say, “Yes, I’m an ethical person” and much harder to live your life that way, just as it’s easy to say you won’t judge and much, much harder to actually follow through. 

These questions of ethics instead revolve around, not personal ethics, but the ethics of science, the ethics of what lies in possibility tempered with what’s actually a good decision.  Instead of what I personally agree with, it’s more about thinking about the possibilities, acknowledging the potential downfalls and ways things could backfire, and thinking deeply about the implications and consequences, all long before the action is ever taken. 

That gives the world a much better chance of an ethical decision, even though there are no guarantees.  Nuclear power and nuclear war come from the same fundamental ideas, after all, and they are very different things.

In Jurassic Park, it’s made clear that some of those elements have been considered, but as so many are quick to point out, it’s hard to consider the negatives when considering them might advise you to turn back.  Ian Malcolm even says it: 

The conversation about “can” versus “should” is becoming more prevalent in our society every day, and I’m not always sure I like what I see. 

Think about the genetic engineering of crops.  It is certainly possible that engineering crops like corn, soybeans, and many others could solve the hunger issues of our planet.  If we can make plants resistant to droughts, or to certain pests, or anything else, we can change the face of agriculture around the world. 

Notice the “can” here. 

But when it comes to the question of “Should we do this,” no one has a good answer.  Sometimes crops don’t work well and cause physical problems like diarrhea in humans.  Sometimes the people who engineered them don’t handle things well, like Monsanto’s questionable history of lawsuits involving small-time farmers and their products.  Sometimes we just aren’t sure what might happen, 50 or 100 years from now, and since we can’t predict the long-term consequences, maybe we should hang back until we can. 

We live in a world with the ideal vision of control – but as Ellie Satler reminds us, “You never had control, that’s the illusion.”  The creators of Jurassic Park think they have control – they control chromosomes, DNA, and as Wu brags in one moment, “It’s really not that difficult.”  But since its very existence is predicated on genetic engineering, the question of should is everywhere. 

That's what makes Jurassic Park such a continually relevant movie -- why it continues to hang on, continues to be popular despite the fact that it's over 20 years old.  In Jurassic Park, the questions we struggle to deal with in the real world are deceptively simple: Don’t cross the line.  Or get eaten if you do. 

All those characters who object to the genetic engineering of the dinosaurs, survive.  Those characters who endorse it, even capitalize on it (like the lawyer, Gennaro), are killed.  Even Hammond – I realize he doesn’t die in the first movie, but he definitely dies in the book!

We watch this horror movie, and we can sit back and think, "Wow.  If only we could solve things so easily here."  Perhaps not with the same strategies, of course, but having a T-Rex eat those on the side of what's ethically wrong would certainly simplify some of our own ethical dilemmas.  

It's not that simple here, and we know it.  Despite how politicians might shout about who is right or wrong, American society struggles to articulate what's ethical and what's not.  We struggle to understand how and why and what we should do with the minimal control we have over our world.  And all along, we talk about the line: Don’t cross the line, don’t flirt with the line, don’t even think about the line -- but when we aren't sure what the line is, movies like Jurassic Park serve as a balm that lets us, just for a minute, fantasize that it could be that easy to solve.