Jurassic World. The fourth film in a series forever trying
to live up to the standards of the first film. Forever desperate to capture the
magic and emotion we witnessed in the 1993 landmark film… and forever falling
short. So surely, if all Jurassic World turned out to be was a poorly
constructed sequel, that failed to live up to the quality of the original film;
theatres would be filled with angry ex fans,
calling for explanations and demanding to have their cherished film done
justice. However that’s not what happened at all. Instead, Jurassic World
smashed the box office and was undeniably a mammoth success. So, if it wasn’t
down to a brilliant, captivating plot, or a genius, shocking script, how did
this come about?
The answer is simple, and lies in the failures of its
previous films. Put plainly- this film wasn’t as bad or as disappointing as the
two original sequels that everyone likes to pretend never existed. The two
previous films clung onto original cast members and relied on them solely to carry
the franchise, but with Jurassic World hitting the reset button, and having it
set twenty years in the future, it gave the film a fresh feel. This is what the
series desperately needed.
Of course, a film ‘not being terrible’ isn’t reason for the
amount of success Jurassic World experienced. The box-office smash used cutting
edge CGI and special effects, leaving sci-fi fanatics content and pleased after
a two hour long fix of beasts wreaking havoc in all sorts of hard-to-create
action scenes. The film cost a fortune to make, and this is clear from the
finished product, and sometimes, mindless action sequences are enough to
satisfy large groups of people, who go to the cinema and watch films, simply to
be amazed.
This brings me onto my next point. This point suggests that
perhaps the film was a large box office success because it brought the magic to
a new generation. Teenagers these days have grown up, most of them, having
watched at least one of the Jurassic Park films, (most likely the first), but
having watched them with the view of them being ‘old films’. With the
incredible effects the young people of the world are exposed to these days, it
would be typically hard for them to be amazed by anything that doesn’t explode
in high definition, or be affected by a
death that didn’t contain pints of blood and ounces of guts, so despite
Jurassic Park being so brilliant to the older generation- their children simply
wouldn’t see it in the same light. However, the fact that this film has
revitalised the ideas, and continued the story, makes it more relevant and
interesting for them. The children of today are curious to see what all the
fuss was about all those years ago. And anyway, what teenager doesn’t like a
film about killer dinosaurs’ pursuing A-list stars?
This leads me to my last point. Chris Pratt. Women are box
office contributors too, and while a dinosaur film would typically be expected
to attract men and boys, fathers and sons, groups of teens, with a face like
Chris Pratt on all the promotional posters, some women are bound to trickle in
somewhere…
All in all, despite critics claiming that the plot, script,
character development and chemistry was nothing special and by no means matched
the standard set by the 1993 classic, Jurassic World was an undeniable box
office smash. And it seemed to go down
well with fans of the franchise as well- which is truly how the success of films
should be measured- not by how many people they can fool into walking through
the door opening weekend, with airbrushed posters and action packed trailers.
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