The Point People Are Still Missing About Jurassic World

The new Jurassic World has already raised a number of thought-provoking questions, questions like: Should you attempt to train a pack of raptors (probably not), is it a good idea to send your unaccompanied child to dinosaur camp (nope), but, especially, what's the deal with the movie's Super Dino?

The new dinosaur — a giant, clever, genetically-modified hybrid created by the same crack team of Jurassic Park scientists that brought us the last group of dinosaurs that gnawed on our previous island-visitors — has understandably attracted a lot of attention. But that attention is obscuring one of the basic premises of the Jurassic Park world: Their dinosaurs have alwaysbeen hybrids, created for the express purpose of spectacle.

As several commenters noted the theme has run through the entire trilogy:

AerostarMonk

There's a lot of people kvetching and stuff about Jurassic World. They talk about how it should better represent what we currently know about dinosaurs. They say it reinforces the "science is bad" themes of so many blockbusters. They ask why make a new dinosaurs when there's so many REAL dinosaurs to choose from. And I have to wonder if they're actually paying attention to what Trevorrow is saying and what's actually been shown not just of Jurassic World but of the entire franchise so far.

For one thing, there doesn't seem to be a "science is bad" narrative here. All the bad stuff in any of the films so far and is hinted to occur in JW is the result of naivete and corporate greed. Everyone seems pretty okay with the science, there's just some who urge more caution than others. In fact they all but conclude that sticking closer to the scientific method in general is the right way to go before opening a theme park.

Someone said Owen comes off as a Luddite, but I'm not sure you can call someone who only has a career thanks to genetically engineered monsters a Luddite.

As for making new dinosaurs when they have so many real ones to choose one, that's the thing, there's NEVER been a REAL dinosaur in Jurassic Park. That's always been one of the key points of the films. They're not representative of anything except what audiences, both in-universe and in real life, have mostly wanted out of dinosaurs. They are chimeras made from a potent mix of various other creatures, just the strongest samples happen to be from dinosaurs. They say this in the movies, they say this in the books. Not just the people who created them but the folks who observe them and know better as well.

Which leads to the next point, they didn't just go and make a new dinosaur for the first time ever starting with Jurassic World, they've never been doing anything BUT making new dinosaurs. Unless you think that rapidly aging giant velociraptors were thought to be the norm in 1993.