It's not only the fear of death that is in the back of my mind while watching this film, it's my place in a world that I increasingly do Not Recognize. It's a world that daily feels like a Xerox copy of the one I remember, just off. Like The Matrix (there ya go, another one!) today's world feels like a copy of a world that used to be. But it's not a perfect copy. An imitation can never be the real thing, after all.
I'm watching these characters, who I've come to love as I grew up with them, and seeing them still on the big screen after 3 decades confirmed this feeling. I mean, duh, right? We're all a little scared of death, even though it's something we all do, like taking a shit or disappointing our parents. But as my hair has gone stark gray I try to remember who I was as a boy, and what I thought life was going to be like in the future (now is the future!).
Mission Impossible, too! And Bad Boys. The list is long. I've spent the past 5 years (+/- a year) gorging on nostalgia, desperately mainlining anything from the '90s (and to a lesser extent the '80s) to find memories lost in my gray matter. I've literally Googled How to Find Dormant Memories just so I could relive the days when I was unapologetically happy and blissful.
I don't have the skills nor the intellect to explain the dissonance in society today with the harmony I experienced in the world in the '90s, but you can kind of understand it just by comparing Jurassic Park with it's fifth and final sequel Jurassic World Dominion.
Other than perhaps 25 minutes JP (1993) is idyllic. We're in awe, much like Drs. Sattler and Grant, upon seeing these giant creatures. Isla Nublar is a beautiful anachronistic island of wonder, but also death. For me, in the 90s, death seemed far away. I was that age of my early teens where death only happened to old folks.
OG Jurassic Park saw way less death of it's characters than Jurassic World Dominion, which threatened to kill billions with not only dinosaurs but famine and super science-gone-astray. On Isla Nublar people died because of stupidity and greed. As our characters flee the island they are all accounted for. The same cannot be said for the world of Dominion.
I'm watching these characters, who I've come to love as I grew up with them, and seeing them still on the big screen after 3 decades confirmed this feeling. I mean, duh, right? We're all a little scared of death, even though it's something we all do, like taking a shit or disappointing our parents. But as my hair has gone stark gray I try to remember who I was as a boy, and what I thought life was going to be like in the future (now is the future!).
Mission Impossible, too! And Bad Boys. The list is long. I've spent the past 5 years (+/- a year) gorging on nostalgia, desperately mainlining anything from the '90s (and to a lesser extent the '80s) to find memories lost in my gray matter. I've literally Googled How to Find Dormant Memories just so I could relive the days when I was unapologetically happy and blissful.
I don't have the skills nor the intellect to explain the dissonance in society today with the harmony I experienced in the world in the '90s, but you can kind of understand it just by comparing Jurassic Park with it's fifth and final sequel Jurassic World Dominion.
Other than perhaps 25 minutes JP (1993) is idyllic. We're in awe, much like Drs. Sattler and Grant, upon seeing these giant creatures. Isla Nublar is a beautiful anachronistic island of wonder, but also death. For me, in the 90s, death seemed far away. I was that age of my early teens where death only happened to old folks.
OG Jurassic Park saw way less death of it's characters than Jurassic World Dominion, which threatened to kill billions with not only dinosaurs but famine and super science-gone-astray. On Isla Nublar people died because of stupidity and greed. As our characters flee the island they are all accounted for. The same cannot be said for the world of Dominion.
Dominion opens the toy box to all kinds of new toys, namely Dimetrodon, Giganatosaurus, and one of my favorite breed of dinosaurs, the long-necked Dreadnoughtus. However, the scene with Claire trying to hide from feathered herbivore Therizinosaurus is wonderfully suspenseful.
Before the 2016 US Presidential election I said to myself that Clinton would win. Nothing new or exciting ever happens in the world. It's all just the same thing every day. Then came President Trump. Then Came Covid. Now is the prologue to another great World War. I wish I could go back and slap those thoughts physically from my head...
I'm aware that it's not only the world that has changed, it's my perception of it. So when I wake up each morning I set out to change the world through my perspective. I make it so the world is a good place, my country great again. Great in that this country was founded on principles and morals we hold dear. That all people are created equal. That we are individuals and we can pursue happiness and liberty. That We the People are not as divided as they want us to be...
The old cast in the new movie is a wonderful inclusion to this third film's and franchise conclusion. Though I have to admit, and this is after I take off my rose-tinted spectacles, that Drs. Grant and Sattler and Malcolm - and Dr. Wu too - just seemed to be here for the ride; they're here to say goodbye to the franchise, and to all of us. They feel out of place now, like they don't belong but are here to give the feels. I enjoy their roles in Dominion for the warm, coziness that familiarity brings, but they were not central to the story like the first film so it's just an odd feeling. Now, I like this film. I enjoy every single Jurassic Park movie. So these aren't precisely criticisms of the movie honestly, but more criticisms of their place in their new world. In my new world.
Jurassic Parks has an innocence that I think was inherent in the '90s. That innocence has had a decades-long rape and pillage. Today, the world has gone nuts, much as it does in JWD. Instead of giant fire locusts eating corn fields we have Antifa destroying civil monuments. Instead of velociraptors we have AI. Instead of Bill Clinton we have Joe Obiden. And Donald Trump. We're fucked.
At least Clinton played the sax as he played all of us. The rise and transmogrification of PC Culture turned into woke dystopia. In 1993 my life was just kicking off. High school seemed awful, but today I'd sell both testicles and a foot to go back. You can argue about what you think of America all you want, but even in the 1990s I felt blessed to have been born an American and especially in the late 20th century. I am fucking blessed man and I know it! Today I still feel blessed even as this country is breaking down all around us daily. But the feeling is waning.
In the '90s I was a passive patriot. We hung Old Glory beside our front door and I stood for the Star-Spangled Banner. Today my patriotism is a way of life. It consumes me daily because I am legitimately worried that the end of our Republic has arrived. Whether it be civil war, world War 3, disaster or communist takeover, I feel compelled to get off the bench and do something - anything! - to save the United States of America.
Jurassic Parks has an innocence that I think was inherent in the '90s. That innocence has had a decades-long rape and pillage. Today, the world has gone nuts, much as it does in JWD. Instead of giant fire locusts eating corn fields we have Antifa destroying civil monuments. Instead of velociraptors we have AI. Instead of Bill Clinton we have Joe Obiden. And Donald Trump. We're fucked.
At least Clinton played the sax as he played all of us. The rise and transmogrification of PC Culture turned into woke dystopia. In 1993 my life was just kicking off. High school seemed awful, but today I'd sell both testicles and a foot to go back. You can argue about what you think of America all you want, but even in the 1990s I felt blessed to have been born an American and especially in the late 20th century. I am fucking blessed man and I know it! Today I still feel blessed even as this country is breaking down all around us daily. But the feeling is waning.
In the '90s I was a passive patriot. We hung Old Glory beside our front door and I stood for the Star-Spangled Banner. Today my patriotism is a way of life. It consumes me daily because I am legitimately worried that the end of our Republic has arrived. Whether it be civil war, world War 3, disaster or communist takeover, I feel compelled to get off the bench and do something - anything! - to save the United States of America.
The divide is real. Whether it was fabricated by the media or an adversary country or from within, this country is more divided than it has probably been since 1860. 10 years ago I would've thought the idea of civil war here was ludicrous. Now I see that it's close to certain. I don't know what that will look like or how it will play out, but it is nigh. States talk openly about succession. Blue and Red, Left and Right. Woke and Patriot. We the People and the Elites.
Yes I do not see wokeness as anything other than sanity-rot. I do not pretend to be center-right anymore. I believe the lines have been drawn just in our day-to-day lives. I want nothing to do with people who want to tell me who I can listen to, who or what I can watch, what I can own, where I have freedoms or not. Wanting our borders protected has nothing to do with racism, and if you think so, go fuck yourself you loser. I believe in law and order, and the Constitution is the highest law in this land. And at the end of the day these people on the woke spectrum want to destroy this near-perfect work on our rights as free and individual people. They have no idea what the world will look like if they get their way. Can you imagine an America without Constitutional protections? Take a look at China and you'll get the idea.
In 1993, these thoughts simply didn't exist in my mind yet. America was not (at least not openly) falling from attacks within her institutions.
All of this occurred to me as I watched Jurassic World Dominion just after the 30th anniversary of Jurassic Park. This is all a rant. I'm fed up with the state of the world, but mostly with my country. For the first time in my life I hung the Stars and Stripes upside down. This is only acceptable in times of country-wide distress. I dont think this country has ever been more distressed since its inception, again since 1860.
Our politicians are trying to eliminate the very rights in our Constitution that our Forefathers wrote to ensure the Republic never falls into tyranny. Yet our politicians completely overstep Constitutional law every day with no fear of consequences - because there are no reprisals for criminal behavior in DC. They protect each other while blaming us for the problems plaguing American society. They act totalitarian while calling the patriots fascists. The FBI and NSA illegally listen to our phone calls and monitor our social media without consent nor without warrants (go ahead, look up FISA, and think hard about the ramificationsbefore saying "I have nothing to hide"). The Biden ATF pushes illegal laws on law-abiding citizens without going through Congress.
Just a reminder, my fellow Americans - treason is punishable by death. We simply don't have the balls our ancestors had to remove the cancer from our society as they once did.
We are lost and society falling apart. And so every day I take another hit of nostalgia to make the worry and fear of collapse go away. To mask the pain of vocational dread, as I never found that dream career that seemed so possible in 1993. This life is not what I envisioned in the '90s.
Yes I do not see wokeness as anything other than sanity-rot. I do not pretend to be center-right anymore. I believe the lines have been drawn just in our day-to-day lives. I want nothing to do with people who want to tell me who I can listen to, who or what I can watch, what I can own, where I have freedoms or not. Wanting our borders protected has nothing to do with racism, and if you think so, go fuck yourself you loser. I believe in law and order, and the Constitution is the highest law in this land. And at the end of the day these people on the woke spectrum want to destroy this near-perfect work on our rights as free and individual people. They have no idea what the world will look like if they get their way. Can you imagine an America without Constitutional protections? Take a look at China and you'll get the idea.
In 1993, these thoughts simply didn't exist in my mind yet. America was not (at least not openly) falling from attacks within her institutions.
All of this occurred to me as I watched Jurassic World Dominion just after the 30th anniversary of Jurassic Park. This is all a rant. I'm fed up with the state of the world, but mostly with my country. For the first time in my life I hung the Stars and Stripes upside down. This is only acceptable in times of country-wide distress. I dont think this country has ever been more distressed since its inception, again since 1860.
Our politicians are trying to eliminate the very rights in our Constitution that our Forefathers wrote to ensure the Republic never falls into tyranny. Yet our politicians completely overstep Constitutional law every day with no fear of consequences - because there are no reprisals for criminal behavior in DC. They protect each other while blaming us for the problems plaguing American society. They act totalitarian while calling the patriots fascists. The FBI and NSA illegally listen to our phone calls and monitor our social media without consent nor without warrants (go ahead, look up FISA, and think hard about the ramificationsbefore saying "I have nothing to hide"). The Biden ATF pushes illegal laws on law-abiding citizens without going through Congress.
Just a reminder, my fellow Americans - treason is punishable by death. We simply don't have the balls our ancestors had to remove the cancer from our society as they once did.
We are lost and society falling apart. And so every day I take another hit of nostalgia to make the worry and fear of collapse go away. To mask the pain of vocational dread, as I never found that dream career that seemed so possible in 1993. This life is not what I envisioned in the '90s.
Before the 2016 US Presidential election I said to myself that Clinton would win. Nothing new or exciting ever happens in the world. It's all just the same thing every day. Then came President Trump. Then Came Covid. Now is the prologue to another great World War. I wish I could go back and slap those thoughts physically from my head...
I'm aware that it's not only the world that has changed, it's my perception of it. So when I wake up each morning I set out to change the world through my perspective. I make it so the world is a good place, my country great again. Great in that this country was founded on principles and morals we hold dear. That all people are created equal. That we are individuals and we can pursue happiness and liberty. That We the People are not as divided as they want us to be...
So I put another movie from the 90s in the bluray player, or if I'm feeling really ornery, the VCR.
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