Jurassic Park 3

Stephen Nottingham

(Director: Joe Johnston, 2001)

Genetic engineering and cloning technology has come a long way since the original Jurassic Park film in 1993. Michael Crichton wrote the original novel in 1990, in part as a warning about the rapid, trivial and unregulated development of genetic engineering. In 2001, we have the imminent arrival of cloned and genetically modified pets. Are advances in science reflected in the third Jurassic Park film? Well, no, the film has nothing to add to the genetics debate and without Crichton?s direct involvement the science content is weak. The director of the first two films, Steven Spielberg, is here Executive Producer, while Joe Johnston directs in an anonymous and economical manner. Jurassic Park 3 is an effective horror thriller set in the future, which at 92 minutes does not outstay its welcome, but from a science perspective it?s disappointing.

Alan Grant (Sam Neill) is re-introduced to the series, during a visit to Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), his palaeontologist colleague from the first film (both characters were absent from the first sequel, in which mathematician Ian Malcolm, played by Jeff Goldblum, provided the continuity). Ellie has traded long field trips for a more sedate academic life, while bringing up a family. Her forthcoming book, presumably on the nesting behaviour of dinosaurs, is to have a preface written by real-life palaeontologist Jack Horner (who discovered Maiasaur nest sites in North America). Grant has written two books, one before and one after his experience of Isla Nublar, while Ian Malcolm has also published a book (here described as "too preachy" and with "too much chaos theory" in it). Grant and his professional colleagues are highly critical of the InGen project. He tells his students that real science is done with fossils and not by observing "genetically engineered monsters created for a theme park".

While on a dig in Montana, Grant is persuaded, against his better judgement, to accompany Paul and Amanda Kirby (William H. Macey and T顠Leoni) on a flight over Isla Sorna (Site B). In return, the Kirby?s promise to finance his underfunded research project. Grant has not previously been to the island, although the Kirby?s think he has because they confuse Isla Sorna with the theme park island: Isla Nublar. Grant?s doctoral student Billy (Alessandro Nivola) talks himself into coming along for the experience. What the scientists do not know is that the Kirby?s plan to land illegally on the island to search for their teenage son (Trevor Morgan). The inevitable plane crash occurs and everyone is stranded. While exploring the island, they locate the deserted InGen complex, where the dinosaur cloning was done. "So this is how you create dinosaurs", exclaims Mrs. Kirby, crushing broken reptile eggs underfoot. "No", replies Grant, "This is how you play God". This clich餠response is one of the few occasions when Crichton?s voice clearly emerges in the film.

Grant?s worst suspicions of InGen seem to be confirmed by the appearance of a dinosaur species that is new to the film series and not on the company?s official lists: Spinosaurus aegypticus. Real-life fossil evidence has revealed that Spinosaurus was probably the biggest predatory dinosaur that ever lived. It had a distinctive "sail" on its back. Palaeontologists? think that this might have acting as a cooling device, allowing the blood to have more surface contact with the air during the warm late Cretaceous, but this is by no means certain. The reasons why InGen would conduct clandestine cloning of unauthorised dinosaurs are not pursued in this film.

The appearance of Spinosaurus extends the range of dinosaurs depicted in the series, and also allows for knowing filmic references to other Spielberg projects. The sail echoes Jaws (1973), as it moves through the water like a shark?s fin during an attack on the group after they have capsized into a river. Spielberg was also responsible for Hook (1991), a theme park Peter Pan adaptation, in which Robin Williams ditches his mobile phone and rediscovers his inner child. In the Disney film Peter Pan (1953) a crocodile swallows an alarm clock, thus warning Captain Hook of its advancing presence. In Jurassic Park 3, the Spinosaurus swallows a mobile phone (along with its operator), thereby alerting the group to its imminent arrival.

The dinosaurs are at times more like alien beings with evil intentions than prehistoric monsters. This is no more so than in the scenes with Velociraptor (raptors). The raptors are given an unfeasibly high intelligence and can vocalise, in line with Grant?s latest theories. The similarities with the Alien films, particularly Alien Resurrection (1997), are notable. The room of deformed clones in vats in that film is similar to the room containing dinosaur embryos in Jurassic Park 3. The aliens have DNA that contains something reptile. In Jurassic Park 3, a head is seen through a vat, containing one of the reptilian clones. It?s knowing wink lets the audience know it's alive and dangerous, before its victims catch on. The raptor is therefore also a psycho with strapped on knives and evil cunning. Later in the film, a group of raptors (talking in raptor) discuss the fate of the egg-stealing humans. A raptor female moves her face close to the human mother in a manner strongly reminiscent of how the alien approaches Ripley in Alien 3 (1992). Ripley harbours an alien within her and is not harmed. In Jurassic Park 3, Mrs. Kirby gives the creature back its eggs and the humans are left alone. The raptors are more than just prehistoric monsters. They are something much more evolved and otherworldly. They are the most interesting creatures in the film, which serves to highlight the limitations of the traditional prehistoric monster movie.

As already noted, without Crichton?s direct involvement, the science quotidian is lower in this film. The science is already in place, by virtue of the first two films, and no new twists along these lines are added. From a science perspective, it is a case of diminishing returns. What remains is an action movie pure and simple. Three writers are credited ("Peter Buchman and Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor"), while others are uncredited, and much rewriting must have ensued. William H. Macey has been quoted as saying, "We were making it up as we went along". Even so, the most effective sequence is lifted directly from Michael Crichton?s original novel (Jurassic Park, 1991).

This sequence occurs when Grant and his party are travelling downriver to escape the island, and was cut from the original film at an early stage. The party find themselves in a giant cage containing pterosaurs: large flying reptiles (not strictly dinosaurs, according to most palaeontologists). Pterosaurs are also commonly called pterodactyls, although scientifically this term should only be applied to the genus Pterodactylus, a small pterosaur from the late Jurassic. In the original book, Grant identifies the creatures as Cearadactylus, large pterosaurs from the early Cretaceous. In Jurassic Park 3, the caged creatures are Pteranodon, from the late Cretaceous. These were the largest known pterosaurs, until the recent discovery of Quetzalcoatlus. In the book, the cage is visualised as a gigantic version of London Zoo?s Snowdon Aviary, and Jurassic Park 3 retains this vision with an elevated walkway across a high ravine.

Jurassic Park 3 thankfully avoids the misguided eco-messages of The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), in which genetically engineered creatures from different geological time periods get on with it on a small island and stable ecological communities result. Still, the film has to live within this world, where ecological catastrophe would certainly ensue. The large number of disparate dinosaurs living in an island community is a parody of a modern nature reserve. Much lesser introductions of exotic species have caused ecological devastation around the world in recent times. The predators exist on a dark (evil) part of the island, completely separate from their prey - the herbivores - who live on a sunlit (nice) part of the island, which is unlike how any real-life ecosystem functions.

Jurassic Park 3 is a dark movie, with genetically modified dinosaurs being a threat for most of the time. However, heavy-handed sentimentality suddenly arrives. A scene toward the end of the film with tranquil herds of herbivores tries to evoke the awe and wonder of parts of the earlier films, but it just feels tacked on and rings false. Dialogue at this point between Neill and the boy undermines much of what has gone before. A dead character is also clumsily resurrected so that a reconciliation can be made. Presumably much of this was to get the film the PG rating that the studio wanted. However, Jurassic Park 3 would have been a better film if it had followed its darker trajectory, with its horror element developed more consistently ࠬa Alien.

The final shot of the Pteranodon flying into the sunset is treated as a happy ending, with uplifting music. This is bizarre, because what we are seeing are dangerous and novel GMOs escaping into the wider world. How is this a feel-good situation? What has happened to the warnings of the original film? Jurassic Park (1993) incorporated real scientific background and articulated concerns about technology. Its sequels increasingly occupy a never-never land, which awkwardly lurches between a threatening jungle of evil and a sunlit ecological utopia. These can no longer be reconciled. If a further sequel is made, then a much larger departure from the original is required. Given the genre, it would be no surprise to learn, for instance, that in Jurassic Park 4 the creation of "realistic" theme park dinosaurs on Isla Nublar was just a front for a hidden militaristic agenda to create genetically modified killing machines on Isla Sorna. The science of Crichton?s original vision was partly grounded in reality, like all good science fiction, but in Jurassic Park 3 the science component is not advanced and the film is less interesting as a result. Although Jurassic Park 3 is a better action movie than its immediate predecessor, it is ultimately going nowhere. The "living dead" is a term ecologists use to describe a species that is alive, but whose extinction is imminent and inevitable. It can also be applied to creatures being reborn from a (fossil) graveyard, or indeed the Jurassic Park franchise as a whole, if a radical infusion of new ideas is not forthcoming.

© Copyright Stephen Nottingham, 2001.