The Edge of Chaos – An Overview of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Dark waters pulse with the hum of beginnings. A two-man submersible penetrates the void and a widening gap parts the darkness with light. The gate of containment gives way to sudden, irrevocable change as the water is illuminated by the first steps of ignoble destiny. There is a shadow of death and decay. Few words are exchanged. At last we alight upon the truth behind this underwater voyage.

“There she is: the Indominus Rex.”

They have come to collect the remains of the famed creature. Using precision tools, they slice through bone and break off a piece of her rib, sending it to the surface where we see the ruins of a defunct theme park. Corporatism and control have given way to disarray.

A man in a yellow jacket keeps the gate unlocked for the men below water. His comrades in the chopper warn him that something approaches as rain and lightning paint the scene with broad wetness and bursts of white light. Then, as if from nightmare, the head of the tyrannosaur flashes in the dark jungle. Danger looms.

She advances. The man in yellow screams and she roars right back, drowning out his cry with a boisterous primeval bellow. He runs and the lithe tyrannosaur chases her mouse. Will he make it?

The ladder! The men in the helicopter have dropped him a lifeline. The man in yellow takes the leap, fearing certain death, and makes it in the nick of time as the great jaws of the tyrannosaur close inches behind him.

He breathes a sigh of relief. It’s over.

The ladder shakes and the man in yellow realizes the tyrannosaur has hold of it. She rips and tears at the apparatus, trying to bring her tasty morsel back to ground level. The men on the helicopter dread the worst. They’re going to cut the rope and leave their comrade to his grisly fate.

Wait. The ladder breaks. The tyrannosaur has lost her prey. The man in the yellow jacket celebrates his escape. The natural order has been foiled. Control returns to the hands of man.

But he never had control. That’s the illusion. The gargantuan Mosasaurus, having already killed the men in the submersible, breaches the surface of the water. Its leviathan jaws close around the man in yellow and she sinks into the deep with her meal.

The men in the helicopter are safe, but there’s no going back. They have their prize, the Indominus bone, and they must retreat. The park is closed. The world is open. The Mosasaurus escapes to the seas.

The ashes of an impossible dream meet the spark of a new beginning. Lava and bone coagulate. The burning logo is revealed.

Thus begins Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the middle chapter of this new trilogy helmed by J. A. Bayona and written by Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly. This fifth installment of the historic franchise is a gothic fairytale wrapped in a horror movie mixed with a disaster flick and accentuated with biblical subtext and the rich adventure of an Indiana Jones film. Sounds like a lot of genre to cover, doesn’t it?

Fallen Kingdom transcends any rote pigeonholing as a “dinosaurs chasing people” popcorn film and vastly exceeds expectations in accomplishing this task. In this overview and analysis, I’ll spend some time summarizing the events of the film while providing (hopefully brisk) commentary on the themes and motifs at work. This is not a wholly original take on the film, but I believe it captures the breadth of the movie in vivid yet compact detail.

This post obviously contains hefty spoilers. You’ve been forewarned.

GOD CREATES DINOSAURS/GOD DESTROYS DINOSAURS

After the breathtaking prologue, we’re introduced to the central premise of our film. The dinosaurs on Isla Nublar are in danger of re-extinction because of an active volcano. A government subcommittee is considering what to do with these extinct animals. Are they entitled to live? Is this an act of God? Should they be left to their fate?

There are two opposing viewpoints. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) reiterates to the subcommittee what we’ve come to expect from the chaotician. We screwed with the natural order and brought extinct creatures back to life. This was never meant to be. The dinosaurs must die “as deeply sad as that would be.”

“Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet’s ever seen but you wield it like a kid that’s found his dad’s gun.” – Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park

InGen and Masrani created these dinosaurs. They’ve been brought to life through tremendous and dangerous advances in gene splicing and DNA recovery from fossilized amber. Malcolm, the author surrogate for the late Michael Crichton, strongly feels that this path is beyond deadly and irresponsible. To court the usage of genetic power is to court our own extinction.

“I’m talking about manmade cataclysmic change. Change is like death. You don’t know what it looks like until you’re standing at the gates.” – Ian Malcolm, Fallen Kingdom

On the other side of this coin, Claire Dearing (Bryce Howard), Franklin Webb (Justice Smith), and Zia Rodriguez (Daniella Pineda) of the Dinosaur Protection Group fight to secure the rights of these animals. They believe that it’s our responsibility to nurture and care for these creatures.

But for Claire, this is more personal. She wants to right the wrongs she’s committed. Her tenure at the failed theme park weighs on her mind. Where once she sought to please focus groups and manage assets, she now seeks redemption for the sins she’s committed.

Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell) knows this and contacts her when the government subcommittee decides that inaction is their only path. The dinosaurs are doomed lest they make a new play.

THE CALL TO ACTION

Claire meets with his representative Eli Mills (Rafe Spall). Mills, ever-charming, tells her of Lockwood’s sanctuary island where there are no fences or manmade equipment, only natural boundaries. They’re going to save the dinosaurs, but they need Claire’s biometric signature to utilize the RFID tracking system.

It’s at this point we’re also told that Lockwood, an invalid, has a granddaughter under the care of Iris (Geraldine Chaplin), her nanny. Lockwood’s daughter died in an accident an unspecified number of years prior. He mourns her and deeply cherishes his granddaughter Maisie (Isabella Sermon).

Mills dispatches Claire to recruit Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) for the task of locating and securing Blue, the last living velociraptor with whom he has a close bond. He, of course, refuses.

As is typical of a hero’s journey, Owen initially rejects the call to adventure. He doesn’t want to face his past and return to the island. He doesn’t want to admit that there’s more to existence than drinking beer, playing pool, and building cabins. He just wants to settle in and enjoy life. He has become apathetic.

Claire, his ex, thinks there’s more to him. She argues for his better nature. Owen’s indifference is shocking to her. This can’t be the man she knew. But he’s always been a reclusive individual. He had his own little home tucked away in a small corner of the island when the park was up and running. He wants no part of his responsibility. Why should he change who he is?

Owen, in his own time, comes to terms with reality. He can’t neglect the foundations he’s built with either Claire or Blue. He reminiscences for the night. And in the morning, he’s the first one aboard that plane. Owen knows that he must chase his destiny.

THE END OF ISLA NUBLAR

Over the next half hour, our intrepid heroes are introduced to their first obstacle: rescuing the dinosaurs from an exploding volcano and getting off the island alive. There are harrowing escapes and close encounters. Environment and animal seem bent on creating death and destruction. Chaos reigns.

Owen tracks Blue to the old tyrannosaur paddock from the original park. As with any reunion involving a wild animal, the tension here is palpable. Owen is unsure of his place with Blue. She feels likewise. They circle one another, tentative of their relationship. They close the space between them. Light from the heavens shines down as Owen reaches out a hand to caress her muzzle.

Ken Wheatley (Ted Levine), leader of the expedition to save the animals, shows his true colors. Before Owen and Blue can properly reunite, the latter is shot by tranquilizer darts and by a close-quarters handgun round. Everything that Owen wanted to reclaim has been ripped out from under him. He’s left to die while the injured Blue is stolen by the traitorous mercenaries and Zia is held hostage.

Wheatley’s group trap Claire and Franklin in a bunker as the lava flows kick into overdrive. Our heroes fight valiantly against the tide rising against them. After several close shaves with carnivorous dinosaurs and rampant volcanic destruction, the trio plunges into the cool waters of the ocean.

The truth unravels. These men are poachers sent by Mills to capture the dinosaurs for ulterior purposes. Lockwood’s plan to save them was never going to happen.

In a daring escape, Owen, Claire, and Franklin board the ship known as the Arcadia alongside the last of the dinosaurs and Wheatley’s armed forces. The fires consume Isla Nublar. The vestiges of Jurassic Park and Jurassic World perish with the smoke and flames overtaking the relics of the past. A lone Brachiosaur is the last we’ll ever see of John Hammond’s imperfect dream.

The future is uncertain. The only world the dinosaurs and our heroes knew is effectively ash and dust. But a remnant has been preserved. The ark speeds through the water and the chosen await their fate.

THE KINGDOM OF MAN & HIS CREATION

Lockwood Manor. That’s where they’re taking the dinosaurs. Mills plans to sell them in a black auction with the help of Gunnar Eversol (Toby Jones). Below the high walls of this castle, a dungeon has been prepared for his new and valuable prisoners. They’ve refurbished an old lab that Hammond and Lockwood once used to create the first dinosaur. It ends where it began.

But Mills, the ignoble knight, doesn’t realize his secret isn’t safe. The princess (Maisie) has been spying on him and his crooked deceits. She plans to tell the king what his subject has been up to right underneath his nose.

Soon, the knight shows his hand. He’s been partnered with the sorcerer, that miracle man Dr. Henry Wu (B. D. Wong). Whereas God made man in His own image (Genesis 1:26) and that image was ultimately corrupted and banished from Eden (Genesis 3), Wu has created a new monstrosity in man’s own image, one born from the rib of the Indominus: the Indoraptor.

This, of course, calls to mind the creation of Eve. She, like the Indoraptor, was crafted from the rib of another being in Adam. But the Indoraptor was not bred to be man’s companion. He was designed to be a tool, a blunt object with which to hammer the nails of a variety of warfare scenarios.

Infused with the DNA of his predecessor and the velociraptor, this fierce prototype is the ultimate embodiment of human hubris. He’s the byproduct of our corrupted nature, our inherent sinfulness. The Indoraptor is an imperfect, twitchy, often deranged beast. He’s an arrogant being, a biological weapon, and a tortured soul wrapped in the scaly, damaged skin of a living creature.

God is good, so He made man to be good. But man chose for himself, was deceived by the serpent, and became his own miserable and implacable god. Man cannot and should not play God, but he does. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs.

Wu says that the Indoraptor prototype must be improved. Mills doesn’t understand or care why Blue must arrive in tact for the next iteration of the Indoraptor to succeed. He’d rather the operation be a sprint than a marathon. But Wu argues that his work is art, that in the gray area of genetic engineering and in the creation of a new animal, his work is magnified.

As a side note, Wu betrays his own high-minded intentions here. He claims to see the creation of the Indoraptor as showing his artistic merit, his reason for his dedication to science. But the truth is sinister and harkens back to the original novel written by Michael Crichton:

“The file Wu had brought, stamped ANIMAL DEVELOPMENT: VERSION 4.4, lay on the coffee table.”

“The dinosaurs we have now are real,” Wu said, pointing to the screens around the room, “but in certain ways they are unsatisfactory. Unconvincing. I could make them better.”

“Of course. But I’m just saying, why stop there? Why not push ahead to make exactly the kind of dinosaur that we’d like to see?”

“When you compared the DNA of man and the DNA of a lowly bacterium, you found that only about 10 percent of the strands were different. This innate conservatism of DNA emboldened Wu to use whatever DNA he wished. In making his dinosaurs, Wu had manipulated the DNA as a sculptor might clay or marble. He had created freely.”

Wu views the animals as software, something that he can improve on like the implementation of computer code. He is deluded with pride, arrogance, and a God complex. In this way, perhaps even more than the other antagonists, he reveals his intentions as most far gone.

The next Indoraptor needs Blue and her blood in order to form a bond with a closely-related genetic link. It needs a mother so that it might codify the corresponding behavioral traits exhibited by the velociraptor. Without Blue, the Indoraptor remains a dangerous, unpredictable, and psychopathic killing machine which cannot be reined in.

The princess reacts with shock and soon discovers this dragon in the dungeon. The Indoraptor is curious about Maisie, reaching out a tentative clawed hand as if to stroke her hair. But her feet cross the red line. She’s in danger. The dragon roars! The princess, scared for her life, screams and runs straight into the unwelcome arms of the corrupt knight.

Mills locks Maisie in her bedroom where she can’t report her findings to the king. He’s too close. Victory is at hand. He has a choice to make.

“I’m not the only guilty one here. Hammond was right. It was an unholy thing you did.”

Perhaps believing himself righteous, the knight usurps the king and murders him in cold blood. Blood on his hands, Mills crowns himself the new and sole proprietor of the Lockwood Estate and promptly fires Iris. The princess is alone.

ABOARD THE ARK(ADIA)

Blue’s life hangs in the balance. Owen, Claire, Zia, and Franklin work to save her from dying of blood loss. Their plan is a dangerous and chaotic measure; they must acquire blood from the tyrannosaur for a transfusion. It’s crazy. But it’s the only way.

The animals are contained in shipping crates. They’ve been catalogued and contained, boxed in as they were in the theme park. But as Malcolm said (and as we’ll soon see play out): life cannot be contained. Life breaks free. Life expands painfully, maybe even dangerously.

Owen and Claire succeed in their mission. As Maisie views video recordings of the raptors Owen once trained, Blue’s operation unfolds. She isn’t just any raptor. She’s empathetic, rational, and capable of forming close bonds with others. Owen is more than her trainer and her caretaker. He’s, in some respects, her father. He’s the only parental figure Blue has ever known and she has grown to love and respect him as any child should.

Blue exhibits what living beings are meant to be: compassionate, loyal, steadfast, holding to love. She shouldn’t be a prisoner or a slave. If the Indoraptor is a reflection of man’s worst qualities, then Blue is his mirror as well as a demonstration of the bond and companionship we can and do share with the animal world.

“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.’” (Genesis 1:26)

Whereas InGen, Masrani, and Mills have chosen to live out this standard by subjecting the dinosaurs to corporate bylines, caged existence, and woeful misuse of their trust in their creators, our heroes believe we are called to love and steward them, wonderful creations that they are.

The bullet is removed. Blue lives.

POLLUTED BY AVARICE

“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil…” (1 Timothy 6:10)

Wheatley captures Owen and Claire en route to the Lockwood Estate and imprisons them alongside the dinosaurs. A back and forth ensues. Mills tells them an inconvenient truth; they are as much to blame for the current situation and their own predicament as he is. Claire authorized the creation of the Indominus Rex. She exploited a living thing in a cage for money. And Owen’s raptor behavioral research paved the way for the militaristic application of dinosaurs.

Our heroes must lay claim to their responsibilities and sins. They are as culpable as anyone involved in the de-extinction and exploitation of these animals. So they’re left to wonder how they’re going to fix their mistakes and make things right.

The bidding begins. Mills and Eversol display the animals as mere objects, assets to be won or lost by a group of megalomaniac and discerning buyers among the ultra-rich. One after another, the unassuming dinosaurs are auctioned off to the highest bidder to await whatever cruel and manipulative fate has been bestowed upon them. They’re still in cages. Freedom remains elusive.

Owen and Claire scheme their way out of the dungeon with the help of the Stygimoloch and encounter Maisie. The princess must trust these two strangers from the outside world. They share a common interest: love of dinosaurs. For her, that’s enough while she struggles with these new emotions of great and powerful loss.

Dollar bills are all Mills can see as the auction hits the halfway juncture. He and Eversol have only grown in their greed since the start. They decide to sell the Indoraptor against the wishes of Wu. Owen, Claire, and Maisie witness this and opt to stop this Frankenstein’s monster from ever breaching these castle walls.

With his Navy Seal training, Owen surprises and combats the guards Mills has posted. Meanwhile, the natural battering ram known as the Stygimoloch wreaks havoc on the auction proceedings. The Indoraptor watches with glee as the tables have turned. He’s locked in a cage, but it’s the humans who provide the spectacle. A shame he didn’t have popcorn to watch this amusing sport.

Owen prevents the Indoraptor’s cage from descending back to the dungeon. The dragon must wait for an opportune moment to break free. Wheatley wants his bonus. He decides that he needs the Indoraptor’s pretty teeth to complete his collection.

The Indoraptor baits him into his cage and smiles. Wheatley’s amateur dentistry is at an end. And Eversol shouldn’t have worked with amateurs. Their problems are over.

The monster that goes bump in the night, the reminder of our hubris, greed, and incapacity to temper our grasp so that we do not exceed it, is loose in the mansion.

UNHOLY THINGS

Mills and a handful of guards confront Owen, Claire, and Maisie. He demands his inheritance as the rightful ruler of the Lockwood Estate. The princess belongs to him. Our heroes refuse. They’re not going to let this traumatized little girl endure any more of what Mills’ corrupt and immovable mind conjures up.

But they don’t know what she is. Lockwood never had a granddaughter. He had the technology. He missed his daughter. He made her again. Like the dinosaurs, Maisie is a clone brought back from extinction.

This is the sin that drove Hammond and Lockwood apart. The idea of recreating a human being was too divisive and unholy for even the man who envisioned a dinosaur theme park to consider. Their friendship soured and died, but Lockwood held onto the hope that he might one day see his daughter again. And when his old friend passed, he began the steps into that most unethical of frontiers: human cloning.

It’s not enough for man to recreate an animal that no longer exists. No, he must break through barriers painfully and dangerously, ripping asunder the veil and exploiting the usage of genetic power to, in essence, create himself anew. Man, as he always does, has made himself a god.

Lockwood’s motives are understandable and sympathetic. We’ve all lost loved ones we’d like to reclaim and know again. But this was not the way and perhaps in death he learned this harsh lesson.

Mills knows the value of Maisie as a human clone. She is his prize, property, and trophy. And perhaps in his warped mind, he might care for her. But he’s too far gone.

The Indoraptor, the other unholiest of abominations, interrupts this encounter and kills the two guards. Owen and Claire escape with Maisie. The princess cries. Her reality has been shattered. Is she even human? Can someone her age process such an idea that she’s not her own person, but a copy?

Our heroes have no time to ponder these things. The Indoraptor targets them. He’s a rabid dog and no one is in control. And like Maisie, he’s made from pieces of the past. He is her mirror image, realized quite brilliantly in a visual wherein his jaws and Maisie’s face are overlaid in see-through glass.

Zia and Franklin outwit Dr. Wu and release Blue. The guards fire at her, missing spectacularly, and shoot containers that will eventually flood the prison with deadly gas. But right now, as darkness encroaches, there is the scent of victory. Blue is alive and she’s almost free.

HOWLING AT THE MOON

The dragon pursues the princess to her locked tower bedroom. She cowers under the covers as the Indoraptor, freakish hybrid that he is, howls at the moon and descends to her outer door. He is eager, hungry, and yet tentative. He savors this hunt but there is uncertainty. There is a kinship between them. They are alike. And they are not.

Again, the Indoraptor reaches out a long-clawed finger to test his prey. His shadow stretches. He’s everywhere. The princess is doomed.

The door bursts open. A valiant knight unloads his firepower on the creature, downing the Indoraptor before he can achieve his goal. It’s over.

But it’s not. The dragon shrugs off Owen’s weapon. It’ll take more than that to dowse the flames.

Blue roars. The noble steed has returned to save her knight. Owen and Maisie retreat to the rooftops as Blue wars with her twisted descendant, the illegitimate progeny of man’s sin made manifest. Both are artificial creations. But only one may live.

Water pours and makes the rooftops slick and uneasy. There’s nowhere to run or hide. The Indoraptor eludes Blue and chases them to the edge. All is lost.

Claire appears. She’s got the gun. She points the targeting laser at Owen. There’s trust there. Growth. Love. She presses the trigger.

The Indoraptor leaps. He’s heavy, much too heavy, and he breaks the glass. It seems he’ll fall to his death.

He’s crafty. His design is imperfect but manageable. The dragon will not be outdone by simple tricks. The Indoraptor’s prey is in his grasp once again.

From the shadows, a smaller figure pounces and strikes at him. It’s Blue. They tumble through the air, kicking and clawing, and it’s unclear which of these creatures will survive the plunge into Lockwood’s personal museum.

Then, lightning flashes as if from heaven. The Indoraptor is judged and he is thrown from his lofty position. The dragon is dead, skewered by the horns of a Triceratops skeleton. With a victory cry, Blue jumps to the floor. Our heroes are safe. The princess is no longer in danger. The crumbling and fallen kingdom stabilizes for the moment.

ETHICS AND THE NEO-JURASSIC AGE

The journey is almost done. We haven’t answered the questions posed to us from the start of the film. Is it right to let the dinosaurs die? Or should they be saved? What is our responsibility to the things we create and the wrongs (if they are wrongs) we commit?

At the outset of this adventure, Claire Dearing wanted to rescue the dinosaurs at all costs. She believed wholly in their salvation and her personal redemption. The dinosaurs were not to be left to their deaths on Isla Nublar and she wanted to do everything in her power to accomplish that feat. Mills circumvented her choice, but things must come full circle. What lessons has she learned?

The gas leak is about to kill the last of the dinosaurs on the planet. Claire must decide. Owen warns that there is no going back if they unleash these animals on the mainland. Genetic power is an awesome force. Releasing the dinosaurs into northern California will only hasten its proliferation.

She lets them out of their cages, but opts to let them die. Claire cannot bring herself to endorse this radical and cataclysmic change. Against her heart, she makes the personal sacrifice not to free them from their fate.

It’s not her choice to make. Maisie presses the big red button. She empathizes with the animals because she is like them. They are her. They were not meant to be, but here they stand. The question of whether or not she or the dinosaurs should’ve been born is irrelevant. The fact is that they’re already here and because of that, they cannot be destroyed and cast aside like broken toys and petty amusements. They are living, breathing, fighting, and loving. Their birth was unnatural, against the established order, but their hearts beat all the same.

Malcolm was right; the exploitation of genetic power didn’t stop with the de-extinction of the dinosaurs. It won’t stop with clones like Maisie. This force is already in motion. Mills told the truth: genetic power cannot be put back in the proverbial Pandora’s box.

And Mills pays the price for his indulgence and usage of that power. The tyrannosaur snatches him up and rends him limb from limb. With a majestic roar and final stomp, the Indominus bone is shattered. No more hybrids. No more Frankenstein’s monsters. Only the dinosaurs and man remain.

Blue reconnects with Owen. Their bond is restored. He asks her to come with him. She refuses because she cannot return to her caged existence. That’s not living. In an inversion of their final moments at the doomed theme park, she departs from him of her own accord. Where their relationship goes from here is uncertain.

Man’s dominion is in question. The world has changed radically. The humans will be running to catch up. Dinosaurs and genetic power are all over the world. They stalk forests. They hunt modern animals. Some are being used and mistreated in the hands of unscrupulous men. But they’re alive, global, and active.

“We’re causing our own extinction,” says Malcolm. That remains to be seen. Our heroes will have to live with the consequences of Maisie’s decision. One thing is known as Blue skitters across the desert cliffs and spies a small town, calling out to unseen brethren as she perches atop the precipice at the edge of chaos.

Life finds a way.