The Wonderful Capitalism of ‘Jurassic World': Ahhhh, just let it just wash over you………..

The Cincinnati Tablet: A little known... Fireworks and ‘The Anti-Federalist Pa...

The Wonderful Capitalism of ‘Jurassic World': Ahhhh, just let it just wash over you………..

I’ve covered a bit about what makes Jurassic World such a good movie. If you read my article yesterday, CLICK TO REVIEW, you already know I love museums and that the Discovery Center at Universal’s Islands of Adventure is one of my favorite places on earth—because it’s a dinosaur museum.

I love the Field Museum in Chicago, I love the Smithsonian, I love the Indianapolis Natural History Museum—I love the exploratory nature of them—so obviously within the context of an amusement park where a fantasy level museum is the feature—it beholds my interest. I’ve instilled this love in my kids who are now grown up and consider among their greatest achievements trips to the British Museum in London—separately. They both made trips there and out of all the things they could have done in London as young twenty something’s, they went to the British Museum and spent a lot of time. We all went to see Jurassic World and loved the movie for all the obvious reasons. But I loved it for more than even those. I loved it for its open embrace of capitalism—an unfettered love of corporate sponsorship merged with scientific debate, philosophic proposals, and contemporary quandaries. To get a sense of what I’m talking about have a look at the video below featuring Frank Marshall who is one of the producers of the film. It was good to see some major Hollywood heavyweights embracing fully the commercial aspects of their movie and then shipping that enthusiasm around the world in the form of a story. Then read the story at the following link of a guy who watched Jurassic World and immediately left to purchase a new Mercedes putting himself 90K in the hole with money he obviously didn’t have because his mom still pays for his phone bill. When you combine science and capitalism into a motion picture, you get blistering success—and I hope sincerely that Hollywood learns something by studying Jurassic World.

http://www.funnyordie.com/articles/3c4832008f/i-bought-a-mercedes-benz-after-watching-jurassic-world-and-i-regret-it?_cc=S_d___&_ccid=gwiv0v.nqwoc3

Jurassic World is partly great because it’s like that feeling you get when you arrive at Downtown Disney, or Universal’s City Walk for the first time and are bombarded by all the innovations of capitalism attached directly to human mythologies. Jurassic World obviously understands that phenomena and embraces it fully—which was a common practice in the 1980s, but has been pushed underground to a large degree by progressive filmmakers who want to pretend they dislike money to appeal to their base, while needing a lot of money to make and release their motion pictures to the world. Jurassic World doesn’t even pretend not to like it—it embraces capitalism fully with overflowing pride, and that is probably what I like most about it. Even the billionaire in the film was a good human being, and interesting guy who even though he had all the money in the world was still teaching himself to fly a helicopter for personal growth.

Some of the most obvious product placements were of course Coke, Starbucks, Brookstone and Oakley sunglasses, Hilton, Samsung, Verizon Wireless, Jimmy buffet’s Margaretville—among many others. There is quite a long list. After the movie my family even went to Dairy Queen where they had a really cool promotion going on with their Jurassic World Blizzard. It was simply marvelous. We had spent the day at an amusement park after recently seeing the movie and dined at Dairy Queen exclusively because of its tie-in to the film, and had a really great experience, which is shown in some of the pictures displayed here. Also shown there is a completely fictional promo video for a new Hilton at the Isla Nubar Resort. Obviously Isla Nubar is a complete fantasy. There is no island like that off the Pacific side of Costa Rica. But the movie did a wonderful job of building a fictional reality to serve as a backstop for all this product placement. The main area of Jurassic World from the view of the Hilton Hotel reminded me a lot of Cancun complete with all the capitalist investment you can find there in a tropical paradise. I find myself wanting to visit this specific Hilton and can’t help but hope that Universal Studios in Florida will build all these places for real so I can visit. I think they’d be crazy not to at this point. After the Fourth of July weekend of 2015, Jurassic World will be third on the all time money-making list behind Avatar and Titanic—and the film doesn’t open in Japan for another month. If Hilton actually builds that hotel, I will be the very first person to stay in their T-Rex room. You can bet on that!

While at the Newport Aquarium again shortly after seeing the movie we strolled into the AMC theaters for a bite to eat and guess what we saw there? A Jurassic Park Jeep from the original film, also shown in the accompanying pictures. It brought no small measure of pleasure to me to see it there. I had only ever saw one within the actual theme park at Universal Studios and at the AMC Theater at Newport on the Levee was one in really good condition. It was further evidence to me that behind the veil of cynicism that often resides behind virtually every news story is hope that is unleashed behind Jurassic Park and this most recent Jurassic World movie. I wasn’t the only person excited about the franchise and the products produced by it. Many others shared that love with me which crosses all political and demographic barriers reaching directly to the heart of a deep human hope for such things to be made into reality. These movies are not just about dinosaurs, they embody the hope that we find in every museum, or hope to find when we step in for the first time.

When I stand in the lobby of the Cincinnati Museum Center I love the marriage of science and capitalism. Just two days of this writing I gladly spent $22 for a couple hamburgers and fries knowing that I was supporting the museum in small little ways with the overpriced lunch. The food was actually good, but still overpriced, and that’s OK. Museums need dollars to operate and bring all the great aspects of science to the forefront of thought. Without money, there is no science—and there would be nothing I’d like to see more than education institutions accepting that their ticket to further funding for projects of interest is through capitalism, not socialism. There are far more opportunities for environmental research through a company like Exxon as opposed to the socialist resistance of Green Peace. Sea World is to my mind the closest thing to an actual Jurassic World that there currently is, and people should go and support those wonderful parks. There was a lot in Jurassic World that reminded me specifically of Sea World. One of my best memories as a kid was in visiting the Sea World in Aurora, Ohio when there was one located there way back in the 80s, then the one in San Diego. The money generated through Sea World does more for conservation than a whole city block of protestors in San Francisco. Science is a forward thinking process whereas just shutting down all capitalist endeavors in hopes of preserving nature goes against the very nature of being a human being. There is no better format for exploring these issues than the Jurassic Park movies—and Jurassic World embraces better than all the previous three put together the joys of capitalism as it propels science forward with hope, and wonder sprinkled with dire warnings of greed and excess. It’s not capitalism that kills everyone in Jurassic World, its deception and greed not by the billionaire, but by his employees who scheme behind his back for desires known only to them. It is within that concept that we see a truth that we recognize as a true paradox in a time where we will have to make similar decisions about our own lives very soon.

Jurassic World is not just a movie—it is the philosophy of our time, it is Plato’s Republic on a modern stage presenting questions to a hungry movie going public. But more than just that the movie is a celebration of capitalism and an argument in favor of it as the best option to propel mankind into the future. I love Dave and Buster’s so much so that we spent my 47 birthday this year at the one near my home. I love the bright lights, the wonderful food and the imagination of all the interesting games on display there. I love to play those games, eat that wonderful food while watching 14 different sports events on the multitude of televisions exhibited virtually everywhere you look. And guess what, there was a Dave and Buster’s in Jurassic World, and I really want to visit it. It’s time to start embracing our capitalism within our art so that we can have an honest conversation about what we want as human beings. People have voted with their movie tickets in favor of Jurassic World. It’s time now that the science communities stop pandering to government stiffs for grants and start befriending capitalism to fund their further endeavors. That is the future of science and the lesson of Jurassic World. Progressive reviewers and news reporters may cringe at all the product placement within Jurassic World but in so doing they ignore what is truly at the heart of all human beings. Steven Spielberg has understood that heart for many years, and nobody reaches it better than he does when he wishes. But its time that others follow the lessons learned from Jurassic World and stop fighting against capitalism when it is the lifeblood of true progress. Jurassic World is about the hope that progress can bring. It captures all the reasons we like attending amusement parks and museums—it’s not just for the knowledge of history—but in the potential of making it.