The "park" that can't go back, the lost "world"

Author: Li Fan

Summer, 1993. The two jeeps suddenly stopped in a vast green space, and while the botanist Zettler was still surprised that the blade in his hand turned out to be a Cretaceous plant, and the archaeologist Grant and the mathematician Malcolm in the back seat had long lost their souls, Grant stood up in disbelief, took off his trademark hat, which would not fall at the risk of his life, and subconsciously twisted His hand over Zettler's head, looking at the scene in front of him with stunned eyes... Undoubtedly, these reactions of the three characters in the film are also the reactions that the audience at that time and even today will have a high probability when they see the next content of the film "Jurassic Park". The film pioneers the vivid, fluid and natural presentation of dinosaurs on the screen, creating a wonderful stitching picture of ancient and modern coexisting in one space. Nearly 30 years later, the "Jurassic" series of 6 movies has come to an end, ushering in the final chapter. With the blessing of rapidly developing digital special effects, Jurassic World 3 tries to create a more terrifying and "real" dinosaur world, richer and more varied scenes, more diverse dinosaurs, and more thrilling chase action scenes - however, this time, even if the love card is exhausted, I am afraid that it will be difficult to make the audience in the theater and the characters in the film scream in sync as they did in the first place.

Technical dilemmas and breakouts

Whether it is "Jurassic Park" or "Jurassic World", the two series of films can attract a large audience, to some extent, relying on the stage and leap forward of the technical level, and is closely related to the social environment and social mentality at the time of the release of the film. In the 1990s, it was a period of great explosion of science and technology, especially in the United States after the end of the Cold War, the economy, culture, science and technology gained huge room for development, thus establishing a strong cultural self-confidence and self-identity. "Resurrecting dinosaurs" and creating an "amusement park" is in line with the social atmosphere of the time, people's inner technological self-confidence, and deep technological fears. After the "Jurassic Park" trilogy, the series was silent for 14 years, and the restart timing was chosen when the "Marvel Universe" was popular and the second phase layout was nearing the end, and chris Pratt, the male star of the new jurassic world trilogy, had just "turned red" with the Marvel movie "Guardians of the Galaxy". It can be said that the rapid development of film and television special effects technology has made the audience look forward to a new dinosaur world.

However, "Jurassic World 3" is released at the moment, and the social environment and social psychological aspects are obviously somewhat subtle. On the one hand, in the context of the current film market, the flood of special effects technology makes the audience familiar with all kinds of obscene tricks on the big screen, the story of "Godzilla" and "King Kong", two monsters belonging to different cultures, breaking the dimensional wall has spawned many films, and various superheroes led by "Avengers" have long repeatedly placed the earth in the infinite cycle of "destruction - salvation". At this time, even if you create a large, more, and more complex dinosaur, the visual and psychological impact will be greatly reduced. The bottleneck of technology is obviously difficult to have a subversive breakthrough for a period of time, so it is obviously a little thin to rely on dinosaurs to appear on the screen to create movie expectations. On the other hand, the disaster design of the locusts in Jurassic World 3 occupies a lot of narrative space, and what is worse is that it has become a kind of mapping relationship with the current social reality to some extent, and the mutant virus in the film is out of control and the state of human embarrassment, which subtly contrasts with the current reality. The intervention of this negative perception of reality in the process of watching the film invisibly dissolves the identification and substitution of some viewers for the story of the film.

In fact, before the release of Jurassic World 3, this problem was cleverly solved. At the end of "Jurassic World 2", Malcolm, who has always played the role of "Prophet", has a line "Welcome to Jurassic World", which directly creates a strong expectation for the audience: the world situation of human and dinosaur symbiosis is finally realized in the final chapter. As early as "Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World", director Spielberg has tried to introduce dinosaurs from the "park" to the "world", mercenary merchants transport dinosaurs to the port but get out of control again, T-Rex swaggering on the street, into people's backyards, into shopping mall stores, bringing various disasters. Subject to the technical limitations of the time, the world picture of humans and dinosaurs coexisting could not be implemented on the screen, and the Tyrannosaurus rex could only be sent back to the isolated island after a short stay, which became a regret left by the "Jurassic Park" trilogy.

The rebooted trilogy, named "Jurassic World", is no longer confined to an island and a theme park in the scene space, and obviously has the ambition to expand the "park" into a "world". A large number of promotional materials released before the release of "Jurassic World 3" revolve around the different varieties of dinosaurs and how dinosaurs have an impact on human daily life, and the final film begins with the use of "pseudo-documentary forms" reported on television to show the coexistence of humans and dinosaurs. Unlike the isolated island environment, people and dinosaurs should gradually reach a certain ecological balance after being in the same space. This is where the film can focus —to construct a clear, systematic spectacle that creates a new dinosaur world. Looking back at the film, you will find that "Jurassic World 2" focuses on the dinosaurs in various spatial dimensions of the sea, land and sky, enriching the visual and sensory level, in fact, it also lays a problem for today's final chapter: how can humans coexist with dinosaurs in a comprehensive dilemma? What kind of crises and hidden dangers will there be? Unfortunately, "Jurassic World 3" directly avoids these questions, still reproducing the relationship and state of humans and dinosaurs in the first five films. The huge expectation of the coexistence of man and dinosaur is disappointed, and it is only a glimpse of the opening of the film.

The dispersion and miscellaneousness of the narrative

In the Jurassic Park novel, author Michael Clayton has this to say: "Despite all that progress, the amount of time housewives spend on housework has not decreased much since 1930. Vacuum cleaners, washers and dryers, garbage compactors, waste processors, non-ironing fabrics... With so many things, why did it take as much time to clean the house as it did in 1930? Here, Michael Clayton questions and reflects on human scientific progress from the temporal dimension. In fact, the two points of view quoted on the title page of the novel already clearly state the author's attitude. One is a passage by a Swedish biologist about reptiles, which analyzes the causes of reptiles' disgust, "so that the Creator did not exert his power to create many things." The second is the view of the Austrian biologist Ervin Chagolf: "You cannot cancel a new life form." This sentence has been interpreted into a consistent line in the series of movies: "Every life will find his own way out." Undoubtedly, Michael Clayton reflects on the supremacy of science over the natural system, unrestricted intervention and alteration of the natural system, warns of the human act of making itself a creator through technological means, and interprets the dinosaurs as the object in the novel.

The world that Michael Clayton tries to construct in his novel is to form a natural ecosystem with dinosaurs as the main body through a large number of depictions of dinosaur habits and behaviors. The park was already in danger before the accident broke out, and everything pointed to the reflection on scientific nature itself. The difference is that Spielberg shifted the focus from dinosaurs to humans, trying to shape the ambition of human beings and the inability to cope with unexpected explosions, pointing to the thinking of the relationship between humans, science and nature. In other words, the novel depicts dinosaurs after being resurrected by humans to break through the confinement of humans, establish a complete ecology of their own, and in turn hunt humans; The entire series of movies depicts humans resurrecting dinosaurs and building huge and spectacular parks, and after the outbreak of the dinosaur crisis, humans fled for their lives.

It is not difficult to see that the adaptation of the film conforms to the audience's viewing habits, makes moderate adjustments to the visual acceptance of the audience in the dinosaur shape design, and makes full use of the advantages of the film medium in terms of spatial shaping and display, and integrates the main thinking in Michael Clayton's novel into the film. "Jurassic Park" focuses on the construction of the entire space system of the park, the base and park for breeding dinosaurs are located on different isolated islands, different types of dinosaurs belong to different areas, dinosaurs with different levels of danger use the corresponding level of safety protection measures, and orderly order and well-guarded control systems are the key features of this island space. Hammond, the founder of the park, let his grandchildren and the protagonist team participate in the experience tour, reflecting his trust in science. Around the image of dinosaur park, the director constructs a dangerous narrative space, obviously order and loss of control are two sides of the same coin, when the order is built step by step, loss of control occurs on this basis. The two life-threatening accidents at the beginning of the tour set the stage for the collapse of the entire park system afterwards, and also formed a back-and-forth echo in the narrative. From the perspective of event logic alone, the trigger of the dinosaur crisis is the greed of the staff, and the seemingly coincidental setting does not affect the audience's acceptance, the reason is that the audience has already subtly accepted the constructed narrative space in the previous viewing process, and points to the reflection on the relationship between man and science.

In "Jurassic World", Hammond's dream was finally realized, and the film also followed Spielberg's spatial narrative thinking. A new setting in the film is Owen's gesture, he is the park's dragon trainer, through a long period of domestication can communicate with the velociraptor and give them a certain guidance, so that this group of velociraps with thinking ability to take him as the "leader". Interestingly, the film does not solidify such a set of "leader-follower" relationships, but rather sets them up as unstable ones. This assumption of instability is reflected in the construction of space. In addition to being a closed park, velociraptor's park is also divided into two layers of space in a longitudinal direction. Owen debuted in the corridor of the upper space, while the Velociraptor was in the lower space isolated from it. The distance between Owen and the Velociraptor adds a sense of distance and uncertainty to their seemingly close relationship. In order to reinforce this concept, in the next scene, Irving and the Velociraptor are forcibly placed in the same space through the plot of Owen's rescue of his colleagues. Faced with the prey being snatched, the previously seemingly obedient Velociraptor launched a merciless attack on Owen. This unstable setting also plays an important role in the subsequent narrative, the velociraptor's reversal reveals the true "identity" of the tyrannosaur tyrannosaurus rex, and the return of the velociraptor in the climax of the film makes full use of owen's gesture, which makes the narrative reflect each other and enriches and strengthens the relationship between Owen and the velociraptor.

Unfortunately, Jurassic World 3 completely breaks this unstable factor full of dramatic tension. At the beginning of the film, Owen drives the dinosaurs to a safe place in the ice and snow, both the image and the action are the same as the cowboys in the Western, and Owen also makes this gesture in order to appease the outliers. The diffuse use of instability factors dissolves the clear correspondence between Owen and the Velociraptor, making this setting lose its unique meaning in the relationship between the characters. At the climax of the film, Grant, Owen, and Messie are trapped by the velociraptor, and the "three generations together" invariably use Owen's gesture of taming the velociraptor, but further solidify this setting into a stereotypical method that can be given, does not require time and emotional payment, and is not happy.

What's even more unfortunate is that it is still the film directed by Colin Trevoro, but "Jurassic World 3" is in a divisive and chaotic situation in terms of spatial narrative. The film gathers two groups of original people and horses, Owen and his party revolve around the rescue of Macy and the velociraptor, and the returning Grant and his party trace the origin of the locust plague, and finally the two groups of people are forcibly gathered on the new dinosaur island. At this point, the film takes great pains to arrange for the dinosaurs to be moved from the "park" on the isolated island to the human society, forming a short-lived "world" where humans and dinosaurs coexist, but they go back to the base on another isolated island. The chaos of the spatial setting corresponds to the complex logic of the villain, and it is also the reason for the convergence of the two groups of people. The spatial narrative goes around between locusts and dinosaurs, completely deviating from the creation rules of "simple story, complex human nature", and eventually causing the narrative of the film to be mixed into two parts forcibly twisted together, falling into the trap of constantly explaining the logic of the plot.

Innocence and affection

Juxtaposing species 65 million years apart in the same space, in addition to bringing sensory stimulation, actually naturally carries difficulties at the narrative level. Once the dinosaur appears, if there is no use of technology and other external forces, people can only scream in addition to running, which is the standard of every dinosaur movie, suitable for all ages. Once modern weapons appear, without the numerical superiority of power and the assistance of people, dinosaurs will instantly change from hunters to hunted objects, and large-scale hunting operations have been shown in Jurassic Park 2: Lost World and Jurassic World 2. In this previous series of films, this dilemma was actually avoided through different strategies. The first is the choice of the two dinosaur species that have the most important narrative function, which is a response to the above dilemma - the huge size and destructive power of the Tyrannosaurus Rex are intimidating, and the velociraptor has both the speed of the beast and the ability to think and learn like a human.

Another solution is derived from Spielberg's personal style traits – a childlike imagination. As some critics have described, Spielberg before "Schindler's List" was a small "Hollywood kid", children and innocence throughout his creation of this period, "Jaws", "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Jurassic Park" three series of films have assumed important roles, "Third Type Of Contact" and "E.T. Alien" directly to the perspective and object of children. This also makes his "Jurassic Park" and "Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World" full of childlike innocence, and many classic bridges are derived from the childlike imagination. In Jurassic Park, Grant takes two children to a tree to escape the attack of a carnivorous dragon, and encounters a herbivorous dinosaur, and the terrified Grant takes two children to boldly stroke these dinosaurs - an action that may well have inspired the gestures that Owen used in Jurassic World to communicate with the velociraptor. The climactic scene of this part is also set up with two children who escape after the disaster in the kitchen to escape the siege of the velociraptor. In terms of audiovisual design, the perspective of children has also been used many times in key scenes, such as when showing the scene of the first sight of the dinosaur, the perspective of the camera is from the back of the male and female protagonists to the upward angle, the foreground of the picture is the adult, and the background is the distant and huge dinosaur - this is obviously the subjective perspective of the two children behind them. It is worth mentioning that such a lens arrangement also made up for the technical deficiencies at that time from the audiovisual design, and set off the hugeness of dinosaurs in a variety of ways such as strong contrasting composition and partial display. In "Jurassic Park 2", the daughter's sharp spit enriches the image of the protagonist Malcolm as a father, and adds a layer of attention and discussion to the family in addition to the monster movie. "Jurassic Park 3" also inherits to a certain extent the use of children to add humor to the film, Grant went to rescue the little boy, when he was surrounded by a group of velociraptors and could not escape, the little boy appeared to rescue him with a smoke bottle, quite a "little ghost home" feeling.

In contrast, although the Jurassic World trilogy has always retained the position of children's characters, it is more often bound between the protagonist team and the child into a rescue theatrical task relationship, or gives the child a grand proposition of the adult world. In Jurassic World 2, Messie takes on the important dramatic mission of discovering the conspiracy behind the villain. In Jurassic World 3, The identity and self-perception of Messie's clones sparks a discussion, and reinforces the problem spatially with the "bridge" as a separation, but soon the mercenaries abduct her and the velociraptor shift the narrative focus, and the spatial shaping inside the "bridge" inside the "bridge" becomes meaningless, which also makes this complex discussion like a dragonfly.

Jurassic World 3 uses more strategies, it's emotion. The return of the old and new teams, the full return of all the dinosaurs, the reproduction of the classic scene props, the reproduction of the classic actions and lines, all of which are trying to rekindle the enthusiasm of the audience and fully invoke their memories and emotions for this series of films. But at the same time, such a large-scale mobilization of feelings also creates a huge constraint, and the film has to evenly disperse the pen and ink to every nostalgic detail, although it is comprehensive, but it is difficult to care. In the case of the increase in the length of the film, even the appearance time of the dinosaurs that the audience pays the most attention to has been greatly compressed.

Admittedly, as the final chapter of a commercial visual effects blockbuster series, Jurassic World 3's production efforts are obvious. The film presents the audience with a new and strange dinosaur with higher special effects difficulty, the ferocity of the dinosaur with fiery red feathers in the water and on the ice makes people shine, the smooth and fierce car chase fight scene is as exciting and tense as the "007 series", and the sharply edited chase scene has a "Spy Movie 3" like a smooth look, it can be said that the film tries to do everything in terms of vision. But it has to be said that the same as the "popcorn movie", "Jurassic World 3" played the emotional card, but discarded the narrative strategy accumulated by the "Jurassic" series of movies, behind the superficial hilarity is the fragmentation and weakness of the narrative, and ultimately failed to meet the audience's expectations for the "world" of humans and dinosaurs. (Fan Li)

Original title: The "park" that can't go back, the lost "world" - from the movie "Jurassic World 3" to talk about

Source: China Art News