All The Time in The (Jurassic) World (Dominion)

The concept of Deep Time in terms of Earthly geology has its roots, in large part, to the work of Scottish geologist James Hutton. His study of the great natural wonders of his native Scotland - the Isle of Arran with its fault line dividing the Precambrian and the Carboniferous; the dolerite/basalt Salisbury Crags of Holyrood; the rugged uncomformity of Siccar's Point with its clash of sandstone and greywacke - inspired the theory that geological features were not necessarily static and timeless, but transformed and changed over unfathomably long periods of time. This meant that the Earth could not be as young as previously believed, and must have been changing for billions, not thousands, of years. This soon developed into uniformitarianism, and the modern science of the Earth which we know today.

Understandably, such a monumental paradigm shift in humanity's understanding of the planet on which they live every day of their lives was controversial. Certain religious organisations rejected the idea outright, perceiving it as an attack on their scripture: more traditional scientists were skeptical, viewing it as incomplete or unconvincing. In The Science of Life (1929), H.G. Wells & Julian Huxley noted the psychological barriers in getting human minds around such gigantic eons of history can be surmounted with a little effort:

To think in such magnitudes is not so difficult as many people imagine. The use of different scales is simply a matter of practice. We very soon get used to maps, though they are constructed on scales down to a hundred-millionth of natural size; we are used to switching over from thinking in terms of seconds and minutes to some other problem involving years and centuries; and to grasp geological time all that is needed is to stick tight to some magnitude which shall be the unit on the new and magnified scale -  a million years is probably the most convenient - to grasp its meaning once and for all by an effort of imagination, and then to think of all passage of geological time in terms of this unit.

Alas, despite the centuries since Hutton's discovery (& decades since Wells and others developed the Popular Science genre of non-fiction), it seems Deep Time lies beyond the grasp of even the most intellectual of Holywood movie producers...

 

Jurassic Park and the End of Man's Dominion

In which I ponder the new title for the upcoming third Jurassic World film, and how it relates to Robert Burns.

Because that's the sort of Venn Diagram this blog is all about.

8-Year-Old Reviews: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Part 1

Yet if you can't go back to the island, how can you call it Jurassic World? Well, maybe we just need to change the meaning of that phrase. Ever since JPIII, the world has known about Isla Nublar. Jurassic World is a worldwide phenomenon. Yet even before the park was made public all those years ago, BioSyn was hunting for clues, wanting to get a piece of the resurrected dinosaur pie.

Wu leaving the island with the embryos is a pretty tantalizing sequel hook. Of course there are probably still nutters in the military desperate for Raptor Commando Squad, but why focus only on military applications? Indeed, what if Wu went further than InGen, and brought dinosaurs to the world on a scale they never imagined? Having a park populated with giant deadly carnivores is risky, but what about a number of smaller, safer parks with those baby Triceratops, Apatosaurus and Gallimimus, genetically altered to inhibit growth to create "pet" dinosaurs a fraction of the size? The dinosaurs aren't cheap now, but that's because they cared enough to do them right - in the absence of extinct species protection laws, who's to say some company or another will just create inferior knock-off dinosaurs from stolen DNA? Perhaps advances in genetic technology and recreation revolutionise the techniques, making them cheap and reliable enough for multiple applications. Soon dinosaurs could become as normalised as dogs, cats, horses and livestock are now.

The park may be gone, but it's still a Jurassic World. 

 - Me being a soothsayer, 3 years ago

There are good films, and there are bad films, so it seems to go. Some are universally accepted; others have a mixed reception; still more are curate's eggs or flawed masterpieces. As I've watched more films, read more about film theory, and engaged in my own criticism, I can never escape the same conclusion - film criticism is completely and utterly subjective. Films are art. How can it be otherwise?

Yet there's part of us as a collective so obsessed with quantification of everything, we end up applying maths to them - a certain rating, a certain percentage, a certain number. I'd say there absolutely is a place for maths in art, but to act as if it is the be-all-end-all of all artistic expression seems, to me, to be stripping subjectivity from the equation altogether. It's the difference between saying "this film is" and "I think this film is." One is an observation, the other is about what the film meant to you.

36-year-old Aly, is this just a roundabout way of trying to justify that you liked Jurassic World while still acknowledging its weaknesses?

More like trying to understand why I liked it, 8-year-old Aly. After all, there are dinosaur movies I - well, we - don't like, despite dinosaurs. I think it's because even the least celebrated Jurassic Park films have something in them that makes you think.

So this film made you think?

Oh, it sure did.

Finding A Way

I remember playing on my grandpa's island. He owned an island in the South Pacific: nothing too ostentatious, just a couple of square miles, surrounded by lagoons and shallows, easily accessible by yacht or seaplane. The trees were so green; the sharp, fresh scent invigorating and wild. I miss trees. Me, my sister, and Mais just ran around for miles, hide and seek, Marco Polo, and the games we just made up ourselves. Sometimes Mais would argue with me over who knew the most about dinosaurs, but Sis made sure we got along. She was great at humoring me: I could be kind of a pain. I miss them.

Boy dragged me sharply into the undergrowth.

"Shhh. Out there."

8-Year-Old Reviews: Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom Trailer

Here we go again!

8-Year-Old Reviews: Jurassic World

We’re going to grow old but never grow up.
We’re going to stay 18 years old and we’re going to love dinosaurs forever.
 - Ray Harryhausen & Ray Bradbury made a pact together. They never broke it as long as they lived.

A review 22 years in the making.

8-Year-Old Previews: Lego Jurassic World

Well, this is a pleasant surprise. I was aware of the upcoming sets, but I wasn't expecting a game to be part of the deal. (Perhaps I should have, given the mid-credits cameo at the end of Lego Batman 3.) This is relevant to my interests.

My niece is only a bit older than I was when I saw Jurassic Park in cinemas, and my youngest cousin is still a babby. As such, I feel I have Uncle's/Older Cousin's Rights to be excited about a dinosaur game I could play with my younger family members. However, when it comes to suggestions for the game, I must defer to 8-Year-Old Aly. He knows a lot more about dinosaurs than I do, after all.

Enough talking, 30-Year-Old Aly, let's get down to business.

Right-o.

Palaeontology Weeps in a Jurassic World

It's been... jings, over four months!?! As many of you will know, I've been very preoccupied over the last few months, but with that over, I'm getting back to normal - if you can call it "normal."

Since I was talking about dinosaurs, I feel like I should make a few comments about the Jurassic World trailer, especially after my typically far-too-detailed analysis.

Of course, you cannot trust a trailer to always give an accurate representation of a film, yet at the same time, I'm not sure what I think.

The Dinosaurs of Jurassic World

Taking a brief break from work on my various projects to do a wee post. What about, what about...

Dinosaurs?

Dinosaurs.

Avatar vs Jurassic Park

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed this.

Or this.

I thought it was just because I'm a dinosaur nut who can tell what film a dinosaur roar originates in (well, apart from a few ubiquitous ones whose origin I've never been able to track down), but it seems I'm not the only one.

A shame, it really took me out of the film. Mostly since it just reminded me of what I could've been watching.

And don't you forget it.