It’s on Netflix.
Now, I’ve only seen the first two Jurassic World films (and the first two JP films), enough to see some tantalising world-building and some really great ideas and sequences*, but honestly the writing was mostly hot garbage. I did like that Dr Wu finally admitted in the first film that the dinosaurs were basically all made up, chimeras of DNA from various creatures (actual dinosaurs if you were lucky, but also whatever he had in the lab) designed to look like what we thought those dinosaurs looked like rather than what was biologically likely, so we were never going to get authentic feathered raptors or whatever because that’s not what John Hammond ordered.
*My main reaction to the first film was, “I know there’s at least a 1% chance of being eaten by a dinosaur at Jurassic World but I’d still go if I could afford it.”
But the writers of this animated series set out as seriously as any tabletop RPG group to think about the worldbuilding effects of the events in various films and then try and run a game in that world. And damn if they don’t make it work. Our teenaged protagonists - six kids who’ve won a prize trip to Jurassic World together when it all goes to hell in the first film - are fighting for their lives in a consistent and realistic world, and that makes their adventures all the more engrossing.
(For instance, the first few episodes have the kids wander off and nearly get killed several times while ostensibly under adult supervision, and that is pretty annoying, but this is actually foreshadowing for the obvious facts that everyone in Jurassic World is fearsomely incompetent and nothing works properly there, which the kids then mercilessly lampshade for the rest of the series.)
The other thing is that there’s just a lot of this series. It’s on its eighth season now (5 of the first series and then 3 of its successor, Chaos Theory) and they’ve moved through the timeline to the third film, which means 7 years have passed since the beginning of the series and the kids are now young adults in a world full of dinosaurs. From what I can see, the writing and characterisation stays strong and engaging 60 or so episodes in.
Anyone else seen it? If not, give it a whirl if you like and tell us what you think.
Now, I’ve only seen the first two Jurassic World films (and the first two JP films), enough to see some tantalising world-building and some really great ideas and sequences*, but honestly the writing was mostly hot garbage. I did like that Dr Wu finally admitted in the first film that the dinosaurs were basically all made up, chimeras of DNA from various creatures (actual dinosaurs if you were lucky, but also whatever he had in the lab) designed to look like what we thought those dinosaurs looked like rather than what was biologically likely, so we were never going to get authentic feathered raptors or whatever because that’s not what John Hammond ordered.
*My main reaction to the first film was, “I know there’s at least a 1% chance of being eaten by a dinosaur at Jurassic World but I’d still go if I could afford it.”
But the writers of this animated series set out as seriously as any tabletop RPG group to think about the worldbuilding effects of the events in various films and then try and run a game in that world. And damn if they don’t make it work. Our teenaged protagonists - six kids who’ve won a prize trip to Jurassic World together when it all goes to hell in the first film - are fighting for their lives in a consistent and realistic world, and that makes their adventures all the more engrossing.
(For instance, the first few episodes have the kids wander off and nearly get killed several times while ostensibly under adult supervision, and that is pretty annoying, but this is actually foreshadowing for the obvious facts that everyone in Jurassic World is fearsomely incompetent and nothing works properly there, which the kids then mercilessly lampshade for the rest of the series.)
The other thing is that there’s just a lot of this series. It’s on its eighth season now (5 of the first series and then 3 of its successor, Chaos Theory) and they’ve moved through the timeline to the third film, which means 7 years have passed since the beginning of the series and the kids are now young adults in a world full of dinosaurs. From what I can see, the writing and characterisation stays strong and engaging 60 or so episodes in.
Anyone else seen it? If not, give it a whirl if you like and tell us what you think.
