Symbolism, metaphors and allegories in Jurassic films

Here a thread to analyze the Jurassic films in a deeper way, looking for meanings, allegories, symbols, etc.

Here some I've read and some I thought:

Jurassic Park

Characters' clothes:

Hammond -> white, because he creates the world (the park) and life (the dinosaurs), he's basically God.
Malcolm -> black, because he's the nemesis of Hammond, he's against the park concept, thinking that will fail, so his clothes are the opposite of God.
Grant -> blue, with little red, because he's the first male human being who visits the new world. He's like Adam.
Ellie -> pink/red, with little blue (complementary to Grant colors), because she's the first female human being who visits the new world. She's like Eve.
Gennaro -> grey, because while he approves God's new world, he does it only for a wrong reason, the profit.

Then...

Spoiler:

Also...

this interesting video:

Spoiler:

Jurassic World

Characters' clothes:

Claire: her colors are like the JW logo. White outside, a cold color, just like her character at first, and just like the white of the Indominus Rex, an attraction (or bio-weapon?) made (apparently) for profit. Inside she's blue, the wild side of the park, the instinct that comes out in her during the second half of the movie.
Owen: completely different colors than Claire. His clothes are wild, dirty ("They're very sensitive to smell), in contact with nature.


When Lowery talks about the edge of chaos, we see Claire moving the bin towards the point the pepsi(saurus) falls a few seconds later, anticipating Lowery's move and removing the problem at its roots. This too much self-confidence and will to anticipate problems is part of the edge of chaos theory itself, and will lead Claire to do big mistakes later and lead the park and its entire system to collapse in the anarchy.

Similar to the JP video I linked before, there's a sort of allegory in JW too:
There seems to be 3 stages of development in regards to Owen's Raptors. Owen was a father figure to them, he fed and raised them (childhood), then when they were ready he released them into the world to make their own choices (young adult), and when they finally matured they returned to take care of their parents (mature adult).



There are many other allegories but these are some of them. Can't remember any symbolism in TLW or JP3, but that's why I created this thread, so we can share our theories

I like to think Wu's JW clothes has some symbolism too. Like how he first appear in grey labcoat, and when Masrani comes to confront him, he's wearing just the black turtleneck and remains with it in the other scenes that reveal his deal with Hoskins. Like, how a genius have a "dark" side inside.


I know, my theory just sucks.

Could you do a symbolism on Malcolms appearance in TLW vs JP? I mean the thing I can think of is he ditched the glasses and the over jacket to just go to his shirt but that was it.

Spinosaur4.4 wrote:

I like to think Wu's JW clothes has some symbolism too. Like how he first appear in grey labcoat, and when Masrani comes to confront him, he's wearing just the black turtleneck and remains with it in the other scenes that reveal his deal with Hoskins. Like, how a genius have a "dark" side inside.


I know, my theory just sucks.

Adding to this, in Wu's scene in the first JP, he is wearing a white sterilized lab coat, which would complete the moral arc of his character: 

White: The Creator wielding the power of God
Gray: ambiguous alignment 
Black: The villain

Jurassic World (the park) is also thought as a metaphor of Jurassic World (the movie).
This is especially because of the Indominus Rex.

- Park reality:
People is bored with the same dinosaurs, so the corporations introduce a new attraction, a hybrid, to capture the attention of people once again.

- Film reality:
People is bored after 3 Jurassic Park movies, so the producers introduce a new element (the Indominus Rex, and not only. Also Raptors trained, military sublplot, open park, etc) to capture the attention of people once again.

- Park reality:
Every corner of the park is full of product placement and there is an interest for profit, despite of a few people sincerely caring about the pure aspects of the park, like Masrani (if we dont' consider the line "We spent 26Mdollars in that asset", which I always found senseless for his character).

- Film reality:
The film itself is full of product placement (Mercedes new car for example) and there are surely people in the production who only cared about profit as far as this film is concerned, despite of a few exception, like probably Colin Trevorrow himself, who (I guess) did it for his love for JP and not for the money.

- Park reality:
Bigger, scarier, louder/cooler. That's what the corporations promise to the public, with the new attraction.

Film reality:
That one is a classic formula used to promote movie sequels. Basically, Jurassic World is similar to JP but bigger, scarier (well, maybe not this one), louder/cooler.

In lieu of OwenPratt's analysis of Jurassic World (the park) as a metaphor for the film itself. One line from the first Jurassic Park really resounds to me:

"We're overdependent on automation, I can see that now!"

Not only is it a core theme of the film, the theme of technology being our means of mastering the world and how we survive when we find ourselves without it to protect us, but it also speaks of the beginning of the technology shift in special effects. The end of traditional special effects like matte paintings, stop motion, and animatronics, i.e the old school effects that look more natural and often hold up very well today, and the beginning of the age of CGI.

Over twenty years on, the film presents a thinly veiled message on the dangers of relying too much on technology — which is exactly what modern films have done with the pioneering technology behind the special effects in this film. Ironically, due to its combined use of animatronics and CGI, Jurassic Park has aged very well since its debut in 1993 and looks much more realistic than a great many other effects heavy blockbusters, and most dinosaur movies, largely because the newer films rely very heavily or only on CGI special effects. And like the dinosaurs in the JP series (at least in the films) you cannot simply undo what has been done, the dinosaurs are here to stay just as CGI technology is here to stay and has proliferated across the media.

CT-1138 wrote:

Spinosaur4.4 wrote:

I like to think Wu's JW clothes has some symbolism too. Like how he first appear in grey labcoat, and when Masrani comes to confront him, he's wearing just the black turtleneck and remains with it in the other scenes that reveal his deal with Hoskins. Like, how a genius have a "dark" side inside.


I know, my theory just sucks.

Adding to this, in Wu's scene in the first JP, he is wearing a white sterilized lab coat, which would complete the moral arc of his character: 

White: The Creator wielding the power of God
Gray: ambiguous alignment 
Black: The villain

That's great.

I wouldn't call him a villain yet, but the clothes def make him look like an evil Steve Jobs.

I would like to share this with you guys

https://imgur.com/a/0Iq8P

Physalisfresser wrote:

I would like to share this with you guys

https://imgur.com/a/0Iq8P

Really cool, thanks for sharing!

Also, there's literally an ocean between them:

Spoiler:

In Jurassic Park ///, Alan is representative of nonavian dinosaurs. He's still a paleontologist and was unable to adapt to a world that no longer accommodates him; his breed is dying out. He has no children. Ellie is avian dinosaurs, and has a pet bird to indicate this. She is still writing about dinosaurs but isn't directly a paleontologist anymore. She adapted and will survive (and has children). They're symbols of the extinction event. No idea what the rest of the movie is symbolic of though. Maybe Eric is mammals, in that his predecessors (parents/primitive synapsids) didn't succeed but he proves to be clever and resourceful enough to survive among dinosaurs and make it out in good shape. Not positive on that one though.

For Jurassic World symbolism, feast upon this madness. There are some interesting points, despite the fact that it argues Jurassic World is symbolic of the reptile people who secretly control the government but allow bloggers to openly discuss them for some reason. Weirdly there appears to be only a Part 2 of this.

Another bit of symbolism I've seen for JP/// is that when Alan tries getting Jack the Parrot to speak his name, he refuses, but Grant dreams of a Raptor that says his name.

The first and fourth films focus a lot on females in power, while the second and third films more often put males in focus. In JP, the dinosaurs are all female, and while it is indicated that some have changed sex we don't actually see any confirmed male dinosaurs. Ellie, the main female protagonist, literally returns power to the park, while Lex is the one who regains control of the park. The park's staff appears to be predominantly male and is overpowered by the (female) dinosaurs.

In the second film, while Sarah Harding does survive on the island for quite a while by herself she isn't given much attention for it. The film instead focuses on Ian's paternal instinct for Kelly, which is mirrored by the Buck's paternal protection of his son. The Doe is also shown as protective, as is Sarah, but they aren't in focus. Also, it's Nick who frees the dinosaurs, rescues the infant rex, and radios the mainland for help, instead of Hammond's first choice Sarah.

In the third film the state of power is held by the sexually-ambiguous spinosaur, which is suspected by many fans to be male. The heroic human roles are led by Grant and Eric, while Paul and Billy have their heroic moments. The only major female human character, Amanda Kirby, is responsible for the whole incident by allowing her son to parasail over Isla Sorna in the first place and is ultimately outperformed in terms of motherhood by the alpha female raptor. Ellie has a minor heroic role, but she doesn't save the main cast through her own power, but through her husband's.

In the fourth film, the primary antagonist is female, and is a "perfect" creature designed by a male scientist and supported by a male security contractor. The main female in a state of power, Claire, did not have any say in the design of iRex and doesn't even know its true purpose or genetic composition. However, iRex outsmarts and overpowers her male handlers and escapes. Then the male security members, plus token female Meyers, fail to subdue her. (It's of special note that one of the few ACU survivors at the end of the attack is, indeed, Meyers.) Masrani and two male ACU members fail to subdue iRex, and are killed by female Pteranodons. Hoskins and his all-male team of mercenaries also fails to subdue iRex and are killed by female raptors, who leave their male alpha Owen for female alpha iRex. Claire is able to defeat iRex indirectly by stepping up and using her seat of power in the park to have Rexy, also female, released. Blue and Rexy force iRex toward the lagoon where the also-female mosasaur finishes her off.

In summary, Isla Nublar's most powerful heroes are mostly female, whereas Isla Sorna's most powerful heroes tend to be male. This is probably unintentional on the part of the filmmakers, but it is interesting.

I like the way that a lot of the symbols in JP can have multiple meanings. For example:

The pelicans - a return to safety and normalcy, but they also represent modern dinosaurs; they're more fascinating now than they were before (we can never look at birds the same way again!).

The raptor claw (and its disposal) - Grant's job is becoming obsolete, and he doesn't need the fossil anymore; but also, he used it to terrify the kid at the beginning of the movie and throws it away when he becomes attached to the kids later.