Warning: spoilers, uh… find a way.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom lures us back to back to theaters to see Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), and beyond the entertainingly bad science, prehistoric baddies and canonical dino drama, JW: FK has some introspective and relatable motifs buried beneath its production. Though the premise of the latest in the Cretaceous Jurassic period franchise is similar to the others in the lineup (i.e., a precarious scientist designs to resurrect deadly creatures and thereafter decides to make them even more lethal), JW: FK‘s new, most viciously genetically altered creation has some surprising parallels to feminism.
In JW: FK, Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong) needs Owen to cloister Blue and her son, the Indoraptor, from the impending volcanic eruption on Isla Nublar and bring them back to civilization—because science fiction is a genre that is deeply impended with reasonable and safe plans.
Never forget this photoshoot of Chris Pratt with the indoraptor exists pic.twitter.com/7kdIbNaY57
— Becky | (@xBreeTanner) June 23, 2018
Prior to the completely hazard-free mission, Dr. Wu had nefarious plans for creating a metaphorical Velociraptor with a machine gun, seeing as he used Blue’s DNA to foster the Tyrannosaurus rex and raptor hybrid. Dr. Wu hoped to use the Indoraptor as a trained, murderous puppy who can attack and kill on command, with the thanks of Blue’s obedient and pack-like genealogy. However, he needed Owen to rescue Blue and the other precious dinos so he could sell them on a glorified living-fossil black market.
Ultimately, the Indoraptor doesn’t abide by Dr. Wu’s wishes because he refuses to give into his unreasonable demands—after all the Indoraptor is a fiercely self-sufficient dinosaur, he doesn’t want to dedicate himself to being someone’s glorified watch-dino. Although the Indoraptor is the first male dinosaur in the Jurassic World movies, men can be feminists just as much as women, and we stan a feminist revolutionary regardless of their gender and species.
While the initial set-up of the Indoraptor’s proposed misfortune is eerily similar to the ongoing human trafficking crisis—just instead of being a sex slave, Dr. Wu was forcing him to kill at will, against his will. But the Indoraptor is, thankfully, decisively defiant.
Using his deadly genetics, the Indoraptor not only actively escapes, thus saving himself from permanent enslavement, he also kicks kills ass like the BA prehistoric creature he is. Like the real-life patriarchy that often enables powerful men (in this case Dr. Wu) to use, abuse women (Blue and basically all the predominantly women dinos from Isla Nublar), and marginalize vulnerable groups of people (specifically the Indoraptor), the Indoraptor is also the victim of systemic oppression, just from his creators in a fictitious setting. But, that doesn’t make the Indoraptor any less of a relatable feminist icon—because dinos can be feminists and we can also idolize dinos, okay?
Plotting the demise of the prehistoric patriarchy, the Indoraptor actively uses the natural-born abilities that his creators hoped to abuse for their own gain against them, which shows that he’s reclaiming his power and rights (while simultaneously empowering the mostly-female dinos). Granted, he’s flipping the patriarchal roles by using the very power they genetically modified into him to, well, kill the people who intended on using him and his mother as weaponized dinosaurs.
We don’t condone killing or eating people who discriminate against women or marginalized groups of people or actively use their authority to disadvantage or harm women. But, the fact that the Indoraptor calculates ways to regain control—and thus equality—is an admirable quality. After all, the Indoraptor inherited his brilliant brain from his mother, and we stan intergenerational feminist royalty.
The Indoraptor is so legit scary that I genuinely wonder if kids will even want to play with a toy of him. He’s filmed & presented like a horror movie monster – essentially, Nosferatu in the form of a dinosaur – and he’s the meanest, nastiest dinosaur in the franchise’s history. pic.twitter.com/7hCv1bPnIp
— John Squires (@FreddyInSpace) June 22, 2018
You might think we’re reaching with the Indoraptor’s ingenious connection to real-life feminism—however, we’re honestly just scratching the surface of the understated and overt feministic themes within the Jurassic franchise. The entire Jurassic Park franchise itself has a history of notable feminist moments. Without the infrequent, but obvious, feminist commentary in the films, the very plot of these productions are founded on science fiction’s original feminist icon: the mother of science fiction and re-imaginer of horror, Mary Shelley.
Shelley, who birthed an entire genre of literature (which later transcended into film and dozens of sub-genres and subsequent themes) and innovated the horror genre in her teenage years, constructed it from her novel, Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus. Obviously, Frankenstein is based on a scientist’s attempts to reanimate life. Although the scientists in the Jurassic cinematic universe franchise don’t resurrect zombie dinosaurs (we’d be down for that sequel though, imo), they do bring back creatures that were previously dead (in this case, extinct). The basic theme of the movies seems eerily reminiscent to Shelley’s conception of the science fiction genre, which seems as though these Jurassic-syndicated films canonically nod to the naturally feminist nature of the genre itself.
Even the post-credits scene is indicative of a feministic uprising, as the remaining dinosaurs are scattered throughout the sky, land and water. The lingering dinosaur hordes could hint at a superseding invasive species theme—however, invasive species can be a necessary evil and even a vital entity itself, just like the slight nod to the unnatural but vital nature of feminism itself. Aside from illustrating that feminism is a collective and ever-prevalent movement, the surviving species also show that, though the Indoraptor didn’t fulfill all of his feminist goals because of his untimely death, he influences a generation of like-minded dinos to continue his mission.
Still, the Indoraptor’s disobedience in spite of a system that basically molded him to be blissfully obedient shows that we shouldn’t impetuously listen to societal standards that we might not otherwise agree with. Instead, we should fight to change potentially problematic discord, norms and ideations, even if that means killing some troubling, but popular, societal standards.