The Jurassic Park franchise has spanned almost 30 years and five movies, with a new Jurassic World film currently in production, and now an animated series has joined it on Netflix. Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous follows dinosaur-obsessed Darius and his fellow campers as they explore Isla Nublar for the summer, never expecting to become embroiled in the events of Jurassic World.
While the first half of the eight-episode series appears to follow an episodic approach, it quickly devolves into typical T. Rex-sized mayhem. When the only adults seem to leave the kids to their own devices, they’re forced to survive on their own. The series has plenty of references to the franchise and contributes a fair amount of worldbuilding, but there are still plenty of ways it diverts from it entirely.
It Has A PG Rating
Jurassic Park kicked off the franchise with a PG-13 rating, and no film in the franchise since has ever had anything lower than that. Jurassic World maintained the same level of onscreen mayhem, allowing it to showcase a certain level of graphic violence and calamity that some fans thought wouldn’t be possible in a PG rating.
While Camp Cretaceous is the only contribution to the franchise that has a PG rating, it still includes several deaths. Though they appear offscreen, they’re still very much visible to the characters, who react to them in ways that heighten the tension and danger the films are known for.
It’s Kid-Focused
While children have been an important aspect of both the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World films, there had yet to be a storyline devoted to their perspective completely. All of the children featured so far in the franchise have had adults on hand to help them, with Zach and Gray in Jurassic World having slightly more autonomy.
The fact that none of the adults on Isla Nublar are very effective means that the children have to rely on each other, and there are many dangerous situations where they are forced to work together and problem-solve a solution.
It Has Thematic Conflicts
Camp Cretaceous has more than a few messages to deliver in its eight episodes, which make sense for a series focused on preteens. From teaching influencer Brooklynn there’s more to life than appeasing her following (like outrunning the Indominus Rex), to helping Darius overcome family grief, the show tries to use the dino-centric events to place the personal strife of the campers in a larger framework.
However, its “just keeping going” message of resilience is in direct contrast to much of the others films’ thematic elements, where dogmatic persistence usually ends up making dino-chow out of people. To make matters worse, no camper really cares about being around actual dinosaurs except Darius, which also juxtaposes almost every other main character involved with the theme park.
Campers Win Tickets
In the Jurassic Park films, John Hammond’s dream of opening a dino theme park was never realized, but the Jurassic World films have been able to depict a fully functioning version of his ultimate vision. Camp Cretaceous showcases tourism to the island of Isla Nublar in a different way from either film series by revealing that campers can win tickets.
The idea of a young dinosaur-obsessed boy beating a video game and winning a ticket for a summer at Camp Cretaceous is a fun way to highlight one way visitors might experience an aspect of the park.
It Explores Classism
Something of an unpopular opinion in the franchise has been how exactly the throngs of people afford to visit Jurassic World. As John Hammond famously said, he “spared no expense” in the refinement that tourists could experience at his park, but the topic of classism was never explored until now.
Camp Cretaceous begins the discussion by specifically highlighting how each camper arrives at the camp: by winning a ticket like Darius, receiving VIP invitations, or in the case of Kenji, flying in on their own personal helicopter. This immediately sets up a scenario where children from a variety of income levels experience the park in different ways.
It Involves A High Degree Of Social Media
Social media wasn’t anything to explore in 1993 when Jurassic Park debuted, and it wasn’t until Jurassic World that the concept of visitors documenting their visit for social media was ever mentioned. Camp Cretaceous takes the concept of social media to a whole new level by not only referencing it, but featuring social media star Brooklynn as a camper.
Brooklynn is desperate to gain social traction with her followers, and she believes a harrowing adventure on Isla Nublar is just the boost her social media pages need. Darius also mentions several times that Dr. Grant has a bone blog (despite the character hating computers), and Dr. Sattler has a Facebook page about paleobotany.
It Contains A Lot Less Gore
Unlike in Jurassic Park where viewers might be subjected to a dismembered arm, or The Lost World with a body torn in half, there’s no such sanguinary over-saturation in this series. There’s only ever the hint of impending doom due to sharp teeth and protruding claws.
Given that the series is rated PG, viewers could never expect it to be as graphic as the film series with its violence. Viewers old and young alike are able to view it without peaking through their fingers.
There Are More Extracurricular Activities
As in Jurassic World the series boasts many fun activities to do on Isla Nublar, including winding up between the feet of a Brachiosaurus in a Gyrosphere, but Camp Cretaceous offers many more diversions than just that.
Darius and his friends have the opportunity to go rock climbing, kayaking on the Jurassic River Adventure, and in one of the series’ most impressive sequences, zip-lining over several herds of migrating dinosaurs.
More Of Isla Nublar Is Seen
Jurassic Park ended with John Hammond’s dreams of opening up a dinosaur theme park utterly ravaged, and its subsequent sequels never included a fully functioning park. In Jurassic World, fans got to finally see bits and pieces of the park that made it feel much more like the vision Hammond created.
Camp Cretaceous takes the film series a step further by intimately exploring the parts of Isla Nublar that weren’t included in either Jurassic Park or Jurassic World, which makes the whole theme park seem much more real.
The Dinosaurs Aren’t As Scary
While the medium presenting the world of the franchise shouldn’t have that much of an affect on certain aspects of it, the animated component of the series does detract from arguably its most important: the ferocity of the dinosaurs.
The series does a predictable job with the herbivores, but when it comes to instilling fear in the campers around the T. Rex and the Velociraptors, it is nowhere near as palpable as in the films.
