By now, you’ve all seen Jurassic World, right? Biggest box office opening world-wide in history, second biggest in the US. So I guess you’d have to have seen it.

And maybe you’ve read some of the more or less mixed reviews. One reviewer complained about the heroine running around the whole time in heels. How are you going to escape a velocirapor while in heels? Well, she did. There were other complaints about a weak script and less than stellar acting. The critics forget — not all, but many — that no one goes to a Jurassic Park movie because they are interested in the cast or the plot. They go — as did I — to see the dinosaurs.

In Jurassic Park I, this exchange pretty much summed up the plot for all of them: “God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs… ” “Dinosaurs eat man. Women inherits the earth”.

What I found of interest in this version were 1) the integration of recent American capitalism into the fabric of the park, and 2) the utter failure to portray how such a park might actually operate, especially in the face of the events depicted.

As to 1), the entire enterprise of the park is founded on retaining interest of the public in the next “shiny thing” and on naming rights. The main bad-boy dinosaur, Indominus rex, in Jurassic World was created to be both that next shiny thing as well as a “named event” sponsored by Verizon (as I recall). So the fact that Claire, the heroine, is dressed in business attire and heels would be exactly what a corporate sponsor would expect to meet to bring the deal to fruition. So, completely realistic in that regard. As was the theming of the part itself and presences of businesses like Jamba Juice and Starbucks. Whether this was meant as a subtle critique of American penchant to brand and monitize everything or was simple seen as a “realistic” view of what such a theme park would look like, I leave to the reader to ponder.

As to 2), the whole proposition (Jurassic World as presented here) is pretty much preposterous. Consider: the park is located on an island 120 miles off the coast of Costa Rica. At the time of the movie, there are more than 20,000 visitors to the park. Currently the largest cruse liners hold about 4,000 people, and travel about 20 miles an hour. Six would require a six hour voyage one-way to get there, and an equal amount of time to return to the mainland, and this only if the boats left from Costa Rica itself. Really?

Although one assumes there are hotels on the island, none are described or depicted. When all hell breaks loose with the animals, no one is told to go to the safety of their rooms, and everyone appears to be meandering amidst the chaos.

Worst of all, the staff is completely incapable of dealing with an emergency situation of any sort. See the youngster manning the gyrosphere ride when the park begins to break down. It is likewise incomprehensible that the staff manning the command center would leave in the midst of the worst of it, just as it is incomprehensible that security commandos could take over operation on a moment’s notice.

There is more that buggers the imagination, but you get the drift. The only constant factor is the Tyrannosaurus Rex ex machina that provides the concluding scene in this edition as in edition 1.

What this led me to wish for was a movie that described these events within the context of how such businesses actually meet the unique challenges that running a larger theme park presents. I know, I know, disaster movies set on airplanes or cruise liners are a genre in itself, but still one longs for a bit more realism…

For example, after a system upgrade to a non-email system all of a corporation’s email is down, old email can’t be retrieve, new email can’t be sent, corporate policy is not allow the use of non-corporate email systems from behind the firewall, business is completely disrupted, and since the upgrade performed had nothing to do with the email system folks are baffled. Send in the Big Bang Theory squad? Pull together a scrum of sys admins?

Now wouldn’t that be a thrilling movie? Right, not so much…but I’m sure you all can create your own of equal vigor.