Despite the announcement early last week that the Jurassic World trailer would be released on Thanksgiving Day, the powers that be gave us a surprise gift and released the trailer two days early. Unfortunately, my long weekend was busy with family gatherings, so I wasn’t able to write about the trailer until now. However, I am excited to finally see whether my fears about this movie are founded and write about them.

Looking back on my previous Jurassic articles (Some Thoughts and Nublar vs. Sorna), my fears are:

• the plot will be based upon a ridiculous concept
• the dinosaurs will be portrayed as killing machines
• the carnivorous dinos will be engineered to be tamer

Let’s take a look at the trailer below and check a few fears off this list.

Engineering A New Dinosaur

“You just went and made a new dinosaur? Probably not a good idea.”

Chris Pratt, when you’re right, you’re right. Like I wrote in my previous article, I get that plots need to have conflict to move the story forward, and I understand that they’ve come so far with genetics, but just because you can make a hybrid dinosaur doesn’t mean that you should. And what exactly are they trying to accomplish by making a new dinosaur? A new attraction at the park? I know that every dinosaur isn’t exactly like another, but from the glimpse we see in the trailer, the new dino looks just like a T. Rex, but without the short-arms problem. In fact, it looks like it has not only longer arms, but bigger “hands” with extra claws. And what about the scene of the crowds running away from something—something that we don’t see when the camera looks behind them. Is it simply due to the chaos of evacuating the island and the visitors fully understanding the reason for evacuating? Or perhaps they are being chased by something we can’t see, because it’s flying? How else did the dinosaur escape from its enclosure earlier in the trailer?

Killing Machines vs. Tamer Dinos

“She’s a highly intelligent animal. She’ll kill anything that moves.”

Chris Pratt, once again, says the words that I’m listening for. This sounds more like a monster than a once-extinct creature. I understand that’s the whole premise of Jurassic World, but nonetheless, I do miss the first movie, which made me fascinated by the animals that lived 65 million years ago, rather than afraid of the murderous machines in the movies. And yet, I gained a certain amount of respect from the carnivorous creatures in the first movie. Some dinosaurs are carnivores, and therefore, some dinosaurs hunt to eat—not for pleasure or profit, but for food. It’s nature. However, lion-tamer Chris Pratt (who appears to be the one to blame for training dinosaurs to be tame rather than genetics or engineering) has taken the voracious velociraptors and replaced them with these tame things that run alongside him while he rides his motorcycle. It’s as though we’ve taken the natural wildness of the existing dinosaurs and given it to the one unnatural dinosaur on the whole island. Again, each new movie must have a new “gimmick”, but I don’t buy this one… yet.

Reawakening the Awe-some

Until this point, I have focused on the last minute and twenty-five seconds of the trailer.

So, let’s look back to the first minute and fifteen seconds, which may very well be the biggest reason for my wanting to see this movie. In my first Jurassic article, I mentioned how incredible that moment was when John Hammond says “Welcome to Jurassic Park”. It’s what instilled awe and fascination about dinosaurs in me as a kid. Finally, we get a Jurassic movie that brings back that same feeling of awe. In Lost World, going to the island is a rescue mission. In Jurassic Park III, going to the island is also a rescue mission. In both cases, the greatest emotion in everyone’s minds as they land on or approach the island is fear, not awe or fascination. Finally, finally, we have an opportunity to see a fully operational Jurassic World. Even in the first movie, as the scientists visit the almost-operational Jurassic Park, the greatest emotion is awe and fascination for these awesome creatures. Finally, we get that again.

The doors to Jurassic World open. We see hundreds of visitors milling about shops and what we can assume are lines to various attractions in front of the renovated visitor’s center. We see the words “THE PARK IS OPEN”. We see dinosaurs running past a Jeep on safari and dinosaurs drinking from a river with people canoeing in it. We see the line to the “GYROSPHERE” attraction, where a transparent sphere takes you safely up-close and personal with dinosaurs. We see a water dinosaur snatch up a shark for lunch like a killer whale at SeaWorld. We see dinosaurs that graciously look like the dinosaurs from the first two movies rather than the red-painted monstrosities from the third movie.

We see a park that I would desperately love to visit. You know, if the trailer simply ended at 1:15.

What are you most excited to see in this movie? Share in the comments!