So the idea of Camp Cretaceous is to remind people that Isla Nublar is dangerous? That point appears to be coming across loud and clear, but it’s still kind of hard to imagine why anyone would think, even in an animated series, that the sense of putting kids in danger would be a satisfying form of entertainment. Thanks to being animated there’s more that the storytellers can get away with, but at the same time the idea of ‘why not leave the island alone?’ is flashing like bright neon in the minds of a lot of people even if this show looks like it might be somewhat entertaining. It’s an island, cut off from the mainland, where monsters roam. Isn’t that dangerous enough to want to stay away? Obviously not since now, the idea is to put a camp for teens on the island with full knowledge that there are carnivores that will likely attack when they see something that looks like lunch. Of course, the plan is to cage or otherwise contain the more dangerous dinosaurs, but one has to wonder just how well that’s worked in the past and, thanks to the need for action and drama, how well it’s going to work for a Netflix project. Anything with dinosaurs in it simply demands action since these are huge, sometimes very dangerous creatures that are bound to become aggressive under the right circumstances, and the idea of putting teens in the middle of all this feels like a very bad idea.
But then again, Tim and Lex weren’t all that old when they had to face down a T. Rex, literally. Plus, every Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movie has had kids, almost as if to show that the kids aren’t entirely helpless once they’re allowed to play to their strengths. In other words, kids aren’t useless due to a lack of life experience in these movies, but they tend to need the right situations in which to shine and show what they can do. But when up against a creature, or creatures, that weigh hundreds to thousands of pounds and are far more dangerous than any other animal on earth, and in some cases even smarter, it feels as though teenagers wouldn’t be able to get that moment to shine unless they were just that lucky or that focused and not bound to get emotional or shut down in some crucial way. In other words, Camp Cretaceous looks like it might be interesting, but it also looks like something that would be more feasible to show pre-teens and adolescents for its entertainment value while not trying to push any realism.
Seriously, at what point do people start realizing that dinosaurs, particularly manufactured dinosaurs, are not a good idea? The fact that the news has gone around that human beings might actually be able to create facsimiles of dinosaurs one day is bad enough, but thinking that anything other than a fantastical trip from one end of a movie to another would be a good idea is proof that some people don’t have a filter between their imagination and a truly bad idea. From an entertainment standpoint, it does look as though this will be able to amuse and excite a lot of people, so there is some good to be had by it. The animation already looks like its not quite as severe or has as hard of an edge as it could, so it’s likely that there will be more of a family feel to it despite the obvious danger that the kids are going to be placed in. To be fair, a lot of shows that feature kids these days do manage to dip into dangerous and sometimes controversial topics that some folks might think are way out of bounds. But if we’re going to criticize the level of danger that younger characters are put in, then we have to look at everything that’s been released and not just a few things, otherwise double standards start to come into play. My only gripe about the story is that it’s been told numerous times and the overlying feeling is that ‘it’s dangerous, things are going to happen, and none of the characters will be ready for this’. That’s usually true to form since even with the predictable nature of the creatures in Jurassic World people tend to think that this is a great idea and that animals that are bred to be cool and exotic won’t take on the traits of any of the wild animals that they were modeled after. The only creatures that might not pose a danger in Camp Cretaceous are herbivores, and even those aren’t a given since it’s been shown in the movies, and it’s common sense in a big way, that they’ll defend themselves as well if they’re threatened.
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