Despite its inaccuracies, I will always be a sucker for the Jurassic Park franchise. It wasn't what originally got me into dinosaurs as a kid, but seeing dinosaurs in the mainstream certainly had a positive effect on me back when the first movie hit theaters. That being said, I thought it was a great move for Netflix to make a TV series based on Jurassic World, Camp Cretaceous. It's a good way to keep fans engrossed in the franchise between movies. (It worked with Star Wars!) I sat down and binged all eight episodes so I could share my thoughts for you here. This means if you don't want spoilers you should stop reading. Again, SPOILERS AHEAD. STOP READING IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED THE SHOW!!!
It's not obvious at first, but setting wise Camp Cretaceous takes place during the exact same time and place as the Jurassic World Movie from 2015. The only character who actually appears and has a speaking role in both the show and the movie is Dr. Wu. However, many other characters from the movie are name-dropped in the show, including Claire, Masrani, Zak, Gray, and even Alan Grant and John Hammond from the original movies. The fact that this adventure is unfolding parallel to the events in the movie we saw back in 2015 is interesting to me. There are moments when events in this show miss events in the movie by mere seconds, like when the campers watch from a distance as Masrani's helicopter crashes into the pterosaur dome, or when they stumble upon the aftermath of the Indominus rex's fight with the Ankylosaurus. To think that during that gruesome battle, there was a tiny adorable baby Ankylosaurus with lopsided horns just a few feet away in the bushes waiting to pop out. By the way this brings us to...
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| She is better than Baby Yoda. There. I said it. |
Bumpy. Bumpy is a baby Ankylosaurus that hatches in the lab like all the other Jurassic World dinosaurs. Unlike all the other dinosaurs, however, Bumpy has a genetic mutation causing her horns to be different sizes. This isn't the first time a baby Ankylosaurus has been a character on TV. The short-lived show, Terra Nova, which originally aired on FOX, as well as the Japanese animated film, You are Umasau, both featured lovable baby Ankylosaurus in prominent roles. That being said, I think Bumpy is the most adorable. She's even better than Baby Yoda. There. I said it.
One thing that stood out to me about this show after I had finished the season was that the creators made the choice to leave out the two dinosaurs you'd expect to be the most prominent in a Jurassic World show. Velociraptor, which is a main presence in every movie so far, is only in one episode for one scene towards the beginning of this show. Tyrannosaurus doesn't appear in the actual story at all and only appears in the introduction credits. (a bit of false advertising) Story wise this makes sense, however, given these dinosaurs' roles in the movie's plot that's occurring at the same time, but I was still surprised given how popular they both are and that they weren't worked in more.
Another popular dinosaur that's left out that makes less sense is Triceratops. The three-horned beast doesn't appear at all. It's relative, Sinoceratops, however, has a big role. This is weird since in the movie's story Triceratops was all over the place, especially in the field where the gyrospheres go, and Sinoceratops was completely absent, not appearing at all until the latest movie, Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom, which takes place years later. I can't imagine a reason why they decided to switch the two ceratopsians other than maybe since the latest movie was fresh in everyone's minds and therefore they thought Sinoceratops would be received better? Sinoceratops was mostly included in the movie to appeal to Chinese audiences (replacing what would have been Pachyrhinosaurus relatively late in production) but Netflix isn't a streaming service in China, so I don't think this was the reason when it came to the show. Regardless I'm happy a lesser-known dinosaur is getting some more mainstream attention. (even if it has inaccurate holes in its frill...)
A dinosaur also that have a prominent roll in this show as a main antagonist is Carnotaurus. Carnotaurus has been an increasingly popular dinosaur even before it was featured in the last movie, so putting it in this show was a cool choice. I also appreciate how it has a moment when it actually acts like a normal animal and not a mindless killing machine. (If you've watched the show you know what I'm referring to.) I love how the show pokes fun at the Carnosaurus having smaller arms than T. rex, with one character teasing the predator saying "your arms are practically vestigial."
Speaking of realistic animals, the show does...try... to throw some references to actual nature in there. Here's some examples I noticed...
Many animals alive today can absorb ultraviolet light and emit it into colors that we humans can only see under special UV lights. Many of these same animals, including birds and some other reptiles, can see these colors under normal conditions, and use these "hidden colors" to communicate with one another. This means that the colors you see on the feathers of a bird is a very different image that the birds are seeing when they look at each other. The Parasaurolophus in the Camp Cretaceous are depicted displaying their own form of photoluminescence, by glowing unearthly blue when in a cave. Is there direct evidence of this sort of thing in the fossil record? No. But it's a fun concept and could be possible given how dinosaurs are nestled in the tree of life among other animals we do know exhibit it. In fact, A recent scientific paper by Darren Naish, Cary Woodruff, and Jamie Dunning, even investigates this vey idea. It's certainly not the weirdest thing a Jurassic Park dinosaur has done. *looks at spitting, frilled Dilophosaurus*
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| The top photo of a puffin exhibiting photoluminescence (by Jamie Dunning) isn't impossible for prehistoric dinosaurs. Interestingly enough, the Parasaurolophus from Camp Cretaceous, are depicted glowing, possibly because of genetic tampering. |
One of the characters on the show has a background in cattle farming. During a scene where a Sinoceratops gets spooked and runs away from the herd, this character explains the proper way to herd a scared animal back to the herd without causing the rest of the herd to panic, using her first-hand knowledge of livestock behavior. Ceratopsians are often compared to modern bovids a little too much simply based on the fact that they have horns and eat plants, but the fact that they tried to apply real animal behavior to their fictional dinosaurs was refreshing in a franchise where the dinosaurs often act too much like humans or slasher villains. A similar situation occurs when the Pteranodons attack the kids on a monorail at night, where one character states that the pterosaurs are attracted to the lights inside the train, like birds would be. This is actually true. Birds are attracted to and then often confused by light at nighttime. In fact, a major cause of death for migrating birds is crashing into people's windows when their lights are on at night.
Lastly there are plenty of references to all the Jurassic Park/World movies sprinkled throughout this show. Dinosaurs that don't have actual roles, like Spinosaurus, are still depicted in passing imagery in books, posters, computer monitors almost constantly during the show. Another more specific reference I particularly liked was how the kids discover a cattle prod at the same time they encounter a pack of Compsognathus, which is a nod to the second installment of the Jurassic Park Franchise, The Lost World from 1998, where a character uses one to needlessly torment the tiny dinosaurs, only to be ripped apart by them later. Lastly, not a Jurassic Park reference, and maybe I'm just seeing what I want to see here, but during the scene where the Carnotaurus trips and proceeds to push itself up a narrow staircase in pursuit of the kids on its belly, I instantly thought of the scene from The Land Before Time where the Tyrannosaurus, "Sharptooth" pushes himself through a thorn patch in much the same way as he tries to attack the baby dinosaurs.
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| This scene reminded my of The Land Before Time, the way the dinosaur is sliding along on its belly as it attempts to chomp the heroes. |
Overall I was pleasantly surprised with this show and I really hope they come through with a second season. It's a little darker than what the seemingly kid-friendly animation style might lead you to believe. People die in the show, but no blood or gore is actually shown. (it's rated PG, not PG-13 after all!) The human characters, themselves, also have some decent dialogue and character development. The camp counselors are terrible though. They should totally get fired from their jobs for leaving those kids by themselves unattended so many times. I also appreciate the diversity in the cast of characters, which includes lots of women and people of color, who are grossly underrepresented when it comes to dinosaur media.
What did you think of the show? What are some references that you noticed? Share in the comments below!
References
Woodruff, D. C., Naish, D. & Dunning, J. 2020. Photoluminescent visual displays: an additional function of integumentary structures in extinct archosaurs? Historical Biology
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