Anghus Houvouras on the ‘Genetically Engineered Killing Machine’ trope…
Blockbusters are frequently rife with clichés and tropes, gingerly strung together to construct a flimsy narrative from which they can hang their set-pieces. No one ever said big budget crowd-pleasers had to be wholly original. If that was a requirement we might only get 2 to 3 blockbusters a year.
Some films can be entertaining enough to survive being cliche-ridden. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle feels like a good example. A movie that doesn’t really have an ounce of originality but manages to be entertaining thanks to some really good actors who have fun with the teenage tropes and fish-out-of-water story elements.
There are few clichés that have become so overused that they’re becoming problematic. Mainly because of how poorly conceived they are. This thought came to mind as I watched the most recent trailer for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and then again when I saw Rampage. Both movies revolve around genetically engineered creatures made for profit.
I understand the concept behind Jurassic Park; you make dinosaurs and people will pay good money to come to your theme park. Even though I’d never buy a ticket to go to a theme park that could potentially involve dinosaur induced genocide, I could at least see why people would. Jurassic Park created no great leap in logic. Even Dennis Nedry’s plan to steal the dinosaur DNA was plausible. I’m sure there are lots of companies that would love to learn the techniques used to engineer the dinosaurs.
Jurassic World takes the basic concepts to a ridiculous level. You’ve got the theme park working, but it’s not enough. Apparently they have to start playing god and try to create new, unheard of dinosaurs that can kill you in new and exciting ways. Then there’s the militaristic angle where able-bodied Governments want to get their hands on dinosaurs that can be trained to complete missions. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom seems to take the concept to even more ridiculous areas by auctioning off the surviving monsters the businesses and Governments looking to get their hands on dinosaurs for… war reasons?
Rampage has the same kind of strange logic. Apparently a corporation lead by two douchebags have created something that can turn animals into gigantic killing machines. For some reason they spent billions of dollars creating this formula under the impression that it would make them… richer? I mean, they had billions to launch and create a space station. How much money was the giant monster creating formula going to bring in?
There are six Resident Evil movies that work under the same basic premise. The Umbrella corporation can create virtual worlds and giant underground cities for no other reason than to test out their zombiefication experiments because… business?
I kept thinking ‘Who are the people, businesses or governments who want this product?’ Given the state of weaponry in most civilized countries, what are crazy monsters going to bring you?
Let’s say you’re a rogue nation-state and you want to try and compete with the high-tech military hardware of a country like France or China. What strategy are you going to employ with a bunch of dinosaurs… or zombies… or a giant alligator? I suppose if we were still fighting wars where soldiers lined up and marched into battle, you’d have a real advantage. But in this 21st century high-tech military landscape, even a few hundred dinosaurs aren’t going to help you a whole hell of a lot.
The dinosaurs in the Fallen Kingdom trailer are about to be wiped out by a volcano. You don’t think a cruise missile or a MOAB would have a similar effect? Even if these were super smart dinosaurs, a laser sighted ICBM would still do a pretty good job of taking down these genetically engineered monstrosities.
I suppose small militant groups looking to create chaos could benefit. Instead of Houthi rebels lobbing short-ranged missiles at Saudi Arabia, they could sneak a few dozen Velociraptors across the border and create some mayhem. But even then, a mobilized modern army is going to end up wiping them out. And based on these movies, my guess is a dinosaur, zombie or half-sized kaiju is going to cost you a lot more than a few hundred missiles. On a purely financial level, the benefit-cost ratio would have to be enormous. Traditional weapons would buy you years of agitation. A few dozen dinosaurs would get you a couple of days of mayhem, at best.
The whole concept of weaponizing creatures reminds me of the Underpants Gnomes Episode of South Park, but the chart looks like this:
PHASE ONE: Create Genocidal monsters
PHASE TWO: ???????????????????????
PHASE THREE: Profit
Let’s face it: this whole genetically engineered monster trope is tired, mostly because it’s stupid. You could probably get away this idea if it were being spearheaded by a mad scientist hell-bent on creating chaos for no other reason than being a huge dick. But when you keep making the promoters of this nonsense huge, multi-billion corporations, everything starts to fall apart.
It’s easy to understand something like Blade Runner. Companies would love to make cheap, disposable labor that can do the jobs we don’t want to. Hell, I’ll bet there are number of CEOs rubbing their hands together right now getting a half-chub at the idea of a totally robotic workforce that could replace humans faster than you can say the words ‘living wage’. And based on what’s happening now in the world, you can see how robotic technology and superior A.I. can be used in warfare. But I doubt many Fortune 500 companies or Governments would see a benefit in an army of dinosaurs.
I realize this tired cliché isn’t exactly new. There are entire franchises based on this very concept. Take Alien, for instance, which has the fine people at Weyland-Yutani seem very convinced that the Xenomorphs have unbridled financial opportunities. However, their creation does seem to make more sense when you realize they were made by a mad scientist in the form of a wacko-android with a god complex.
The truth is, this whole concept is stupid. And even worse, it’s lazy. Blockbuster writers need to get out of the business of monster-making for money. I’ve seen the books my friends. Those numbers don’t add up.
And that, my friends, is disappointing.
Anghus Houvouras
