Jurassic World, the latest installment in the blockbuster series about an amusement park filled with living dinosaurs, comes out in theaters today, and while I had really high hopes for the film, it was just too unrealistic to be enjoyable. If scientists really had discovered how to bring back species that had gone extinct 65 million years ago, and then put those species in an island amusement park, concessions at the park would be much, much more expensive.
Now, I’m not a professional movie critic by any means, but being the Associate Manager of Concessions for Busch Gardens Tampa, FL, I do know a thing or two about concessions, and the filmmakers just flat out got this one wrong. $4.50 for a thing of Dippin’ Dots?! At a theme park filled with pre-historic giant lizards?! We charge $8.50 for those at the stand by Jambo Junction, and all Jambo Junction has is flamingos and lemurs.
Look, movies are about fun, they’re about escapism. I get that. It’s not like Jurassic World is a documentary. Filmmakers need to take certain liberties in the name of storytelling. Not every little detail has to be true to life and accurate. But, when the underlying logic of a movie is so glaringly flawed, it just completely ruins the experience. How am I supposed to suspend my disbelief when the corndog stand next to the Mosasaurus tank is barely charging enough to break even, or when turkey legs are practically selling for supermarket prices outside of the Apatosaurus paddock?
Operating costs at theme parks are high. You’ve got to think about ride maintenance, employees, licensing fees, groundskeeping. The list goes on and on. And that’s just at a normal theme park… imagine how much higher Jurassic World’s costs would be! Just the costs of electricity to keep all of those cryogenic freezing tubes running would be astronomical! Sure, you make some money on admission, but the real money comes from concessions.
It’s not too much to ask of filmmakers to get these things right. All of the food and drinks at Pacific Playland in 2004’s Zombieland were accurate for the time, even though money would of course have no value following a zombie apocalypse. And in Space Jam, the prices for space sodas and cosmic candies at Moron Mountain are what you would reasonably expect to pay at an intergalactic amusement park filled with cartoons.