YMMV / Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous

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• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • At the end of Episode 4, the Indominus rex and Toro are shown sizing each other up on opposite sides of a fence the Indominus grabs with the clear intent to destroy it; Toro later being shown free. Did the Indominus break into Toro's exhibit to attack the Carnotaurus like she had most other animals, leading to an off-screen fight the faster Toro managed to get away from? Or did the Indominus intentionally break the fence to free Toro, either to act as a further distraction or because she canonically has Carnotaurus DNA as well and was merely trying to socialize like she did the Raptor Squad in the movie?
  • While Mitch and Tiff fashion themselves as big-game hunters and nothing proves them wrong, some took them to less a case of being a Great White Hunter like Roland Tembo or Robert Muldoon, and more super-rich hunter wannabes akin to a certain dentist who infamously shot Cecil the Lion. They dress up in over-the-top 20th-century safari gear, Mitch apparently has a "man cave", don't seem to like the outdoors much given how much Tiff complains about bugs, are extremely pale with no signs of a tan, they seem to lack any serious knowledge of tracking and instead rely on Hap and a black market GPS locator they bought to find the dinosaurs, and show little interest in sport and more about trophies. Not to mention that their camp is absurdly large and expensive for three people, and the paintings of themselves on their ferry.
  • Yaz sadly telling Sammy that they can’t stay friends in Season 3 before the Scorpios rex appears. It comes off less like a friend trying to let someone down gently and more like a potential lover trying not to get too attached to someone they really like. Her horror at Sammy getting poisoned and steadfast determination in getting an antidote plus all the flashbacks to her times with the latter pretty much confirms deeper feelings at least from her end.
    • Season 5 confirms this with Yaz revealing her crush on Sammy and the two of them becoming an Official Couple.
  • Did Big Eatie fight off the Spinosaurs just as it was about to eat Darius to save him, or was it to settle the score with the other predator, who she viewed as a rival?.
  • The events of Season 3 call Dr. Wu's Heel–Face Turn in ''Dominion'' into question, since he seemingly leaves the teenagers to die for inconveniencing him. However, his team first encountered the campers as they were trying to leave by boat, so he may have assumed they could leave as easily as he could. It's also possible that his encounter with the campers was a catalyst for his redemption, as he appears somewhat guilty when Brooklyn calls him out, and may have realized he wasn't so different from his employers or mercenaries who kill people directly.
  • When Dave, Roxie, and Brandon find the severed Sinoceratops head in one of Tiff and Mitch’s yurts, Brandon states that Darius would never accept help from people who would hurt dinosaurs. Even when Dave and Roxie still think the kids may have left with the two poachers. Did Brandon say “no” to this theory because he believed that Darius would never accept help from people who would hunt his favorite creatures? Was it because he knew that Darius would never accept help from bad people in general? Was he doubting that his brother would accept assistance from dangerous people that could hurt him? Or was Brandon in denial at the thought of Darius being with evil people?
• Angst? What Angst?: While the kids genuinely show signs of psychological trauma as the events play out, they take the fact that they actually been left behind by the last ferry surprisingly well. Their disappointment and shock only last a few seconds, with them immediately cheering up and having an 'at least we have each other' moment. Considering the the literal hell they've been forced to struggle through, you would think that the kids would be a lot more torn up about all their effort, trauma, and loss for naught, but it's played off almost as an inconvenience. As this was the last episode of Season 1, the writers likely didn't want to make the ending too much of a downer, especially since this show is technically "for kids". Although this could loosely be interpreted as the kids trying to cope with the fact they ended up with the literal worst outcome possible in their situation. Appropriately, in later seasons the kids show signs of trauma as their situation settles in.
  • Played straight with the Baryonyx trio surprisingly enough, as they don't do much in the way of mourning when Grim is killed, moving right onto revenge upon seeing her corpse for a few seconds.
• Animation Age Ghetto: Deliberately avoided, according to Word of God. When the show was announced and concept art was released, there was a lot of concern among adult fans that it would be a "kid-ified" version of the series, with all of the action and drama toned down and replaced with comedy. As mentioned below, Spielberg himself assured fans that this was not the case, and indeed the show sticks pretty close to the tone of the movies, with the only things "toned down" being the presence of blood and the use of profanity.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Ben and Bumpy became this in Season Two where they Took a Level in Badass, many viewers enjoyed seeing the Nervous Wreck of Ben Grew a Spine and think it makes him a much more engaging character, while other fans think his achievements (like defeating a Carnotaurus on his own) were too incredible and ridiculous to be believable and feel it contrasts hard with the more grounded tone the series usually has.
  • Darius is seen as an admirable leader whose constant determination, intelligence and Chronic Hero Syndrome to save both his friends and the dinosaurs turns him into one of the most interesting and memorable protagonists (if not the most) in the whole Jurassic Park franchise, but he has his fair share of detractors particularly for how he constantly sacrifices the chances of the campers to escape the island just to save the dinosaurs and feel that while his heart is in the right place, his record of ruining their escape by motivating the Campers to do something heroic that shouldn't be in their hands borders on Just Eat Gilligan.
  • Roxy is a either an Ensemble Dark Horse for being the only responsible adult that tried to save the Campers and her attractive design or think she was an incompetent counselor that caused everything wrong in the series by constantly leaving the kids alone and then went into a pointless fight with her boss instead of caring for the kids that were almost killed multiple times already.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: In the fourth season, there's a scene where one of the kids starts screaming at the sky at a campfire. The others steadily join in. Then there's a hard cut to all of them asleep on the ground, and nothing is spoken about this again.
• Broken Base: Season 5 is considered a improvement over the mediocrely received fourth season but there's a division on how much it improved. Some fans think it's still a mixed bag of a season that still had its share of faults while other fans think it's as good as the first three seasons.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • The only dinosaur victims whose deaths were more satisfying than terrifying? The deaths of Tiff and Kash, both of whom were horrible people who have tried to kill the campers several times with sadistic glee.
  • Darius has a tendency to risk his friends' lives over the greater good. It's quite satisfying to see Kenji chew him out on this.
  • An offscreen one. Daniel Kon has gotten away for his inhumane and cruel crimes throughout the series and being a neglectful father to Kenji. He gets what he deserves after abandoning Kenji and his friends on the island to die, when Mae contacts the authorities and gets him arrested for his crimes, ruining the reputation he was so desperately trying to protect.
• Character Rerailment: For Rexy the Tyrannosaurus rex. After spending two movies as an anti-hero who more often than not saves the lives of the protagonists, she is portrayed here in a manner more similar to the first movie, as a dangerous threat to the heroes when they cross paths.
• Complete Monster: See here.
• Creepy Awesome: The Scorpios rex is a dinosaur lifted from a horror movie, with its hideous appearance that makes it unpleasant to look at, being a killer that attacks almost anything it sees, and being nigh unstoppable. Fans love the monster for all these things.
• Ending Fatigue: While Season 3 is considered the highlight of the show, it also has the issue of always feeling like is about to end which can make it a frustrating experience to some viewers. The very first episode of the season has the Campers getting a medium to escape the Island with Tiff and Kash's boat and every episode after being the characters suffering detour after detour that averts them from leaving, many episodes seems to end with the campers having resolved their actual problem only for a new conflict to appear that delays their departure for other 1 or 2 episodes . The most blatant example of this is Escape From Isla Nublar which pretty much resolves the two remaining plots hanging of the season with Ben choosing to go with the campers after all and the Scorpius Rex's being defeated and then at the last minute a helicopter appears and makes them return to the island. Cut to a completely new plot that lasts for 2 more episodes and had little to nothing to do with the previous eight before they can finally leave the island!
• Fan-Preferred Couple: A lot of shippers are upset at the canon pairing of Kenji and Brooklynn, starting with Season 4 since most of them either ship Brooklynn or Kenji with Darius, or Kenji with Ben. Even when the Season 5 finale has them remain together after the Time Skip despite Kenji's betrayal at the start of the season, you'd be hard-pressed to find actual fans of the ship in comparison to the still more popular Brooklynn/Darius, Kenji/Darius and Ben/Kenji shippers.
• Gut Punch:
  • Darius almost losing his grip on Ben, but he grabs his arm and gets a better grip. And then he falls anyways.
  • The whole fact that the campers didn't make it off the island. As Eric Kirby could tell you, this is legit the worst-case scenario for a person, a child especially, in their situation. Now they are forced to survive on their own on an island roaming with free dinosaurs, clinging to the small hope that someone may come back for them.
  • The campers finally manage to leave the island as of the Season 3 finale. Too bad the Mosasaurus is roaming free.
• Ho Yay:
  • There are many moments concerning Kenji and Ben. In the third episode, Ben clings to Kenji twice during the events of the episode and aside from a remark on how strong Ben's grip is and one half-hearted attempt to pry him off, Kenji doesn't seem to mind too much. When Ben falls from the monorail to his apparent death, Kenji enters a state of shock and minor hysteria, jarring since he's managed to remain relatively calm throughout the entire ordeal, and takes Ben's fanny pack (which he previously called a dork pouch) and Bumpy with him and descending into a panic when he loses the latter. This is reminiscent of a grieving person trying to keep their spouse/partner's memory close by preserving their possessions.
  • Similarly, Kenji and Darius have lots of moments, with their relationship being one of the most developed on the show. Kenji goes from mocking Darius to being his most loyal supporter. In Season 2, he acts like a jealous boyfriend at all the attention Darius is giving Mitch.
  • Darius and Ben also fall into this. Darius is holding onto Ben in the end, and he lets him go, and Ben's death seems to affect him the most. The show also leaves their reunion in Season 2 for the very last moment. Which is significant. As Shakespeare says: Journeys end when lovers meet. In Season 3, Darius outright tells Ben 'I love you', something which he returns the favor to.
• Informed Wrongness: Is hard not to understand Kenji wanting to prioritize saving and getting his friends off the island rather that trying to save the dinosaurs, especially because of how some of the Campers actions to do this can fall on Unintentionally Unsympathetic.
• Jerkass Woobie: The Spinosaurus is the same aggressive killing machine people remember from Jurassic Park III, but it's hard not to feel bad for the dinosaur when it is subjected to the Mind Control chips. These are emphasized as reducing the victim to a prisoner in their own body where they cannot move on their own unless allowed to.
• Moe: Bumpy has endeared many viewers, even skeptics, for her small, chubby appearance and big eyes.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Eddie crosses it when he steals the van and selfishly abandons the kids.
  • Mitch and Tiff cross this when they reveal their true intentions to shoot the dinosaurs and threaten the kids when they try to stop them and hold Darius and Sammy captive in order to force them to lead them to the waterhole.
  • Daniel Kon crossed it when he ordered Hawkes to kill Darius even after his son Kenji gives him the password with reason being tying up 'loose ends'.
    • In Kenji's eyes, his father crossed such a line long before, when he had Bumpy mind-controlled, despite specifically setting a boundary that she not be involved.
  • Hawkes also crossed it when he gleefully took sadistic pleasure when given the orders by Daniel Kon to kill Darius, a kid, using a Spinosaurus to eat him.
• Narm:
  • Some people have found Ben's faceoff against Toro in Season 2 too silly in comparison the grounded realism the show had laid the groundwork for in Season 1. Although it's treated as a serious scene and is a major part of Ben's Character Development, one could argue it's a bit ridiculous to see a young child pull off B-movie level action scenes against a fully grown and capable Carnotaurus who would have a little problem eating a child.
  • Some people consider the climax of Season 2 to be this. With things like feature film-level explosions, riding a dinosaur 'into battle', and cheesy action scenes to rival the year's blockbuster action flick, it's hard not to see why. Some people wished that the show had remained more grounded in reality, but are able to brush it off as the show being targeted at younger viewers.
  • Sammy's sickly appearance in Season 3 seemed a bit odd to some since she was tinted green to make her look sicker, but it ended up looking a little uncanny and strange, if not a bit funny to some viewers.
• Older Than They Think: This actually isn't the first time a group of campers being stuck in an island full of dinosaurs occurred in the Jurassic Park series. It was actually done before by a video game, Jurassic Park: Dinosaur Battles. Incidentally, Kash Langford's attempts to weapponize dinosaurs, which was carried over from Vic Hoskins's attempt in Jurassic World also originated from said game.
• Periphery Demographic: The show has a considerable following amongst adult fans of the Jurassic Park films and books, despite being targeted towards a somewhat younger audience. The fact that the show manages to stay pretty true to the spirit of the franchise is likely a big part of this.
• Seasonal Rot: Season 4 is universally considered by the fandom as the weakest point of the series (whatever they considered good or not) it started as a Tough Act to Follow given it gave a Happy Ending Override to the much more beloved Season 3 which was considered the highlight of the show, got a rather weak antagonist, downplayed the dinosaurs in comparisons to the BRAD's, wasted the return of the Spinosaurus, a rather weak and anticlimatic Season Finale and to top it all an excessive focus on the poorly-received pairing of Kenji and Brooklynn. The weaker pacing also did not help either.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: It takes half the first season for the dinosaurs to break out. The show at least finds ways to have a decent amount of dinosaur action in the meantime, but it's quite a relief to finally get to what we all know is coming and the real reason anyone is watching the show, to see these kids having to survive a constantly hostile island.
• Special Effects Failure: A few close-up scenes of Bumpy show her armor plates flexing and in at least one scene her tail club flexes. As they were both made of hard, rigid bone neither one should have any flexibility at all.
  • Occasionally, the textures can look rather pixelized in closeups, as if the shot wasn't meant to be executed as one.
• Spiritual Successor: As mentioned above, this is arguably the closest the series has regarding a sequel to Jurassic Park: Dinosaur Battles as while both have a very different cast of characters, story, and themes, the general premise and tone are similar, plus Dinosaur Battles predates Camp Cretaceous regarding the "camp of teens trapped in an island full of dinosaurs" idea by nearly two decades. Not to mention while Camp Cretaceous is part of the Jurassic Park canon, Dinosaur Battles seems to follow its own timeline and the nature of its canonicity is dubious at best.
• Spoiled by the Format: Do the kids make the last ferry and get off the island at the end of Season 1? The fact that there's a Season 2 should answer that question. Do they get off the island with Mitch and Tiff's help at the end of Season 2? Well, there's a Season 3. Do they get off the island on their own, using the deceased Mitch and Tiff's boat, at the end of Season 3? Yes, but the fact there's a Season 4 doesn't negate this one bit. Though it's downplayed in Season 2, since most of the drama is built around whether they'll manage to save the dinosaurs from being poached or not, which doesn't rely on an episode count.
• Strangled by the Red String: Kenji and Brooklynn's relationship in Season 4 had zero build up over the past 3 seasons besides arguably some scenes and dialogue from Kenji's part during Season 3's last episode. The whole thing felt like it was coming out of nowhere and upset many confused shippers. Season 5 didn't help sell anyone on the ship, plus when pitted against the other Official Couple of the season which did have several seasons of Ship Tease and fanshipping, it makes the whole thing seem forced more than anything.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Given the rather divisive reception the previous Jurassic Park/World films that preceded it got, a lot of fans were quite impressed with how well the show turned out, some reviews going so far as to call it the best entry in the franchise since the original film.
  • Season 5 is regarded as this to the weaker Season 4.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The Smilodon. In the Season 4 trailer, it was heavily implied that it would be a major threat to the campers. Instead it only has two short scenes, and is rather unceremoniously killed off by the Spinosaurus. The idea of prehistoric mammals being introduced to the franchise was an interesting one, but the show doesn't really do much with it.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Many fans who were sick of the franchise's Herbivores Are Friendly attitude were extremely excited when a preview for Season 3 showed an Ouranosaurus as a dangerous and aggressive animal instead of the usual treatment of ornithopods as friendly Cannon Fodder... only for the show to treat this behavior as likely unusual and unnatural.
  • Season 4 reintroducing dinosaurs from Isla Sorna offered an opportunity for the show to clarify that island's fate beyond the Bus Crash explanation offered by supplementary material for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. However, aside from noting that certain dinosaurs were sourced from the island, no further details on Sorna are ultimately offered.
• Toy Ship: Ben/Kenji, Yaz/Sammy, and after Season 2 Darius/Brooklynn are the main ships of the fandom, all involving kids. Season 4 makes Kenji/Brooklynn an Official Couple, with Season 5 adding on Yaz/Sammy as another Official Couple.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Darius always encourages the campers to help even individual and sometimes dangerous dinos, even at the risk of their own lives, both directly and indirectly by losing them opportunities to escape. The other campers usually agree, but despite their own discomfort, and their repeated failures to escape very visibly wear down their mental health. Like with Sarah and Nick healing the baby Rex in The Lost World, endangering the lives of their entire group (which now includes a teenage girl), this is a case where one has to decide how the lives of intelligent, but non-sentient animals compare to human lives and whether the compassionate thing to do is always the right thing. He becomes more so when he chews Kenji in Season 5 episode 11. While he is right to be angry at Kenji for throwing him and his friends under the bus, he at least learns his mistakes and tries to be better as Darius continues to hold onto past grudges. And from an objective perspective, his plans did in fact leads to people dying, something that Kenji rightly disapproves even when he's not manipulated by his father. Darius also doesn't acknowledges Kenji's motivation from the absence of his father, despite Darius's has died years ago, making him a case of Moral Myopia.
  • Even though our heroes make sure to save the dinosaurs they have no qualms in leaving human villains to die. In Season 5 episode 3, We are suppose to side with the kids when they removed the mind controlled chips to save the dinosaurs. Viewers didn't like how they planned it because they got the investors except one killed and Kenji's father almost died (which can be counted as manslaughter). A youtuber pointed out how would they explain this if his father died. Darius says that they were doing what's right, but Kenji pointed out how was this right and he's right. They could've done it another way that didn't cause people to die like they could've deactivated the chips when none of the humans controlled them and then set them free or they could've like the youtuber said record evidence, Kenji's father drops them off home, and they tell everyone about it. Even though Kenji's father is the villain he didn't try to kill them after they ruined his presentation and was still going to send them home after everything is done.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Kenji in Season 5. He's meant to have done a Face–Heel Turn for siding with his father over the campers.....except the Campers were going against his back because they didn't trust his father despite him constantly asking them to not do it and they (at the moment) didn't have a reason to distrust him beyond trauma from their previous experiences, to top it all the Campers staged an incident where they almost got his father killed, so his anger towards his friends is completely justified.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Although it's a children's show, it's still Jurassic Park, so it doesn't hold back on its punches. It really pushes the limits of a TV-Y7 show.
  • The opening has a man get eaten alive barely offscreen by a pack of dinos and the main character eaten whole by a T. rex... only to reveal that it's a VR game.
  • The fourth episode onward becomes concurrent with Jurassic World, and we have the park fall into mass hysteria while the dinosaurs go rogue and kill off side characters like the workers and scientists that the kids meet. Roxie and Dave also hear gunfire over the walkie-talkies when they discover the situation.
  • Eddie as a character is disturbing enough to an adult but from a perspective of a kid? Eddie was the first adult they met ever since the park got overrun. Most kids and teens look to adults for guidance, but Eddie isn't going to be that. Not only doesn't he care about them, but he also straight-up abandons them the first chance he gets, even stealing their car. Also, he dies in the end, eaten alive by the Indominus rex, right in front of the said kids.
  • The climax of one of Season 1's last episodes has Ben suddenly being left hanging on the edge of a speeding monorail and Darius struggles to pull him up... only for the next episode to have Darius get a better grip on Ben. And then Ben falls.
  • Most people expected for the kids to actually make it off the island in the end. The real kicker is that they didn't and now are forced to survive, now truly alone as most everyone, including staff members and their own counselors already had left the island.
  • Season 2 introduces Mitch, Tiff, and Hap. Hap is a game guide while Mitch and Tiff are big-game hunters. While aggressive, Hap is far more moral than the other two and is killed by the Baryonyx trio giving Kenji and Brooklynn a chance to escape. One of the Baryonyx is later shot and killed by Tiff. The pair are ultimately both devoured by dinosaurs with Mitch being eaten by Rexy after being caught in one of his own snares and Tiff killed on her boat by the remaining two Baryonyx after they jump on when it comes near land.
  • The Scorpios rex takes the cake of probably the most terrifying hybrid dinosaur to have ever existed. Everything from its odd Frankenstein design and unstable behavior makes it an even more terrifying unstoppable force than the Indominus ever was. In the end, the only thing that really stopped it was itself, another Scorpios rex.
  • Season 5 has a huge body count. Over the course of the season almost every carnivore seen (and we see all of them that have been featured so far bar the hybrids) gets at least one kill. The raptors kill Kash and one of Hawkes' men; the Spinosaurus eats Cyrus; Mr. gold is crushed when Big Eatie steps on him; Lana is killed by compies; Toro and Limbo both take out MORE of Hawkes' men, as does a Pteranodon and Hawkes himself is eaten by Little Eatie.
• The Woobie: All the kids fall under this category. They are all really defenseless kids going through an experience most adults wouldn't survive. They are subjected to the harsh reality of being trapped on an island filled with lethal predators and of all the adults they meet, only one actually wanted to help them, but had to perform a Heroic Sacrifice before he could do so. Even if they can be mischievous and rude, they are really just kids and it would be a miracle if they could ever trust another adult again.

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