{"id":5456,"date":"2026-08-17T20:11:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T20:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=5456"},"modified":"2026-08-17T20:11:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T20:11:17","slug":"the-end-of-oak-street-just-exposed-everything-stale-about-the-jurassic-franchise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=5456","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The End of Oak Street\u2019 Just Exposed Everything Stale About the \u2018Jurassic\u2019 Franchise"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tSeveral critics have said The End of Oak Street<\/em> is the most fun dino thriller since the original Jurassic Park<\/em> back in 1993 (its Rotten Tomatoes score reflects that, as well).<\/p>\n

Read more Did Politics Almost Kill the OG Kennedy Love Story?<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tWhat hasn\u2019t been said is why<\/em>, exactly.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe new film, from writer-director David Robert Mitchell (It Follows<\/em>) and starring Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor, follows a suburban family in 1982 whose neighborhood gets transported a couple hundred million years into the past. Glorious mayhem ensues.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor fans of the dinosaurs-attack genre, Oak Street<\/em> is such a breath of fresh air that the film throws into sharp relief everything that\u2019s grown stale in the Jurassic<\/em> franchise, which has owned this beat, curiously uncontested, for decades.<\/p>\n

\n\tNow, admittedly, using End of Oak Street<\/em> to try and school the Jurassic<\/em> team is a bit rich. The Jurassic<\/em> franchise has made $7 billion<\/em> globally. The most recent entry, last year\u2019s Jurassic World Rebirth<\/em>, earned $872 million despite a weak 50 percent Rotten Tomatoes score (only two of the seven Jurassic<\/em> movies are actually \u201cFresh\u201d on RT \u2014 the perfect-to-this-day original and 2015\u2019s not-aged-well Jurassic World<\/em>). Rebirth<\/em> performed a reset of sorts by circling back to tropes from the first few movies \u2014 it \u201crefreshed\u201d the franchise by doing the same things we\u2019ve seen before.<\/p>\n

\nOak Street<\/em> rather unluckily hit theaters while mega-hits Spider-Man:<\/em> Brand New Day<\/em> and The Odyssey<\/em> are still setting box office records. The film still opened to a rather good $47 million globally (probably not helped by its title, which is fitting and literate but doesn\u2019t really sell what the movie is about).<\/p>\n

\n\tBelow are four ways Oak Street<\/em> creatively took advantage of Jurassic<\/em> sameness (some spoilers within, with No. 3 in particular containing major spoilers).<\/p>\n

\n\t1. Dinosaurs are Scary Again<\/strong>. This is a biggie. Jurassic<\/em> film franchise creator Steven Spielberg has long balanced dinosaurs as a source of terror with the idea that they\u2019re noble, majestic and oddly pristine looking creatures. But part of what made the original Jurassic<\/em> work better than all of its successors is that it really leaned into the scares \u2014 the iconic T. rex attack on the Jeeps was incredible and frightening. So were those devious velociraptors (\u201cClever girl\u201d).<\/p>\n

\n\tStarting with the second film, The Lost World<\/em>, a theme emerged in which dinosaurs were recast as victims who needed protecting from evil humans. It all started to feel very \u201csave the whales,\u201d with characters constantly preaching about protecting species that don\u2019t actually exist. By the time the Jurassic World<\/em> franchise rolled around, even velociraptors were reduced to Chris Pratt\u2019s biking buddies.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Oak Street<\/em>, the dinos are grimy, weird, scary and only interested in eating you or ignoring you (or, in the case of one hilarious shock moment, having sex \u2014 a scene you could never imagine occurring in a Jurassic<\/em> movie in 65 million years). In other words: The animals are just animals. They\u2019re not making dewy eye contact with characters, and nobody is dumb enough to try to pet one. (Also, in a nice touch, the velociraptors have feathers \u2014 accurately \u2014 finally portraying them as the murder-chickens they were).<\/p>\n

Read more Chris Pratt Seeks Violent Redemption in \u2018The Terminal List\u2019 Season 2 First-Look Images<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t2. Our Heroes Are Allowed to Really Fight and Not Just Flee<\/strong>. When Spielberg was executive producing Fox\u2019s short-lived dinosaur drama Terra Nova<\/em>, showrunner Brannon Braga said the show couldn\u2019t maim or kill dinosaurs unless absolutely necessary, a rule which seems to extend to the Jurassic<\/em> franchise as well. This is a bit like Gene Roddenberry\u2019s Star Trek: The Next Generation<\/em><\/em> rules which outlawed conflict between crew members, something which became a major frustration for Trek<\/em> franchise writers.<\/p>\n

\n\tBecause if you\u2019re trying to sell the idea to an audience that people are struggling for survival against dinosaurs, your heroes should be willing to do absolutely anything to save themselves \u2014 which is how you end up with holy crap moments in Oak Street<\/em> like Hathaway blasting an Allosaurus in the face with a shotgun, or hysterically stabbing a creature with a knife. In the Jurassic<\/em> movies, characters are mostly reduced to constantly running away, with only bad guys ever fighting back.<\/p>\n

\n\t3. The Body Count Is High \u2014 And No One Is Safe<\/strong> (major spoilers<\/em> in this one): In most Jurassic<\/em> movies, there are a handful of characters with speaking roles who are killed off. Spielberg knows you must prove to the audience that dinos are deadly. The problem is, you can always figure out who isn\u2019t making it to the end credits (anyone remotely unsympathetic, for starters).<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Oak Street<\/em>, almost an entire neighborhood is killed off, largely off camera, but the film never shies from showing the resulting carnage littering the streets. Just when you think our heroes are going to be safe, the film pulls the rug out from the audience by graphically killing off McGregor\u2019s patriarch in front of his wife and kids. It\u2019s a hugely shocking moment. Granted, the film eventually walks this back, but the reversal feels so cathartic that you actually appreciate the cheat.<\/p>\n

\n\t4. There\u2019s a Lot of Dark Comedy<\/strong> and Actual Pathos<\/strong>. Jurassic<\/em> has fleeing moments of dark comedy \u2014 the \u201cObjects May Be Closer\u201d mirror gag, which Rebirth<\/em> dutifully recycled, among others. But the franchise became more earnest and self-serious as it went. Oak Street<\/em> is stuffed with dark, visual, gory humor. Several scenes really stand out: A ridiculously large, sneaking snake stand, a second family of four being chased by a T. rex across a distant hillside, a moment when the family\u2019s teenage son (Christian Convery) breaks his leg by mistiming an enthusiastic leap to safety.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe comedy is balanced by a level of pathos the Jurassic<\/em> films also staunchly avoid. The relationship issues in Hathaway and McGregor\u2019s marriage go deeper than the usual estranged couple in a PG-13 adventure movie. A scene where the family\u2019s teenage daughter (Maisy Stella) takes a moment of respite by listening to Steve Winwood\u2019s \u201cValerie\u201d is every bit as surprising as any dino attack given its level of unexpected emotional heft.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat\u2019s perhaps most impressive about Oak Street<\/em> (which, it should be noted, counts J.J. Abrams among its producers) is how it manages to give a gleeful middle finger to the \u201crules\u201d of the Jurassic<\/em> franchise while still making a movie that feels overtly like a Spielberg film. <\/p>\n

\n\tEspecially with the 1980s suburbia setting, Oak Street<\/em> feels like its channeling Spielberg, only with his early career edge \u2014 the Spielberg that had 12-year-old Alex Kintner being gobbled by a shark in Jaws<\/em>, a mom nightmarishly sliding into a corpse-filled swimming pool in Poltergeist<\/em>, or a demonic priest ripping out a man\u2019s heart in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom<\/em>. The film works by remembering the Disney dark ride version of Spielberg that helped launch the filmmaker to fame in the first place.<\/p>\n

Read more Remembering Hayden Panettiere: From \u2018Heroes\u2019 to \u2018Nashville\u2019 to \u2018Scream,\u2019 12 of Her Standout Roles<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here are 4 lessons the tired 'Jurassic' franchise could learn from 'The End of Oak Street.'<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[986,3377],"class_list":["post-5456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting","tag-jurassic-park","tag-the-end-of-oak-street"],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018The End of Oak Street\u2019 Just Exposed Everything Stale About the \u2018Jurassic\u2019 Franchise - US Property Moves<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=5456\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018The End of Oak Street\u2019 Just Exposed Everything Stale About the \u2018Jurassic\u2019 Franchise - 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