In the Jurassic Park series of movies, the running theme has been that of people playing God, and the revived dinosaurs being revealed as not just simply savage brutes but very much capable of mentally evolving and adapting to situations. In the first three films, the velociraptors out of all the dinosaurs were shown to be highly capable and quick learners. One of the characters in the movies, palaeontologist Alan Grant, had eloquently summarized the living world’s tenacity in overcoming obstacles in 4 words: “Life finds a way”. Mathematician Ian Malcolm, another character in the movies, also stated in his chaos theory that Nature can never be fully predicted and controlled.
On the other side of the coin, humans are demonstrated to be obstinate in forcing nature and life into conforming to their own wishes, even if all evidence tells of the contrary, in the name of “progress”. Everything culminated in the artificial creation of a saurian chimera – a genetic hybrid composed of tyrannosaurus, velociraptor, cuttlefish and tree frog DNA – all in the name of development and the insatiable human demand for more. This chimera, named Indominus Rex, powerfully illustrated what Dr. Alan Grant and Dr. Ian Malcolm had warned against in the very first film. As if that doesn’t demonstrate human hubris and stupidity enough, another party within the story wanted to employ velociraptors and create saurian chimeras for military purposes, deluding that human control will subjugate saurian instincts.
At the end of Jurassic World, the fourth and most recent installment of the film series, Indominus Rex thumbed its snout at humanity’s presumptuous hubris by evading every human gadget thrown at it. In the end, humans paid a heavy price for their sinful pride. While watching the film, I could not help but see Hong Kong being reflected in the movie, as the obsession with progress and control in the films resembles Hong Kong’s current condition and China’s maniacal desire for control. However, I also came to see the eventual irony where that maniacal desire will be China’s undoing.
Life cannot be contained as shit happens
In the Jurassic Park series, the developers believed that human constructions and technology can bind the dinosaurs in captivity. Through controlling the source of food, the operators believed they had power over the saurian inmates. However, they forgot the central tenet of Murphy’s Law: whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and horribly wrong did things become. The dinosaurs demonstrated that they cannot and will not be contained, and the velociraptors have proved time and again that their saurian intellect is by no means inferior to that of Homo sapiens. In the most recent installment of the series, Indominus Rex showed that saurian intelligence, even in a life of total captivity, may exceed human intelligence. The velociraptors in this particular film also demonstrated that even if the humans can control them, humanity’s power over them can only go so far as what the velociraptors have allowed.
In Hong Kong, the establishment and China have created a captive environment where Hong Kongers are under their control, prospering only at the whims of the Chinese and their minions. The establishment thinks that by controlling nearly every aspects of the livelihoods of Hong Kongers, we would be subservient to their wishes. Like the developers of Jurassic World, China thinks they can reap every benefit Hong Kong brings to the table, while at the same time putting Hong Kong under their complete subjugation: they want to maintain Hong Kong’s status of an international financial hub and its westernised image, while at the same time indoctrinating their brainwashing propaganda among the young in Hong Kong, and using the legal system to keep the adult Hong Kongers in line, just like how the Jurassic World keepers used electric rods on the saurians. Recently, China and the Hong Kong government even contemplated allowing Hong Kong youths to join China’s People’s Liberation Army, similar to how some Jurassic World investors wanted to militarise the use of velociraptors.
However, life does not like to be contained. It must be free. Just as the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Velociraptors continue to test the boundaries that keep them captive, people will always attempt to test the political and social boundaries imposed on them by those in power. Just as the T-Rex and the raptors managed to profit from an act of greed by Jurassic Park’s computer programmer, which brought about catastrophe for everyone, all it takes is for one inopportune moment for Hong Kongers to break free and let all hell break loose. It almost happened in 2014, 2015 and 2016, and it will happen again.
“Life finds a way”
Of course, there will be sceptics that would scoff at this, saying that Hong Kongers will never revolt as obedience is too engrained into their psyche. In a scene from the fictitious world of Jurassic Park, the developers thought that by only allowing females to hatch, the saurian numbers could be contained. What they didn’t count on was that the genes from a frog used to recreate saurian DNA strands also gave the dinosaurs the ability to change their sex, evidently so when Dr. Grant discovered a brood of velociraptor eggs outside of the hatchery. Mutations in nature are guaranteed, and same goes for people. Eventually, a breed of Hong Kongers will rise that would shake off their socio-cultural shackles. When that happens amongst the brood the Chinese want to enlist in the People’s Liberation Army, an incident can occur in Hong Kong similar to the one that brought down the Qing Empire in the early 20th century: the newly equipped and trained Qing army was also the one instrumental in overthrowing it.
All it really takes is one good push, and China is heading in that direction with the near completion high speed rail from Hong Kong to Beijing, in which the communist regime has fully disregarded the Basic Law restraints in the name of “progress”. In their bid to turn Hong Kong into a theme park for their elites and a centre of investment for the West, China’s hubris may be their own undoing.
Life finds a way.