A lot of the talk in the months leading up to Jurassic World centered on the fact that Chris Pratt’s character seems to have domesticated a pack of velociraptors. Many people were astonished that these vicious merchants of death were able to be trained to do one man’s bidding. It’s an amazing idea, and it definitely works for the velociraptors, but I just couldn’t see the same thing happening to, say, the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Now, you remember Barney, right? The big purple dinosaur you spent all of your time with as a toddler? Well, he was a Tyrannosaurus Rex, too, and not only was he seemingly fully domesticated, but he was able to speak, think and engage with children in a wide variety of games and teaching lessons.
Barney wasn’t born this way. Someone had to train what was once the most feared predator on the planet and turn it into a cuddly buddy who made learning fun. How many people had to die before Barney could understand language? Before he could form coherent thoughts on his own and then convey them back to a person? Before he could resist his natural impulse to kill humans for sustenance?
However large the undertaking (and I can promise you it was massive) to transform the Earth’s greatest monster, it appears to have worked perfectly. So much so that Barney is often left completely alone with the children, meaning a sudden killing spree would certainly go unabated.
How come it never happened, though? How come Barney never did just snap back to his natural instincts and slaughter those children? Baby Bop, B.J. and Riff were all herbivores, so it’s obviously completely understandable why they never attempted to maul the living hell out of those precocious children on the show. But man, to see Barney defy nature each and every day so complacently…it’s truly one of the most improbable things you’ll ever see.
It’s possible that Barney was genetically engineered without the impulse to kill his prey, just as it is possible that was genetically altered to have purple skin, but as Jurassic Park has shown us time and time again, nature always wins. No matter what man attempts to do against nature, there is no other result but a loss.
Barney & Friends has been gone for six years now, and only now have we begun to scratch the surface of this incredibly fascinating creature. One wonders the lengths people had to go to in order to make Barney the dinosaur a reality, how much blood had to be spilled. Regardless of the dark path it likely took, the ultimate goal was achieved.
So if man is capable of this, to what ends will we eventually go? Is this just a taste of what will be our eventual demise?
The secrets lie in this creation, this blatant affront to nature’s whims, and, whether we like it or not, we will have our answer someday.
