Camp Cretaceous S1 E1

## Plot

So, anyone who knows me really well knows that, for whatever reason(s), I generally prefer television to movies, and cartoons to live action. I don't think I've ever fully seen any *Jurassic Park* film, but I've seen reactions to some of the films and am familiar with the basic plot of each one: Humans recreate dinos through science, dinos escape and eat humans, some humans escape the dinos and they all appear in sequels through various circumstances. I'm honestly surprised that it took until 2020 for them to make a cartoon based on the franchise, considering how the original film basically revolutionized CGI and VFX work. Of course, it's late 2023, and now people in these industries are being vastly devalued, underpaid, overworked, short staffed, etc. Since Netflix actually owns this show, it won't end up cancelled after just one or two seasons like a good chunk of their other content (I still miss *Lockwood & Co*.) Anyway, the series starts with a trio of velociraptors on the island of Isla Nublar chasing two men, who have contacted a helicopter to come pick them up. It's animated entirely with first person POV shots. It turns out that the person whose POV we're seeing is that of a young boy. The man gets eaten by the raptors. The boy uses the river to mask his scent, only to get eaten by a T-Rex… and greeted with a game over screen. It turns out that the whole thing was a VR game being played by a young teenage boy named Darius Bowman, a dinosaur nerd who desperately wants to be the first person to beat the game, because the prize is an all expense paid trip to Jurassic World. His older brother Brandon tells him that there's more to life than just dinosaurs. He never leaves his room anymore. Even though their father also loved dinos, he wouldn't want this for Darius. He says he still has to try, even if it's hopeless. He has a necklace with a real raptor tooth. After some sleep, he gets an idea, grabs a book on dinosaurs, and tries again. His character runs from the T-Rex and back to a bunch of raptor bones he passed by earlier. He picks up a skull and uses it as a whistle to command the raptors to attack the T-Rex, allowing his character to escape and win the game. It turns out that he's going to Jurassic World's brand new adventure camp, the titular Camp Cretaceous. Some time later, he and four other kids are greeted by the camp counselors, Dave and Roxie. They'll be staying for two weeks. Some won contests, some had VIP invites, etc. One girl with pink hair is excitedly filming everything with her phone. Another girl with long brown hair clearly doesn't like being filmed. Not only will they get behind the scenes tours and see dinos up close, but they'll also be kayaking, rock climbing, zip lining, and so on. Dave has nicknames for all of them that sum up their character. Darius is Dino-kid, the shy brunette with long hair is Track-Star, the one with pink hair is Internet Girl, the boy who got seasick on the boat is Barfy, and the girl with short brown hair and a pink headband is Texas. It turns out that they're already missing one of the kids. The last one is the extremely wealthy show-off Kenji Kon, who shows up in a helicopter. No one likes him. The girl with pink hair, Brooklynn, is an internet influencer who posts unboxing videos. She's famous, which is why she's at the camp, presumably to help drum up interest in it. It's also why she's the only one allowed to keep her phone. The girl from Texas, Sammy Gutierrez, is a huge fan of hers. Her family supplies all the beef to the park, which is why she's there. Everyone freaks out when they see a compy. They're always getting out of their enclosure. Darius is the only one actually excited to see it. After that, they get to their VIP state of the art treehouse without any issues. Kenji visits the park all the time, since he's rich. His dad has a penthouse in the main park. Yasmina "Yaz" Fadoula is an elite athlete, specifically a runner, and Jurassic World is her sponsor. She doesn't really like being on camera. Or around other people. Once the camp is officially open, it will house 500 kids and 150 staff. Curfew is at 8, lights out at 9, which bums out everyone, except for Ben Pincus, the neurotic germaphobe/scaredy cat. This is for their safety. They're in a dinosaur filled jungle. They must always keep their distance, or they could be seriously hurt, or worse. They get to see various dinos at sunset, like brachios, parasauros, stegos, ankylos, sinoceratops, etc. They get to zip line over them. Darius tries to sneak out after curfew, but Kenji catches him. Brooklynn takes a photo of them. Darius admits that he's been waiting his whole life to get here, and he's going to make the most of it. He wants to see the compy enclosure. Kenji and Brooklynn go with him, because one is cocky and the other wants to make content. They fail to notice a sign that warns of extreme danger. When they fight over Brooklynn's phone, it falls into the enclosure, and Kenji heads down to get it. Darius notices bones on the ground and realizes that this isn't the compy pen. It's the velociraptor pen. Brooklynn hits a button to try and open the enclosure gate, but accidentally makes an alarm blare instead, and gives Blue the raptor easy access to Kenji. Darius breaks a pipe that makes steam hiss at the raptor and jumps down into the enclosure too. Three more raptors show up, and the episode ends.