Achieving the coveted status of A*Lister — please, no need to bow, I’m really just a regular person like you are — means that I get to see Nicole Kidman’s pre-show ad a lot.
It’s become only semi-ironically “iconic,” with way too many obvious parodies, and an increasingly-less-amusing ritual in the theaters. Back when it was still fresh, I was at a screening of Glass Onion where a couple of guys gave the ad a standing ovation as soon as it started, and that was delightful. Now, at least here in Los Angeles, the ad still always gets a round of applause, which is still cute I guess?
Anyway, there is one part of the ad that is still consistently funny, every time. Kidman describes, “that indescribable feeling we get when the lights go dim, and we go somewhere we’ve never been before.”
And every time, it cuts to a shot of the gate opening in Jurassic World. A movie that is literally, explicitly, about people choosing to go back to a place where we’ve been before.
Last night before Mickey 17, they showed the ad again, and I was a little disappointed to discover that they’ve “fixed” this in the version of the ad that runs currently. When Kidman talks about going somewhere that we’ve never been before, it no longer shows Jurassic World.
Now it shows Pandora, the planet they go back to in Avatar: The Way of Water.