I don't think Grant "learning to care more about kids" Is a minor arc. He's introduced scaring a kid. Ellie is introduced _wanting_ a kid. He's bad with technology and computers, by the end he is saved by a kid who is good with them. The sciency plotpoints turn around "the creation of life" and the animals now being able to reproduce. They are shown a cloning birds and the bees video and toured through a nursery basically, and it's wonderful but _scary_ . It's subtle, but it's not minor. The high concept is the most obvious "Can science go to far?" Man vs Nature and all that. The human/character arc is really all about family, like... literally having-kids family. Both concepts are adressed by the question: "Can we be responable for the life we create?" and that's why both themes work so well. Remove the human concept, the heart of the movie, the Spielberg touch and this would have been a serviceable sci-fi movie instead of a cultural milestone.
Michael Crichton’s writing gave them a very solid foundation to work from. Once the films got past The Lost World, they were flying blind. Feels very similar to the decline in quality in Game of Thrones once they ran out of books. The second film mostly suffers from big changes from the book.
@@LanceCSTCuddy I think Crichton’s books work great for a nerdy sci-fi thriller. I personally loved them, but the movies needed and additional something to be catchy and memorable. Being composed of some broad-strokes from it's book and left-over scenes from the first movie. It seems like the second movie just didn't have the themes and heart to set it up to the level of the first. Following my first comment I would have suggested something like. "Growth" Ok, we already had kids/created dinosaurs. What happens when they grow/spread? We can work Ian's relationship with his now teenage daughter over the background of dinosaurs spreading through an entire archipielago. Already messing with people and animals in the entire region around the island. Sort of like on the books. "The cat is out of the bag" and all that. The third should be the "Jurassic World" idea... that JW never delivered. How do we handle "the new normal"? There we have the trilogy: I) Island, II) Archipielago/Region, III) World. We spent instead 3 movies "going back to the island".
@@Rodrigo_VegaI was just wondering about this. I think that the best sequels for a JP-like franchise should take the leap and actually show dinosaurs as the new (returning?) normal. How does the world change? This also introduces a new fundamental theme: what should we do about it? The cat is out; do you try to exterminate the dinosaurs again, exploiting the fact that they are only starting to spread? Or do you try to accommodate them somehow, not with small parks but maybe with large natural reserves? Sounds like decent grounds for different characters to pick different sides and an OK source of tension to me. But nope, let's just go back to the island or come up with contrived plot ideas, I guess.
@@LanceCSTCuddy I'd make the argument that Crichton's style of writing is the very reason why the sequels can't do better. Michael Crichton is a one and done type of story writer and does so in such a way that the stories are concluded in a nice little bow with little room to expand upon. He only wrote a sequel once, The Lost World, and that was only after Spielberg begged him to do it. Granted, it didn't help that Spielberg did his own third act so he could have his version of King Kong rampaging through New York, but there isn't a lot of room to build upon. It also doesn't help that Hollywood is where concepts go to die since they rehash the same idea over and over again until no one cares for it anymore. The Jurassic World trilogy followed the same path as the new Star Wars trilogy, lure the audience in with a beat for beat remake of the original, then throw a strange twist in the second and realize that you have no idea how to capitalize upon that twist, so you make a mediocre finale that fails to explore the twist. They would have been able to create an entire franchise off of humans living with dinosaurs, but they resolved that arc off screen and left us with locusts.
Well said. For the reasons you've listed, the movie will always be superior to the book. I've never loved sci-fi but I do enjoy relationships, and that's the arc Spielberg added.
I still hate the wasted potential of dominion. It could've been unique with a story revolving around dinosaurs living in the modern world and its consequences but instead it focused on some random non-dinosaur animals and we travel to another isolated island that houses dinosaurs.
An the movie ends with the planet has to live peacefully with the Dino's im like dafuq. That's not how this works, theres a reason windlife conservationist are having problems with invasive species entering parts of the world and ruining the local eco-systems. It would have been better if people in the world start to realized that living with Dinosaurs ain't all that good. As T-rexs attack and destroy towns, the farmland completely trampled by herds of Dino's causing world wide hunger. Animal species like Elephants are declared extinct in the wild, due to Velociraptors hunting and eating them and kept in Zoo's. An the occasional Dino rampage in the cities. It would put the question of what Malcolm said before to John Hammond "But, John, If The Pirates Of The Caribbean Breaks Down, The Pirates Don't Eat The Tourists." It was all fun for people who want to see dinosaurs alive for awhile until those fantastic things start causing more problems then they should.
@@silentecho92able The movie does ignore the fact that large or a large number of carnivores and herbivores into an ecosystem is going to have a major impact on that ecosystem and the native creatures that are already there. That doesn't even address that humans tend to aggressively manage or hunt animals that are a "threat" to them or something of theirs. There is also the question of how can the dinosaurs multiply and spread so quickly in the 4 years between the first Jurassic World and Dominion considering there are a lot of species of animals whos numbers increase slowly even when aided by humans by providing food and combating predation.
@@jcohasset23 Yes that is also the point, you would think that a massive Dinosaur population exploding in a uncontrolled. Management like these Dino's, i would expect the world to become like the videogame Dino Crisis in no time. Cause again these are prehistoric animals who basically eat anything they could find, if this series had any balls. It should show the massive ramifications of man playing god.
Nah, the new dinosaurs suck. Prehistoric Planet is miles and beyond any of the sequels portrayal of dinosaurs. The dinosaurs of PP is truly otherwordly, wonderous and absolutely terrifying.
That spellbinding awe that overwhelmed a 12-year-old me when I saw that Brachiosaurus scene coupled with John Williams' stirring music in Jurassic Park can never be replicated.
When it comes to making a sequel to jurrasic park, the studio execs were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should
Malcolm’s arc in The Lost World was actually cut down in the film from the script. It was about him connecting with his daughter who also pushed him to commit to his relationship with Sarah. The T. Rexes’ role in the story mirrors Malcolm’s. He goes to the island to get Sarah back. The T. Rexes go to the trailers to get their kid back. The parental instincts that threaten Malcolm halfway through the film in the trailer scene later become a solution when Malcolm and Sarah use the baby Rex to get the parent back on the boat. Why doesn’t Malcolm just let animal control shoot and kill the Rex? Because Malcolm has new priorities: his goal isn’t just to get the Rex out of the city, it’s to reunite that family unit. And the movie ends with Malcolm’s family and the Rex family together in their homes. Grant also has an arc in JP3. It’s about him getting over his trauma. It’s pretty explicit in the “Billy was right” scene. An earlier ending actually had Grant staying on the island to drive that point home, although that really didn’t make sense so I’m glad they changed it.
Yeah I have no idea why he didn't mention these important arcs. They are the main reason why these movies have any fans to begin with, some of which who even hold them in high regard with the first movie. It's kind of unfair to act like they had no themes just to prove a point that the first was superior. We all know that, but that doesn't mean the sequels were entirely pointless.
So I think the extent of the cuts in the lost world are far larger than you are giving credit for and makes for a far worse movie than you seem to realize. If you look through all the cut content you realize the main theme of the story was supposed to be about the pursuit of goals at all costs and questioning if it's worth it in the end. This was supposed to be shown through the two perspectives of Malcom and Roland. Malcom being the persuit of truth/vindication and Roland for the persuit of the prize(hunting trophy's). Most of Rolands stuff was cut in the final movie for time but his arch is present by the end. His archs conclution being in scene were he loses his best friend to raptors while he got his prize. Malcoms story was costing him his family and his reputation. The final cut starts his story but refuses to finish it in favour of the T-Rex in LA. The original end was going to be Malcom at Hammonds funeral being given the option to prove that there are dinosaurs are on the island. Which he declined even though this is the thing that started his journey. This would have been more impactful it the setup to that at the beginning of the movie was also not cut. The other themes of family that were mentioned above were also present in that original cut. Malcoms original story is present a bit in the movie like the guy in the subway train making fun of him at the beginning of the movie but, since the arch doesn't exist in the final cut the build up has no payoff. Note it needed a bit more setup to get the idea across as well. I agree that the movie in the end had no theme but that in my opinion is due to the last minute edit to the script that put the T-Rex in the city. Something so last minute the couldn't even get all the actors back for the filming of it. That ending messed the movie up so badly that I understand why it was rated as low as it was.
The "Billy was right" scene is part of a character arc that was never properly established. What was Billy right about? He didn't take the raptor eggs for curiosity's sake. He took them out of greed. And he didn't even seem to be sorry that it got Udesky killed.
I was a kid in 1997 and The Lost World was definitely enjoyable, iconic, and captured my imagination as well. It was more straight forward than the first but kept a similar tone of tension, something all the rest after it lacked. And it definitely didn't do "the same thing". Don't know why people say we didn't like it. I can't think of a kid not liking that movie. I still do. It's pretty good.
As a kid, I liked The Lost World more than Jurassic Park simply because it has more dinosaurs in action. But, as I got older, I grew to appreciate what a masterpiece Jurassic Park is. TLW is a good movie, and I still like it. It's just the characters aren't that interesting and the whole San Diego scene feels a bit detached to the pacing of the story.
I mean, dinosaur movies before Jurassic Park hadn't been very good by most metrics for decades. You can only really have dinosaurs and people interact in two ways. 'Science goes too far and brings them back' or 'people discover a lost world'. Anything else is so jarring it shatters suspension of disbelief. But both 'science goes too far' and 'discovering a lost world' plots have been run into the ground, explored in every possible way soo many times even by the 80s. We got lucky that Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg understood how to bring depth and spectacle to the concept, but just being 'deeper' or 'flashier' can't save a concept from being an exhausted dead end, hammering harder on either of these points just send it up it's own metaphorical asshole. Personally I'm of the opinion that anything else JP related should just be straight horror only.
I kind of have a love/hate relationship with JP for this reason. The paleontology is outdated by what, 30 years now? It simply isn't the case that this movie is the definitive picture of dinosaurs any more. But the film industry and the public in general don't seem to understand this. It's not like people stopped making dinosaur movies after King Kong or Valley of Gwangi, or were incapable of portraying dinosaurs in a way that didn't reference these films. But JP has a ridiculous death grip on dinosaurs in pop culture that needs to end. If there were any justice in the world, Prehistoric Planet would have completely eclipsed JP in cultural consciousness. I'm hoping it still will.
@@Thagomizer It never will. Not if Universal has anything to say about it. As long as they continue to build coasters and lands based on Jurassic Park, and by extension, World, it will never fall out of the pop culture. What they need is competition. A film or concept so good that it stacks up to the JP I.P., it can't be ignored, but not comparable beyond both containing dinosaurs.
More so, the justification for the later ones’ existences. ‘You use this laser mounted on an assault rifle to tell the dinosaur who to kill, and it kills them, the perfect military weapon!’ ‘If you’re already pointing a gun right at someone, why not just shoot them?’ ‘ . . . ‘
I would say another large problem is the ADHD style of movies recently, there cant be a slow paced scene to give the characters a chance to interact and explore a scene, it has to be jump cut, jump cut, jump cut, action sequence, clever quip, jump cut, twist reveal, repeat in new setting. The problem is slow scenes requires talented actors, good writing, and a skilled director with a clear vision and the gravitas to be able to fight against the editing room / studio's attempts to give the film "broader appeal"
Yesss. There is no smart writing and compelling dialogue scenes anymore. The sequels r made to make the most money and it seems like as the world's changed they've changed with it. I feel if jurassic park would've been released nowadays exactly the same but with today's modern technology it wouldn't be nearly as successful because modern audiences can't sit still for 5 mins
I just walked out of Ghostbusters Frozen Empire thinking this exact thing. The first ten minutes were enough to make me realize it - all modern movies are too damn *fast.* Some people call it the "TikTok Effect."
Feels like modern movies also have an editing problem, scenes are short and immediately cut to other characters. Instead of having long breaks between seeing other characters it regularly cuts to the, which completely breaks every scene and makes it feel disjointed. Biggest one I’ve seen recently with this is GxK where it would cut to Godzilla, he would walk two steps and then cut away. And it would do that throughout the entire movie. Editors and filmmakers seem to have no respect for their audiences and believe they can’t go 2 minutes without seeing another perspective.
Yeah, whatever decent writing there is, the money heads make sure to get their claws on it so the movie ends as the generic, cut, cut, cut, quip, action, twist
The cons for me: -Chris Pratt looks so reliable and strong. There is no more sense of fear. -Chris Pratt is a raptor tamer, means that he is safe from raptors. -I forgive them for making a hybrid dinosaur on jurassic world, but making another hybrid for the 2nd movie? -To make it worse, the 1st hybrid is more of a trex, the 2nd one is more of a raptor, like they only know 2 dinosaurs. Why not a hybrid of trex and triceratops? That's scarier. -They can still save the trilogy with the 3rd movie but NOOO. LOCUST -Gigantosaurus has very few screen time.
It's because people today think they know everything, including what it was like when those movies were released. They think that older movies need to hold up to their ADHD standards and fluff and pretty lights and sounds, instead of watching a movie for the movie itself, and taking into consideration that they were made when they were, limitations (being overcome) and all.
@@BVking509Oh, there are plenty of good films these days. Besides, "woke politics?" Did you forget that Jurassic Park itself would be labelled as woke trash if it came out today?
I don’t think the Lost World is given enough credit. The goal of the movie was not to recapture the wonder of dinosaurs, which you can see because there are near no scenes for that. It goes right to the action once they arrive on the island. In fact, it’s an ethical debate before it’s an action movie. The point of the Lost World was to be able to focus on character development and the man vs. nature issue because we have already seen dinosaurs, we know how they are made, how amazing they are, and what they can do. Malcolm and his team are going to Site B to do research on the dinosaurs and see them living in their “natural” environment without any man-made barriers. The action starts when Ludlow’s InGen mercenary team arrives to capture dinosaurs, which then raises more ethical debates. Ludlow says “Extinct animals have no rights. We made it, we patented it, we own it”, which is something to really think about now that the audience and characters already understand how the dinosaurs were created. You mentioned the themes of capitalism and greed, which I admit are loose, but that’s because there are many themes once you really look into it. Animal rights, as I mentioned, are a big one. Roland Tembo has the arc of wanting one last hunt, and wanting to hunt a T. Rex, but realizing that it’s not worth it after his friend and partner Ajay is killed. I think the most important theme though is parenting. Malcolm’s arc is that he becomes closer to his daughter. A father-daughter relationship is not common in movies, so it is refreshing to see that dynamic. The way this theme is shown is through the dinosaurs, which is how they are truly involved in the theme. Watching the stegosaurs and tyrannosaurs protect their children from threats, as Malcolm is doing the same with Kelly. The San Diego scene revolves around the buck T. Rex trying to find its infant. Malcolm’s goal is also to simply protect the people he loves, which are his girlfriend and daughter, who happen to be in one of the most danger places. I believe that this was such a prominent theme because Spielberg’s kids were growing up around the time the film was made. I say this because it is not a theme in Micheal Crichton’s Lost World novel. Kelly is not even Malcolm’s daughter, and there is no San Diego scene. The film was what made it into a story about parenting. I think it’s the only Jurassic movie that was confident enough to do something different.
Thank you! 100% agree with this. The Lost World doesn’t get enough credit. It’s a great sequel that really does an amazing job at showing the dinosaurs as animals just trying to exist.
Exactly, the second film's moral(though clumsily handled) was that sometimes the best way to help out nature is to just leave it alone, which in my opinion does complement the first one's theme of man's conquest of nature and the overreach of science.
This. It's pretty much the whole reason as to why I've always loved this movie and its settings so much, and why I've always preferred it over the original.
I actually think the premisse of the setting for dominion had great potencial: what would the world be like if we had to live alongside dinosaurs? Unfortunately, they barely even try to make the movie about that, and go to yet another park/research facility thing instead
I agree with that. They didn't show the true cost of living with dinosaurs. For example, they show farms. How will you farm with pterodactyl flying everywhere? What about broken supply chains? Second order effects? Massive deforestation because a prehistoric herbivores are roaming around? Many scenes in the last two movies were just plain stupid, like releasing dinoaaurs to terrorize people and like shooting their way out of a car instead of shooting the dinosaur. The last one became Mission Impossible movie. They had Claire out running raptors. Yeah, ok!!!
I think "The Lost World" is actually really good from a story perspective, and deserves more credit than it gets. It was intentionally going for more darkness to showcase another level of the "Jurassic Park" lore and themes. It graduated from 'Holy shit! There are dinosaurs alive! And they're so beautiful and awesome!' to 'AHH! THEY'RE EATING THAT GUY'S FACE OFF!!!' -- both of which happened in the same movie --, and then stepping off into the sequel with this point: 'Alright. Dinosaurs are alive again, and sequestered on these remote islands. But now people are getting ideas to bring them to mainland continents. Is that a good idea?' And for the most part, I think "The Lost World" got it done well, showing us that when the same kinds of motives are acted on as occurred in "Jurassic Park", then the biggest losers are the innocent human beings who just wanted to see dinosaurs alive for the first time -- and also the human beings whose hubris led them into the jaws of hungry and pissed-off Tyrannosaurs.
Corporate greed that walk over many preventible deaths, repeating of same mistakes and continuing of modernasion of public perception of dinosaurs. My favourite in series honestly.
I mean the main problem LW wasn’t the idea and theme but rather the amount scenes in which you just had to go „ok like common“. Like take the T-Rex ship scene. When I am asked about a scene that doesn’t make sense whatsoever I immediately think of this. And there are so many of these in LW.
Don't be ridiculous. That story is not great. You don't seem to know what story from this perspective is. It only seems good from a conceptual standpoint, but story is more than a basic synopsis. It's about the whole thing from beginning, middle, and end and what it is in comparison to other stories, so to stand out, as well as what it contributes to anything, especially for sequel stories. The actual story is dinosaurs survive on another island, people plan to take them to the mainland, everything goes wrong, only one dinosaur and it's injured baby get to the mainland, wreaks havoc, gets subdued, sent right back, and everything is normal again. That is a meandering story that only scratches the surface of what do for an actual sequel. Story and story concept on the surface are not the same.
Sarah and Nick honestly got on my nerves in that movie and yes Kelly’s acrobatics were stupid but at least she had some common sense knowing that the baby trex cries would attract other Dino’s namely the parents and immediately going with Eddy to hide. Hell I blame Sarah and Nick for causing not only Eddie’s death but others as well I don’t care if you’re an activist do not take bullets out of gun when you’re on an island filled with Dino’s!! And Sarah’s stupid decision to wear a jacket covered in baby trex blood!! I wanted both of them to get eaten so bad!!
2:03 for me I would have dove into one last film and gone with the idea "What would happen if there were dinosaurs still alive?" Where Alan Grant went through not just paleontology but myths and Legends of cryptids, sightings, and historical icons of dinosaurs living with mankind. Playing on his nightmares from the parks. Then throughout the film finding remnants of lost dinosaurs found in jungles. Bringing back John hammon's dream of seeing and touching something that was real. While also confirming that what they were doing was not creating dinosaurs but monsters. Pushing the narrative Ian made of man never learning that maybe man should never mess with nature. Each of the three movies drawing a concluded lesson that man can not control nature or history when new descoveries are always out there.
I have been a massive Jurassic Park fan ever since I was three years old, and I am sixteen now, and even with that being said, I largely agree with you about the loss of wonder being a bad thing... in all of the films save "The Lost World". LW was not about inspiring wonder in the audience, at least not as I see it. Lw is a film about a man who had the wonder, saw the majesty of the dinosaurs, and suffered for it, trying to protect others from that dream. It is a movie about the danger that is caused when wonder is put before reason. I also feel like The Lost World did inspire wonder, it was the first film where we got to see the dinosaurs in the wild, where we saw them as more than 'theme park monsters" and went to explore them as animals. I feel like seeing the herd of stegos move through the redwoods has stuck with me almost as much as watching the Brachi rear up to tree, and even now I still feel that as a teenager i can go back and be awed by the dinosaurs time and again,
To me the most disappointing Jurassic movie was Dominion, it actually had a Novel concept of Dinosaurs being out in the wild and interacting with humans on a much larger scale, it even had the ideas of people exploiting the dinosaurs to sell them or use them for shows. It could have had the characters struggle to figure out what to do to contain the dinosaurs they have come to care for, and figure out a way to coexist. Instead, they gave us a angsty teen getting kidnapped, knife fights, a mission impossible type scene when the went to malta to arrest a dinosaur dealer, and a bunch of giant locusts. They then told us that while all these plots we didn't care about, the actually interesting and Novel idea we wanted to see explored had been magically resolved off-screen.
It made the whole movie feel like a waste of time, also considering the fact that they wouldn't have killed off any of the main cast so there was no threat and therefore no excitement to any scenes with them. Dominion was the first JP movie to actually bore me because of these critical flaws.
@@Justmonika6969Same. At least in the original JP sequels, there was intensity and a sense of danger for the main protagonists and they legitimately did kill off some characters, not just the villain characters, even good guys like Eddie and Udesky were killed off. And at least those film’s dumb moments did provide ironic enjoyment and made them memorable compared to Dominion’s which were just frustratingly dumb.
I think the allure of the FIRST Jurassic World for me was we finally got to see the park functioning and open to the people….albeit not for very long. The other two not so much ^ but it was a cool additional to the franchise to see Hammond’s dream briefly come true
jurassic world was awful to me because Hammond in the end hated his dream and knew he'd made big mistakes. That they carried on with the park was spitting in Hammond's face and on his legacy. Every lesson learned from 1 & 2 completely and utterly shattered by the new trilogy.
It might be a generational thing then. All the Parks came out before I was born and as much as I really liked Park III, I thought the first one was okay and didn't like the second. And there was never any awe for me. Every close-up look at a Dino had me thinking -at 12- that is clearly not real. So jurassic world was the first time I had that awe and then horror. The Parks were like fun jungle adventure movies to me (probably why I liked III the most as it was going for)
Personally I think a good idea for at least a theme for a sequel is exploring two main concepts. The first is the idea of invasive species and what they do to local ecologies or maybe explore the moral question of possibly killing the dinosaurs and the fact that they are living creatures that you brought into the world and are now planning on murdering.
For as many issues as fallen kingdom has it does atleast touch on the debate of if its ethical to let a population of animals go extinct in order to protect the environment. The argument of are these animals with rights or are these Intellectual property that can be disposed of.
Very interesting idea, but I think that most people agree that invasive species should be exterminated if possible, so I don't think that the theme would resonate with people unless you villainize the invasive species
What's there to explore? They should've left the "dinosaurs" on the exploding island. We have enough trouble with our regular invasive species so genetically modified creatures would be disastrous. Everyone have their fair share of hitting a dog that sprinted across the road out of nowhere. Now, replace that dog with any sizable dinosaur. Who can go to the farms with packs of raptors around? Then again it would be mainly Western concern since someone in Asia would certainly spread rumors about how dinosaur bones would be great aphrodisiacs. By the time the UN was able to twist the world's arms to sign some Dinosaur Protection Treaty the dinosaurs would be hunted down in Asia. Also thanks to the near frequent outbreaks of the feathered kind in the region I don't think Asians would like to live alongside their genetically modified ancestors.
@@timothyvahle2622 tbf the last two movies theoretically have a good theme: that of dinosaurs proliferation and the consequences of that, it’s just that it’s handled very badly. Themes like money perverting science should’ve been the focus of Jurassic world in general.
I agree, something exploring invasive species and humans having to coexist with large predators (like herders in Kenya with lions, or ranchers in the US with wolves) seems like the best route for a sequel. We've agreed that dinosaurs shouldn't come back, but they're here now and they're not going anywhere, so now what?
Me watching The Lost World for the first time: "That was absolutely mid." My thoughts on The Lost World after watching the other 4 sequels: "Perhaps I treated you too harshly."
Ironically, Jurassic Park's sequels fit the exact words of Malcom: They were too concerned on whether they could (make sequels), they never thought if they _should_
I have something I want to say. As a writer to a writer. In the last months, I've been trying to do something that I heard from a very good storyteller that simply stuck to my head. Specifically, a phrase. "If you want to make a story that will stand out, learn how to write a story from the very beginning. Because if you learn how to make something in the exact way others have learned, you'll inevitably make a similar product." I've seen my favorite movies, read my favorite books and watched my favorite shows again, trying to learn to learn everything that made them great from the start. Dissecting everything, as if I had never known anything about storytelling in my life. Pointing out the limitations and the flaws I see, rewriting them over and over and showing the edited versions to storylovers and asking them about what they think and the results I got were stunning. The sheer amount of times I heard "it hits different" just shows how successful I was in achieving my goal. Yes, I did get negative criticism, but I still got what I wanted: to make a new story that doesn't follow the rules and boundaries writers are taught to think necessary . I saw the things that ACTUALLY made stories better and learned from them and only them. I realized something that you mentioned in one of your videos, but this time, I actually got to feel what you meant: that there are simply some things we put to our stories without reason just because we learned to do so.
Yeah, it's true that if you follow in another's footsteps, you will never forge a new path. There is incredible value in analysing other people's works, but you should never actually say "I'm doing exactly what this person did", maybe if it's just one scene, imitating a style or approach is fine, but you've got to write what your heart yearns to, not what you think is 'popular'.
Every genre has specific tropes that are expected to happen in them but a great writer knows how to twist them in a fresh and unique way that doesn't feel cliche
Bryce Dallas Howard's monologue about how they made a new dinosaur because regular dinosaurs were no longer interesting wasn't just an in-world explanation for the Indominus, it was the writers' real-world justification for the whole plot as well. They didn't know how else to make the story original besides just going full sci-fi monster disaster movie.
Honestly of all the sequels I thought Fallen Kingdom had the best premise of trying to rescue the dinosaurs from the island's exploding volcano but then they abandoned the premise half way through to go to dinosaur auction
It's quite realistic knowing what rich people do with their money, they buy things when something is discovered or rescued like dinosaurs for whatever malicious intent they have for those animals and could possibly be used as weapons for the military or most likely a weapon for personal use
Jurassic park 2, the lost world. Was mainly about parenthood. Ian is shown at the start of the film as shunning his responsibilities towards his adopted daughter, constantly pushing her aside for work and not even knowing she got kicked off the gymnastics team in the beginning of the film. By the end, he’s a dedicated father and it’s a juxtaposition with the rex family. We see Ian, his daughter and his girlfriend hanging out together watching the red family be returned home.
I’d say the first two sequels are fun popcorn films, and the three World films suffer the same problems that plagued the Star Wars sequel trilogy. That being said, I think there’s a lot of fascinating lore to explore with Jurassic Park and I believe expanding back to when the Nublar park was being built, possibly showing more of Isla Sorna, or maybe even exploring the effects of having Dinosaurs on the mainland could be grounds for something rich. I don’t believe the goal should be to recapture the magic since that ship sailed in movie 1, but rather create a different standard the franchise could be known for whilst having audiences be both amazed and terrified by the dinosaurs. It has potential, we just need the right people and creatives for it in my opinion.
@@jacksback1224TLJ is offensively bad, so no. Jurassic World (the first one) was fairly mediocre nostalgia-bait, much like The Force Awakens. The next two JW movies were pointless, boring, unimaginative, and little more than popcorn flicks to those who enjoyed them. The Last Jedi, however, was the film which caused the collapse of Star Wars because Johnson was not a fan of the films and believed he knew better than those who came before him, including George Lucas himself.
For me personally, out of all the 6 movies of the franchise, Jurassic World (2015) is my personal favourite. It had a decent enough story, lots of dinosaur, and most importantly it is my core memory, to watch this film in 3d with my mom and sister. I remember watching its trailer a 100 times over in its anticipation. It was quite worth it tbh.
Fallen Kingdom sets up the incrediblely interesting story of dinosaurs living among us. Domination is about stopping freaking locusts, then it PRETENDS it was exploring coexistence in the last scene!
I’ve always loved The Lost World. So underrated. Obviously not as good as the original, but honestly not far off. The original and the lost world are the only two I like. Haven’t seen dominion but fallen kingdom was so bad it was almost funny.
The Lost World was exactly what my 8 year old self could have ever dreamed of. Good hearted protagonist that loves nature, lots of action with lots of new dinosaurs, raptors eating sooo many bad guys and then a friggin T-Rex free roaming in a city, with car crashes and all. And a cute baby T-Rex. It honestly never tried to be better than the original, but it gave the little kids that loved dinosaurs exactly what they wanted. Even the third isn't all that bad in that context, just more boring for the lack of expendable side characters and repeated settings, but the Spinosaurus was really cool. And dominion, I guess watching it with friends while slightly drunk could be a laugh riot XD
The comparison between The Force Awakens and Jurassic World is surprisingly apt, I've been saying as much for a long time. When Jurassic World 3 came out, after seeing it I told my friends that the Jurassic World trilogy and the Disney Star Wars trilogy were basically the same trilogy of movies. An initial film that's well liked but completely rehashes the original a plot, a second movie that gets a bit crazy but at the same time is hard to remember details of, and a third movie with a completely meandering and poorly written plot that reintroduces a villain from the original movies.
JWD was such a huge disappointment. You've got millions of dollars, the OG cast, and the Jurassic Park IP. But they came up with an uninspired piece of junk with stale characters and a stupid locust quest. Big budget action scenes that just weren't exciting
JWFK also copied aspects of TLW, just like how TLJ copied parts of ESB. Dominion was finally it's own thing but then they dropped the ball with the locust plot completely missing the entire setup that JWFK gave it that was even remotely interesting.
Additionally, the 2nd movie in both trilogies introduces a new plot element that divided the fanbase... (TLJ: Rey's parents were nobodies JWFK: Maisie is a human clone) ...Only for the 3rd movie to completely retcon those changes (ROS: Rey is now Palpatine's granddaughter JWD: Maisie isn't a clone anymore)
16:20 - Spielberg never wanted to make 2, but the studio told him they would do it without him then, so he begrudgingly joined the production to save what he could if I recall correctly.
Jurassic Park and Jaws both should've never had sequels. I do hope they do a remake of Jurassic Park based more on the novel, a mini-series of episodes to fit everything in with claymation Dinosaurs done in a way to make them seem like actual terrifying creatures instead of stupid roaring for the camera, that would be amazing.
One idea I can think of is to make the theme of the sequel the opposite of the first; showcase how exactly dinos, humans, and modern nature could coexist with each other. Ian could have his character ark one of coexistence changing his beliefs.
I guess that was what Dominion was finally supposed to be, but they completely ignored that plot in favor of the locust one which no one expected or cared for.
Like handle how the dinosaurs were made extinct due to an event that was so random and kind of bullshit, and explore giving them a second chance to live in a very much changed world
Recently rewatched Jurassic Park and it still holds up so damn well, like the build up to the raptors, they are always talked with danger and even when the dude hacks the system, even he does not mess with the raptor cage until our main characters have a "Good job breaking it hero" moment
I appreciate JP3 for the amount of depth it gave Asset 87. He actually has a dark history in canon that none of the other "antagonist" dinosaurs have: most of his life was genuine abuse, and because of that, he has an insatiable hatred for humans. The raptors are either comedic relief, or only exist to drive the plot forward. Rexy is just hungry all the time (can't blame her either). The Indominus was killing things because the plot said it had to, while the Indoraptor didn't really have the screentime to develop into much past "ooh scary". The Giganotosaurus was just caught between a rock and a hard place for no reason because Dominion apparently needed a big dinosaur fight with the Therizinosaurus. Asset 87, though, was already a lethal animal by design, then spent most of his formative years in a claustrophobic lab, being abused by scientists he eventually learned did not care at all what happened to him, and because of that, he actually has an innate reason, not driven by plot, to go after any humans he comes across. I feel like that gets lost in the semi-blind dislike for the 3rd movie I see online.
Sure would have been cool to be shown this story in the film, expanded universe stuff is cool and all but there is very little in the film that shows that to the audience.the retroactive writing doesn't fix the viewing experience for the casual audience who hasn't read these stories.
Really insightful video! I never really thought about how this particular franchise has a shelf-life compared to other series where you can expand the mythology a bit more naturally. I think the most emblematic scene for why the sequels struggle is in Jurassic World when that brilliant "awe and wonder" score plays triumphantly as the kid looks out at...a freakin' theme park. That is completely manipulating the audiences emotions without understanding what it is about the first movie that work other than the superficial notion of "the music was good."
This is why I really liked the pacing of Michael Chriton's original novels. The movies will ALWAYS have a super special place in my heart and should be talked about for their cinematic achievements, but the books tell the story of Jurrassic Park so much better IMO. I still remember reading the Raptor sequence for the first time under the blankets with my little clip-on reading light and being absolutely terrified.
The Lost World novel was boring and is one of the few movies I feel that is superior to the book. Michael Crichton was involved in the screenplay with the first two movies but I'll agree that all of Crichton's books give a much more in-depth exploration of the world and the technology than all of his books that have been turned into movies.
@@jcohasset23 it's the opposite. The movie was terrible compared to the book. It also contained some of the worst acting I've ever seen in a major motion picture
@@GuyoftheStars It's been over 20 years since I read the book so I don't recall but I remember being underwhelmed with the book, which was a surprise considering most of his books are really good (and is why so many were made into movies in the 70's and 90's). Either way it was obvious that the book Jurassic Park was not intended to have a sequel when it was written and Crichton only started writing The Lost World when it looked like the movie Jurassic Park was going to be a major hit.
Wow. The main character's arc is representative of the theme. How they change is how we interpret what the theme is saying. 9:47 I think we have an intuitive sense for that, but this is the clearest I've heard that expressed. So helpful for storywriting!
I watched Fallen Kingdom when I was like 13, I only watched Jurassic Park and World prior and I liked those films, and this movie was when I realized a movie can be well directed, acted, edited, and technically not boring, but still be very bad due to a lousy script
Honestly I think the element with the most potential was the relationship between Owen Grady and Blue, but when we think about stories that do this concept justice e.i. How to Train Your Dragon or The Water Horse, it is usually a child in conflict with their parents and society who has this dangerous connection to a beast. It would be difficult to do this with Jurassic Park because the capitalist overseers seem the types to encourage this for profitable opportunities. Plus, if we make the dinosaurs into amicable misunderstood creatures, then we ruin the horror of the film.
they actually do lean into this in 'jurassic world: camp cretaceous', which is a cartoon spin off canon to the jurassic world movies!! one of the characters is super cowardly and feels unaccepted and misunderstood by his parents and peers alike and bonds with a baby ankylosaurus whose birth he is present for and they form a very httyd-esque bond :)
however, the show notably does get pretty horrific bcs it has plenty of aggressive dinos/humans alike and even a pretty horrifying hybrid to maintain the horrific aspect (which i think it does quite well tbh)
It's not that hard to solve this, I think. The problem with the first JW is that it tries to convince us Owen has a bond with the raptors, but their very introduction shows us they'd have eaten him if he had stayed for a second longer in their enclosure. Then when the plot demands it to, he can suddenly drive a bike through the rainforest together with the raptors as if they'd been doing it for years. What would've worked a whole lot better was if it was shown from the very introduction that Blue was special. Not in a child friendly dinosaur-buddy way, but simply as a bridge between the human and the other members of the pack. Make her block the other raptors from trying to get Owen or something, nothing big, just a clear sign that the two have a bond. No cuddly dinosaur of course, just a man-sized predator that has a bond with one specific human and who will kill any other human that tries to do the same. In other words, realistic animal behavior. Then make the villains force Owen to let the raptors out to track the I. rex, but let them all simply get killed by the I. rex, Blue of course later turning out to have escaped said fate. Tragic moment for Owen, tragic for Blue because she also lost her congeners and perfect for the viewer to feel something while watching it all happen. Then make her later show up again to distract the I. rex so the humans can release the T. rex. It' something that botters me a lot about the first JW, because even though I agree it's downright impossible to reach the same level of quality of the first JP, JW had a whole lot of new features for the franchise but simply didn't use them to their full potential. (human-dinosaur bond, a Frankenstein-dinosaur, a fully functional park)
The second Jurassic World and the third do ask a very interesting question. The posed concept is if a “cloned” or man-made living being has the same right to exist as a natural creature.
I think the reason Jurassic World worked when other Jurassic sequels didn't is because it still resulted in something somewhat new. It was genuinely cool seeing a fully functional park. It was something I always wanted to see. What would have happened if John Hammond's dream actually worked?
Okay but when I watched JP 2 I felt the wonder as well, mainly from the concept of Nature's persistence. And I think every movie had a few killer scenes that really caught my attention.
Honestly, as much I enjoy the sequels (most of them anyway), this is a good point. Even Colin Trevorrow himself admits that JP1 did not need sequels. Yes, THAT Colin.
I will say, as a massive Jurassic Park fan, the original Jurassic World movie did, in a way, re-capture that wonder and magic of the original movie. The reason why is that it asked the question which all of us kids and enormous dinosaur fans always dreamed about; what if the park succeeded? Why did we all dream about that? Simple; I can only speak for myself, but I still say that if Jurassic Park ever did come into existence, no amount of money would stand in the way of me getting to see my childhood come to life. And given the massive gulf in time between JP3 and Jurassic World, I think that most of the people from my generation who indeed went to Jurassic World wanted to experience that awe for ourselves, and I believe that it delivered. I think that generational difference might reveal a bit of a difference in opinion on Jurassic World. Oh, and unlike that first new Star Wars movie (which indeed was a direct copy), that idea of seeing Jurassic World actually succeed, no matter how brief, makes it a jewel to me personally. Now Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Dominion? You can have them back haha
I feel like Claire had an arc in JW, which was “learning to see the dinosaurs as living things instead of moneymaking assets”, although we didn’t really see the payoff until the second movie… It’s a real shame this wasn’t explored more because it would tie so well into a potential theme of the sequels, something like “creating dinosaurs was a mistake, but now they’re here, and they deserve to be treated as living things and we have to take responsibility for them”. It could even have worked as an allusion to something like Frankenstein. I’ve always read that story from the point of view that Victor Frankenstein’s greater sin isn’t creating the monster, but rather not taking responsibility for his actions and his creation…
Agree, the thing that botters me the most about the first JW is that it has many new features that it adds to the franchise, but simply doesn't use them to their full potential. Some not even to the slightest. Clair's arc is such a mess: going from the actual villain who's framed to not like kids (a novel Hammond, basically) to a dinosaur lover who likes kids (for no reason at all btw) and never facing any consequences for what she caused in the first movie. Movie Hammond faced bigger consequences in TLW for being simply naive. Clair gets away with everything. And in Fallen Kingdom she's a completely different character with no explanations given. It's just terrible writing... And the whole Frankenstein-theme is literally right there, but it isn't explored further than the surface level of "creating hybrid is bad." Imagine if this movie actually showed that the I. rex was traumatized, had no clue about the outside world and tried to find connection with the specific dinosaurs it got mixed from (the raptors and/or the T. rex) and failed because it's simply is not able to because of said mixed genes. How tragic that would've been! All we got was a generic big bad dino that simply eats everything and that can only be stopped by the ultimate fan service.
I thinn you could have made sequels. For example: if they want the zoo/themepark idea alive, take a person that only takes herbovore dinosaurs (to show they learned from the past). Since herbivores arent as interesting, they need to push the limits: having them being used like ponies, trained like circus pets, photo booths and so on. The main character as a zookeeper could be morally conflicted because he partakes in the exploitation of these animals. For another sequal, you could have the question of dinosaur warfare (a thrme that was introduced but never fully explored).
They should have "mad max-ed" dominion, they had a perfect set up with dinosaurs escaping into the wild at the end of the previous movie, setting dominion post dinosaur armageddon would have been an amazing choice
HUGE Jurassic Fan! HUGE! That last movie pissed me off 😭😭😂 throughout the damn movie everyone kept telling each other “i remember you” “ i know you” while pointing at each other 😩😩
Not only did the sequels fail because they tried to find contrived ways to return us to the island, but they tried to find contrived ways to return us to Dinosaurs. The technology that created the Dinosaurs is the heart of the ethical debate/theme of the film, not the Dinosaurs themselves. A more believable, creative sequel to Jurassic Park is one wherein the ripple effects of the genetic pandora's box that was opened by Wu and Hammond play out in other disturbing ways in society, and how they're abused by greedy corporations, governments, and the military-industrial complex to achieve goals based in greed, narcissism, power, or hate. The scrapped idea for the 4th sequel is what I feel came closest to doing this. Apparently the script was focused around the story of a military lab that was trying to create hybrid human-dinosaur super-soldiers. This would no doubt have been executed terribly and flopped due to not featuring the familiar raptors and T-rexes the first movie made iconic, but it was at least attempting to extrapolate the consequences of Wu's technology and Hammond's greedy disregard of bioethics in a different setting. This is all to say that yes, Jurassic Park sequels are doomed to fail, because to do something new, interesting, and coherent, they'd have to pivot away from Dinosaurs, which would obviously disappoint anyone attending a movie titled "Jurassic Park #" or "Jurassic World [Insert Subtitle]"
Real minority here, but JP3 is probably my favorite of all of these. A big part of this is because kid me just felt it sooo beautiful. Even looking at it now, the colour pallete really sticks out. Even the river scene as they pass by the field of dinosaurs felt just as emotional and iconic as the brachiosaur in the first one. It was such a big deviation from both of its predecessors, with it literally changing the iconic JP logo. In terms of fresh experiences, JP3 really hit it out of the park. JW and forward, like the video says just didn't have that freshness of new ideas. Readers of the books will notice how JP3 is basically an amalgam of book scenes that were deleted for the movies. The "dinosaur factory" from the lost world, the aviary from the first but because it was the first time these ideas got out of the pages and onto the silver screen, they are still fresh and well executed sequences. Too late to change the entire structure of the comment so im putting it at the end, among the hottest of takes, this is gonna be a hot take. The raptor redesign for JP3 is probably the best look theyve ever gotten. Again, the colour pallete looks way more beautiful for the Raptors. I also like how they built on the pack hunting idea. The previous movies focused on the 'hunting' part, but this one really focuses on the 'pack'
Real, and honestly I heard a really good story concept for Jurassic Park 4 that they had initially planned but scrapped and made the JW trilogy instead, where basically this model of the raptors, where they had quills and such, was like the beginning of them sort of reverting back to their more “accurate” version of themselves in the past because they were breeding out all the invasive gaps in the genome InGen made them with so instead of being how they expected them to look like, they were becoming how they should look like (e.g the raptors actually got feathers and a lot of the other dinosaurs were more vibrantly coloured or looked more accurate) and the concept art for it is super cool, like it had Billy return and followed a lot of the similar ideas done in the Jurassic world movies (I.e being tricked by the military about researching dinosaurs, raptors being dangerous but potentially trainable, and also the fact in JP 4 the whole idea was a couple dinosaurs (Quetzalcoatlus and Tylosaurus) escaped into the mainland and were posing a threat, so the government made a decision to just exterminate all the dinosaurs on Isla Sorna to eradicate the problem. And it would’ve explored more on the pack and intelligence part of them as well, since Billy was given some means of respect or privilege when the lead female raptor had figured he saved her nest from the marines who were trying to chase Billy after he disagreed about them killing all the dinosaurs on the island (being tricked into thinking they were there to study them). In my opinion I think that would’ve made for a pretty good sequel if done right instead of the JW trilogy we got. You can search up more about the concept on RUclips or Google I think, they talk about it in more detail. :D
The problem with the first two "Jurassic world" was that the dinosaurs act more like Kaiju than actual animal "Jurassic world: dominion" instead was just random and goofy aah thing put togheter to try to create a plot.
Theme of the lost world is about parenting and family. Not only is Ian Malcom's arc about that, but its even mirrored by the T rexes and their motivations of taking care of their child - breaking through the initial idea of them as mindless uncaring brutes (also akin to how Malcom's attitude with his kid evolves). It challenges one of the biggest impressions the first movie left us with - that dinosaurs are just deadly monsters. That's a brave thing for a sequel to do. I don't think its fair to say TLW has no deeper theme.
That's not a brave thing! Animals being nice and not entirely bad? That's been done to death! Plus, it doesn't apply to the dinosaurs because their familial struggles are not as complex as ours. Not much of anyone got the impression that dinosaurs were monsters from the first movie because of the herbivores!! The theme was also poorly executed, too. Parenting and family is NOT a deep theme! Disney does it constantly every year! The Lost World is a terrible movie with no deep theme.
Aren't u that idiot who claimed Godzilla isn't a diverse character. Alsodinosaurs being treated more as animals was something new in 1997. Before wwd , so yeah. In reality it's dinosaurs as mindless monsters that's been done to death. The hell dude. @@william3100
@@william3100dinosaurs have evidence of social behaviour and parental care. Especially in theropod dinosaurs like t rex. Btw, I don't remember any dinosaur destroying the environment in purpose or comitting war crimes like humans do. By that logic we should have killed all reptiles and birds or any dangerous animals because they aren't as complex as usual. Idiot
Read the book first in 1990. Waited anxiously three years for the movie. Reread the book this year. The movie was modified greatly so that it would not be restricted to kids as the book was a horror story and much longer. The last three movies were disappointing. In fact I have never even seen the last one it looked so horrible and I am a lifetime dinosaur geek now just 71.
There is an idea that comes from little shop of horrors that i think could work, the plot would be about modifying dinosaurs to make them house pets. And the species of dinosaur you own reflects your status, as a commentary on luxury products and the social prestige that they represent. So the first part would be cute scenarios of dinosaurs acting like puppies but then growin too big because of overfeeding or something. I don't know how intresting of a story that would be tho.
Actually dinosaur pets was one reason Biosyn infiltrated Ingen in the OG novel, because Dodgson convinced the board of management you could make millions selling pet dinosaurs that only eat food made by Ingen.
0:07 Hot take alert!!! I think this scene is really dumb but not as dumb as people say it is and it doesn't out-dumb the child beating a dinosaur with gymnastics in the second one. The reason I think this is that this is a dream and really dumb and weird things can happen in dreams. So this could happen while beating a dinosaur with gymnastics from the second one couldn't, again it's still dumb but not as dumb as people say it is.
It is as dumb as people say because it breaks the feel and suspension of disbelief by putting in a very silly sequence of Billy's voice being heard while Alan sees the raptor as if the raptors is talking and saying "alan". It feels like something straight out of a cartoon.
@@william3100 Yes but anything can happen in a dream, and if it happened in real life not only would I agree with you but I would think it would be dumber than everyone says, but since it's a dream and we've all had some really bizarre dreams, you can't say it's not dumb but I do think it's not as dumb as most people make it out to be. While this may be a bit of personal preference I've had dreams that were may sillier, and more cartoony than this, and literally anything is possible in a dream, so this doesn't break the feel and suspension of disbelief as much as it does for you since whenever a dream happens I don't think anything is out of the ordinary because it's a dream.
@GOODYGOODGOOD789 but in a serious movie, cartoony scenes like that mess with the overall tone, especially considering that scene in particular was supposed to be a serious warning for things to come, as well as be indicative of Alan's trauma. We are not talking about what's possible in real life. We are talking about narrative tone and comedic tone, and Jurassic Parks comedic tone is not supposed to be very cartoony. The whole weird or scary thing in dream that talks to you because of someone in the real world is more in line with Looney Toons or other silly cartoons than a serious action adventure movie.
@@william3100 I feel like we've reached an impasse here where all I can say is what I've said before and that I typically don't find insanely silly things that happen in dream sequences to be dumb because it's a dream (even if it feels right out of SpongeBob SquarePants which it does in this case, though I feel like it's more of a me thing in this case, even though I can definitely see all the criticism of it. Because when I said it wasn't as dumb as people say (but still dumb don't get me wrong), I was purely talking about how in universe this is possible because it's a dream, and not anything else, and you are right in talking about how this doesn't fit the movie at all tonally, but that wasn't what I was talking about.
Honestly, my best idea for a sequel is one where Hammond searches for a new scientific discovery. I don't know which specific discovery it would be, but if he found one that was dangerous, but also had the potential to help humanity, it would be an interesting expansion on the original, where the general consensus seems to be, "Dinosaurs shouldn't have ever come back." Having a discovery where the answer isn't so cut and dry would expand on the themes and challenge the characters in a different direction. The very obvious problem with this story idea is that if this direction was taken, it would effectively be an entirely different story with the same characters, and be utterly unrecognizable compared to the first movie. And now that there's five sequels all featuring dinosaurs, switching to a movie without dinosaurs would be an absolute commercial failure.
The novel of “The Lost World” does this, the movie briefly walks over the premise of the book, but the reason they go to Site B is to learn about the dinosaurs and potentially discover what lead to their extinction, not stopping Ingen from opening another park, although Dogdson does go to Site B to bring back baby dinosaurs for Biosyn
The thing that made the original movie so good was that it was fairly accurate for its time, if they used the excuse, "well we did not have perfect strands of DNA in jurassic park 1 but now we do and so here are extremely scientifically accurate dinosaurs, and they are absolutely beautiful" if they had done that, and actually asked experts for designs, they could have recaptured the awe from jp 1. Because then they could have made believable dinosaurs and not just monsters. Real animals are terrifying, and dinosaurs are a perfect example of that.
I'm normally a person who can remember plot details incredibly well. Even in films that I despise, I can remember what leads to what. However, Jurassic World Dominion is the one and only exception to this for me. I can't remember what happens at all. It has grasshoppers and some Utopia of sorts. That's literally all I remember.
The lost work has been one of my favorite movies of all time because of how it focuses on the horror aspect more that the first movie but it does it in a proper way by introducing a new island and letting Malcom have the spotlight
The start of the franchise was so good because it actually somewhat portrayed the original authors vision. Also the Cinematography in the OG trilogy just can not be beaten by the uninspired new movies
Also I must say the second Jurassic Park is kinda meh but the third is also an absolute BANGER. Everything afterwards under the Jurassic World name was really just unnecessary
It portrayed the authors vision because the author was involved in writing the script. To the point that hes even given an open credit for the screenplay. And actually just looking it up a bit more, Crichton wrote the first draft and David Koepp took that and wrote the final draft which likely mostly involved editing for pacing and things like that. Crichton, having written for shows before, was an experienced screenplay writer. He created and wrote the scripts for Twin Peaks, a TV Show in the 90s, and I think that experience shows. Other authors might not have the experience to adapt a novel to a movie and thus hand it over to other authors who fuck it up. Crichton had the experience and skill and so did a lot of the writing himself.
I watched the original at the cinema as an 11 year old. It will always hold a special place in my heart and none of the sequels will ever live up to that experience and memory for me personally
Oddly enough, the only sequel that works well, and works differently, perhaps to its detriment, is The Lost World. A film with equally strong writing (mostly) and a tremendous amount of terror, awe and Leitmotif’s from Johnny Williams
Interesting video. I would say that the main issue of JP sequels is not only the struggle to follow in the steps of the original movie in thematic field or in the spirit (wonder/horror), but also because it is tied to the nature of the story. While any story can potentially be explored further afterwards on paper, the narrative structure, the content or both can bring hurdles that restrict this development. For example, a huis clos can't exactly be explored further because the context would have to be different to avoid repetition and dullness in the concept. A sequel has both to explore either in further ways or in alternate manners the elements of the first while considering what has been done at the end of the original story while recapturing the themes and feelings. Jurassic Park couldn't exactly have that. TLWJP attempted something different (even though it was also based on the book) and managed to some extent because a) it was on a different island with a different setting and environment, b) dinosaurs were free and in "their element" and tries to explore some of the aftermath of the first (tied to Ingen). But those elements could cover only a part of the other elements. JP3 in a way fails in that manner because it kind of repeats the formula of the second movie, even though the rescuing party to find Eric gives something silghtly different, especially as there was the potential for mystery to know if Eric was still alive after two months (I wrote potential because considering JP and Hollywood classical formulas, a child being dead is not something that is generally achieved and the mystery could have been far more developped). And that leads to the decade-long conundrum around the project for a fourth movie: what to do? The issue is that the second and third movie caged the potential lores into a set of islands and while scenaristic facilities could have been taken to allow dinosaurs to escape their islands to go in the open world, the fact that the first movies try to be consistent in realism concerning the dinosaurs while also displaying classical narrative vibes create a complication as I suspect that the producers were not only unsatisfied with the different propositions, but were also wary to shoot themselves into the foot if they make bold moves that would be seen as "jumping the shark" or "nuking the fridge". And there comes Jurassic World. When you can't exactly explore further a story without breaking the frame in which it has been built in a consistent way, either you stop or you try to come back to the roots of the original movie. I say try, because whatever it is a story, an ideology or anything else, no one can really come back to the roots of something as the context, the representations and other elements are different. Who would really want to come back to the roots of Athenian democracy for example when the setting is so different in cultural and political mindset ? Same thing for stories. Jurassic World tries to come back to the roots but to explore it further. That's why I disagree with the comparison often made with SW7 because contrary to Star Wars whose storyverse is so huge that there were potentials to explore in so many ways, Jurassic Park lore do not have this privilge due to the island setting. And since JP only depicts a failed park that didn't even open, it was obvious that exploring a park that has opened and is successful was the next stage. I know a part of the audience felt outraged by the claim that people didn't care for dinosaurs anymore in the movie, but consider the next question: the attraction for dinosaurs is partly due to the mystery that shrouds them as they are ancient beings? What happened once this mystery is dispelled? To make a bold comparison, it is like the "mystery"/"shadow" villain: people are generally fascinated by them because not much is said about them outside of the threat they embody. But when they appear, this mystery and the fascination it arouses disappear and it is difficult to replace it by something else. That's why those villains generally fail quickly after their real apparition (Ozai, Shere Khan in 1967 Disney movie, Darth Maul in TPM, the White Walkers...) because generally, the creators either didn't consider how to develop them as flesh out villains or are restricted by their features (seeing the White Walkers destroying everything is so zombie-cliche that only the fantasy setting could have assuaged it, BUT would the end be satisfactory, even in regards of the themes of Game of Thrones where different codes are challenged? A bitter ending where the White Walkers are defeated, but for a heavy price that crippled Westeros as a whole to the point that the Seven Kingdoms would be a memory of past while the surviving characters try to find a new meaning to their lives and to cope with their past traumas could have been an interesting concept for example). To come back to dinosaurs, there is the meta aspect on why people didn't care anymore for them but considering it is said ten years have gone by since the creation of Jurassic World, it can be argued that the fascination would have been affected, considering that million people would have visited the part as this point (if 20,000 visitors a day is an average, that gives you an idea of how many people in one year could have gone on Isla Nublar in the recent period in the universe of the movie). So, creating a true hybrid (and by that, I mean a creature that has no preexisting presence) is a good idea that both explore themes that Michael Crichton wouldn't have dismissed and play on a narrative element, not to mention how representative of Hollywood the Indominus rex is now (look how many franchises of old have been reused and yet modified to try to appeal to "modern audiences" without regards for the original stories or the audience needs/expectations as a whole and before someone commented on the success of those new installments, there is something called inertia tied to the impact those stories have on us and on the reputation many studios used to have for a part of the audience). In short, Jurassic World was a sequel that was considered necessary because of the conundrum the first movies created, perhaps not necessary but that adds something different to the original movie. Concerning JWFK (this is my favorite after JP), the issue is partly due to the stupidity of the trailers that kind of informed us about the nature of the story, preventing a part of the audience to be invested in the story (that doesn't mean they wouldn't have commented on its flaws, but the level of anger wouldn't necessarily be the same). And the reason why I love this installment is that it tries to build the path to something the audience wanted, i.e dinosaurs in the wild. The volcano might be a dubious excuse, but at least, it allows to raise different stakes (one mentioned at the start concerning the fact to save or noth the dinosaurs) and I love that we didn't stay long on Isla Nublar as it avoids to make a complete repetition of the first and second movies in structure. The main issues are tied to the timeline of the events that seem rushed where changing some little details (for example, showing how long the Arcadia journey is and showing Owen, Claire and Franklin hiding like stowaways while checking on Blue) would have mitigated some of those issues. JWD is meh, but it is partly because the context in which the movie was shot may have brought Trevorrow and Universal to amend the story with the restraints the pandemia brought. It is not impossible that initially the movie would have explored more the way people cope and handle the presence of dinosaurs in the wild. But the COVID is not the only reason of the nature of this last movie. Bringing back the original trio also brought challenges as their age and the fact they have no ties with Claire, Owen (and Maisie) would have either made them unecessary or putting them in a complicated role to balance with the new cast. And finally, unless the movie explore a fallout of the DNA recreation in the previous movies like an ancient virus or a new one that resulted of the recreation of the dinosaurs, I would not have considered believable the dinosaur apocalypse some comment and expected because of the huge discrepancy between the JP/JW dinosaur population compared to at least the US population. At least, in the reboot of the Planet of the Apes, the virus ALZ-113 was a good tool to justify how the apes would slowly rise as otherwise, their story would end as shortly as Spartacus's rising. And because of this detail, JWD couldn't exactly go in that path that wouldn't be exactly original because it would just play on our fantasies on a bigger scale, not to mention how it would contradict a bit with the desire to see more realistic dinosaurs. The movie has to handle all those elements and choose a way that was very different, creating a far more discrepancy than JWFK for example with the audience's expectations. Of course, there are other reasons why the sequels of JP, notably the JW trilogy, fail in some aspects and one of them is tied to how Hollywood produced their movies, creating a contrast and a discrepancy with the audience, not to mention the inertia tied to what has been created in the first place: by convience, because it is far easier, we tend to rely on what preexist and are not necesarily eager to make changes, unless it can offer us something that would bring us satisfaction, use and answers to our needs. Once again, a very good video (even if I am nuanced on some elements and kind of disagree with some others). Have a good continuation.
With the way Fallen Kingdom set up the universe, I personally think a post apocalypse route would be the best course. That way it actually shows the consequences of Maisie’s action in the finale of fallen kingdom. The apocalypse could be something like the sharp increase in dinosaur populations also leads to an overwhelming increase of dinosaur related fatalities. It could get to a point where humans are fed up with the huge risks of getting killed by dinosaurs, and retreat into underground bunkers, while the dinosaurs take over the earth again. It probably sounds stupid, but I can only imagine what a dinosaur apocalypse would look like.
Based on Ian Malcolm's static character, does this mean primary protagonists MUST change, and arguably must be wrong about something in the start? Elaborating, can external change suffice for a movie's progress rather than internal change? Assuming change needs to happen at all.
Personally, I've seen plenty of people argue that you don't *necessarily* need internal change, and there are plenty of books and movies that pull this off, but there's also lots of media where internal and external changes are present (bonus points if you tie them together so that the MC overcoming their internal conflict leads directly to them overcoming their external conflict). I think it really depends on the story you're trying to tell, and how much it's character-based vs plot-based (to the extend such a distinction can actually be made).
Nah, there's something called a flat character arc, it's where there's a heroic static character that doesn't change, and instead causes some other character to change by offering advice and such. It's very nice
Example: literally God has a flat arc in the Bible. He doesn't change, what changes is what we know about him. Apropos, a flat arc is better when there is still change in how we understand the character, even if the character doesn't have an internal change. Malcolm still lacks this kind of change in TLW. An example of this is Ozymandias in watchmen, the change coming when he reveals his plan, but he himself is unchanged. Another example is Vader in Empire, "i am your father," dramatically recontextualizing everything for us, even though his motives and strengths/weaknesses/challenges have not changed. A good way to tell if a character is flat - rather than having NO ARC - is if the plot changes in response to their actions (whereas in a typical change arc, the character is changed by the events of the story). Malcolm's actions are significant in saving sarah and returning the juvenile to its parents, so he's not arcless but flat. Alan Grant is flat in the main plot of JP but has a change arc in the subplot, the loving kids and being saved by technology. Thanos is a flat character in Infinity war because everything that happens is a result of his actions driving the plot, and he remains unchanged in his characterization throughout the film. Not to say he's not affected, eg gamora yeet, but that Diane mdoesnt CHANGE the character: strengths weaknesses goals/objective and challenge to overcome.
i could watcht this man yap for hours, id otn knwo if its his voice, knowledge, explination skills, or the topic hes yapping about but i scartches a part of my brain that really needs scratching. thank you.
I'd argue that Lost World actually did have a theme, since you can see it in Hammond's soliloquy at the end where he proclaims that the dinosaurs need our absence, not our presence to thrive. The two sides of the thematic argument are, "Should we do what's best for the dinosaurs?" vs. "Should be exploit the dinosaurs?" And as you'd expect, almost all the characters fall on one side of this argument or the other. Except for Malcolm. It's truly boggling that Malcolm as the main character never engages with the theme at all. He never really seems to care what happens to the dinosaurs one way or the other...they're just an obstacle to him. Which I think is one of the reasons the movie feels kind of flat. Not only does he not have any meaningful character arc, he never even weighs in on the theme.
That’s such an interesting point! I feel it does makes sense for his character, but not so much for the purpose of the film. Malcolm is a mathematician, has no connections or explicit interest in dinosaurs. His entire experience in JP1 was traumatic and dangerous, and his experiences on JP2 were that him and his daughter were now in the same predicament. Makes sense he’s apathetic towards the dinosaurs. I do believe their was arc re his view of dinosaurs by saving and reuniting baby rex/parent - however you’re right, his character does fall flat and juxtaposes what the movie is asking us to consider.
@@zehrazaidi5168 It actually would have been a terrific theme if Grant had been the main character, because he would have been conflicted. On the one hand he knows how dangerous the dinosaurs are and would want to leave them in peace. And while he wouldn't want to exploit the dinosaurs for profit, he's spent his life trying to learn about them and would be tempted by how much more we could learn if they were studied more closely. But yeah, Malcolm's background had nothing to invest him in the theme.
Very good point. I think it would've been hard for him to have gone to the island willingly as recruited by Hammond to help stop ingen. After all why would he go back. I think if it was grant it would've made more since because he's actually interested in the Dinosaurs. Marcolm was only on the first island because it was his job and he believed it to be safe. He hired by the lawyer to give his opinion on the island, he's not interested in the Dinosaurs as such but more critical of the premise of genetic engineering to resurrect and attempt to control an extinct species. Its difficult because he's only in twl to save Sarah. But consequently that means he's not there for any moral principle on exploitation of the animals. But then on the opposite side it would've made no sense for him to have gone to sorna for any other reason so it's like one or the other
Hilariously, Malcom died in the original book but the author was made to change it in the film 'In case of sequals'. I'm nor entirely shocked that the character felt like they didn't really 'fit' when written into the film - he wasn't intended to still be alive so giving him a personality beyond what he initially had would have been difficult or a pain to do.
I'd argue that the theme is more "How should we treat our creations?" which applies to both our literal scientific creations and our children. InGen wants to dominate their creations while Malcolm has a hands-off approach to raising his daughter (just like the rich couple in the beginning that let their daughter wander off alone). Malcolm's right that you can't smother your kids, but his main problem is that he's too distant with his daughter which contrasts with the dinosaurs being pretty good parents throughout the movie, and by the end he learns to be a better parent that knows when to step in to help just like the dinosaurs do (see how the stegos in the beginning give their kid space but come roaring in once they think he's in danger).
As much as the sequels were good for mindless entertainment, I frowned upon the idea of a sequel ever since I was a child. Jurassic Park was perfect in every way (and one of the very few monster movies that actually has interesting and compelling human characters as well), and honestly should've gotten the Best Picture Oscar that year. It was the perfect mixture of a family adventure film and horror movie thrown into one, and never before had dinosaurs been portrayed so realistically, for a moment when i saw it in the cinema I almost thought the dinosaurs were real. While The Lost World is the best sequel, it still doesn't hold up to the original. The rest are just...well, the less said the better.
You talking about Ian Malcolm's lack of an arc gave me this idea: Lost World should've been about changing Ian's perspective and showing that there was valuable knowledge to be gained by studying the dinosaurs with proper respect. He goes there to save Sarah expecting the horror of the first island but then discovers they...act like animals and will mostly ignore or avoid humans and he's shown her perspective on how wonderful and fascinating these creatures are and all the things we can learn from them. Perhaps he has some long-term health issues from the first island, but surprise surprise we've found the cure thanks to studying them (though that may be too on the nose). If you still want action, maybe instead of Ingen there to exploit them, it's a military operation to wipe them out. Maybe Ian even spoke in favor of this approach in the past, wanting to right the wrongs Hammond made, but now he sees things differently. Instead of just respecting life with his detached snarky view, he comes to care and want to protect it.
I think whats particularly interesting about the sequels is that occasionally they do pose questions that could naturally and richly build off the theme of the first one. I think it was the 2nd world movie that asked “Now that weve gone to far with this how do we deal with it and respond” but the film isn’t interested in diving into this question as much as its interested in recapturing the feeling of that first film for the 5th time.
You know... What you were saying about the settings of Star Wars and Jurassic Park got me thinking... I felt the same way about BioShock and BioShock Infinite. One game takes place in an underwater city and the other takes place in a city high above the clouds. Both are incredible settings and a big part of what made those games stand out is the fact that their worlds are so interesting and creative that you get immersed in them even when the stories tread familiar territory.😊
I don't think Grant "learning to care more about kids" Is a minor arc. He's introduced scaring a kid. Ellie is introduced _wanting_ a kid.
He's bad with technology and computers, by the end he is saved by a kid who is good with them. The sciency plotpoints turn around "the creation of life" and the animals now being able to reproduce. They are shown a cloning birds and the bees video and toured through a nursery basically, and it's wonderful but _scary_ .
It's subtle, but it's not minor. The high concept is the most obvious "Can science go to far?" Man vs Nature and all that. The human/character arc is really all about family, like... literally having-kids family. Both concepts are adressed by the question: "Can we be responable for the life we create?" and that's why both themes work so well. Remove the human concept, the heart of the movie, the Spielberg touch and this would have been a serviceable sci-fi movie instead of a cultural milestone.
Michael Crichton’s writing gave them a very solid foundation to work from. Once the films got past The Lost World, they were flying blind. Feels very similar to the decline in quality in Game of Thrones once they ran out of books.
The second film mostly suffers from big changes from the book.
@@LanceCSTCuddy I think Crichton’s books work great for a nerdy sci-fi thriller. I personally loved them, but the movies needed and additional something to be catchy and memorable. Being composed of some broad-strokes from it's book and left-over scenes from the first movie. It seems like the second movie just didn't have the themes and heart to set it up to the level of the first. Following my first comment I would have suggested something like. "Growth" Ok, we already had kids/created dinosaurs. What happens when they grow/spread? We can work Ian's relationship with his now teenage daughter over the background of dinosaurs spreading through an entire archipielago. Already messing with people and animals in the entire region around the island. Sort of like on the books. "The cat is out of the bag" and all that. The third should be the "Jurassic World" idea... that JW never delivered. How do we handle "the new normal"? There we have the trilogy:
I) Island, II) Archipielago/Region, III) World.
We spent instead 3 movies "going back to the island".
@@Rodrigo_VegaI was just wondering about this. I think that the best sequels for a JP-like franchise should take the leap and actually show dinosaurs as the new (returning?) normal. How does the world change? This also introduces a new fundamental theme: what should we do about it? The cat is out; do you try to exterminate the dinosaurs again, exploiting the fact that they are only starting to spread? Or do you try to accommodate them somehow, not with small parks but maybe with large natural reserves? Sounds like decent grounds for different characters to pick different sides and an OK source of tension to me. But nope, let's just go back to the island or come up with contrived plot ideas, I guess.
@@LanceCSTCuddy I'd make the argument that Crichton's style of writing is the very reason why the sequels can't do better. Michael Crichton is a one and done type of story writer and does so in such a way that the stories are concluded in a nice little bow with little room to expand upon. He only wrote a sequel once, The Lost World, and that was only after Spielberg begged him to do it. Granted, it didn't help that Spielberg did his own third act so he could have his version of King Kong rampaging through New York, but there isn't a lot of room to build upon. It also doesn't help that Hollywood is where concepts go to die since they rehash the same idea over and over again until no one cares for it anymore. The Jurassic World trilogy followed the same path as the new Star Wars trilogy, lure the audience in with a beat for beat remake of the original, then throw a strange twist in the second and realize that you have no idea how to capitalize upon that twist, so you make a mediocre finale that fails to explore the twist. They would have been able to create an entire franchise off of humans living with dinosaurs, but they resolved that arc off screen and left us with locusts.
Well said. For the reasons you've listed, the movie will always be superior to the book. I've never loved sci-fi but I do enjoy relationships, and that's the arc Spielberg added.
I still hate the wasted potential of dominion. It could've been unique with a story revolving around dinosaurs living in the modern world and its consequences but instead it focused on some random non-dinosaur animals and we travel to another isolated island that houses dinosaurs.
No fr and the camera works and dialogue were so awkward and painful😭
An the movie ends with the planet has to live peacefully with the Dino's im like dafuq. That's not how this works, theres a reason windlife conservationist are having problems with invasive species entering parts of the world and ruining the local eco-systems.
It would have been better if people in the world start to realized that living with Dinosaurs ain't all that good. As T-rexs attack and destroy towns, the farmland completely trampled by herds of Dino's causing world wide hunger. Animal species like Elephants are declared extinct in the wild, due to Velociraptors hunting and eating them and kept in Zoo's. An the occasional Dino rampage in the cities.
It would put the question of what Malcolm said before to John Hammond "But, John, If The Pirates Of The Caribbean Breaks Down, The Pirates Don't Eat The Tourists." It was all fun for people who want to see dinosaurs alive for awhile until those fantastic things start causing more problems then they should.
@@silentecho92able The movie does ignore the fact that large or a large number of carnivores and herbivores into an ecosystem is going to have a major impact on that ecosystem and the native creatures that are already there. That doesn't even address that humans tend to aggressively manage or hunt animals that are a "threat" to them or something of theirs. There is also the question of how can the dinosaurs multiply and spread so quickly in the 4 years between the first Jurassic World and Dominion considering there are a lot of species of animals whos numbers increase slowly even when aided by humans by providing food and combating predation.
@@jcohasset23 Yes that is also the point, you would think that a massive Dinosaur population exploding in a uncontrolled. Management like these Dino's, i would expect the world to become like the videogame Dino Crisis in no time.
Cause again these are prehistoric animals who basically eat anything they could find, if this series had any balls. It should show the massive ramifications of man playing god.
Dominion could’ve been the most interesting movie in the franchise, but they sold so fucking hard it still pisses me off
I used to mindlessly follow the series because I enjoyed only the cool dinosaurs.
7 years later, I still enjoy only the cool dinosaurs.
nothing to be ashamed of.
Barely remember first 3 to young, second i watched first bit didnt bother with sequels
Same
Nah, the new dinosaurs suck. Prehistoric Planet is miles and beyond any of the sequels portrayal of dinosaurs. The dinosaurs of PP is truly otherwordly, wonderous and absolutely terrifying.
Jurassic Park had actual character too though.
That spellbinding awe that overwhelmed a 12-year-old me when I saw that Brachiosaurus scene coupled with John Williams' stirring music in Jurassic Park can never be replicated.
they do move in herds 😊
When it comes to making a sequel to jurrasic park, the studio execs were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should
Jurassic Park 3 is the only sequel I accept
2 and 3 are well made fun rides, they have good tension and some great scenes. 3 is pretty goofy but other than the San Diego part 2 is really solid.
@@Wohlfe I like the San Diego part the best actually. Sure it's dumb, but it's a T-Rex in San Diego. That's awesome.
And because an idea of a sequel came to mind, it now simply has to happen at any cost.
@@jacksondavies3595 i do too, but it's the only part of the movie I'd consider goofy.
In fairness, they were doomed to be worse than the original, since the original is so gosh dang perfect and is very hard to beat
Like Thriller and Bad, every other album Michael Jackson made after those two has never had the major success that those two albums had.
Malcolm’s arc in The Lost World was actually cut down in the film from the script. It was about him connecting with his daughter who also pushed him to commit to his relationship with Sarah.
The T. Rexes’ role in the story mirrors Malcolm’s. He goes to the island to get Sarah back. The T. Rexes go to the trailers to get their kid back. The parental instincts that threaten Malcolm halfway through the film in the trailer scene later become a solution when Malcolm and Sarah use the baby Rex to get the parent back on the boat. Why doesn’t Malcolm just let animal control shoot and kill the Rex? Because Malcolm has new priorities: his goal isn’t just to get the Rex out of the city, it’s to reunite that family unit. And the movie ends with Malcolm’s family and the Rex family together in their homes.
Grant also has an arc in JP3. It’s about him getting over his trauma. It’s pretty explicit in the “Billy was right” scene. An earlier ending actually had Grant staying on the island to drive that point home, although that really didn’t make sense so I’m glad they changed it.
Yeah I have no idea why he didn't mention these important arcs. They are the main reason why these movies have any fans to begin with, some of which who even hold them in high regard with the first movie. It's kind of unfair to act like they had no themes just to prove a point that the first was superior. We all know that, but that doesn't mean the sequels were entirely pointless.
i agree
@monikasenpai1095
That's how all of these RUclips movie analysis go: contrast with the original and dismiss all themes explored in the sequels.
So I think the extent of the cuts in the lost world are far larger than you are giving credit for and makes for a far worse movie than you seem to realize.
If you look through all the cut content you realize the main theme of the story was supposed to be about the pursuit of goals at all costs and questioning if it's worth it in the end. This was supposed to be shown through the two perspectives of Malcom and Roland. Malcom being the persuit of truth/vindication and Roland for the persuit of the prize(hunting trophy's). Most of Rolands stuff was cut in the final movie for time but his arch is present by the end. His archs conclution being in scene were he loses his best friend to raptors while he got his prize. Malcoms story was costing him his family and his reputation. The final cut starts his story but refuses to finish it in favour of the T-Rex in LA. The original end was going to be Malcom at Hammonds funeral being given the option to prove that there are dinosaurs are on the island. Which he declined even though this is the thing that started his journey. This would have been more impactful it the setup to that at the beginning of the movie was also not cut. The other themes of family that were mentioned above were also present in that original cut.
Malcoms original story is present a bit in the movie like the guy in the subway train making fun of him at the beginning of the movie but, since the arch doesn't exist in the final cut the build up has no payoff. Note it needed a bit more setup to get the idea across as well.
I agree that the movie in the end had no theme but that in my opinion is due to the last minute edit to the script that put the T-Rex in the city. Something so last minute the couldn't even get all the actors back for the filming of it. That ending messed the movie up so badly that I understand why it was rated as low as it was.
The "Billy was right" scene is part of a character arc that was never properly established. What was Billy right about? He didn't take the raptor eggs for curiosity's sake. He took them out of greed. And he didn't even seem to be sorry that it got Udesky killed.
I was a kid in 1997 and The Lost World was definitely enjoyable, iconic, and captured my imagination as well. It was more straight forward than the first but kept a similar tone of tension, something all the rest after it lacked. And it definitely didn't do "the same thing".
Don't know why people say we didn't like it. I can't think of a kid not liking that movie. I still do. It's pretty good.
The lost world would have been top level with the San Diego scene switched to the bird scene in jp3 + better characters.
As a kid, I liked The Lost World more than Jurassic Park simply because it has more dinosaurs in action. But, as I got older, I grew to appreciate what a masterpiece Jurassic Park is.
TLW is a good movie, and I still like it. It's just the characters aren't that interesting and the whole San Diego scene feels a bit detached to the pacing of the story.
Maybe people mistakes Lost world with jp3? 😅
I'll never forget the beginning of the movie where the girl got attacked by the small dinosaurs. We never see nor find out what happened to her.
@@kenyaholloway-reliford8213 she did survive (I think it was mentioned when Malcolm met Hammond), but her parents sued the crap out of InGen.
It’s not that it doomed the sequels, it doomed the entire dinosaur movie genre.
🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
I mean, dinosaur movies before Jurassic Park hadn't been very good by most metrics for decades.
You can only really have dinosaurs and people interact in two ways. 'Science goes too far and brings them back' or 'people discover a lost world'. Anything else is so jarring it shatters suspension of disbelief. But both 'science goes too far' and 'discovering a lost world' plots have been run into the ground, explored in every possible way soo many times even by the 80s.
We got lucky that Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg understood how to bring depth and spectacle to the concept, but just being 'deeper' or 'flashier' can't save a concept from being an exhausted dead end, hammering harder on either of these points just send it up it's own metaphorical asshole.
Personally I'm of the opinion that anything else JP related should just be straight horror only.
the only good stuff we had before was Beast wars transformers ,and 7 years vacation with dinosaurs
I kind of have a love/hate relationship with JP for this reason. The paleontology is outdated by what, 30 years now? It simply isn't the case that this movie is the definitive picture of dinosaurs any more. But the film industry and the public in general don't seem to understand this. It's not like people stopped making dinosaur movies after King Kong or Valley of Gwangi, or were incapable of portraying dinosaurs in a way that didn't reference these films. But JP has a ridiculous death grip on dinosaurs in pop culture that needs to end. If there were any justice in the world, Prehistoric Planet would have completely eclipsed JP in cultural consciousness. I'm hoping it still will.
@@Thagomizer It never will. Not if Universal has anything to say about it. As long as they continue to build coasters and lands based on Jurassic Park, and by extension, World, it will never fall out of the pop culture. What they need is competition. A film or concept so good that it stacks up to the JP I.P., it can't be ignored, but not comparable beyond both containing dinosaurs.
The thing I hated the most about the Jurassic World movies were the fake hybrid dinosaurs they were making like just stick to the real ones
More so, the justification for the later ones’ existences.
‘You use this laser mounted on an assault rifle to tell the dinosaur who to kill, and it kills them, the perfect military weapon!’
‘If you’re already pointing a gun right at someone, why not just shoot them?’
‘ . . . ‘
Never understood this opinion, We've seen real dinos trample and destroy and allat in the first 3 movies. The Indominus was the perfect villain
I would say another large problem is the ADHD style of movies recently, there cant be a slow paced scene to give the characters a chance to interact and explore a scene, it has to be jump cut, jump cut, jump cut, action sequence, clever quip, jump cut, twist reveal, repeat in new setting.
The problem is slow scenes requires talented actors, good writing, and a skilled director with a clear vision and the gravitas to be able to fight against the editing room / studio's attempts to give the film "broader appeal"
Yesss. There is no smart writing and compelling dialogue scenes anymore. The sequels r made to make the most money and it seems like as the world's changed they've changed with it. I feel if jurassic park would've been released nowadays exactly the same but with today's modern technology it wouldn't be nearly as successful because modern audiences can't sit still for 5 mins
I just walked out of Ghostbusters Frozen Empire thinking this exact thing. The first ten minutes were enough to make me realize it - all modern movies are too damn *fast.* Some people call it the "TikTok Effect."
I think the main failing in that reguard starts with the writing.
Feels like modern movies also have an editing problem, scenes are short and immediately cut to other characters. Instead of having long breaks between seeing other characters it regularly cuts to the, which completely breaks every scene and makes it feel disjointed. Biggest one I’ve seen recently with this is GxK where it would cut to Godzilla, he would walk two steps and then cut away. And it would do that throughout the entire movie. Editors and filmmakers seem to have no respect for their audiences and believe they can’t go 2 minutes without seeing another perspective.
Yeah, whatever decent writing there is, the money heads make sure to get their claws on it so the movie ends as the generic, cut, cut, cut, quip, action, twist
The cons for me:
-Chris Pratt looks so reliable and strong. There is no more sense of fear.
-Chris Pratt is a raptor tamer, means that he is safe from raptors.
-I forgive them for making a hybrid dinosaur on jurassic world, but making another hybrid for the 2nd movie?
-To make it worse, the 1st hybrid is more of a trex, the 2nd one is more of a raptor, like they only know 2 dinosaurs. Why not a hybrid of trex and triceratops? That's scarier.
-They can still save the trilogy with the 3rd movie but NOOO. LOCUST
-Gigantosaurus has very few screen time.
30 years later, and I can still hear the Tyrannosaurus roar and feel that chill I got the first time I saw/heard it as a child.
The rex escaping in the first movie will always give me chills 😭 that scene it’s so good in every way possible
"Boy, do I hate being right all the time."
**Rexy roars**
Fun Fact. Tanya Harding used the main theme from Jurassic Park in her Olympic performance.
The Lost World doesn't deserve the crap it gets. Miles better than the other sequels and a worthy follow up to the first.
The lost world is a great sequel
Way better than Jurassic world...
I just wanted Sarah and Nick to get eaten they pissed me off so much in that movie!!
Personally the lost world is my favourite movie from the series the ending was amazing and the characters felt likeable
Jurassic park, jurassic world and Jurassic park the lost world are my favorites
It's because people today think they know everything, including what it was like when those movies were released. They think that older movies need to hold up to their ADHD standards and fluff and pretty lights and sounds, instead of watching a movie for the movie itself, and taking into consideration that they were made when they were, limitations (being overcome) and all.
God forbid we make a stand-alone movie nowadays. EVERYTHING needs to be a franchise now.
Built in audience, it's a way of cashing in, also they can't write good films these days, it's all woke politics and unrelatable characters
@@BVking509they absolutely can write good films. The Holdovers was great, Aftersun was great, All of Us Strangers was great, Tár was great
@@BVking509Oh, there are plenty of good films these days. Besides, "woke politics?" Did you forget that Jurassic Park itself would be labelled as woke trash if it came out today?
I don’t think the Lost World is given enough credit. The goal of the movie was not to recapture the wonder of dinosaurs, which you can see because there are near no scenes for that. It goes right to the action once they arrive on the island. In fact, it’s an ethical debate before it’s an action movie. The point of the Lost World was to be able to focus on character development and the man vs. nature issue because we have already seen dinosaurs, we know how they are made, how amazing they are, and what they can do. Malcolm and his team are going to Site B to do research on the dinosaurs and see them living in their “natural” environment without any man-made barriers. The action starts when Ludlow’s InGen mercenary team arrives to capture dinosaurs, which then raises more ethical debates. Ludlow says “Extinct animals have no rights. We made it, we patented it, we own it”, which is something to really think about now that the audience and characters already understand how the dinosaurs were created. You mentioned the themes of capitalism and greed, which I admit are loose, but that’s because there are many themes once you really look into it. Animal rights, as I mentioned, are a big one. Roland Tembo has the arc of wanting one last hunt, and wanting to hunt a T. Rex, but realizing that it’s not worth it after his friend and partner Ajay is killed. I think the most important theme though is parenting. Malcolm’s arc is that he becomes closer to his daughter. A father-daughter relationship is not common in movies, so it is refreshing to see that dynamic. The way this theme is shown is through the dinosaurs, which is how they are truly involved in the theme. Watching the stegosaurs and tyrannosaurs protect their children from threats, as Malcolm is doing the same with Kelly. The San Diego scene revolves around the buck T. Rex trying to find its infant. Malcolm’s goal is also to simply protect the people he loves, which are his girlfriend and daughter, who happen to be in one of the most danger places. I believe that this was such a prominent theme because Spielberg’s kids were growing up around the time the film was made. I say this because it is not a theme in Micheal Crichton’s Lost World novel. Kelly is not even Malcolm’s daughter, and there is no San Diego scene. The film was what made it into a story about parenting. I think it’s the only Jurassic movie that was confident enough to do something different.
106 likes and no comments? let me change that
Yeah lemme do the 2nd@@Godzilla2021_YT
Thank you! 100% agree with this. The Lost World doesn’t get enough credit. It’s a great sequel that really does an amazing job at showing the dinosaurs as animals just trying to exist.
Exactly, the second film's moral(though clumsily handled) was that sometimes the best way to help out nature is to just leave it alone, which in my opinion does complement the first one's theme of man's conquest of nature and the overreach of science.
This. It's pretty much the whole reason as to why I've always loved this movie and its settings so much, and why I've always preferred it over the original.
I actually think the premisse of the setting for dominion had great potencial: what would the world be like if we had to live alongside dinosaurs? Unfortunately, they barely even try to make the movie about that, and go to yet another park/research facility thing instead
I agree with that. They didn't show the true cost of living with dinosaurs. For example, they show farms. How will you farm with pterodactyl flying everywhere? What about broken supply chains? Second order effects? Massive deforestation because a prehistoric herbivores are roaming around?
Many scenes in the last two movies were just plain stupid, like releasing dinoaaurs to terrorize people and like shooting their way out of a car instead of shooting the dinosaur. The last one became Mission Impossible movie. They had Claire out running raptors. Yeah, ok!!!
100% agree. The concept had so much potential, which they wasted completely in trying to force it to be more like all the other JP films.
I think "The Lost World" is actually really good from a story perspective, and deserves more credit than it gets. It was intentionally going for more darkness to showcase another level of the "Jurassic Park" lore and themes. It graduated from 'Holy shit! There are dinosaurs alive! And they're so beautiful and awesome!' to 'AHH! THEY'RE EATING THAT GUY'S FACE OFF!!!' -- both of which happened in the same movie --, and then stepping off into the sequel with this point: 'Alright. Dinosaurs are alive again, and sequestered on these remote islands. But now people are getting ideas to bring them to mainland continents. Is that a good idea?'
And for the most part, I think "The Lost World" got it done well, showing us that when the same kinds of motives are acted on as occurred in "Jurassic Park", then the biggest losers are the innocent human beings who just wanted to see dinosaurs alive for the first time -- and also the human beings whose hubris led them into the jaws of hungry and pissed-off Tyrannosaurs.
Corporate greed that walk over many preventible deaths, repeating of same mistakes and continuing of modernasion of public perception of dinosaurs. My favourite in series honestly.
I mean the main problem LW wasn’t the idea and theme but rather the amount scenes in which you just had to go „ok like common“. Like take the T-Rex ship scene. When I am asked about a scene that doesn’t make sense whatsoever I immediately think of this. And there are so many of these in LW.
Don't be ridiculous. That story is not great. You don't seem to know what story from this perspective is.
It only seems good from a conceptual standpoint, but story is more than a basic synopsis. It's about the whole thing from beginning, middle, and end and what it is in comparison to other stories, so to stand out, as well as what it contributes to anything, especially for sequel stories.
The actual story is dinosaurs survive on another island, people plan to take them to the mainland, everything goes wrong, only one dinosaur and it's injured baby get to the mainland, wreaks havoc, gets subdued, sent right back, and everything is normal again.
That is a meandering story that only scratches the surface of what do for an actual sequel. Story and story concept on the surface are not the same.
Sarah and Nick honestly got on my nerves in that movie and yes Kelly’s acrobatics were stupid but at least she had some common sense knowing that the baby trex cries would attract other Dino’s namely the parents and immediately going with Eddy to hide. Hell I blame Sarah and Nick for causing not only Eddie’s death but others as well I don’t care if you’re an activist do not take bullets out of gun when you’re on an island filled with Dino’s!! And Sarah’s stupid decision to wear a jacket covered in baby trex blood!! I wanted both of them to get eaten so bad!!
well said 👏
2:03 for me I would have dove into one last film and gone with the idea "What would happen if there were dinosaurs still alive?" Where Alan Grant went through not just paleontology but myths and Legends of cryptids, sightings, and historical icons of dinosaurs living with mankind. Playing on his nightmares from the parks. Then throughout the film finding remnants of lost dinosaurs found in jungles. Bringing back John hammon's dream of seeing and touching something that was real. While also confirming that what they were doing was not creating dinosaurs but monsters. Pushing the narrative Ian made of man never learning that maybe man should never mess with nature. Each of the three movies drawing a concluded lesson that man can not control nature or history when new descoveries are always out there.
I have been a massive Jurassic Park fan ever since I was three years old, and I am sixteen now, and even with that being said, I largely agree with you about the loss of wonder being a bad thing... in all of the films save "The Lost World". LW was not about inspiring wonder in the audience, at least not as I see it. Lw is a film about a man who had the wonder, saw the majesty of the dinosaurs, and suffered for it, trying to protect others from that dream. It is a movie about the danger that is caused when wonder is put before reason.
I also feel like The Lost World did inspire wonder, it was the first film where we got to see the dinosaurs in the wild, where we saw them as more than 'theme park monsters" and went to explore them as animals. I feel like seeing the herd of stegos move through the redwoods has stuck with me almost as much as watching the Brachi rear up to tree, and even now I still feel that as a teenager i can go back and be awed by the dinosaurs time and again,
Every upload from this channel feels like a gift. This was another good one even though I enjoy JP2 & 3 a lot.
To me the most disappointing Jurassic movie was Dominion, it actually had a Novel concept of Dinosaurs being out in the wild and interacting with humans on a much larger scale, it even had the ideas of people exploiting the dinosaurs to sell them or use them for shows. It could have had the characters struggle to figure out what to do to contain the dinosaurs they have come to care for, and figure out a way to coexist. Instead, they gave us a angsty teen getting kidnapped, knife fights, a mission impossible type scene when the went to malta to arrest a dinosaur dealer, and a bunch of giant locusts. They then told us that while all these plots we didn't care about, the actually interesting and Novel idea we wanted to see explored had been magically resolved off-screen.
It made the whole movie feel like a waste of time, also considering the fact that they wouldn't have killed off any of the main cast so there was no threat and therefore no excitement to any scenes with them. Dominion was the first JP movie to actually bore me because of these critical flaws.
@@Justmonika6969Same. At least in the original JP sequels, there was intensity and a sense of danger for the main protagonists and they legitimately did kill off some characters, not just the villain characters, even good guys like Eddie and Udesky were killed off. And at least those film’s dumb moments did provide ironic enjoyment and made them memorable compared to Dominion’s which were just frustratingly dumb.
Literally this. I was so excited for Dominion, but walked out of the theater feeling nothing but disappointment.
If we were supposed to have sympathy for Maisie. They failed miserably.
@@raymondwatt9773 I had more sympathy for the Giganotosaurus
I think the allure of the FIRST Jurassic World for me was we finally got to see the park functioning and open to the people….albeit not for very long. The other two not so much ^ but it was a cool additional to the franchise to see Hammond’s dream briefly come true
Which recaptured the “wonder”
jurassic world was awful to me because Hammond in the end hated his dream and knew he'd made big mistakes. That they carried on with the park was spitting in Hammond's face and on his legacy. Every lesson learned from 1 & 2 completely and utterly shattered by the new trilogy.
It might be a generational thing then. All the Parks came out before I was born and as much as I really liked Park III, I thought the first one was okay and didn't like the second. And there was never any awe for me. Every close-up look at a Dino had me thinking -at 12- that is clearly not real. So jurassic world was the first time I had that awe and then horror. The Parks were like fun jungle adventure movies to me (probably why I liked III the most as it was going for)
Personally I think a good idea for at least a theme for a sequel is exploring two main concepts. The first is the idea of invasive species and what they do to local ecologies or maybe explore the moral question of possibly killing the dinosaurs and the fact that they are living creatures that you brought into the world and are now planning on murdering.
For as many issues as fallen kingdom has it does atleast touch on the debate of if its ethical to let a population of animals go extinct in order to protect the environment. The argument of are these animals with rights or are these Intellectual property that can be disposed of.
Very interesting idea, but I think that most people agree that invasive species should be exterminated if possible, so I don't think that the theme would resonate with people unless you villainize the invasive species
What's there to explore? They should've left the "dinosaurs" on the exploding island. We have enough trouble with our regular invasive species so genetically modified creatures would be disastrous. Everyone have their fair share of hitting a dog that sprinted across the road out of nowhere. Now, replace that dog with any sizable dinosaur. Who can go to the farms with packs of raptors around?
Then again it would be mainly Western concern since someone in Asia would certainly spread rumors about how dinosaur bones would be great aphrodisiacs. By the time the UN was able to twist the world's arms to sign some Dinosaur Protection Treaty the dinosaurs would be hunted down in Asia. Also thanks to the near frequent outbreaks of the feathered kind in the region I don't think Asians would like to live alongside their genetically modified ancestors.
@@timothyvahle2622 tbf the last two movies theoretically have a good theme: that of dinosaurs proliferation and the consequences of that, it’s just that it’s handled very badly.
Themes like money perverting science should’ve been the focus of Jurassic world in general.
I agree, something exploring invasive species and humans having to coexist with large predators (like herders in Kenya with lions, or ranchers in the US with wolves) seems like the best route for a sequel. We've agreed that dinosaurs shouldn't come back, but they're here now and they're not going anywhere, so now what?
My favorite way of describing jurassic world is its all frosting and no cake. It survives exclusively on imagery and action and nothing else.
I like that description of it a lot. And this is coming from someone who somewhat enjoys JW.
Me watching The Lost World for the first time: "That was absolutely mid."
My thoughts on The Lost World after watching the other 4 sequels: "Perhaps I treated you too harshly."
You was definitely delulu when you first watch the movie
No, its still worst than 3 and Jurassic World straight up
@@egbertmilton4003
"Fruitcakes."
The Lost World is still an A tier movie.
@@hanburgundy4317 Lost World is D tier at best
@@egbertmilton4003
That's crazy lol You've got weird taste in movies it you think TLW is a D tier movie. 😂
Ironically, Jurassic Park's sequels fit the exact words of Malcom: They were too concerned on whether they could (make sequels), they never thought if they _should_
I have something I want to say. As a writer to a writer.
In the last months, I've been trying to do something that I heard from a very good storyteller that simply stuck to my head. Specifically, a phrase. "If you want to make a story that will stand out, learn how to write a story from the very beginning. Because if you learn how to make something in the exact way others have learned, you'll inevitably make a similar product."
I've seen my favorite movies, read my favorite books and watched my favorite shows again, trying to learn to learn everything that made them great from the start. Dissecting everything, as if I had never known anything about storytelling in my life. Pointing out the limitations and the flaws I see, rewriting them over and over and showing the edited versions to storylovers and asking them about what they think and the results I got were stunning. The sheer amount of times I heard "it hits different" just shows how successful I was in achieving my goal. Yes, I did get negative criticism, but I still got what I wanted: to make a new story that doesn't follow the rules and boundaries writers are taught to think necessary . I saw the things that ACTUALLY made stories better and learned from them and only them. I realized something that you mentioned in one of your videos, but this time, I actually got to feel what you meant: that there are simply some things we put to our stories without reason just because we learned to do so.
Yeah, it's true that if you follow in another's footsteps, you will never forge a new path. There is incredible value in analysing other people's works, but you should never actually say "I'm doing exactly what this person did", maybe if it's just one scene, imitating a style or approach is fine, but you've got to write what your heart yearns to, not what you think is 'popular'.
Every genre has specific tropes that are expected to happen in them but a great writer knows how to twist them in a fresh and unique way that doesn't feel cliche
Bryce Dallas Howard's monologue about how they made a new dinosaur because regular dinosaurs were no longer interesting wasn't just an in-world explanation for the Indominus, it was the writers' real-world justification for the whole plot as well. They didn't know how else to make the story original besides just going full sci-fi monster disaster movie.
Honestly of all the sequels I thought Fallen Kingdom had the best premise of trying to rescue the dinosaurs from the island's exploding volcano but then they abandoned the premise half way through to go to dinosaur auction
Similiar premise was done in Prehistoric Park, especialy Microraptor episode.
Same with Dominion, but dinosaur coexistence where they just immediately go to BioSyn. I felt scammed when I walked out of the movie theatre.
@@Kromiballfr, I don’t even think they played the Jurassic park theme song a single time
It wasn't even halfway 😑
50 minutes in to a 2 hour 14 minute* movie they leave it behind. Hell put the auction ON the island
It's quite realistic knowing what rich people do with their money, they buy things when something is discovered or rescued like dinosaurs for whatever malicious intent they have for those animals and could possibly be used as weapons for the military or most likely a weapon for personal use
Jurassic park 2, the lost world. Was mainly about parenthood. Ian is shown at the start of the film as shunning his responsibilities towards his adopted daughter, constantly pushing her aside for work and not even knowing she got kicked off the gymnastics team in the beginning of the film. By the end, he’s a dedicated father and it’s a juxtaposition with the rex family. We see Ian, his daughter and his girlfriend hanging out together watching the red family be returned home.
I’d say the first two sequels are fun popcorn films, and the three World films suffer the same problems that plagued the Star Wars sequel trilogy.
That being said, I think there’s a lot of fascinating lore to explore with Jurassic Park and I believe expanding back to when the Nublar park was being built, possibly showing more of Isla Sorna, or maybe even exploring the effects of having Dinosaurs on the mainland could be grounds for something rich. I don’t believe the goal should be to recapture the magic since that ship sailed in movie 1, but rather create a different standard the franchise could be known for whilst having audiences be both amazed and terrified by the dinosaurs. It has potential, we just need the right people and creatives for it in my opinion.
But considering modern Hollywood it’s likely that won’t happen for a while
The first two movies in the sequel trilogy are LEAGUES ahead of the world trilogy
@@jacksback1224TLJ is offensively bad, so no. Jurassic World (the first one) was fairly mediocre nostalgia-bait, much like The Force Awakens. The next two JW movies were pointless, boring, unimaginative, and little more than popcorn flicks to those who enjoyed them. The Last Jedi, however, was the film which caused the collapse of Star Wars because Johnson was not a fan of the films and believed he knew better than those who came before him, including George Lucas himself.
For me personally, out of all the 6 movies of the franchise, Jurassic World (2015) is my personal favourite. It had a decent enough story, lots of dinosaur, and most importantly it is my core memory, to watch this film in 3d with my mom and sister. I remember watching its trailer a 100 times over in its anticipation. It was quite worth it tbh.
Fallen Kingdom sets up the incrediblely interesting story of dinosaurs living among us.
Domination is about stopping freaking locusts, then it PRETENDS it was exploring coexistence in the last scene!
Jurassic Park 2 (The Lost World) is honestly super underrated, it is definitely not the same as the first one, but i enjoyed it throughout
I’ve always loved The Lost World. So underrated. Obviously not as good as the original, but honestly not far off.
The original and the lost world are the only two I like. Haven’t seen dominion but fallen kingdom was so bad it was almost funny.
For me the second one is meh. The video’s criticisms are accurate. Amazing set pieces though.
dominion is the one movie that i regret spending money on to see in theaters the most
The Lost World was exactly what my 8 year old self could have ever dreamed of. Good hearted protagonist that loves nature, lots of action with lots of new dinosaurs, raptors eating sooo many bad guys and then a friggin T-Rex free roaming in a city, with car crashes and all. And a cute baby T-Rex. It honestly never tried to be better than the original, but it gave the little kids that loved dinosaurs exactly what they wanted.
Even the third isn't all that bad in that context, just more boring for the lack of expendable side characters and repeated settings, but the Spinosaurus was really cool.
And dominion, I guess watching it with friends while slightly drunk could be a laugh riot XD
I still remember the scene with the woman on the glass cracking, ordering some cheeseburgers to this day, and I haven't seen Lost World in so long.
Dominion literally has flaws in EVERY MAJOR ASPECT of its story
Such a well written essay!
The comparison between The Force Awakens and Jurassic World is surprisingly apt, I've been saying as much for a long time. When Jurassic World 3 came out, after seeing it I told my friends that the Jurassic World trilogy and the Disney Star Wars trilogy were basically the same trilogy of movies. An initial film that's well liked but completely rehashes the original a plot, a second movie that gets a bit crazy but at the same time is hard to remember details of, and a third movie with a completely meandering and poorly written plot that reintroduces a villain from the original movies.
JWD was such a huge disappointment. You've got millions of dollars, the OG cast, and the Jurassic Park IP. But they came up with an uninspired piece of junk with stale characters and a stupid locust quest. Big budget action scenes that just weren't exciting
JWFK also copied aspects of TLW, just like how TLJ copied parts of ESB. Dominion was finally it's own thing but then they dropped the ball with the locust plot completely missing the entire setup that JWFK gave it that was even remotely interesting.
I’d much rather watch dominion than the force awakens
@@TheAntiDisneyGoddominion is ass
Additionally, the 2nd movie in both trilogies introduces a new plot element that divided the fanbase...
(TLJ: Rey's parents were nobodies
JWFK: Maisie is a human clone)
...Only for the 3rd movie to completely retcon those changes
(ROS: Rey is now Palpatine's granddaughter
JWD: Maisie isn't a clone anymore)
Imagine being so iconic any movie made with the same genre as you is automatically met with, “oh, so like Jurassic Park?”
16:20 - Spielberg never wanted to make 2, but the studio told him they would do it without him then, so he begrudgingly joined the production to save what he could if I recall correctly.
Jurassic Park and Jaws both should've never had sequels. I do hope they do a remake of Jurassic Park based more on the novel, a mini-series of episodes to fit everything in with claymation Dinosaurs done in a way to make them seem like actual terrifying creatures instead of stupid roaring for the camera, that would be amazing.
One idea I can think of is to make the theme of the sequel the opposite of the first; showcase how exactly dinos, humans, and modern nature could coexist with each other. Ian could have his character ark one of coexistence changing his beliefs.
I guess that was what Dominion was finally supposed to be, but they completely ignored that plot in favor of the locust one which no one expected or cared for.
Like handle how the dinosaurs were made extinct due to an event that was so random and kind of bullshit, and explore giving them a second chance to live in a very much changed world
Recently rewatched Jurassic Park and it still holds up so damn well, like the build up to the raptors, they are always talked with danger and even when the dude hacks the system, even he does not mess with the raptor cage until our main characters have a "Good job breaking it hero" moment
I appreciate JP3 for the amount of depth it gave Asset 87. He actually has a dark history in canon that none of the other "antagonist" dinosaurs have: most of his life was genuine abuse, and because of that, he has an insatiable hatred for humans. The raptors are either comedic relief, or only exist to drive the plot forward. Rexy is just hungry all the time (can't blame her either). The Indominus was killing things because the plot said it had to, while the Indoraptor didn't really have the screentime to develop into much past "ooh scary". The Giganotosaurus was just caught between a rock and a hard place for no reason because Dominion apparently needed a big dinosaur fight with the Therizinosaurus. Asset 87, though, was already a lethal animal by design, then spent most of his formative years in a claustrophobic lab, being abused by scientists he eventually learned did not care at all what happened to him, and because of that, he actually has an innate reason, not driven by plot, to go after any humans he comes across. I feel like that gets lost in the semi-blind dislike for the 3rd movie I see online.
I’m assuming “Asset 87” is the Spinosaurus.
Indeed he is @@BullGator-kd6ge
Sure would have been cool to be shown this story in the film, expanded universe stuff is cool and all but there is very little in the film that shows that to the audience.the retroactive writing doesn't fix the viewing experience for the casual audience who hasn't read these stories.
When did jp3 ever give the spinosaurus any backstory?
@@YodaOnABender it didn't, but as with most of the rest of the franchise, a lot of his canon lore comes from online.
Really insightful video! I never really thought about how this particular franchise has a shelf-life compared to other series where you can expand the mythology a bit more naturally. I think the most emblematic scene for why the sequels struggle is in Jurassic World when that brilliant "awe and wonder" score plays triumphantly as the kid looks out at...a freakin' theme park. That is completely manipulating the audiences emotions without understanding what it is about the first movie that work other than the superficial notion of "the music was good."
This is why I really liked the pacing of Michael Chriton's original novels. The movies will ALWAYS have a super special place in my heart and should be talked about for their cinematic achievements, but the books tell the story of Jurrassic Park so much better IMO.
I still remember reading the Raptor sequence for the first time under the blankets with my little clip-on reading light and being absolutely terrified.
Remember the compys eating that baby in the beginning ...sheesh
The Lost World novel was boring and is one of the few movies I feel that is superior to the book. Michael Crichton was involved in the screenplay with the first two movies but I'll agree that all of Crichton's books give a much more in-depth exploration of the world and the technology than all of his books that have been turned into movies.
@@jcohasset23 it's the opposite. The movie was terrible compared to the book. It also contained some of the worst acting I've ever seen in a major motion picture
@@GuyoftheStars It's been over 20 years since I read the book so I don't recall but I remember being underwhelmed with the book, which was a surprise considering most of his books are really good (and is why so many were made into movies in the 70's and 90's). Either way it was obvious that the book Jurassic Park was not intended to have a sequel when it was written and Crichton only started writing The Lost World when it looked like the movie Jurassic Park was going to be a major hit.
The answer is to change the location. The Lost World was a good sequel! But you cannot make a third movie.
If you're talking about sequels, it's a crime not to mention the How To Train Your Dragon movies. I'm curious to know what you think about them.
Great suggestion!!
Number 3 was beautiful but that song at the end was TERRIBLE. Dont know who asked jonsi to sound so top 40. Like stock music.
Wow. The main character's arc is representative of the theme. How they change is how we interpret what the theme is saying. 9:47 I think we have an intuitive sense for that, but this is the clearest I've heard that expressed. So helpful for storywriting!
I watched Fallen Kingdom when I was like 13, I only watched Jurassic Park and World prior and I liked those films, and this movie was when I realized a movie can be well directed, acted, edited, and technically not boring, but still be very bad due to a lousy script
Fun fact
Michael Crichton only wrote the sequel because he felt the movie's success meant he had to
Honestly I think the element with the most potential was the relationship between Owen Grady and Blue, but when we think about stories that do this concept justice e.i. How to Train Your Dragon or The Water Horse, it is usually a child in conflict with their parents and society who has this dangerous connection to a beast. It would be difficult to do this with Jurassic Park because the capitalist overseers seem the types to encourage this for profitable opportunities. Plus, if we make the dinosaurs into amicable misunderstood creatures, then we ruin the horror of the film.
they actually do lean into this in 'jurassic world: camp cretaceous', which is a cartoon spin off canon to the jurassic world movies!!
one of the characters is super cowardly and feels unaccepted and misunderstood by his parents and peers alike and bonds with a baby ankylosaurus whose birth he is present for and they form a very httyd-esque bond :)
however, the show notably does get pretty horrific bcs it has plenty of aggressive dinos/humans alike and even a pretty horrifying hybrid to maintain the horrific aspect (which i think it does quite well tbh)
Oh yeah I forgot about that, I saw the show lol@@madsoldyt7109
It's not that hard to solve this, I think.
The problem with the first JW is that it tries to convince us Owen has a bond with the raptors, but their very introduction shows us they'd have eaten him if he had stayed for a second longer in their enclosure. Then when the plot demands it to, he can suddenly drive a bike through the rainforest together with the raptors as if they'd been doing it for years.
What would've worked a whole lot better was if it was shown from the very introduction that Blue was special. Not in a child friendly dinosaur-buddy way, but simply as a bridge between the human and the other members of the pack. Make her block the other raptors from trying to get Owen or something, nothing big, just a clear sign that the two have a bond. No cuddly dinosaur of course, just a man-sized predator that has a bond with one specific human and who will kill any other human that tries to do the same. In other words, realistic animal behavior.
Then make the villains force Owen to let the raptors out to track the I. rex, but let them all simply get killed by the I. rex, Blue of course later turning out to have escaped said fate. Tragic moment for Owen, tragic for Blue because she also lost her congeners and perfect for the viewer to feel something while watching it all happen. Then make her later show up again to distract the I. rex so the humans can release the T. rex.
It' something that botters me a lot about the first JW, because even though I agree it's downright impossible to reach the same level of quality of the first JP, JW had a whole lot of new features for the franchise but simply didn't use them to their full potential. (human-dinosaur bond, a Frankenstein-dinosaur, a fully functional park)
Clearly we have really different opinions because I think a velociraptor saying ALAN is the greatest thing to come out of the Jurassic park series.
Why is everyone so hooked up on the dream sequence Raptor saying Alan😂😂😂
Because it's so fucking stupid and out of place for the movie, but also such a perfect example of what dreams are like.
Because it's absolute kino.
@@FallingPicturesProductionsso are the my little pony pedos you’re subscribed to
The second Jurassic World and the third do ask a very interesting question. The posed concept is if a “cloned” or man-made living being has the same right to exist as a natural creature.
I think the reason Jurassic World worked when other Jurassic sequels didn't is because it still resulted in something somewhat new. It was genuinely cool seeing a fully functional park. It was something I always wanted to see. What would have happened if John Hammond's dream actually worked?
Okay but when I watched JP 2 I felt the wonder as well, mainly from the concept of Nature's persistence. And I think every movie had a few killer scenes that really caught my attention.
Honestly, as much I enjoy the sequels (most of them anyway), this is a good point. Even Colin Trevorrow himself admits that JP1 did not need sequels. Yes, THAT Colin.
I always wanted an R Rated Dinosaur Movie
I will say, as a massive Jurassic Park fan, the original Jurassic World movie did, in a way, re-capture that wonder and magic of the original movie. The reason why is that it asked the question which all of us kids and enormous dinosaur fans always dreamed about; what if the park succeeded? Why did we all dream about that? Simple; I can only speak for myself, but I still say that if Jurassic Park ever did come into existence, no amount of money would stand in the way of me getting to see my childhood come to life. And given the massive gulf in time between JP3 and Jurassic World, I think that most of the people from my generation who indeed went to Jurassic World wanted to experience that awe for ourselves, and I believe that it delivered. I think that generational difference might reveal a bit of a difference in opinion on Jurassic World. Oh, and unlike that first new Star Wars movie (which indeed was a direct copy), that idea of seeing Jurassic World actually succeed, no matter how brief, makes it a jewel to me personally. Now Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Dominion? You can have them back haha
Couldn't agree more! I'm working on a video about the JP comics at the moment and it's the exact same problem.
I feel like Claire had an arc in JW, which was “learning to see the dinosaurs as living things instead of moneymaking assets”, although we didn’t really see the payoff until the second movie…
It’s a real shame this wasn’t explored more because it would tie so well into a potential theme of the sequels, something like “creating dinosaurs was a mistake, but now they’re here, and they deserve to be treated as living things and we have to take responsibility for them”.
It could even have worked as an allusion to something like Frankenstein. I’ve always read that story from the point of view that Victor Frankenstein’s greater sin isn’t creating the monster, but rather not taking responsibility for his actions and his creation…
Agree, the thing that botters me the most about the first JW is that it has many new features that it adds to the franchise, but simply doesn't use them to their full potential. Some not even to the slightest.
Clair's arc is such a mess: going from the actual villain who's framed to not like kids (a novel Hammond, basically) to a dinosaur lover who likes kids (for no reason at all btw) and never facing any consequences for what she caused in the first movie. Movie Hammond faced bigger consequences in TLW for being simply naive. Clair gets away with everything. And in Fallen Kingdom she's a completely different character with no explanations given. It's just terrible writing...
And the whole Frankenstein-theme is literally right there, but it isn't explored further than the surface level of "creating hybrid is bad."
Imagine if this movie actually showed that the I. rex was traumatized, had no clue about the outside world and tried to find connection with the specific dinosaurs it got mixed from (the raptors and/or the T. rex) and failed because it's simply is not able to because of said mixed genes. How tragic that would've been! All we got was a generic big bad dino that simply eats everything and that can only be stopped by the ultimate fan service.
I thinn you could have made sequels. For example: if they want the zoo/themepark idea alive, take a person that only takes herbovore dinosaurs (to show they learned from the past). Since herbivores arent as interesting, they need to push the limits: having them being used like ponies, trained like circus pets, photo booths and so on. The main character as a zookeeper could be morally conflicted because he partakes in the exploitation of these animals. For another sequal, you could have the question of dinosaur warfare (a thrme that was introduced but never fully explored).
They should have "mad max-ed" dominion, they had a perfect set up with dinosaurs escaping into the wild at the end of the previous movie, setting dominion post dinosaur armageddon would have been an amazing choice
HUGE Jurassic Fan! HUGE! That last movie pissed me off 😭😭😂 throughout the damn movie everyone kept telling each other “i remember you” “ i know you” while pointing at each other 😩😩
I think movies should lean into a dinosaur horror, it could be real cool to get a suspense horror of a man trapped alone being hunted by a dinosaur
Not only did the sequels fail because they tried to find contrived ways to return us to the island, but they tried to find contrived ways to return us to Dinosaurs. The technology that created the Dinosaurs is the heart of the ethical debate/theme of the film, not the Dinosaurs themselves. A more believable, creative sequel to Jurassic Park is one wherein the ripple effects of the genetic pandora's box that was opened by Wu and Hammond play out in other disturbing ways in society, and how they're abused by greedy corporations, governments, and the military-industrial complex to achieve goals based in greed, narcissism, power, or hate. The scrapped idea for the 4th sequel is what I feel came closest to doing this. Apparently the script was focused around the story of a military lab that was trying to create hybrid human-dinosaur super-soldiers. This would no doubt have been executed terribly and flopped due to not featuring the familiar raptors and T-rexes the first movie made iconic, but it was at least attempting to extrapolate the consequences of Wu's technology and Hammond's greedy disregard of bioethics in a different setting. This is all to say that yes, Jurassic Park sequels are doomed to fail, because to do something new, interesting, and coherent, they'd have to pivot away from Dinosaurs, which would obviously disappoint anyone attending a movie titled "Jurassic Park #" or "Jurassic World [Insert Subtitle]"
Real minority here, but JP3 is probably my favorite of all of these. A big part of this is because kid me just felt it sooo beautiful. Even looking at it now, the colour pallete really sticks out. Even the river scene as they pass by the field of dinosaurs felt just as emotional and iconic as the brachiosaur in the first one.
It was such a big deviation from both of its predecessors, with it literally changing the iconic JP logo.
In terms of fresh experiences, JP3 really hit it out of the park. JW and forward, like the video says just didn't have that freshness of new ideas.
Readers of the books will notice how JP3 is basically an amalgam of book scenes that were deleted for the movies. The "dinosaur factory" from the lost world, the aviary from the first but because it was the first time these ideas got out of the pages and onto the silver screen, they are still fresh and well executed sequences.
Too late to change the entire structure of the comment so im putting it at the end, among the hottest of takes, this is gonna be a hot take. The raptor redesign for JP3 is probably the best look theyve ever gotten. Again, the colour pallete looks way more beautiful for the Raptors. I also like how they built on the pack hunting idea. The previous movies focused on the 'hunting' part, but this one really focuses on the 'pack'
Real, and honestly I heard a really good story concept for Jurassic Park 4 that they had initially planned but scrapped and made the JW trilogy instead, where basically this model of the raptors, where they had quills and such, was like the beginning of them sort of reverting back to their more “accurate” version of themselves in the past because they were breeding out all the invasive gaps in the genome InGen made them with so instead of being how they expected them to look like, they were becoming how they should look like (e.g the raptors actually got feathers and a lot of the other dinosaurs were more vibrantly coloured or looked more accurate) and the concept art for it is super cool, like it had Billy return and followed a lot of the similar ideas done in the Jurassic world movies (I.e being tricked by the military about researching dinosaurs, raptors being dangerous but potentially trainable, and also the fact in JP 4 the whole idea was a couple dinosaurs (Quetzalcoatlus and Tylosaurus) escaped into the mainland and were posing a threat, so the government made a decision to just exterminate all the dinosaurs on Isla Sorna to eradicate the problem.
And it would’ve explored more on the pack and intelligence part of them as well, since Billy was given some means of respect or privilege when the lead female raptor had figured he saved her nest from the marines who were trying to chase Billy after he disagreed about them killing all the dinosaurs on the island (being tricked into thinking they were there to study them).
In my opinion I think that would’ve made for a pretty good sequel if done right instead of the JW trilogy we got. You can search up more about the concept on RUclips or Google I think, they talk about it in more detail. :D
The problem with the first two "Jurassic world" was that the dinosaurs act more like Kaiju than actual animal
"Jurassic world: dominion" instead was just random and goofy aah thing put togheter to try to create a plot.
Theme of the lost world is about parenting and family. Not only is Ian Malcom's arc about that, but its even mirrored by the T rexes and their motivations of taking care of their child - breaking through the initial idea of them as mindless uncaring brutes (also akin to how Malcom's attitude with his kid evolves). It challenges one of the biggest impressions the first movie left us with - that dinosaurs are just deadly monsters. That's a brave thing for a sequel to do. I don't think its fair to say TLW has no deeper theme.
That's not a brave thing! Animals being nice and not entirely bad? That's been done to death! Plus, it doesn't apply to the dinosaurs because their familial struggles are not as complex as ours. Not much of anyone got the impression that dinosaurs were monsters from the first movie because of the herbivores!! The theme was also poorly executed, too. Parenting and family is NOT a deep theme! Disney does it constantly every year! The Lost World is a terrible movie with no deep theme.
Aren't u that idiot who claimed Godzilla isn't a diverse character. Alsodinosaurs being treated more as animals was something new in 1997. Before wwd
, so yeah. In reality it's dinosaurs as mindless monsters that's been done to death. The hell dude. @@william3100
@@william3100dinosaurs have evidence of social behaviour and parental care. Especially in theropod dinosaurs like t rex. Btw, I don't remember any dinosaur destroying the environment in purpose or comitting war crimes like humans do. By that logic we should have killed all reptiles and birds or any dangerous animals because they aren't as complex as usual. Idiot
Read the book first in 1990. Waited anxiously three years for the movie. Reread the book this year. The movie was modified greatly so that it would not be restricted to kids as the book was a horror story and much longer. The last three movies were disappointing. In fact I have never even seen the last one it looked so horrible and I am a lifetime dinosaur geek now just 71.
There is an idea that comes from little shop of horrors that i think could work, the plot would be about modifying dinosaurs to make them house pets. And the species of dinosaur you own reflects your status, as a commentary on luxury products and the social prestige that they represent. So the first part would be cute scenarios of dinosaurs acting like puppies but then growin too big because of overfeeding or something.
I don't know how intresting of a story that would be tho.
could do something like that, but instead have them introduced for pest control but become a major invasive species
Actually dinosaur pets was one reason Biosyn infiltrated Ingen in the OG novel, because Dodgson convinced the board of management you could make millions selling pet dinosaurs that only eat food made by Ingen.
I die a little inside every time someone tells me they've seen all the Jurassic World movies but none of the Jurassic Park trilogy
0:07 Hot take alert!!! I think this scene is really dumb but not as dumb as people say it is and it doesn't out-dumb the child beating a dinosaur with gymnastics in the second one. The reason I think this is that this is a dream and really dumb and weird things can happen in dreams. So this could happen while beating a dinosaur with gymnastics from the second one couldn't, again it's still dumb but not as dumb as people say it is.
It is as dumb as people say because it breaks the feel and suspension of disbelief by putting in a very silly sequence of Billy's voice being heard while Alan sees the raptor as if the raptors is talking and saying "alan". It feels like something straight out of a cartoon.
@@william3100 Yes but anything can happen in a dream, and if it happened in real life not only would I agree with you but I would think it would be dumber than everyone says, but since it's a dream and we've all had some really bizarre dreams, you can't say it's not dumb but I do think it's not as dumb as most people make it out to be. While this may be a bit of personal preference I've had dreams that were may sillier, and more cartoony than this, and literally anything is possible in a dream, so this doesn't break the feel and suspension of disbelief as much as it does for you since whenever a dream happens I don't think anything is out of the ordinary because it's a dream.
@GOODYGOODGOOD789 but in a serious movie, cartoony scenes like that mess with the overall tone, especially considering that scene in particular was supposed to be a serious warning for things to come, as well as be indicative of Alan's trauma.
We are not talking about what's possible in real life. We are talking about narrative tone and comedic tone, and Jurassic Parks comedic tone is not supposed to be very cartoony.
The whole weird or scary thing in dream that talks to you because of someone in the real world is more in line with Looney Toons or other silly cartoons than a serious action adventure movie.
@@william3100 I feel like we've reached an impasse here where all I can say is what I've said before and that I typically don't find insanely silly things that happen in dream sequences to be dumb because it's a dream (even if it feels right out of SpongeBob SquarePants which it does in this case, though I feel like it's more of a me thing in this case, even though I can definitely see all the criticism of it. Because when I said it wasn't as dumb as people say (but still dumb don't get me wrong), I was purely talking about how in universe this is possible because it's a dream, and not anything else, and you are right in talking about how this doesn't fit the movie at all tonally, but that wasn't what I was talking about.
answer to the entire video is at 1:55 seconds
Just like the movie “Predator” (1987), every sequel will just highlight how perfect the first movie is!!!!
Predator 2 is really good. It done something different. In some ways i prefer it to the first one.
Honestly, my best idea for a sequel is one where Hammond searches for a new scientific discovery. I don't know which specific discovery it would be, but if he found one that was dangerous, but also had the potential to help humanity, it would be an interesting expansion on the original, where the general consensus seems to be, "Dinosaurs shouldn't have ever come back." Having a discovery where the answer isn't so cut and dry would expand on the themes and challenge the characters in a different direction.
The very obvious problem with this story idea is that if this direction was taken, it would effectively be an entirely different story with the same characters, and be utterly unrecognizable compared to the first movie. And now that there's five sequels all featuring dinosaurs, switching to a movie without dinosaurs would be an absolute commercial failure.
The novel of “The Lost World” does this, the movie briefly walks over the premise of the book, but the reason they go to Site B is to learn about the dinosaurs and potentially discover what lead to their extinction, not stopping Ingen from opening another park, although Dogdson does go to Site B to bring back baby dinosaurs for Biosyn
The thing that made the original movie so good was that it was fairly accurate for its time, if they used the excuse, "well we did not have perfect strands of DNA in jurassic park 1 but now we do and so here are extremely scientifically accurate dinosaurs, and they are absolutely beautiful" if they had done that, and actually asked experts for designs, they could have recaptured the awe from jp 1. Because then they could have made believable dinosaurs and not just monsters. Real animals are terrifying, and dinosaurs are a perfect example of that.
I'm normally a person who can remember plot details incredibly well. Even in films that I despise, I can remember what leads to what.
However, Jurassic World Dominion is the one and only exception to this for me. I can't remember what happens at all. It has grasshoppers and some Utopia of sorts. That's literally all I remember.
That's basically the gist of the movie so you aren't far off 😂
its got that fight scene with that sexy half japanese chick who played a "young" milf in marvel's agents of shield.
“How can we stand in the light of discovery and not act.”. Is a powerful line.
I'd say the Lost World is the actually good. It's just people over look certain elements in it.
The lost work has been one of my favorite movies of all time because of how it focuses on the horror aspect more that the first movie but it does it in a proper way by introducing a new island and letting Malcom have the spotlight
The start of the franchise was so good because it actually somewhat portrayed the original authors vision. Also the Cinematography in the OG trilogy just can not be beaten by the uninspired new movies
Also I must say the second Jurassic Park is kinda meh but the third is also an absolute BANGER. Everything afterwards under the Jurassic World name was really just unnecessary
It portrayed the authors vision because the author was involved in writing the script. To the point that hes even given an open credit for the screenplay. And actually just looking it up a bit more, Crichton wrote the first draft and David Koepp took that and wrote the final draft which likely mostly involved editing for pacing and things like that. Crichton, having written for shows before, was an experienced screenplay writer. He created and wrote the scripts for Twin Peaks, a TV Show in the 90s, and I think that experience shows. Other authors might not have the experience to adapt a novel to a movie and thus hand it over to other authors who fuck it up. Crichton had the experience and skill and so did a lot of the writing himself.
I watched the original at the cinema as an 11 year old. It will always hold a special place in my heart and none of the sequels will ever live up to that experience and memory for me personally
Oddly enough, the only sequel that works well, and works differently, perhaps to its detriment, is The Lost World. A film with equally strong writing (mostly) and a tremendous amount of terror, awe and Leitmotif’s from Johnny Williams
Where was the strong writing when it came to all (!) the characters?
Strong writing? I mean, the first act was fine but once the dinosaurs start attacking, it becomes another spectacle over substance film.
The roller coaster at 11:25 is Colossus at Lagoon! It’s cool you put it in your video
Interesting video.
I would say that the main issue of JP sequels is not only the struggle to follow in the steps of the original movie in thematic field or in the spirit (wonder/horror), but also because it is tied to the nature of the story. While any story can potentially be explored further afterwards on paper, the narrative structure, the content or both can bring hurdles that restrict this development. For example, a huis clos can't exactly be explored further because the context would have to be different to avoid repetition and dullness in the concept. A sequel has both to explore either in further ways or in alternate manners the elements of the first while considering what has been done at the end of the original story while recapturing the themes and feelings.
Jurassic Park couldn't exactly have that. TLWJP attempted something different (even though it was also based on the book) and managed to some extent because a) it was on a different island with a different setting and environment, b) dinosaurs were free and in "their element" and tries to explore some of the aftermath of the first (tied to Ingen). But those elements could cover only a part of the other elements. JP3 in a way fails in that manner because it kind of repeats the formula of the second movie, even though the rescuing party to find Eric gives something silghtly different, especially as there was the potential for mystery to know if Eric was still alive after two months (I wrote potential because considering JP and Hollywood classical formulas, a child being dead is not something that is generally achieved and the mystery could have been far more developped). And that leads to the decade-long conundrum around the project for a fourth movie: what to do? The issue is that the second and third movie caged the potential lores into a set of islands and while scenaristic facilities could have been taken to allow dinosaurs to escape their islands to go in the open world, the fact that the first movies try to be consistent in realism concerning the dinosaurs while also displaying classical narrative vibes create a complication as I suspect that the producers were not only unsatisfied with the different propositions, but were also wary to shoot themselves into the foot if they make bold moves that would be seen as "jumping the shark" or "nuking the fridge".
And there comes Jurassic World. When you can't exactly explore further a story without breaking the frame in which it has been built in a consistent way, either you stop or you try to come back to the roots of the original movie. I say try, because whatever it is a story, an ideology or anything else, no one can really come back to the roots of something as the context, the representations and other elements are different. Who would really want to come back to the roots of Athenian democracy for example when the setting is so different in cultural and political mindset ? Same thing for stories. Jurassic World tries to come back to the roots but to explore it further. That's why I disagree with the comparison often made with SW7 because contrary to Star Wars whose storyverse is so huge that there were potentials to explore in so many ways, Jurassic Park lore do not have this privilge due to the island setting. And since JP only depicts a failed park that didn't even open, it was obvious that exploring a park that has opened and is successful was the next stage. I know a part of the audience felt outraged by the claim that people didn't care for dinosaurs anymore in the movie, but consider the next question: the attraction for dinosaurs is partly due to the mystery that shrouds them as they are ancient beings? What happened once this mystery is dispelled? To make a bold comparison, it is like the "mystery"/"shadow" villain: people are generally fascinated by them because not much is said about them outside of the threat they embody. But when they appear, this mystery and the fascination it arouses disappear and it is difficult to replace it by something else. That's why those villains generally fail quickly after their real apparition (Ozai, Shere Khan in 1967 Disney movie, Darth Maul in TPM, the White Walkers...) because generally, the creators either didn't consider how to develop them as flesh out villains or are restricted by their features (seeing the White Walkers destroying everything is so zombie-cliche that only the fantasy setting could have assuaged it, BUT would the end be satisfactory, even in regards of the themes of Game of Thrones where different codes are challenged? A bitter ending where the White Walkers are defeated, but for a heavy price that crippled Westeros as a whole to the point that the Seven Kingdoms would be a memory of past while the surviving characters try to find a new meaning to their lives and to cope with their past traumas could have been an interesting concept for example).
To come back to dinosaurs, there is the meta aspect on why people didn't care anymore for them but considering it is said ten years have gone by since the creation of Jurassic World, it can be argued that the fascination would have been affected, considering that million people would have visited the part as this point (if 20,000 visitors a day is an average, that gives you an idea of how many people in one year could have gone on Isla Nublar in the recent period in the universe of the movie). So, creating a true hybrid (and by that, I mean a creature that has no preexisting presence) is a good idea that both explore themes that Michael Crichton wouldn't have dismissed and play on a narrative element, not to mention how representative of Hollywood the Indominus rex is now (look how many franchises of old have been reused and yet modified to try to appeal to "modern audiences" without regards for the original stories or the audience needs/expectations as a whole and before someone commented on the success of those new installments, there is something called inertia tied to the impact those stories have on us and on the reputation many studios used to have for a part of the audience). In short, Jurassic World was a sequel that was considered necessary because of the conundrum the first movies created, perhaps not necessary but that adds something different to the original movie.
Concerning JWFK (this is my favorite after JP), the issue is partly due to the stupidity of the trailers that kind of informed us about the nature of the story, preventing a part of the audience to be invested in the story (that doesn't mean they wouldn't have commented on its flaws, but the level of anger wouldn't necessarily be the same). And the reason why I love this installment is that it tries to build the path to something the audience wanted, i.e dinosaurs in the wild. The volcano might be a dubious excuse, but at least, it allows to raise different stakes (one mentioned at the start concerning the fact to save or noth the dinosaurs) and I love that we didn't stay long on Isla Nublar as it avoids to make a complete repetition of the first and second movies in structure. The main issues are tied to the timeline of the events that seem rushed where changing some little details (for example, showing how long the Arcadia journey is and showing Owen, Claire and Franklin hiding like stowaways while checking on Blue) would have mitigated some of those issues.
JWD is meh, but it is partly because the context in which the movie was shot may have brought Trevorrow and Universal to amend the story with the restraints the pandemia brought. It is not impossible that initially the movie would have explored more the way people cope and handle the presence of dinosaurs in the wild. But the COVID is not the only reason of the nature of this last movie. Bringing back the original trio also brought challenges as their age and the fact they have no ties with Claire, Owen (and Maisie) would have either made them unecessary or putting them in a complicated role to balance with the new cast. And finally, unless the movie explore a fallout of the DNA recreation in the previous movies like an ancient virus or a new one that resulted of the recreation of the dinosaurs, I would not have considered believable the dinosaur apocalypse some comment and expected because of the huge discrepancy between the JP/JW dinosaur population compared to at least the US population. At least, in the reboot of the Planet of the Apes, the virus ALZ-113 was a good tool to justify how the apes would slowly rise as otherwise, their story would end as shortly as Spartacus's rising. And because of this detail, JWD couldn't exactly go in that path that wouldn't be exactly original because it would just play on our fantasies on a bigger scale, not to mention how it would contradict a bit with the desire to see more realistic dinosaurs. The movie has to handle all those elements and choose a way that was very different, creating a far more discrepancy than JWFK for example with the audience's expectations.
Of course, there are other reasons why the sequels of JP, notably the JW trilogy, fail in some aspects and one of them is tied to how Hollywood produced their movies, creating a contrast and a discrepancy with the audience, not to mention the inertia tied to what has been created in the first place: by convience, because it is far easier, we tend to rely on what preexist and are not necesarily eager to make changes, unless it can offer us something that would bring us satisfaction, use and answers to our needs.
Once again, a very good video (even if I am nuanced on some elements and kind of disagree with some others).
Have a good continuation.
With the way Fallen Kingdom set up the universe, I personally think a post apocalypse route would be the best course. That way it actually shows the consequences of Maisie’s action in the finale of fallen kingdom. The apocalypse could be something like the sharp increase in dinosaur populations also leads to an overwhelming increase of dinosaur related fatalities. It could get to a point where humans are fed up with the huge risks of getting killed by dinosaurs, and retreat into underground bunkers, while the dinosaurs take over the earth again. It probably sounds stupid, but I can only imagine what a dinosaur apocalypse would look like.
The Closer look never disappoints✨
Thanks!
"He never misses, the absolute legend !"
@TheCloserLook except for this video
11:34 ayeee Lagoon in Farmington Utah I love that amusement park, amazing video too love these in depth film videos🙏🏼
Based on Ian Malcolm's static character, does this mean primary protagonists MUST change, and arguably must be wrong about something in the start? Elaborating, can external change suffice for a movie's progress rather than internal change? Assuming change needs to happen at all.
Personally, I've seen plenty of people argue that you don't *necessarily* need internal change, and there are plenty of books and movies that pull this off, but there's also lots of media where internal and external changes are present (bonus points if you tie them together so that the MC overcoming their internal conflict leads directly to them overcoming their external conflict). I think it really depends on the story you're trying to tell, and how much it's character-based vs plot-based (to the extend such a distinction can actually be made).
Nah, there's something called a flat character arc, it's where there's a heroic static character that doesn't change, and instead causes some other character to change by offering advice and such. It's very nice
Example: literally God has a flat arc in the Bible. He doesn't change, what changes is what we know about him. Apropos, a flat arc is better when there is still change in how we understand the character, even if the character doesn't have an internal change. Malcolm still lacks this kind of change in TLW. An example of this is Ozymandias in watchmen, the change coming when he reveals his plan, but he himself is unchanged. Another example is Vader in Empire, "i am your father," dramatically recontextualizing everything for us, even though his motives and strengths/weaknesses/challenges have not changed. A good way to tell if a character is flat - rather than having NO ARC - is if the plot changes in response to their actions (whereas in a typical change arc, the character is changed by the events of the story). Malcolm's actions are significant in saving sarah and returning the juvenile to its parents, so he's not arcless but flat. Alan Grant is flat in the main plot of JP but has a change arc in the subplot, the loving kids and being saved by technology. Thanos is a flat character in Infinity war because everything that happens is a result of his actions driving the plot, and he remains unchanged in his characterization throughout the film. Not to say he's not affected, eg gamora yeet, but that Diane mdoesnt CHANGE the character: strengths weaknesses goals/objective and challenge to overcome.
i could watcht this man yap for hours, id otn knwo if its his voice, knowledge, explination skills, or the topic hes yapping about but i scartches a part of my brain that really needs scratching. thank you.
I'd argue that Lost World actually did have a theme, since you can see it in Hammond's soliloquy at the end where he proclaims that the dinosaurs need our absence, not our presence to thrive. The two sides of the thematic argument are, "Should we do what's best for the dinosaurs?" vs. "Should be exploit the dinosaurs?" And as you'd expect, almost all the characters fall on one side of this argument or the other.
Except for Malcolm. It's truly boggling that Malcolm as the main character never engages with the theme at all. He never really seems to care what happens to the dinosaurs one way or the other...they're just an obstacle to him. Which I think is one of the reasons the movie feels kind of flat. Not only does he not have any meaningful character arc, he never even weighs in on the theme.
That’s such an interesting point! I feel it does makes sense for his character, but not so much for the purpose of the film. Malcolm is a mathematician, has no connections or explicit interest in dinosaurs. His entire experience in JP1 was traumatic and dangerous, and his experiences on JP2 were that him and his daughter were now in the same predicament. Makes sense he’s apathetic towards the dinosaurs. I do believe their was arc re his view of dinosaurs by saving and reuniting baby rex/parent - however you’re right, his character does fall flat and juxtaposes what the movie is asking us to consider.
@@zehrazaidi5168 It actually would have been a terrific theme if Grant had been the main character, because he would have been conflicted. On the one hand he knows how dangerous the dinosaurs are and would want to leave them in peace. And while he wouldn't want to exploit the dinosaurs for profit, he's spent his life trying to learn about them and would be tempted by how much more we could learn if they were studied more closely. But yeah, Malcolm's background had nothing to invest him in the theme.
Very good point. I think it would've been hard for him to have gone to the island willingly as recruited by Hammond to help stop ingen. After all why would he go back. I think if it was grant it would've made more since because he's actually interested in the Dinosaurs. Marcolm was only on the first island because it was his job and he believed it to be safe. He hired by the lawyer to give his opinion on the island, he's not interested in the Dinosaurs as such but more critical of the premise of genetic engineering to resurrect and attempt to control an extinct species. Its difficult because he's only in twl to save Sarah. But consequently that means he's not there for any moral principle on exploitation of the animals. But then on the opposite side it would've made no sense for him to have gone to sorna for any other reason so it's like one or the other
Hilariously, Malcom died in the original book but the author was made to change it in the film 'In case of sequals'. I'm nor entirely shocked that the character felt like they didn't really 'fit' when written into the film - he wasn't intended to still be alive so giving him a personality beyond what he initially had would have been difficult or a pain to do.
I'd argue that the theme is more "How should we treat our creations?" which applies to both our literal scientific creations and our children. InGen wants to dominate their creations while Malcolm has a hands-off approach to raising his daughter (just like the rich couple in the beginning that let their daughter wander off alone). Malcolm's right that you can't smother your kids, but his main problem is that he's too distant with his daughter which contrasts with the dinosaurs being pretty good parents throughout the movie, and by the end he learns to be a better parent that knows when to step in to help just like the dinosaurs do (see how the stegos in the beginning give their kid space but come roaring in once they think he's in danger).
Love your perspective! Great video!
As much as the sequels were good for mindless entertainment, I frowned upon the idea of a sequel ever since I was a child. Jurassic Park was perfect in every way (and one of the very few monster movies that actually has interesting and compelling human characters as well), and honestly should've gotten the Best Picture Oscar that year. It was the perfect mixture of a family adventure film and horror movie thrown into one, and never before had dinosaurs been portrayed so realistically, for a moment when i saw it in the cinema I almost thought the dinosaurs were real. While The Lost World is the best sequel, it still doesn't hold up to the original. The rest are just...well, the less said the better.
1:05 i'm smilling just hearing it!
You talking about Ian Malcolm's lack of an arc gave me this idea:
Lost World should've been about changing Ian's perspective and showing that there was valuable knowledge to be gained by studying the dinosaurs with proper respect. He goes there to save Sarah expecting the horror of the first island but then discovers they...act like animals and will mostly ignore or avoid humans and he's shown her perspective on how wonderful and fascinating these creatures are and all the things we can learn from them. Perhaps he has some long-term health issues from the first island, but surprise surprise we've found the cure thanks to studying them (though that may be too on the nose).
If you still want action, maybe instead of Ingen there to exploit them, it's a military operation to wipe them out. Maybe Ian even spoke in favor of this approach in the past, wanting to right the wrongs Hammond made, but now he sees things differently. Instead of just respecting life with his detached snarky view, he comes to care and want to protect it.
I think whats particularly interesting about the sequels is that occasionally they do pose questions that could naturally and richly build off the theme of the first one. I think it was the 2nd world movie that asked “Now that weve gone to far with this how do we deal with it and respond” but the film isn’t interested in diving into this question as much as its interested in recapturing the feeling of that first film for the 5th time.
You know... What you were saying about the settings of Star Wars and Jurassic Park got me thinking...
I felt the same way about BioShock and BioShock Infinite. One game takes place in an underwater city and the other takes place in a city high above the clouds. Both are incredible settings and a big part of what made those games stand out is the fact that their worlds are so interesting and creative that you get immersed in them even when the stories tread familiar territory.😊