Jurassic World Succeeds Where the Last Two Failed
I probably don't need to say whether or not you need to see this movie. Chances are, you already saw Jurassic World this past weekend due to the fact that It's now the highest opening weekends of all time. (Jurassic World made more money last weekend than Jurassic Park III made in its entire theatrical run.) So instead of a standard movie review, I want to really look at where Jurassic World succeed in ways that the middle two installments of the franchise failed.
First of all lets go ahead and make sure we're clear on the pecking order of the Jurassic Park film franchise. The original Jurassic Park is a near masterpiece of film. From characters, to plot, to score, to special effects, Jurassic Park is held aloft as a well done film through and through. The Lost World is not bad, but is deeply problematic. The setting is a never before mentioned Site B and a large swath of the action is simply more running from dinosaurs at night. The whole thing feels like a movie that just reminds you of how good the first Jurassic Park is. The third movie takes the jump from just ok, all the way to flat out bad. For starters it's half an hour shorter than every other movie in the franchise so it feels like it wraps up rather abruptly. And it seems to have stripped the idea of Jurassic Park down to the basic as possible "Humans are trapped on Dinosaur Island" idea.
Jurassic World succeeds because for the first time, it feels like the movie is a successor to Jurassic Park. Yes a big part of these movies is how are the heroes going to get away from the scary dinosaurs, but that's not the only thing. Jurassic Park was all about the wonder and excitement of getting to see these things you had wanted to see since you were a child, making the impossible possible through the wonders of science and technology, the moral quandary of should you do something just because you can. Jurassic Park has a lot packed into it all while still being a monster movie about people running from the dinosaurs, and most of it got left out of the sequels in favor of a more streamlined action movie. Jurassic World brought a lot of that back.
For one thing, dinosaurs were awesome again. I mean dinosaurs were always awesome to us the audience, but for the most part the characters in the second two movies were just terrified of Dinosaurs and the very brief moments of wonder were overshadowed by long stretches of doom and gloom about how terrifying dinosaurs are. That scene in the first movie where Allan Grant sees real dinosaurs for the first time? Yeah, they've never even come close to replicating that. But it's great to see people in Jurassic World who are excited about dinosaurs, who look forward to interacting with them. After all, if you're here to see a Jurassic Park movie, you've probably got your own sense of wonder when it comes to dinosaurs and it's great to see that feeling mirrored by the characters on the screen.
Both the second and third Jurassic Park movies have in some way promised something new and exciting, yet really failed to deliver on that promise. For The Lost World, it was the idea of dinosaurs loose among the general population. This was something new and different that Jurassic Park hadn't offered and now we would get to see how this played out. What we got was interesting, but really a bit underwhelming. We got one T. Rex wondering around a city for a few minutes but only after we spent three fourths of the movie with a handful of people stuck on Dino Island. In much the same way one of the biggest appeals of Jurassic Park III was the idea of getting to see a T. Rex go toe to toe with an even bigger, badder dinosaur. And while that was in the movie, the entire fight lasted for maybe thirty seconds.
Jurassic World pretty much fulfills these two promises that were made by the franchise back in 1997 and 2001. We finally get to see dinosaurs wreck havoc on a whole group of people and we get an extended dino vs. dino fight that really feels incredible to watch. It's easy to watch Jurassic World and think "THAT'S what I've been looking for since 1993."
First of all lets go ahead and make sure we're clear on the pecking order of the Jurassic Park film franchise. The original Jurassic Park is a near masterpiece of film. From characters, to plot, to score, to special effects, Jurassic Park is held aloft as a well done film through and through. The Lost World is not bad, but is deeply problematic. The setting is a never before mentioned Site B and a large swath of the action is simply more running from dinosaurs at night. The whole thing feels like a movie that just reminds you of how good the first Jurassic Park is. The third movie takes the jump from just ok, all the way to flat out bad. For starters it's half an hour shorter than every other movie in the franchise so it feels like it wraps up rather abruptly. And it seems to have stripped the idea of Jurassic Park down to the basic as possible "Humans are trapped on Dinosaur Island" idea.
Jurassic World succeeds because for the first time, it feels like the movie is a successor to Jurassic Park. Yes a big part of these movies is how are the heroes going to get away from the scary dinosaurs, but that's not the only thing. Jurassic Park was all about the wonder and excitement of getting to see these things you had wanted to see since you were a child, making the impossible possible through the wonders of science and technology, the moral quandary of should you do something just because you can. Jurassic Park has a lot packed into it all while still being a monster movie about people running from the dinosaurs, and most of it got left out of the sequels in favor of a more streamlined action movie. Jurassic World brought a lot of that back.
For one thing, dinosaurs were awesome again. I mean dinosaurs were always awesome to us the audience, but for the most part the characters in the second two movies were just terrified of Dinosaurs and the very brief moments of wonder were overshadowed by long stretches of doom and gloom about how terrifying dinosaurs are. That scene in the first movie where Allan Grant sees real dinosaurs for the first time? Yeah, they've never even come close to replicating that. But it's great to see people in Jurassic World who are excited about dinosaurs, who look forward to interacting with them. After all, if you're here to see a Jurassic Park movie, you've probably got your own sense of wonder when it comes to dinosaurs and it's great to see that feeling mirrored by the characters on the screen.
Both the second and third Jurassic Park movies have in some way promised something new and exciting, yet really failed to deliver on that promise. For The Lost World, it was the idea of dinosaurs loose among the general population. This was something new and different that Jurassic Park hadn't offered and now we would get to see how this played out. What we got was interesting, but really a bit underwhelming. We got one T. Rex wondering around a city for a few minutes but only after we spent three fourths of the movie with a handful of people stuck on Dino Island. In much the same way one of the biggest appeals of Jurassic Park III was the idea of getting to see a T. Rex go toe to toe with an even bigger, badder dinosaur. And while that was in the movie, the entire fight lasted for maybe thirty seconds.
Jurassic World pretty much fulfills these two promises that were made by the franchise back in 1997 and 2001. We finally get to see dinosaurs wreck havoc on a whole group of people and we get an extended dino vs. dino fight that really feels incredible to watch. It's easy to watch Jurassic World and think "THAT'S what I've been looking for since 1993."
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