When it comes to filmmaking legacies, nobody has a bigger influence and impact on the box office than Steven Spielberg has. His long career is filled with massive hits like Jaws, Indiana Jones, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. The Extraterrestrial, and so much more make up his blockbuster-riddled resume. All of those films live in the hearts of movie fans everywhere for the awe and imagination that he puts on the screen. But none of these have matched the massive franchise that Jurassic Park has remained over the decades.
Jurassic Park has withstood the test of time and still remains essential viewing for audiences young and old. It remains the perfect balance of awe, wonder, and horror that perfectly reflects the emotions of the characters to the audiences in their seats. Jurassic Park is a spectacle of filmmaking that movies struggle to encapsulate, especially its own sequels. With a new Jurassic World coming out, there have now been five sequels, none of which have even come close to being as awe-inspiring as the original 1993 film. It isn't much of a reach to suspect that Jurassic World: Dominion will be any different. Although that is disappointing, it isn't much of a surprise when looking at what made the original so great.
Why Most Jurassic Park Sequels Don't Work
As mentioned before, Jurassic Park is a combination of awe and terror. The problem with the sequels is that the awe is gone. Audiences have already seen the dinosaurs at this point, and they can't capture the same feelings fans had in 1993. But the sequels, especially the Jurassic World movies, are still chasing that awe moment. Jurassic World does it by creating new dinosaurs — but once audiences have seen dinosaurs on screen, they all have the same effect.
By chasing that awe-inspiring moment, most of the time it doesn't hit the way it did for Jurassic Park. The moments fall flat, much like the Jurassic World scene in which viewers see the park for the first time. The filmmakers are trying to recreate the infamous Brachiosaurus scene from Jurassic Park, but a shot sweeping over buildings and food stands doesn't really capture the awe of audiences. Almost everyone has seen an amusement park before, and it just shows the disconnect that the filmmakers have with the fans. It may be the representation of John Hammond's dream coming true, but audiences didn't buy a movie ticket to look at restaurants.
The next aspect of Jurassic Park is horror, which all the sequels feature in some capacity. It's really all that's left to emulate from the original movie, now that the wonder of dinosaurs is gone. The new dinos, though, are just slasher villains and everyone is running for their lives. It has been seen before, and yet again is dull. Every Jurassic Park tries to remake the original which dooms the movies before they even begin. That, is all the sequels but one: The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
What Makes The Lost World Better?
Perhaps the biggest advantage of The Lost World: Jurassic Park is the lack of nostalgia used in the film. The Lost World was directed by Spielberg, so it wasn't made by someone who grew up with the movie and was trying to recapture the magic of the original. Rather, Spielberg actually wanted to push the story forward, instead of focusing on the nostalgia for the original film.
As a sequel, this movie tries to send the franchise in a logical direction. One way the film does this is by featuring characters from the previous film to demonstrate the lessons they learned, not just to be gawked at for nostalgia. Possibly the best idea that The Lost World had was featuring John Hammond and Dr. Ian Malcolm, who are both complete 180s of each other in the original film. In The Lost World, both characters are shown to of changed from their previous selves in Jurassic Park. John Hammond believes that the dinosaurs should be left alone and now respects the awesome power that they hold in nature. Meanwhile, Dr. Ian Malcolm is afraid of the island as he becomes overprotective of those he loves and tries to warn everyone about the dangers of dinosaurs. They are changed and well-developed characters that present the lessons from the original film in an interesting way.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park is the closest that any of the sequels got to looking anything like an actual sequel. Spielberg was trying to make something new and different, and follow the story on its natural course. It barely even delves into the awe of seeing dinosaurs, just spending seconds doing so with the characters briefly being in wonder of the Stegosaurus. Although it still has money-grabbing corporate millionaires, they are the ones who didn't see firsthand what happened in the original film and use Hammond and Malcolm as the voices of reason against them.
Although The Lost World isn't amazing by any means, it is the best Jurassic Park sequel, easily the most different and unique installment compared to the original 1993 movie. For the most part, the movie gets overshadowed by the others, and that is a shame as it is easily the second-best Jurassic Park movie. Just the scene of the T-Rex parents attacking the trailer is worth a watch, as it is a perfect example of Spielberg's craftsmanship when it comes to tension. Perhaps instead of sequels copying the original film, today's filmmakers should take inspiration from The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and at least attempt to go past the nostalgia and build on to the existing story by crafting a new narrative.