Why The Jurassic Park Sequels Were Worse

the Jurassic Park sequels were doomed to never be as good as the first and by that I'm not saying they should have been made differently although yes some bits probably should have Alan I'm saying that wild Jurassic Park is a wonderful story it's creative and fun and captured the imagination of a whole generation it is also a story concept that lends itself rather poorly to having follow up stories when you're making a sequel you've always got to ask why did people love the first one and with Jurassic Park the entire first half of film one

is dedicated to this feeling of Wonder uh seeing the Brachiosaurus alongside the characters in a way that back in the day was absolutely breathtaking having the rapor come out of their eggs having the wacky idea of DNA and case and Amber explained to us even having the characters help with the health problems of a Triceratops which is a thing so weird it can't help but capture our attention from sheer novelty value alone so much of this film is so a inspiring you can't help but smile through most of it for all intents and purposes we

the audience reacted Jurassic Park in much the same way Hammond wanted his Park goers to react when they first arrived but at the film's midpoint it turns into a horror story as everything goes wrong and to its credit the film handles this genre swap in the middle impecably when that hunter gets flanked by the Velociraptor and he says have a girl that will be forever etched in my memory it terrified me as a kid yes the movie had great music and effects and writing and so on but I'd argue it was those two things the

Wonder and the horror both of which being very well done are the main things that define Jurassic Park's identity as a story and it was those two aspects that needed to be recaptured in order to make a great sequel only there was a problem because how do you capture a sense of wonder a second time over it's a question that's way harder to answer than it might first seem because we only feel awe at new crazy ideas and how do you throw in new ideas of that caliber when you've already exhausted Your concept's Capacity to

create or Jurassic Park is a real oneandone kind of story concept that's great for a short powerful burst of Wonder just enough to last for the first half of a film let's say but not much after that meanwhile when you look at other films like Star Wars that is not the case A New Hope had part of its core appeal be awe at this creative new setting a new hope at the end of the day is really just the hero's journey told in another form it's not exactly a fresh kind of story formula but what

elevated that story to being so much more was a highly creative or inspiring setting Lucas knew that so made a great sequel by finding a way to carry over that Wonder now we get to see ho an alien Arctic World then a city floating above a gas giant both imaginative settings that rekindled that feeling of w so integral to the fun of film one Jurassic Park due to the nature of its concept couldn't do this because as obvious as it is to say you can only show us dinosaurs for the first time once they had

to abandon the idea of recapturing that or and doubled down on the other thing the film did well that being the horror so films 2 and three are nothing but out andout Horrors from start to finish I have no doubt that back in the day people went to see Jurassic Park 2 and 3 expecting to feel that wander all over again but we're left sorely disappointed you can point at the Jurassic world franchise and again it's the same Jurassic world is very aware of this even making this a plot point because people aren't getting excited

enough for dinosaurs so they genetically engineering this super deadly T-Rex hybrid doing something bold and new to create some new W for better publicity it's cool their self-aware about this but no matter how much you poke fun at the flaws in your own movie those flaws are still there let's not forget that there's another side to this issue I've said before on this channel that one of the principles that makes any good squel good is that they don't just recapture what people liked about the original they also add in a bunch of new ideas that

harmonize with those original elements for an example of this done right look at Shrek 2 in film 1 we have the humor the reimagined fairy tale elements and the romance between Shrek and Fiona so what Shrek 2 did which couldn't have gone down more smoothly is they took everything loved about film one and didn't just carry it over they took it to the next level Shrek and Fiona's romance is fleshed out even further as we explore it in a new way we're getting new characters like Prince Charming in the Fairy Godmother massively fleshing out the

scope of these fairy tale elements yet doing it in a way where it's directly challenging shrick and Fiona's relationship because that's the goal of these new characters films like Shrek 2 Terminator 2 and Empire Strikes Back are master classes in great sequel because of this approach imagine if we got two more films after Shrek one that did nothing to evolve that formula they just had Shrek once again escorting Fiona across a fairy tale land that sounds way more boring than what we got and that is more or less exactly what the Jurassic Park sequels are

especially two and three while watching them there is a strong sense that all those films are really out to do is recapture the exact same feelings we felt in the climax of that first film and nothing else whenever you look at Great sequels they always get more creative than this it is no wonder people don't like those films because as Ron Swanson once said it's always worse the second time around you can look at the first one the plot of this one is a corporation chooses to meddle with nature and create a dinosaur theme park

for profit but they're pushing the boundaries of science further than they should be pushed a man in touch with nature comes along and says no you shouldn't do this don't mess with nature but they're ignored and of course it ends in disaster and becomes a bit of a horror story as everyone is eaten by dinosaurs so the funny thing is I was actually talking about the first Jurassic Park film there I just asked my Editor to play Jurassic world Clips over it and it worked uh depress depressingly well people didn't mind Jurassic world in a

word it was fine it got okay reviews certainly better reviews than Jurassic Parks 2 and 3 but I've yet to meet one person who enjoys it more than that first film and there is something to that I think Jurassic world and the force awakens fall for an identical problem they're both living in the shadow of a great story that came before so in the writer's Infinite Wisdom they decided hey why bother to do something fresh when we can tell the exact same story again you know what happens when you photocopy something and then you photocopy

that photocopy and each time you do it the details just get worse and worse yeah that that is my review of the Jurassic world Trilogy from a sequel perspective there is a fascinating Devolution as the films go along like say what you like about how well they were made but what is clear is they lost touch with their Roots more and more as things went along until it ends with Jurassic World World Dominion in this one while they give us obligatory horror scenes they also have bike chases which will be more at home in an

Indiana Jones film than they would a Jurassic Park one there's even a whole sequence involving a knife fight and leap across a balcony that feels uncannily similar to a certain scene in Jason born Ultimatum It is playing on screen right now for you for your judgment let me know if these scenes look oddly similar to you we also have scenes where characters are infiltrating an enemy base like it's some kind of spy thr and while they're fine scenes we didn't love Jurassic Park for the Jason born action thriller emphasis and we didn't love it for

that Indiana Jones feel either Jurassic world Dominion is a film with no identity it is trying so hard to capture what we like about other films it nearly totally forgets to capture what we love about Jurassic Park but there's something more here another entirely separate reason why the sequels just never quite measured up it's all to do with theme uh the big theme of film one can be boiled down into the question can science go too far like any good story we have characters taking different stances on this theme we have Grant a technophobe who

loathes modern science I had computers Dr Grant's not machine compatible got it for me he firmly believes yes science can go too far in fact all of science has already gone too far then you have hammonded a man so enamored with the idea of progress or progress's sake he is happy to bring back dinosaurs from Extinction oblivious to the dangers we then have our exploration the character's beliefs are challenged Hammond sees what unchecked progress can do sees how his attempts to control the dinosaurs by making them all infertile clearly hasn't worked and he sees the

folies in his belief yet it's also not one-sided as Grant has the very technology he hates be the thing that saves his life in the climax and the film offers its wisdom with both Grant and Hammond having grown to see the Folly of their old views it tells us that while technology is important some things are best left alone giving us a nice tie off to the theme this is neat effective storytelling and it's hard to do better than this uh also as a power tip if you ever want to analyze a story the main

characters Arc almost always underpins the theme of The Story So as a technique to realize the theme of any story you should start by by asking how do the characters change and extrapolate from that what the story is trying to say so with that said let's do exactly that for Jurassic Park 2 what is this one's theme well Jeff Goldblum Begins the film saying interacting with the Dinosaurs on this island is the worst idea in the history of bad ideas he only agrees to go there because his girlfriend is about to die there in the

middle of the film he says taking dinosaurs off this island is the worst idea in the long sad history of bad ideas and at the end of the film his beliefs are fully Vindicated because yes it turns out letting a T-Rex loose among humans isn't a good idea after all Ian is static it's honestly rather funny how the Ian we see at the end of film 2 is identical to the Ian we see at the start of film one he learns no lessons now Ian being static works fine for film one because he's a side

character and Side characters can easily get away with never changing but now he's the the protagonist in film 2 we've got to have something to latch on to here a big internal issue he's struggling with that relates to this new theme but Jurassic Park 2 as best I can tell is a story that doesn't really have a theme it has loose ideas about greed and capitalism but it doesn't conclusively say anything other than Echo the conclusions already reached by film one it is very much one of those roller coaster films where you should just turn

your brain off and enjoy it just don't think about it too hard because there's not much going on beneath the surface people love Jurassic Park for its Rich themes so of course they'd be disappointed with the sequel that dropped the ball here so totally with Jurassic Park 3 however things do get a little bit different the film made an interesting choice where they did give us a new theme but this time it's around a couple learning to rekindle their old romance as they search for their lost son it's about family essentially and yes film 1

did have that mini Arc where Grant learns to love kids more this is definitely a better choice than what we got in film 2 because having a theme is better than having none as it turns out the issue is that again they're totally misunderstanding the greatness of film one Grant learning to love kids while it was enjoyable was a mere footnote of that movie the larger question of can science go too far is way more prominent and I'd argue resonated with audiences far more than Grant's side Arc of learning to care more about kids to

back that point up it is interesting to note that in the original novel Grant does not have this Arc it is purely an addition for that film in the book he likes kids from start to finish There Yet Michael kryton's novel is still a beloved story that's sold like hot cakes Ergo this theme around Grant is not integral to why that story was such a Smash Hit exactly this idea of Rec kindling love like this could have been delivered just as well in an action movie like die hard a rumcom like love actuallyy or even

one of those crappy Christmas films it's hard to get more generic as themes go they could have at least tried to swing for the fences here instead they gave the baseball a light tap picking something that was frankly too safe like one thing's for sure Jurassic Park was handling ideas that challenged the audience and got us to think in new ways about science which is no easy feat so in order for any sequel to measure up they'd need to say something just as profound if not about science than at least some other topic using dinosaurs

as a vector for this theme's delivery and while I hesitate to say that's impossible it sounds like a bloody tall order if you have an idea for a Jurassic Park sequel you think's great then do let me know in the comments and prove my cynicism wrong but if you ask me the studio should have held off on making any sequels until a concept came along in this vein that had something at least somewhat profound to offer but they evidently didn't do that when making Jurassic world admittedly this film has an identical plot to that first

movie but let's Overlook plot what about theme what fresh themes does this film have simply it kind of doesn't like yes Jurassic world has given it all a Fresh coat of paint but put both Hammond and cla's characters side by side and you'll notice the similarities are kind of hilarious what you have is a person's so wrapped up in making a profitable business that they're willing to push science to its limits in the name of making dangerous dinosaurs they never stop to consider the dangers of this this manifests itself in the form of the dinosaurs

escaping and a bunch of people getting eaten the issue is this is the same theme surely you can aim higher than this ultimately I don't think the Jurassic Park movies ever stood a chance at being great sequels the concept just isn't right for it you look at something like Harry Potter or Star Wars and those are stories where you set up for success with the next installment because nothing stopping you from recapturing what audiences loved about that first story other than your competence at the craft but with Jurassic Park like while many of the films

are technically well edited and scored and acted every last one of those movies is in a mad scramble to try and justify why it exists trying to find yet one more contrived excuse to back to that island or otherwise shove dinosaurs in front of our faces the creators are stuck between a rock and a hard place with these sequels they can explore similar themes to film one only every time they've done so they've ended up saying just more or less the exact same things which is hardly thought-provoking or they can go the totally different approach

of having themes that have little to do with what made film one so thought-provoking and when they do this while they might compel a few people watching they're also failing to resonate with why we love Jurassic Park so much in the first place which is what any good sequel must do while sequels can be fun sometimes in the same way new technology can be useful there are circumstances where however tempting it might be in the name of profit some things truly are better off undisturbed it is deeply ironic that Steven Spielberg never learned from the

very moral he told us in that first movie because if he had he would have never made film 2 it really is the epitome of irony that all these Jurassic Park sequels are existing in spite of that moral that the first movie was trying to say it's bloody hard writing a great story but the truth is you've got to put the hours in that's the only way you will improve speaking of I was watching a course Lately by Mila Goldberg where she breaks down writing from an ideas point of view if you ever struggle with

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