Jurassic Park VS Jurassic World

Jurassic Franchise

The final Jurassic World movie has released and brings together the original cast and the new cast for one last final adventure. Was it worth it or is the franchise long over due for extinction? Warning spoilers for Dominion ahead.

Jurassic Park Trilogy

Jurassic Park was a movie that captured the imagination of both adults and children. It was a milestone in movie special effects. People were acting next to dinosaurs and they all looked real and not computer animated. The story had a believable pseudoscience that audience bought into and didn’t break our sense of disbelief. People were in awe of what they were seeing and were just sucked in. This is one of those movies that will always be remembered and everyone remembers when they first saw it.

The second movie, Lost World, like most sequels seemed more like a money grab. Like most sequels it couldn’t get all of the returning cast back, it only got a few supporting characters back mainly Ian Malcom the Chaos Scientist played by Jeff Goldblum and John Hammond played by Richard Attenborough. The story went from a believable second island where most the dinos were created and then transported to the Park to a ridiculous gymnastics routine against Raptors to a T-Rex rampaging in downtown San Diego.

Jurassic Park 3 was able to get he lead actors back, Sam Neill and Laura Dern but just repeated the same beats of the its 2 previous entries. Tricked into going back to an island with an offer of full funding to find out there is a lost child on an island of dinosaurs. The series very quickly became a creature feature of humans running away and surviving dinosaurs that want to eat them.

So this trilogy went from wonderous and fantastical to silly and creature feature really, but still a fun time with the family. Something to make eating popcorn more fun. Not the greatest movies of all time but not the worst either.

Jurassic World Trilogy

Jurassic World was a surprise. Most went into it thinking it was going to just be another creature feature with dumb humans running from dinosaurs again. But it some how captured a little bit of that wonder that the original Jurassic Park had. We finally got to see fully operational dinosaur park that was working as expected. The guest weren’t getting eaten and people were excited to send their children there, alone, for the weekend. Like it was Disneyland. Just as we have specialist and wild life trainers that train lions, tigers and bears, we now have dinosaur specialist that have been able to train dinosaurs even the deadly Raptors. But eventually greed gets in the way again and the scientist start trying to make new breeds of dinosaurs, new deadly monsters, bigger and better than the originals. Oh and of course smarter. Smart enough to break out and cause havoc in the Park. This movie had its cheese, people thinking that the trained raptors could be used a military weapons, women running from a T-REX in full heels, Jimmy Buffett saving his margaritas. It also gave us those totally cool scenes of riding a motorcycle with a pack of raptor working together, ridiculous but still cool to see.

Jurassic World 2: Fallon Kingdom really ends up being just a setup for the final movie. We go from saving the dinosaurs from an island with an active volcano to creating the shady underground of the dinosaur black market. This is probably the weakest of all the movies as it turns into a creature feature trapped in house movie. To characters absolutely making the wrong decisions by letting all the capture dinosaurs roam free in the wilds of California. We end with a cloned human, and a large amount of dinosaurs allowed to roam free, including dangerous predator’s. Like its the right thing to do. Doom the human race, turn people into another food source.

Jurassic World: Dominion picks up right where we left off with the human race having to figure out how survive with dinosaurs. And now a new company has stepped in, finally not to do the stupid thing and create a park, but to study and research what medical benefits these animals can provide. Once again though greed takes over and our life saving think tank is also developing dinosaur locus that happen to wipe out all crops not using their seeds to grow food. This is what ropes in our classic characters played by Laura Dern and Sam Neill, who just gives the looks of “I am too old for this shit” throughout the entire movie.

Our current heroes are lured out by a kidnapping of not only their adopted “clone” child from the second film but the baby raptor of our trained raptor Blue. This takes us on adventure around the world, to the underground black market of dinosaurs. They are brought into a CIA bust of an illegal dinosaurs poacher and trader, told to only observe and not engage. But of course immediately engage and start asking people about their kid. This is where Dominion goes out of its way to just be silly. As the bust goes bad and the chase begins carnivorous dinosaurs are let loose in market and people are cheering on our hero as he has a fist fight in a dinosaur fighting pit, ignoring the fact that other people are being eating and killed. Of course our after a chase scene through the city with dinos hot on their tails our heroes escape and are now in route to their final destination the science facility where their daughter was taken, and where the locus are being manufactured.

Here is where we catch up with Laura Dern, Sam Neill, and Jeff Goldblum and where they introduce our villain, who is a portrait of a tech company CEO. Who acts like a neurotic child with Asperger’s syndrome asking if his employees have his snacks for him.

Do you have any of my bars? I’m hungry.

This is where we find out that yes they did create the dinosaur locus, for some sort of control play, which comes down to money, but we also find out the full history of the clone girl from the second JW2. Turns out her mother created her and changed her DNA to cure a genetic disease that she had. They want to use her to create a genetic disease that will kill off the locus and save the worlds food supply.

So with the old cast running around stealing evidence that this company is evil and the new cast infiltrating the facility to get their kidnapped daughter back, bad decisions are made, dinosaur countermeasure are taken down people are wondering the open sanctuary with predators roaming around trying to kill them. At this time its also revealed that our villain was the guy trying to buy dinosaur embryos in the first film as he somehow got his hands on shaving cream canister from the first film and that he shares the same name as the guy brokering the deal in the original Jurassic park.

More bad decisions are made the sanctuary is now on fire, our heroes have all met up and are working together, our villain tries to escape but finds himself suffering the same fate as Nedry in the first film everything coming full circle.

As our heroes get the power turned backed on and the helicopter ready for flight we have to stop the movie for a dinosaur fight between the main Apex predators of this new facility. This scene was so unnecessary it was a huge leap in logic for the characters to not meet up on the helicopter pad to escape but for the helicopter to take off and land in the middle of the facility where the dinosaurs are to pick up everyone. So now they are in the middle of an Apex fight between T-REX and “The largest land predator known on Earth” and the Edward scissor hands of dinos. They get out, the T-Rex pushes the other dino into Edward scissor hands killing it and our heroes escape. We don’t get to see the outcome between Edward and the T-Rex I guess they are going to agree to share Apex responsibilities? Basically the big one died so we don’t care beyond that. Either way the world is saved the dinos are saved, oh and there are still random dinosaurs wondering the planet.

Verdict

The Jurassic World Franchise follows in the footsteps of the Jurassic Park Franchise. Starts off with some wonder and silliness and ends up being really ridiculous. But that’s not to say these are bad movies after their first iteration. These are very much fun popcorn movies. They are no longer the CG wonders that the original will always be remembered for but you will still have a good time watching them. If you have a family member that loves dinosaur monster movies this is a great movie franchise for them. These movies get cheesier as they go but they are still a great ride to experience.

Verdict: Same Same but Different

Comment below and tell us what you thought of the latest Jurassic World movie. What are your thoughts on the entire franchise as a whole?