While seeing the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World stars together onscreen was a big part of what made Jurassic World Dominion so appealing to viewers, this was also the source of the sequel’s main problem. Jurassic World Dominion did not have an easy road to wrapping up the Jurassic World trilogy. Whether it was COVID-related filming delays, difficulties with picking up the plot after the wild ending of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, or handling the Chris Pratt backlash, Jurassic World Dominion needed to face a lot of issues as the sequel brought the series to a close.
However, the biggest problem with Jurassic World Dominion was none of the ones outlined above. Instead, the main appeal of the Jurassic World franchise’s nostalgic closing chapter was also its biggest drawback. While Jurassic World Dominion was a massive box office success upon release, the mixed reviews received by the movie prove that the sequel could not quite overcome this issue.
Since it was announced that Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill, and Laura Dern would all return in Jurassic World: Dominion, the sequel promised to bring together two generations of the franchise’s characters. However, doing this betrayed the tone that made the original Jurassic Park (and, to an extent, 2015’s Jurassic World) so successful. Jurassic World Dominion needed Jurassic Park and its horror edge for the sequel’s tone to work, since the earlier sequels had gradually grown more action-adventure-oriented as the Jurassic World trilogy wore on. This made the stakes of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom feel lower, since there was no risk of any major characters being killed off. However, bringing together two generations of the franchise’s cast only exacerbated this issue, since this meant that now none of the cast could die in Jurassic World Dominion.
Jurassic World Dominion’s Main Draw
Despite also promising plenty of dinosaur action, from the moment that the return of Goldblum, Neill, and Dern was announced, their reunion (and meeting with the cast of the Jurassic World series) became Jurassic World Dominion’s main appeal. However, this detracted from its success as a Jurassic World franchise installment. Spielberg’s reaction to seeing Jurassic World Dominion and its lineup proved that people were emotionally invested in the returning cast of the original trilogy. They wanted to see the gang back together and see Grant finally end up with Sattler, meaning few would have enjoyed the screen veterans being eaten by a T-Rex after their triumphant return. However, Claire and Owen of the Jurassic World movies were a long-established leading couple and the series relied on their chemistry, meaning neither of their characters could die either. Even Maisie, the human clone introduced in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, was a child, which made the prospect of her becoming dinosaur food a lot darker than the thought of seeing, for example, John Hammond’s shady lawyer eaten as he used the restroom in the original Jurassic Park.
Jurassic Park (And Jurassic World) Used To Be Brutal
Jurassic Park is a surprisingly brutal movie upon a rewatch. The original movie was an intense, effective horror movie with high stakes. The adaptation softened John Hammond’s villainous original novel character but kept in the demises of Ray Arnold, Dennis Nedry, Donald Gennaro, and Robert Muldoon. This gave Jurassic Park a dark tone and left viewers feeling like the movie could kill off anyone – something that the franchise had lost by the time that Jurassic World’s sequel rolled around. Likable characters who seem destined to make it out of Jurassic Park alive, like Muldoon and Ray, were offed without much fanfare. This was an important element that the sequel kept when The Lost World’s Eddie was torn apart in front of screaming children by a pair of T-rex. Even Jurassic World held on to some of this tone, with the not particularly villainous Simon Masrani and Zara being dealt rough deaths to prove no one was safe.
Jurassic World Dominion Plays It Way Too Safe
Even though Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’s ending made it tricky for Jurassic World Dominion to end the trilogy right, the explosive final twist was about the only time that the sequel took a big risk. Few characters died in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, with all of the major demises going to blatantly evil villains and even minor sympathetic supporting characters making it out of the movie unscathed. This problem was only made worse by Jurassic World Dominion, where almost no named characters die despite random members of the public being picked off by T-rex in the Malta chase. Of the primary cast, Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, Claire, Owen, Maisie, Ian Malcolm, Kayla, Ramsay, Henry Wu, Barry, Zia, and Franklin all survive, while Dodgson dies. This ratio would be absurd for a standard action-adventure movie, and it’s unavoidably silly in what is theoretically a horror/disaster franchise, as this survival rate deprives the sequel of any meaningful stakes.
Why Jurassic World Dominion Has No Stakes
Killing off Jurassic World Dominion’s legacy characters like Grant, Sattler, and Malcolm would be mean-spirited and depressing. Killing off the Jurassic World franchise’s new central characters like Claire, Maisie, and Owen would make the trilogy’s two preceding movies feel pointless. Killing off the most pivotal new characters, Kayla and Ramsay, would look terrible for Jurassic World Dominion since they were the only people of color in the main cast, not to mention likable new additions to the series. As a result, there was no one left for the sequel to kill off, resulting in a movie wherein almost no one dies despite the premise being that dangerous dinosaurs roam free in the human world. Short of bringing back Dennis Nedry, Jurassic World Dominion couldn’t have killed off any of its cast without annoying its audience, but this would still have been better than the milquetoast movie viewers got.
Could Jurassic World Dominion Have Avoided This?
Jurassic World Dominion didn’t need to be as family-friendly as the finished movie ended up. Ian Malcolm’s fake-out self-sacrifice could have resulted in his redemptive death, particularly since he was working with BioSyn at the beginning of Jurassic World Dominion’s story. Henry Wu could also have been killed off in a redemptive blaze of glory, which would have given the Jurassic World Dominion finale higher stakes and could have clarified that a group of humans being surrounded by dinosaurs was a dangerous situation, something that the sequel wasn’t overly concerned with depicting. However, by failing to take this marginally riskier route, Jurassic World Dominion ended up becoming by far the most anodyne addition to the Jurassic World and Jurassic Park franchises so far.
