Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Jurassic World: Dominion.
Jurassic World Dominion follows a pretty thin narrative that leans heavily on dinosaur action and creates many plotholes and head-scratching moments. Boasting the lowest critic’s score of the entire franchise on Rotten Tomatoes, Jurassic World Dominion is packed with more dinosaurs and perhaps less sensible plot than any other Jurassic Park film before it. With its focus being primarily on dinosaurs and action sequences, it’s no surprise that parts of the story feel forced and full of holes.
Jurassic World Dominion‘s movie timeline takes place four years after Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and sets itself up to deal with the fallout of the second film’s ending where dinosaurs are released into the world. Dinosaurs have spread across the globe and illegal breeding and smuggling of the animals have become rampant. Maisie (Isabella Sermon) has been secreted away by Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) but is being hunted by BioSyn, a corporation interested in her genetic code. Coupled with this, a prehistoric locust plague has cropped up and is threatening the global food supply. The film’s focus on these two storylines ultimately causes both branches of the plot to collide and the Jurassic World heroes have to team up with legacy characters from the original Jurassic Park.
The film’s structure is messy and its focus is frequently unclear. Its execution leads to a number of plot-related questions and headscratchers along the way that it never fully or satisfactorily answers. Here are some of the biggest plotholes in and questions left by Jurassic World Dominion.
How Did The Dinosaurs Spread So Rapidly?
Given that Dominion takes place only four years after Fallen Kingdom, the idea that dinosaurs have bred to such a degree that they can be found all over the world in rather large numbers is more than a stretch. It’s noted that some illegal trading of the dinosaurs from Jurassic World has taken place before the start of the second film, but even taking that into account, it boggles the mind that there are so many dinosaurs in the world during Jurassic World Dominion. The end of Fallen Kingdom showed only about 30 dinosaurs being released into the wild, so their proliferating so quickly makes no sense.
Why Didn’t Charlotte Reveal Her Genetic Findings To Other Scientists?
It’s revealed in Jurassic World Dominion that Maisie wasn’t cloned by her grandfather, but created by Charlotte Lockwood to be the child she had always wanted. When Charlotte finds out that she has a genetic disease that will ultimately kill her, she edits Maisie’s DNA to make sure they don’t share the same fate—something yet-unknown to modern science. Dr. Wu makes Charlotte out to be a pioneer geneticist who wanted to use genetics to save humanity. It strains credulity that she wouldn’t pass this knowledge and information on to other scientists before her death, but that’s exactly what Dominion claims.
Did BioSyn Really Think No One Would Catch On To The Locusts?
One of the biggest plot points of Jurassic World Dominion is BioSyn’s engineered locusts. They replicate quickly and have a hunger for all crops that aren’t produced by BioSyn. In fact, they eat every crop except for BioSyn stock, threatening a global famine. The film never addresses how BioSyn planned to hide its involvement in its genetically-engineered creation. That BioSyn is a genetics lab focusing on prehistoric DNA and that the locusts are full of prehistoric DNA and not eating BioSyn crops is such a smoking gun that Ellie and Alan wouldn’t even have needed to infiltrate the BioSyn facility to make charges stick.
Why Were Maisie And Beta Necessary To Stop The Locusts?
BioSyn goes to great lengths and spends a large amount of money in Jurassic World Dominion to abduct Maisie and Blue’s mysterious raptor baby, Beta, but the reasons given for it are paper thin. Maisie’s altered DNA supposedly holds to key to Dr. Wu being able to wipe out the locusts he created and Beta’s unaltered DNA serves as some sort of control for his experimentation. This suggests that any genetically identical offspring of a monitor lizard would do and that Beta isn’t really necessary for his experiments. It’s also a touch baffling that the scientist who designed the locusts from the ground up would be unable to design a plague to take them out. The excuses are more plot-convenient than reasonable. It feels as though the specific situation was designed the allow the two different teams of protagonists to eventually meet up and work together.
Where Did Dodgson Get The Barbasol Can?
In a particularly odd bit of nostalgia and fan service, it’s shown that Lewis Dodgson has the Barbasol can that was used by Dennis Nedry to transport embryos from the original Jurassic Park. The problem is that the can was lost by Nedry when he was attacked and killed by a Dilophosaurus. It ended up being washed away into the mud, apparently lost forever on the island. Given that the embryos were stated to only be viable for 36 hours inside the Barbasol can, it makes little to no sense that Dodgson would go to the trouble and expense of retrieving it in Jurassic World Dominion.
Why Does Owen’s Trick Work On Dinosaurs Other Than Blue?
An oft-repeated trick in the Jurassic World movies is Owen taking a wide stance and lifting his hand up to calm the raptors he’s trained and bring them to attention. This trick is apparently sufficient to stop just about any dinosaur he comes across in Jurassic World Dominion. For unknown reasons, this stance is even effective when used by characters other than Owen. Maybe the world has learned that dinosaurs are terrified of an outstretched hand. Whatever the reason, it’s never explained why this would work in Dominion.
Why Did The T-Rex And Therizinosaurus Team Up?
Jurassic World Dominion introduces a number of new dinosaurs, including the odd-looking Therizinosaurus and its terrifying claws and the new apex predator BioSyn’s facility, the Giganotosaurus. At one point, a Tyrannosaurus rex encounters the Giganotosaurus and is frightened off by its strength. Toward the end of Dominion, the two fight again and the T-Rex is still unable to gain the upper hand—until the Therizinosaurus steps in to help. With its help, the T-Rex wins the fight with the Giganotosaurus. The two are never shown to have worked together before this moment and it’s never explained why they would be compelled to do so.
Why Was The Mosasaurus Never Caught?
Near the opening of Jurassic World Dominion, a Mosasaurus is shown attacking a large boat. This would likely be the same Mososaurus first introduced in Jurassic World. It’s shown that BioSyn has been capturing the largest, rarest, and most dangerous dinosaurs and bringing them to their facility, so it’s not clear why the Mosasaurus would have been left to roam free. Perhaps they don’t have a great place to store the Mosasaurus, but it boggles the mind that no governmental agency hasn’t taken care of what is clearly an ongoing danger to the seas.
Jurassic World Dominion’s Maisie Retcon Doesn’t Make Sense
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom heavily suggested that Maisie was a product of her grandfather cloning Charlotte after losing her in an accident. Jurassic World Dominion retcons Maisie’s clone origins, with it being explained that Charlotte carried Maisie to term and even raised her for a while when she was an infant. In the light of what’s revealed in Fallen Kingdom, this makes no sense at all.
Jurassic World Dominion raises more questions than it answers. Its many plotholes lead one to wonder if some crucial plot element was missed on the cutting room floor. Whatever the reason for it, Jurassic World Dominion struggles to make sense of its plot and leaves its audiences to piece together its fragmented story.
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