4) It Clearly Loves the Original Movie…
There’s a weariness that pervades the first two Jurassic sequels, as though everything is being done is in the shadow of the original film. The feeling is understandable: improving on the first Jurassic Park was a feat pretty much no one could have pulled off, not even Spielberg. The Lost World is rife with winking jokes about how difficult it would be to top the first film, and by III, it’s clear that no one was even attempting to outdo the original.
Thanks to those sequels, Jurassic World has the benefit of knowing what a snipe hunt it would be to challenge the supremacy of Jurassic Park. Instead, it pays homage to that movie in ways that are simultaneously meant to stoke your nostalgia and bury the past. Returning to Isla Nublar offers plenty of excuses to dig up old locations and imagery from the first film, while also acknowledging the time that’s gone by since 1993. When one of World’s requisite child characters uses the original park’s lobby banner as the wick for a torch, it’s an apt metaphor for a movie trying to use what’s old to show you something new.
…And Doesn’t Like Itself
Sadly, there’s really not much new that Jurassic World has to show you, and its dependence on nostalgia becomes a crutch. The movie is acutely aware of this failing, and feels awful about it. Compare the moments when the John Williams theme first appears in Jurassic Park and World (as redone by Michael Giacchino). In Park, it’s timed to celebrate the dinosaurs; in World, it’s used to introduce a consumer resort. Jurassic World knows it was created for business reasons alone, and despises itself for that fact, while preying on your warm memories of Jurassic Park all the same.
Rarely has a blockbuster been this openly self-loathing, with entire conversations providing thinly veiled outlets for the movie’s guilty conscience. The younger of the kids, Gray (Ty Simpkins), acts as an insert for audience members who love the original Jurassic Park, but dislike seeing its legacy blemished for financial purposes. “I don’t want two of everything,” he tearfully tells his brother, Zach (Nick Robinson) at one point. “Grow up,” Zach replies, speaking for studio execs everywhere.
