Jurassic World (2015)
The interesting thing about Jurassic World, is that it is essentially a sequel to the original film, 1993’s Jurassic Park. While that film spawned two other sequels – 1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and 2001’s Jurassic Park III – Jurassic World seems to regard those as spinoffs, because it is the first sequel to return to the site of the original theme park.
That puts a time-gap of 22 years between these franchise instalments – though counting from Jurassic Park III still gives a sizeable gap of 15 years – and a lot has happened in that time. Since the epic destruction depicted in the first film, the Jurassic Park theme park has been re-built and is now a world-class tourist attraction. It has become so successful, in fact, that the owners are struggling to keep people interested in dinosaurs at all – prompting the genetic hybridization of new breeds. Chaos and grisly deaths ensue.
In the same way that Star Wars: The Force Awakens succeeded by bringing in new talent, and harnessing the power of nostalgia, Jurassic World did the same. By building the plot around the corporate desire to constantly create new terror in order to hold the interest of the consumer, the film incorporates our own desire to feel awestruck into its themes. It returns us to the moment when we first saw Steven Spielberg’s then-groundbreaking dinosaurs on the big screen two decades ago and asks us to consider the implications of trying to chase down that sensation. Sure, it pushes the science to new breakthroughs – but is that always a good idea?
As a sequel, Jurassic World takes the original premise, and builds upon it with new plot directions, new characters and new threats, while retaining the essence of what made the franchise such a huge success in the first place – a devotion to telling great stories. It certainly was better late than never – and that’s why it became one of the most successful films of all-time.
