The Jurassic Park saga has just closed with Jurassic World Dominion, the third of the second trilogy but which also bridges the gap with the original film, by recovering the same protagonists. The saga began with Jurassic Park, Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film based on Michael Crichton’s 1990 novel .
During the 90s, and until 2001, we had the first trilogy, with two installments directed by Steven Spielberg and one by Joe Johnston . After a long hiatus in which Universal tossed around various ideas for Jurassic Park 4 (including human-dinosaur hybrids to use as weapons), the Jurassic World trilogy arrived.
Steven Spielberg stayed on as executive producer and put Colin Trevorrow at the helm , who directed the fourth and sixth films in the saga. For the fifth, Jurassic World El Reino CaÃdo, Juan Antonio Bayona was chosen as “guest” director.
Now that the saga is over (or so it seems), it’s time to review all the films in the Jurassic Park saga in order from worst to best . In what position will the controversial Jurassic World Dominion fall?
6. Jurassic Park 3 (2001)
Jurassic Park III was released in 2001 and was directed by Joe Johnston , a veteran special effects artist from the early Star Wars and Indiana Jones films, who impressed Spielberg with his personal film October Sky and chose him to direct the third part, since that Spielberg had been… a little burned from the saga.
Unfortunately, the same thing happened to Johnston, who was tempted to abandon the project because its shooting was a disaster: the script was completely modified within a month of shooting and was never finalized: it was literally written on the fly . And you can see it.
Jurassic Park 3 was a moderate success at the box office, perhaps because of the impact of its animatronic dinosaurs, the early T.Rex-killing Spinosaurus and “talking” Velociraptors , as well as bringing back Sam Neill as Alan Grant (and Laura Dern in a background criminal).
Sam Neill recently said that it was a good action movie. Some recent readings have been more benevolent with Jurassic Park 3 being the simplest and most direct film in the series : 92 minutes (remarkably short) of characters being chased by dinosaurs.
Some prefer it to the Jurassic World saga for its total lack of pretensions. Indeed, “it can be seen”, but thematically and plot-wise it is hollow: this saga can (and should) give much more of itself than simple races between dinosaurs… particularly with such an anticlimactic ending (which should have been much more spectacular).
5. The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
Steven Spielberg and the first installment’s screenwriter, David Koepp, took a few licenses when adapting Crichton’s second (and final) novel in the series, though they did stick with the bizarre decision to get all the characters out of the way. of the first with the exception of Ian Malcolm (Goldblum) who also loses a lot of personality.
Still, The Lost World. Jurassic Park differs from the original with a darker tone , notable even in some of its deaths or in the very different and undervalued soundtrack by John Williams (which Spielberg liked more than the first film) or by showing new behaviors in their dinosaurs (the motherhood of the Tyrannusarios) used as part of their ecological message.
It is inferior to the original: the sequences are less surprising, the characters are less charismatic and in many sections it imitates the first without much emotion, such as the scene with the Velociraptors, but in some aspects it is as interesting as the original, and it left a climax to remember with the tyrannosaurus loose in San Diego .
4. Jurassic World Dominion (2022)
The latest installment in the saga seems to have liked no one. Well, I liked it! With some (generous) reservations, of course.
To begin with, it is the antithesis of something like Jurassic Park 3: it is very long, more than two hours, it has half a dozen protagonists in parallel plots and in its footage there is room both for chases with dinosaurs and for developing a plot of business conspiracy whose roots they return to the first film (the villain Lewis Dodgson was already in the 1993 film, and is characterized as his character from Michael Crichton’s novel The Lost World).
In other words: Jurassic World Dominion is not looking to be an almost B-series passing entertainment, but genuinely cared about telling a story that would enrich the universe created by Crichton, even exploring the ramifications of genetic power beyond dinosaur cloning.
Sadly, Dominion fails to bring many of those ideas to life . Even when all the characters (those from the new trilogy and those from the originals, Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum) are in their element and have things to contribute, Dominion loses steam in its second half.
And while the carnivores are more numerous than ever, they lack bite in a somewhat bizarre Mission Impossible-style sequence in Malta , a sometimes jerky pace, with plenty of easily expendable dinosaur scenes and a lacking third act. emotion and strangely routine and similar to previous films for how disruptive this installment is in other aspects .
But for that last point alone, Jurassic World Dominion deserves a lot more recognition than it’s getting . Although apparently demanding a minimum of attention from the viewer and daring to tell something different from what Spielberg did in 1993 and using the dinosaurs for something other than displaying them are unforgivable crimes for critics , who have dismembered it as they did with its predecessor, Fallen Kingdom .
3. Jurassic World (2015)
Jurassic Park 4 could have been a blunder with “dinohumans” being used as military weapons, but thankfully they let enough time pass to justify a full reboot.
Jurassic World was, along with Star Wars Episode VII, the most exciting “legacy sequel” of 2015, with a film that followed the same pattern as 1993 but for a new generation of viewers that made it one of the highest grossing of the history.
Director Colin Trevorrow, along with screenwriter Derek Connolly , conceived this reboot of the saga in which the park was finally opened to the public as Jurassic World… only to be destroyed when a genetically modified dinosaur, the Indominus Rex , fooled the guards and escapes.
Although it is sometimes too similar to the original, Jurassic World stands out for its accurate recreation of the crowded park (they spared no expense), exciting new scenes with dinosaurs, a leading couple as charismatic and attractive as the original trio and even funny metatextual readings on the commodification of dinosaurs . It’s hilarious and always gets better.
2. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
Juan Antonio Bayona , one of the highest grossing Spanish directors (El Orfanato, Lo Imposible) opened in Hollywood with the sequel to Jurassic World, written by Trevorrow and Connolly. But Bayona, with a penchant for horror, gave it a visual twist of her own, especially in the second half of the film.
Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom has a strange structure, opening with a volcano (quintessential iconography of classic dinosaur cinema) and ending in civilization that in a certain sense also “rhymes” with the themes originally addressed by The Lost World , the sequel to Jurassic Park.
But in our opinion The Fallen Kingdom is much better finished. On the one hand, it offers the protagonists of the first new arcs, particularly for Claire/Bryce Dallas Howard, the character with the most evolution in the entire saga , although Owen/Chris Pratt also explores his relationship with the velociraptor Blue and is quite a hero of action.
Abandoning the plans for a zoo, the key is the protection of the dinosaurs against those who want to continue using them for their own benefit , and not to make other zoos like in The Lost World, but to sell them on the black market… or cut them apart to study them and make new ones.
This is the case of the Indoraptor, another hybrid dinosaur that escapes in a limited third act in a mansion that looks like a haunted house, in a climax in which Bayona is unleashed with the most careful staging of the entire saga . What a joy of lighting and framing!
It may not be as fun and entertaining as the first Jurassic World, but the Fallen Kingdom script shows that Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connelly really see the enormous potential of the saga to tell new things from genetics…
… and what failed them in Dominion was precisely not having someone like Bayona in the director’s chair .
1. Jurassic Park (1993)
No one can ever deny that Jurassic Park, Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film, is the best of the saga. For the impact it had on the public, for creating a new “dynomania” that inspired millions of children and a whole generation of paleontologists, for its advances in special effects…
On that aspect, Jurassic Park was the first film that really showed realistic creatures made with digital effects, with ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) , although today what has lasted longest in memory are the animatronic effects of the late Stan ‘s Tyrannosaurus. Winston , a technique that has been recovered in the new deliveries.
Jurassic Park stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough , and in smaller roles, Samuel L Jackson and Wayne Knight . A perfect cast, brought together in Dominion, but here it was the key to elevate the film above other adventure and horror films (together with the script by Crichton and David Koepp ).
Alan, Ellie and Ian were not heroes or anti-heroes like Indiana Jones, but were much more vulnerable people, with very strong personalities and sometimes antitheses , yet they overcame their differences to survive on an island where dinosaurs are hardly at all. screen five minutes… but they leave a huge footprint.
This is our selection of the best movies in the Jurassic Park saga, ordered from worst to best ! Do you agree with our choice? Assuming that the first one is second to none, which sequel do you like best? Do you prefer the sequels back then or the new Jurassic World saga?
