Movies - TV
Jurassic World Dominion Proves the Original Never Needed Any Sequels
ByJEREMY MATHAI
There's nothing quite like the haze of nostalgia to color our memories and convince us that it simply can't be topped or that any further attempts to do so are doomed to fail. But a cursory look at some of the sequels we've received in recent years like "Mad Max: Fury Road" show they can exceed expectations or even their predecessors.
This, unfortunately, is not the case with "Jurassic World Dominion." The original "Jurassic Park" did a great job fully wrapping up the story, and completely exhausted the full potential of its premise without "saving" any bold ideas for sequels down the line.
In the new film, a large part of the tension inherent in the premise of a dinosaur theme park comes from the sheer arrogance and greed necessary to exploit such a feat for cold, cynical franchising potential. If that sounds vaguely familiar, it should — the film effectively serves as a prescient metaphor for studios strip-mining their own blockbuster IPs for as much money as they're worth.
With the right storytellers, maybe we could've received a sequel trilogy that actually expanded on the original's ideas and brought us into genuinely new territory. Instead, we have to make do with "Dominion" and its misguided notions of what "Jurassic Park" actually represented. With the new trilogy in our rearview mirror and who knows how many more sequels on the horizon, never has "Life finds a way" sounded more like a threat.