How Jurassic World: Dominion Can Fix The Lost World’s Biggest Problem

Jurassic World: Dominion is set to properly showcase dinosaurs in the human world, fixing the fourth act problems of  The Lost World. The sixth film in the Jurassic Park franchise is set four years after the events of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and will deal with the fallout of dinosaurs being auctioned off around the world and released on the U.S. mainland. This premise finally has the potential to do justice to the idea of dinosaurs in a human environment that The Lost World failed to do.

After the runaway success of Jurassic Park, Steven Spielberg returned to direct The Lost World, loosely adapting Michael Crichton’s sequel novel, setting the movie on Isla Sorna; the second island of genetically engineered dinosaurs. Jeff Goldblum reprised his role as Ian Malcolm, and is set to do so again for Jurassic World: Dominion along with fan-favorites Sam Neill and Laura Dern. The Lost World has some stand-out sequences and tense moments—the T-Rex attacking the trailer on the cliff remains a series highlight—but ultimately falls short of the original, partly down to the surprise fourth act.

Spielberg changed The Lost World‘s original ending from a hang-gliding aerial battle with Pteranodons to something far more ambitious, but ultimately ill-advised. InGen manages to get a Tyrannosaurus rex off Isla Sorna (Site B) and onto the mainland. However, the T-Rex escapes and runs amuck in San Deigo. This addition was only added a few weeks before filming began. While an interesting idea and technically proficient, the problem is that it’s such a jarring change in location and tone, coming out of nowhere, and never really delivers on its potential.

Characters such as Vince Vaughn’s Nick Van Owen and Pete Postlewaite’s Roland Tembo are unceremoniously dropped once the action leaves the island. Meanwhile, the actual rampage where humans interact with the T-Rex is essentially limited to a single scene in one street. It’s a missed opportunity for an idea with such cinematic potential: dinosaurs interacting with people within a human environment, as opposed to a tropical jungle, as has been the case with the other sequels. Jurassic World: Dominion can break the copycat pattern of previous sequels, and its vast scale and scope have the opportunity to deliver on that untapped potential.

Spielberg wrestled with the dinosaurs on the mainland idea for The Lost World and considered saving it for a third film. He only included it at the last minute as he thought it was too fun not to do, and that he knew he wouldn’t be directing the third film. The idea though is too vast to be limited to the fourth act of an already ambitious movie. Conversely,  Jurassic World: Dominion is set around the world, offering numerous environments, characters, scenes, and dinosaurs for the film to mix together. The possibilities are endless and Jurassic World‘s producers know this, as they have no intention of Dominion concluding the story.

Jurassic World short movie Battle at Big Rock expertly showed how the idea of dinosaurs on the mainland can be done far better than in The Lost World. The short itself is a thrilling 8 minutes directed by Colin Trevorrow, and the credits include a cool sequence using found footage clips of dinosaurs in the human world. If Jurassic World: Dominion can deliver on the promise of Battle at Big Rock, then there is potential for the film to be a worthy successor to the original Jurassic Park.

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