Regardless of what happens in Jurassic World: Dominion, after the events of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, there’s no way Jurassic World 4 can put the dinosaurs back into captivity. The third installment of the Jurassic World series and sixth movie of the overall Jurassic Park franchise, Dominion is set to arrive in theaters on June 10, and it’s already like no other movie in the series. Unlike its predecessors, Dominion will open with its dinosaur population living among the humans that created them.

2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom saw the dinosaurs transported from the abandoned Isla Sorna to escape a volcanic eruption. However, rather than it being a simple rescue operation, the human protagonists Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) learn that the dinosaurs are being put up for auction. By the end of the film, the dinosaurs are set free from their captivity, leaving Fallen Kingdom on a cliffhanger.

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Dominion will also see the return of Sam Neill as Dr. Alan Grant and Laura Dern as Dr. Ellie Sattler, along with Jeff Goldblum’s Dr. Ian Malcom. The returning cast members indicate Dominion won’t be without a nostalgic component, but from the ground up, it will also be a radical change for the franchise. So radical, in fact, that if Jurassic World 4 happens, as producer Frank Marshall has indicated, it can’t revert to dinosaurs being held in isolation again.

Ian Malcolm’s Speech In Fallen Kingdom Is The Culmination Of His Chaos Theory

In the final moments of Fallen Kingdom, Ian Malcolm addresses Congress, warning that the escape of the dinosaurs will now force mankind to share the Earth with them. Malcolm’s speech is intercut with footage of the dinosaurs roaming into human territories, with Malcolm concluding “Welcome to Jurassic World.” The film concludes with the Velociraptor Blue overlooking human civilization below, and the ending as a whole is a capstone of Malcolm’s thesis first put forth in Jurassic Park.

Taken aback by InGen’s experiments in dinosaur cloning, Malcolm’s belief in chaos theory gives him grave concerns about the park’s safety. He warns that the control being imposed on the dinosaur population is unsustainable. Malcolm’s prediction holds true in both Jurassic Park and The Lost World: Jurassic Park, with dinosaurs being held in captivity proving too complex an endeavor to work long term. With another human folly in trying to auction dinosaurs to the highest bidder in Fallen Kingdom, Malcolm’s warning hits its zenith with dinosaurs now freed into the world. While this makes for a compelling story for the next Jurassic World, it also leaves the series boxed into how it can continue.

Why The Dinosaurs Can’t Be Returned To Captivity

The Jurassic Park franchise started out with the strong premise of an amusement park of genetically re-created dinosaurs (even if it wasn’t until Jurassic World that their scientifically inaccurate nature was addressed). But it didn’t take long for the series to fall into a formula. From The Lost World through Fallen Kingdom, the franchise has consistently involved one of two things – humans in a theme park full of dinosaurs or humans on an island where dinosaurs freely roam. Fallen Kingdom was the wild card to pick up the ball of The Lost World and run with it, bringing many dinosaurs (rather than just an adult and an infant T-Rex) to the mainland and setting them loose by the end. The problem is there’s no turning back from that point established by Fallen Kingdom.

The short film Battle at Big Rock has already given a glimpse at the consequences of Fallen Kingdom, and it’s something the franchise has never done before. Like an inversion of Land of the Lost, Fallen Kingdom and Battle at Big Rock are the first massive deviation that Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies have taken from their usually contained adventures. To simply round up the dinosaurs and place them on another island habitat would set up Jurassic World 4 for another rinse, wash, repeat of humans running from dinosaurs on an island setting. Moreover, it would be a major anti-climax from Malcolm’s concluding speech in Fallen Kingdom for the world to simply return the status quo after just one movie. With repetitive adventures being a story trap for the Jurassic Park franchise, that leaves just one place for Jurassic World 4 to go.

Why Jurassic World 4 Has To Show Humans & Dinosaurs Co-Existing

Dominion‘s prologue tease shows a look at the dinosaurs during their time as the Earth’s overlords, and the film will obviously go right into the ramifications of Fallen Kingdom‘s ending. With this being a first-time story for the Jurassic Park franchise, it needs to be explored to its fullest. A simple one-time break out of the dinosaur population before being caged once more wouldn’t take things anywhere near far enough.

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Furthermore, the initial escape of the dinosaurs, while a major sea change for the whole world, is only one facet of the equation. When Malcolm warns that mankind must adapt to co-existing with dinosaurs following their escape in Fallen Kingdom, humans running for their lives whenever one wanders into a populated area certainly isn’t what he has in mind. Jurassic World 4 could change the series even more by being the first one to be something akin to a post-apocalyptic movie. Human cities and civilizations would need to develop major security measures against the dinosaurs. This would likely lead to entire cities being walled off and areas with heavy dinosaur populations being declared no-fly zones. The Mosasaurus seen in Fallen Kingdom‘s ending would also require fishing and sea travel to undergo their own adaptations, too. These would be just a few of the changes to human existence on Earth that would result from a large dinosaur population. Jurassic World 4 would be well-equipped to explore all of them and tell a story wholly new to the franchise, which was already teased by Jurassic World: Dominion‘s recent T-rex promo spot. But dinosaurs roaming free among humans is also the inevitable conclusion of Malcolm’s chaos theory-based warning.

No blockbuster series rises to such heights as Jurassic Park has without some tried and true weapons in its arsenal. Dinosaurs brought to life better than any other movies have ever done has served the Jurassic Park and World films well. Still, overlooking the need for adaptation and re-invention has felled many promising series before. That’s enough reason for why Jurassic World 4 should continue the story from where Dominion is starting. If the Jurassic Park franchise is to have any longevity in it, Jurassic World 4 must allow the dinosaurs to remain free post-Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom in the world of modern man.

Key Release Dates
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  • Jurassic World: Dominion (2022)Release date: Jun 10, 2022
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About The Author


Brad Curran
(716 Articles Published)

Growing up, Brad developed an innate love of movies and storytelling, and was instantly enamored with the world of adventure while following the exploits of Indiana Jones, Japanese kaiju, and superheroes. Today, Brad channels his thoughts on all manner of movies, from comic book films, sci-fi thrillers, comedies, and everything in between through his writings on Screen Rant. Brad also offers philosophical musings on martial arts and the filmographies of everyone from Jackie Chan to Donnie Yen on Kung Fu Kingdom, where he’s also had the privilege of interviewing many of the world’s great stunt professionals, and hearing plenty of gripping stories on injuries incurred in their line of work and the intricacies of designing the acts of death defiance he first thrilled to as a youngster. When he’s not writing, Brad enjoys going on a ride with the latest action hit or Netflix original, though he’s also known to just pop in “The Room” from time to time. Follow Brad on Twitter @BradCurran.

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