& # 39; Jurassic Park & ​​# 39; should never have been a franchise



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The series continues to be a box office success, but struggles to find anything to say beyond what 'Jurassic Park' has to offer. has already done 25 years ago.

During the weekend, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom took another box office win for the franchise that began 25 years ago.

The fifth episode has surpassed $ 150 million in the United States (and has already reached $ 700 million worldwide after being opened abroad earlier this month). It comes at a time when the goal of most Hollywood blockbusters is not only also to spawn the value of a shared universe of content – movies, TV shows, video games, novels and toys. In this case, even the rebranding of Jurassic Park as Jurassic World indicates a growing scope of ambitions.

But not all premisses are created in the same way, and not all films have the ability to properly support an extended universe, or in this case, a series of movies. Especially once you've gone through a linear and franchise series, the only ideas that have the potential to flourish are the ones that actually build worlds – concepts that go beyond individual characters or narrative arcs, which can adapt to a variety of genres and styles and narrative structures. Concepts that can evolve.

The worlds of Westeros and Middle-earth Star Wars & # 39; galaxy far, far represent universe of possibility. This does not guarantee that Amazon's bet on a $ 250 million the Lord of the Rings series or HBO The iron Throne prequel pilot or future payments from the Star wars the franchise will be good. It simply means that they have potential. In the end, the most enjoyable films are those that reach their potential. This is one of the reasons why movies that represent somewhat limited possibilities, such as a rom-com or an action movie with more explosions than brain cells, can sometimes offer a Visual experience more satisfying than other movies like they could have been better – the first one has reached its full potential while the second one has not reached its full potential.

Jurassic Park had the potential to be an iconic hit of Hollywood, and he lived up to this potential in 1993 under the direction of Steven Spielberg. While the four suites published since have more or less respected the original in terms of box office success, none has come close to a comparable criticism. This question is not about talent or diminished resources or a lack of honorable intentions.

In other words, the 1993 Jurassic Park not only has reached its potential as a film, but has maximized the narrative capacity of its fundamental premise. There is nothing that can be done to fix this, no matter how hard it can try. The central idea of Jurassic Park is that of scientists who bring dinosaurs back to life to populate an island zoo and sell a tourist experience of the Jurassic era. It's a premise that appeals to its eight-year-old interior, but living T-Rex is not the smartest idea. And that's all Jurassic Park movie in one word: an island full of dinosaurs is very cool, and also a bad idea. There is nowhere else where the premise can turn. If the cool idea of ​​an island full of dinosaurs does not go bad in practice, then there is no drama and therefore no movie, and it does not have a lot of fun. there is no island full of dinosaurs, so this is not Jurassic Park.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom try to advance the story by introducing the idea that dinosaurs will no longer be confined to an island, and that the genetic technology that created them is now in more hands. But in terms of narrative possibilities and potential themes, changing "from island" to "world" does not change anything at all. The basic question remains the same: dinosaurs are cool and extremely dangerous. Fallen Kingdom dare to develop a little fascination with the franchise for the idea that geneticists go wild, producing some of the least redundant moments of the film, but rubs against an existential dilemma that marks yet another limit inherent to the franchise: if it is Jurassic Parkit must be dinosaurs. Extending "dinosaur de-excitation" to more general schemes (including human cloning) involving megalomaniac geneticists in a more central way would erode the distinction that separates Jurassic Park general sci-fi movies.

the Jurassic Park The franchise hits a shot on the first shot, but narratively speaking it's a single-bullet gun. It's done. And yes, the settings can and will be changed as long as people continue to buy tickets. But the punchline will always be the same. There is no room for expansion, only repetition.

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