Oops, I did it again. A couple of years ago, I wrote about how I had intended to watch the newest Jurassic World: Generic Subtitle movie, but mistakenly watched the previous Jurassic World: Generic Subtitle movie that I had already seen—but I didn’t realize it until halfway through because the film was so forgettable. I had never gotten around to seeing the newer Jurassic World: Generic Subtitle movie, so I intended to do that this year, but wound up watching the yet-newer Jurassic World: Generic Subtitle that came out after the previous Jurassic World: Generic Subtitle that I still hadn’t seen.
Realizing this midway through, I paused and went back to watch the previous Jurassic World: Generic Subtitle first, and then go back and finish the newer Jurassic World: Generic Subtitle. Though I wasn’t sure if it would be worth doing so, because I was astonished at how bad the dialogue and acting were in the newest Jurassic World: Generic Subtitle, plus there were barely any dinosaurs in the first act of the movie. It felt like everyone involved (including good actors like Scarlett Johansson) were just phoning it in for a paycheck—like a SyFy original movie with better special effects. Though, I was pleasantly surprised that the older Jurassic World: Generic Subtitle was at least serviceable, with a better dinosaur/human ratio, plus some funny lines by Jeff Goldblum (”Jurassic World? Not a fan.”).
The movies in question are actually Jurassic World: Dominion (2022) directed by Colin Trevorrow and Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025) directed by Gareth Edwards. The previously mentioned Jurassic World: Generic Subtitle was Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) directed by J.A. Bayona, which was the follow-up to plain old Jurassic World (2015) directed by Colin Trevorrow, which was a reboot of the original Jurassic Park (1993) directed by Steven Spielberg, which had two sequels of its own: The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) also directed by Steven Spielberg, and Jurassic Park III (2001) directed by Joe Johnston. Confused? Join the club.
All the Jurassic World: Generic Subtitle movies blur in my mind, because they’re all so generic and forgettable. The subtitles are bland and unoriginal. Each movie tries to do too much, go to too many places, add too many characters, and too many new dinosaurs (most of which look like CGI slop). This makes the movies unbearably long.
Dominion felt like a Scooby-Doo episode with a group of eight people all huddled together running away from the man in a monster suit dinosaur. They should instead focus on one unique location for each movie, using a smaller cast of humans and dinosaurs. The subtitle could be named for the location, making each movie more distinguishable. By limiting the setting, that would also leave more to explore in the next movie. And go back to calling it “Jurassic Park”!
Yet they continue to make these bloated derivative movies because they continue to make a billion dollars. Why try to be good when you can make a boatload of money being mediocre (at best)? But the original Jurassic Park proved that you can actually make a good movie featuring modern dinosaurs and still make money—perhaps even more money. I hold out hope that a good Jurassic Park movie can be made again (there is really only one, the original, one of my favorite movies of all time), and I have an idea for how to do so, which I may post as a “hypothetical movie” on Time Zone Weird.
