What 'Jurassic World' Needs To Remember About Its Returning Characters
Recently, it was announced that Jurassic World: Dominion would pick production back up pretty soon, which considering the state of, well, everything, feels like a bit of a gamble. This means that Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum, the three actors returning to this film from the original Jurassic Park trilogy, might have to hop back into action in the next few weeks. And while it's super exciting to have Drs. Grant, Slatter, and Malcolm back, I really hope that the makers of Dominion understand the most important dynamic in this particular group: They haaaaate each other.
Okay, maybe "hate" is a strong word. Now, as we saw in JP 3, Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler did not end up together. Instead, Grant just hangs around her place, and exasperatedly tries to teach her son about dinosaurs and then gets all hot and heavy, describing Raptor noises in the kitchen later. But he calls her for help in the end, so they're almost good. At least on, "I don't want to see you turn to dino poop" terms. But Grant and Malcolm? Grant can barely be bothered to acknowledge him for the most part, and when they're in the jeep together in JP, Grant is just dripping with annoyance and indifference. It doesn't help that, earlier, Malcolm uses a clumsy explanation of Chaos Theory as an excuse to grope Sattler's arm like a barroom creep earlier.
In JP 3, when Erik rescues Grant from the Raptors, Grant brings up Ian Malcolm's book solely so that he can hear a twelve-year-old dunk on him, and agrees that Malcolm is "preachy" and "full of himself." Yes, famed paleontologist and hero of the movie Alan Grant pauses the film's central rescue effort to have a child confirm that he's not wrong about Jeff Goldblum being a dick.
This character dynamic is great because it's such a break from the "we may disagree, but we're all in this together!" mentality of most groups in adventure films. Instead, it's "we DO disagree, and at best, I don't want to watch you get eaten in front of me." So I hope that the crew behind Dominion doesn't try to shove in this "Hey! The boys are indeed back in town!" flavor to the trio's return. They aren't Luke, Han, and Leia from Star Wars. If their "heroes coming back together" scene is anything with more enthusiasm than three simultaneous groans, it'll be doing them a disservice.
So I hope they provide a necessary counter-balance to the action hero stuff provided by the rest of the cast. I hope they're painfully curmudgeonly, considering they spent the '90s repeating, "Hey, making dinosaurs is a bad idea, and it will be a bad idea forever, you rich dillholes." I hope they're in the background of every scene shaking their heads and rolling their eyes at whatever the younger leads are saying. I hope Laura Dern makes fart noises while Chris Pratt talks about caring for his special Raptor. Then and only then will it be as good as the original.
Daniel is a writer for the internet. You can find him on Twitter!
Top Image: Universal Pictures
