Saving the Jurassic franchise

(Don't save her. She don't wanna be saved.)

Deep spiritual sigh.

I’ve griped about the Jurassic franchise before—once on here, and endlessly to my poor loved ones. So I don’t want to belabour any points. I am still not excited about a new entry to the franchise. But they could defy the odds and win me back, if they do three small things.

1. Make Jurassic Park horror again.

   The Lost World: Jurassic Park came closest to working, because it really leaned into the horror of a story about dinosaurs galavanting through Costa Rica and San Diego. To my mind, all of the most successful moments in the sequels, even in ones I downright loathe, are horror moments. I’m thinking of the “don’t go into the long grass!” scene in The Lost World; the literal cliffhanger of a T.Rex attack scene, also in TLW; and the genuinely stunning opening scene of Fallen Kingdom. Hell, I’ll even throw in the Indoraptor as an example of how these movies could go. Not the monster itself—it’s too perfect an example of the folly of this whole franchise (a designer dino, made up of a raptor and the controversial Indominus Rex, which itself was already part raptor). But the very campy, Universal Monster energy that its scenes have are legitimately fun, and have a lot of personality.

   

   It’s giving The Mummy. And you know how your girl feels about that.

2. Bump all the existing characters.
   And I do mean all. Obviously nobody cares about the World characters, as played by The Worst Chris and Jessica Chastain’s tether. I know more friendlies showed up in the later World movies, but…come on. And nobody got anything out of trotting out the Original Peaches for Dominion except for the contractors working on all their beach houses. Let them rest. Bring in some new indie darlings, like Taylor Russell and Mike Faist—actors who can really sell the earnestness and urgency the way young Laura Dern and slightly-less-young Sam Neill could. Don’t give us any more rancid Easter eggs. If one of the new characters turns out to be Dennis Nedry’s avenging son, I will be very disappointed.
   

3. …but bring back Judy Greer.
   Y’all did my girl Kitty wildly dirty with Jurassic World. Judy Greer is absolutely hilarious and deeply talented, and y’all really relegated her to a “tearful mom phoning in to express concern” role. For this new movie, bring her back, but give her the Danny Burstein in Law & Order treatment and cast her in a completely unrelated role. I personally think she would crush a Robin Williams in Jumanji, “been living in the jungle with all the monsters and surviving untold horrors” type of role.

   

   Seriously: They’ve gotten rid of beloved characters before. They can get rid of nobody characters too.