One weird thing that you should absolutely mention is how the sequels often try to capture the moment from the first film where they show off the special effects to the point where they forget that Jurassic Park is supposed to be a horror/thriller film. The "WOW" moment for the film gets sullied and detracts from the point where you're supposed to be scared as the movie tries to get you to admire the visual effects and remind you of the original movie. It's super weird...
1 year ago | 188
I think a large part was probably how original it was as well as the theme of the consequences of playing god that I felt the others never captured
1 year ago | 29
I think part of the issue is that, like Jaws, what do you do with the concept past what the first did? More people in danger? More dinosaurs? It doesn’t help that the people in most of the sequels were cartoonishly stupid/evil.
1 year ago | 546
Everything starts with the writing. Sadly scripts nowadays are commissioned and rushed with 6-8 week deadlines. Doesn’t create the stage for the best filmmaking. Pretty positive the 1st Jurassic took longer than 6 weeks to write. Also there are a lot of invisible writing fundamentals used in the first one that the others don’t use. Like wants and needs. For example Grant hates kids in the first JP but needs to learn to love them so that’s the invisible tool used. The new ones use none of those tools and that’s why they feel hollow w/o most of us knowing why
1 year ago | 125
Especially in world, i think that the dinosaurs having human-like personalities, acting more like monsters than animals, hunters than predators, villains than antagonists, deflates a lot of the majesty of WHOA A SAUROPOD. speaking of, that one full minute of watching reactions before we can see the sauropod was great.
1 year ago | 77
Jurassic Park gave us something we had never seen before: realistic dinosaurs interacting with humans. It also helped that the story was both fun and scary, and stands up to repeated watching. The sequel films all suffered from Idiot Plots. "Don't interact with the dinosaurs. Oh look, an injured baby dinosaur! Take it with us! Oh look... there's its parent and it's angry" Or "let's keep this extremely clever, practically invisible and giant dinosaur in an enclosure with no moat, and the only way in or out for staff is through a HUGE DOOR big enough for the dinosaur to get through. No, don't bother with little doors, nor a second door outside the first, just in case it gets through the first. And as for the final story? "Let's promise the public a world full of dinosaurs and humans living together, but give them a film about bugs" Tldr: stories where the plot only happens because of supposedly intelligent people behaving like imbeciles and stories about dinosaurs that don't include dinosaurs make for dissatisfaction.
1 year ago | 168
Honestly I think the message imparted by the end of Jurassic Park is wrapped up perfectly and with the exception of a those who don’t remember history are doomed to repeat it storyline, there just isn’t enough story to carry it forward. Jurassic World 2 and 3 were barely about dinosaurs and more just about greedy humans.
1 year ago | 60
Every sequel made the characters just as naive as the first movie, despite the tragedies that have happened. With every new movie, it was harder and harder to believe these characters would actually return to the island
1 year ago | 18
Charisma between the characters of the first keep me coming back every time. It doesn't mean they like each other, but the audience likes them, and more importantly, their interactions with the others.
1 year ago | 5
The Lost World is an underrated classic. Yeah it has a few bad moments but the whole movie is overall very good. They're able to strike a new tone and style with the safari jungle adventure to avoid retreading the same ground, and Spielberg brings some of his best thrills yet. Might be worth considering
1 year ago | 29
We (the audience) are tired of seeing old franchises being “reimagined” instead of actually putting in the time, work and effort to imagine new stories, in new worlds with new characters, and new tribulations.
1 year ago | 73
Probably the wonder of seeing at least somewhat realistic dinosaurs for the first time.
1 year ago | 36
Jurassic Park’s technology was groundbreaking at the time, and in many areas still looks great. The sense of wonder and scope was nearly unrivalled in film when it came out. The sequels haven’t done nearly as much to push technological boundaries, and all basically repeat the same story over and over again. “Some greedy asshole learns how to make dinosaurs, and turns it into an amusement park. Something goes wrong, people die, insert message about ‘just because you can doesn’t mean you should’ here.” It’s an incredibly difficult movie to make a sequel on in the first place, and as time’s gone on, what made the first film so magical has become harder and harder to replicate, because we see groundbreaking CGI and special effects pretty much every year.
1 year ago | 13
The first movie had great characters. That’s what the other movies are missing. Dinosaurs are cool but we need a strong human element to actually care. I actually think JP3 comes the closest and it’s definitely my second favorite.
1 year ago | 15
I think one of the reasons is that they never left the island. Even Jurassic World 3, which had the dinosaurs break out into the rest of the world failed to even capitalize on that idea and plopped them back into a cage.
1 year ago | 38
Jurassic Parks 1-3 always have two powerful emotions: horror and wonder. I remember as a kid being terrified of the little Dilophosaurus, yet being amazed by the Brachiosaurus-es and the Triceratops. The first movie alone has Samuel L. Jackson wind up as a dismembered arm. I doubt a modern movie would even try that concept
1 year ago | 0
The first one had magical scenes I can still remember. The only vivid memory from the next movies I remember was the cow being lowered into the feeding pen.
1 year ago | 0
Likable, MEMORABLE characters, the genuine sense of horror and diverse scenery (jungle, plains and buildings)
1 year ago | 1
It's that move from a Horror/thriller story in the first installment, to action/thriller in subsequent installments that you also see in series like Terminator, Aliens, Pirates of the Caribbean etc. where the dread of "how do we survive" from the first film isn't recreated and instead it becomes a "how do we beat it" action film.
1 year ago | 1
The Closer Look
I'm working on a video on why the Jurassic Park sequels never lived up to the quality of the first film, and thought it would be cool to give you guys a chance to have some input.
Why do you think the sequels (including the modern Jurassic World ones) never lived up to that original film?
1 year ago | [YT] | 1,976