We’ve now received seven Jurassic Park or Jurassic World movies and, of the original masterpiece’s six sequels, not one of them has made the full, loud, emphatic case that Jurassic should have been a franchise. Yes, the first one was the ultimate adventure film and, yes, it made a ton of money, but there’s an issue with opening cinemagoers’ eyes around the world to something new and wonderful: you can only do it once. When Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, and Ian Malcolm see that Brachiosaurus for the first time, with it standing on its hind legs so its tiny head can grab a leaf from the tallest branch of a tree, we get the full intended wonder intended by Steven Spielberg and crew. And just like the intensity felt courtesy of the T. rex paddock scene, that magic and wonder still bleeds through the screen today.
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This was made readily apparent in the first sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park. It was seen as a disappointment in the late ’90s and, if watching it now, it certainly still is a disappointment. But only compared to the original film. Compared to all the films that came later, it’s undoubtedly superior.
What Makes The Lost World: Jurassic Park the Best of the Sequels?
Especially with the benefit of hindsight, it’s clear that The Lost World did, in fact, capture some of the original film’s magic. It basically is a re-creation of the first movie but with the stakes upped. The adventurous tone is still there, but it’s mostly replaced with horror vibes. Spielberg knew the wonder couldn’t be felt twice, so why not give the audience more of what they wanted. In fact, a lot more of what they wanted.
That’s what The Lost World is: more, more, more. There aren’t just three Velociraptors on the prowl, there are so many we never receive an exact count (likely a dozen at the very least). There isn’t just one T. rex, there are two, and they’re ripping The West Wing‘s Toby Ziegler in half as he heroically saves his friends.
That latter part of the sentence explains a few things about The Lost World. In terms of appealing to a young audience, which every Jurassic movie has actively done (while also appealing to the older crowd and everyone in between), this first sequel is a little much for kids. The aforementioned death of Richard Schiff’s Eddie Carr is pretty horrifying stuff, even when watching the movie as an adult. Not only the fact that he’s yanked in two, but also because of the fact that he’s frantically doing all he can to save the protagonists (dangling over a cliff in a mobile lab). We like Carr, we don’t want Carr to die, but he does, and in a clearly painful way.
In that one scene we see Spielberg’s continued genius. We know the two T. rexes are still out there, so we know all the noise Carr is making is putting him in danger. We feel his panic just as much as he does. But we also feel the panic of Ian Malcolm, Dr. Sarah Harding, and Nick Van Owen. It’s a scene that displays Spielberg’s ability to escalate tension just as much as the “Sh- shark in the pond!” scene of Jaws or, well, the aforementioned T. rex paddock scene in Jurassic Park.
In short, while The Lost World: Jurassic Park is inherently more of the same, that’s not such a bad thing because what we’re getting more of is something we really loved out the gate. But that wouldn’t be enough to make this the best sequel. No, what makes this the best sequel is that it has set pieces that rival the best moments seen in the original film. It knows how to involve the audience to the point they’re gripping their seat. It’s spectacle, but orchestrated spectacle.
It’s like a slasher franchise in that we get a higher body count, but some slasher franchises have had moments just as good as anything in the original. For instance, Chris Higgins’ barn-set sparring with Jason in the finale of Friday the 13th Part III is just as good if not better than Alice Hardy’s sparring with Mrs. Voorhees in the original movie. It’s just, instead of building tension by showing the protagonist grip a barn’s rafter for dear life, Spielberg builds tension by having nameless InGen employs run from raptors in tall grass. That’s a great scene, and just as tense as Muldoon’s hunt for the smart, toothed buggers in the first movie.
The Lost World is not without its silly moments. The viewer’s results may vary on the whole San Diego finale, and they’re almost sure not to like the gymnastics vs. Velociraptor bit, but the positive very much outweighs the negative. It’s a late ’90s classic, even if it doesn’t quite grab the high bar of thematic heft and awe set by its predecessor.
Stream The Lost World: Jurassic Park on YouTube TV.
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