Originally Posted by spidervenom1992
Sad, but completely unexpected, to see so much hate for The Lost World. I liken it to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: a much-maligned first follow-up that tends to get the short end of the stick for a variety of reasons with no real consensus other than "it's inferior to the original." Some people complain about the script, some people complain about certain characters, some people bemoan Ian Malcolm returning as the lead rather than Alan Grant, some people hate the idea of a second island, some people hate that the movie is a loose adaptation of an already flawed novel, some people hate the San Diego ending, and many, many, MANY people hate the gymnastics scene, as if a few seconds out of a two hour movie sinks the whole thing (seriously, frog monsters that were genetically engineered with DNA that is millions of years old doesn't strike anyone as suspect, yet a girl kicking a damn animal out of a window does?)
For me, The Lost World (barring some amazing shift in quality with Fallen Kingdom or JW3) will always be the best sequel to the original film. Firstly, I appreciate that, like Temple of Doom, it had the audacity to be different. I love the dark tone and somewhat cynical atmosphere (some say it's a reflection of Malcolm being the lead rather than Grant); I love the inexplicable coniferous forest on a tropical island (no doubt another decision with the intent to make this film look different from its predecessor); I love the action scenes, many of which have gone on to become iconic (the roundup, the destruction of the trailers, the long grass, San Diego, etc.); I especially love the score by John Williams, the only JP sequel score thus far that has had the balls to not rely on the original themes like a crutch. TLW also contributes more to the overall mythology of the series than any of the other films have, save the original, which is probably why Malcolm once again returns in Fallen Kingdom and the images in the trailers seem to echo so much of the second film's iconography.
Again, The Lost World is an innately flawed film, but I'll be damned if I don't love it to death. It's unfortunate that time has not rehabilitated its reputation amongst fanboys like it has Temple of Doom (of course, the latter had quite a bit of help from the warm reception that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull garnered). (Side note: given that Indy and Jurassic share similar fanbases, it never ceases to amaze me that no one is bothered by the characters in ToD surviving a drop out of an airplane with nothing but a life raft, yet a teenager using gymnastics to kick an animal is "ridiculous.")
For me, Jurassic Park III is weak. It's entertaining, but it's such bare meat and potatoes that it feels overly calculated. I get the sense that Alan Grant was only included to add some interest to the threadbare broken family story, as he really isn't necessary for the plot. That he channels Malcolm's bitterness rather than the cheery, if awkward, paleontologist from the first film bothers me. There's also another lucky pack, as if the redundancies concerning the "character who visited Jurassic Park is now curmudgeonly about it" wasn't enough. JPIII is also where all of the franchise's continuity errors start cropping up, what with many of the dinosaurs featuring new designs, the foliage of Isla Sorna suddenly becoming tropical, and the Pteranodon's being locked in a cage rather than free like at the end of TLW. I'm fully aware of all of the fan theories that attempt to explain these discrepancies, but the fact that they needed to be explained to begin with is the problem.
Also, nobody's going to convince me that there's a single person who sat through the first film that wanted to see Alan and Ellie NOT continue on as a couple, nor is anyone going to convince me that anybody thought it worked out for the better in this film. Ellie's appearance is even more worthless than Alan's, and her having a husband other than Dr. Grant serves zero purpose. It would have been just as easy to have Alan and Ellie married in this film, yet the fans are deprived of that obvious story beat. Why?
Much has also been made of the Spinosaurus in the film. As depicted, the creature is such a cartoonish villain that the viral marketing for Fallen Kingdom has seen fit to retroactively explain its appearance in the third film. Whether any of that material actually makes it into the fifth film remains to be seen (and the more details I read, the less faith I have that it will actually come up in the final film, given that marketing of this nature is usually intended to fill in gaps that aren't covered by the film itself). The new raptors are also ridiculous. It's one thing to portray an animal as an otherworldly intelligence; it's another thing to portray that animal as having potential to "be the dominant species of the planet." Even ignoring the real-world version of the animal that claim is nonsense. The velociraptors aren't xenomorphs, they're dinosaurs. None of the creatures in JPIII behave like animals as in the first two films, they're just movie monsters, plain and simple. The third film is the only one of the four I'd call a B-movie, and to me Jurassic Park is better than that.
But what about the plot? There's nothing to it; compared to the other three films, JPIII feels like an episode of some TV show where a group of people get lost on the island each week and have to find a way off. There's zero overall impact on the greater mythology of the JP universe in this film, save for a few of the new elements concerning certain dinosaurs. Let's compare influence: Fallen Kingdom is obviously cribbing from The Lost World, and Jurassic World even had a few homages to the film (the boat pan revealing the island, the central theme briefly appearing as Blue rushes to attack the Indominus Rex), whereas the only obvious reference to JPIII thus far in the new films is the Spinosaurus skeleton that's destroyed by Rexy. That about sums it up, I'd say.
Even then, I don't hate the film, and I'll give it points over the fourth for at least having some of its own personality. I like all of the films to an extent (the first two are my favorite films of all-time, while the latter two are entertaining distractions), but I tend to flip-flop on which is my least favorite. Jurassic World is too indebted to the original film to function as its own animal, and the cheap nostalgia only makes this reality more apparent. It has some great action, but it also has some dino-sized plot holes. So do the other films, in all fairness, but they're more glaring in a functional park context. The plot also doesn't flow particularly well from the end of the third film to the beginning of the fourth. Some flashbacks to the beginning of this new park would have helped a lot, methinks.
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Sorry for the ramble, I figured I'd just vomit out out a few of my opinions. I kind of like how no two people seem to share feelings on the sequels. It can make for some interesting debate.
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