EVOLUTIONARY PATH
‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ contains genetic makeup of thrilling dino franchise
As “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” arrives with its now familiar saga of science gone wrong and rampaging dinosaurs, one character tours a mansion's basement museum and remarks, “Here's a bit of history.” And an impressive history it is, for a premise that began 28 years ago and shows no sign of franchise fatigue. It all began with perpetually best-selling and belovedby-Hollywood author Michael Crichton, whose 1990 bestseller “Jurassic Park” laid the foundation for a science fiction fantasy that has entranced the world.
Crichton was 66 when he died in 2008. In a career that spanned four decades, he was celebrated as a writer who could combine a bit of science and futuristic technology with potboiler thrills to create bestsellers.
No less than a dozen of his books — among them, “Coma,” “Congo,” “The Andromeda Strain” and “Westworld” — have been adapted for the screen.
However, it was Steven Spielberg's 1993 “Jurassic Park” adaptation, with its then state-of-the-art computer imagery, that set the standard for all future riffs on a saga in which scientists have learned how to clone dinosaurs.
The first film was set on the fictional island Isla Nublar, near Costa Rica. Here on the Pacific, billionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) and his genetic scientists have created a paradise for cloned dinosaurs.
But man being the fallen creature he is, industrial sabotage — propelled by old-fashioned greed — causes a massive shutdown. Hammond, his crew and grandchildren struggle to survive.
With a trio of technical Oscars for its special effects, “Jurassic Park” spawned three successful sequels: “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” (1997), “Jurassic Park III” (2001) and, after a 14-year break, “Jurassic World,” which reignited interest in the series with its endearing spectacle of a Disney World-style island resort mutating into a war zone when the caged creatures break free, killing and destroying any and everything in their path.
The new “Fallen Kingdom” begins as we say farewell to Isla Nublar. It sinks into the sea. But who will save the stranded dinosaurs?
That is only the first question for the heroic, dino-loving couple Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Owen Grady (Chris Pratt).