Although the original novel end the Jurassic World trilogy right. Bringing back the central cast of the Jurassic Park trilogy is a solid start, but Jurassic World Dominion must also explain away the absurd ending of its franchise predecessor, fix Dr. Grant’s character arc, and provide a satisfying ending to Claire and Owen’s story.
Given all the plot threads and character details that Jurassic World Dominion has to juggle, it would seem fair to say that the trilogy-ending sequel should not try to retcon anything from the original Jurassic Park trilogy. After all, there is a lot to clarify without changing details from the earlier franchise as well. However, some of Jurassic Park’s divergences from its source novel still deserve to be fixed, even if it is five movies later.
In Spielberg’s movie adaptation of Jurassic Park, Wayne Knight's Dennis Nerdy gets the lion's share of the blame for causing chaos by inadvertently letting dinosaurs loose on the theme park and accidentally dooming dozens of lives in the process. The greedy, deceitful InGen employee is almost solely responsible for the ensuing disaster, but that’s not how things pan out in the original Jurassic Park novel. In author Michael Crichton’s book version of Jurassic Park, park owner/billionaire philanthropist John Hammond is depicted as a cunning, greedy, and amoral figure responsible for his eventual demise. As the final movie in the Jurassic Park series, Jurassic World Dominion can finally bring back this plot point.
Why Jurassic Park’s Good John Hammond Never Really Worked
Despite how beloved his movie incarnation is, the idea that Jurassic Park’s original creator was kind-hearted, decent, and only screwed up by hiring and trusting the interminable Nedry has never been particularly believable. The BioSyn/InGen subplot is present in the original Jurassic Park novel, but Dennis Nedry’s book counterpart is driven to betray Hammond when his boss abuses, underpays, threatens, and eventually even blackmails him. Although the purported message of the Jurassic Park series is that humans shouldn’t play god, the movie's version of Richard Attenborough's Hammond being a benevolent, likable, caring figure does nothing to prove this. Hammond being an arrogant, short-sighted egomaniac in the source novel shows that he shouldn’t have been handed the ability to create dinosaur clones solely due to his immense wealth, whereas in Jurassic Park’s movie adaptation, Hammond’s only flaw is that he gives an employee too many chances and is too caring for his own good.
Jurassic World: Dominion Is Well-Timed
Between Aaron Sorkin’s surprisingly sympathetic portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg is out, and the schadenfreude of seeing the 1% getting their just desserts is in, meaning there couldn’t be a better time for Jurassic World Dominion to re-examine Hammond as a character.
Since viewers can’t get enough of tales that center on working people being left in the lurch by power-hungry rich bosses and their power trips, Jurassic World Dominion is perfectly poised to take advantage of this trend. After all, the action of Jurassic World Dominion already opens on a world overrun with dinosaurs, meaning Hammond has, however indirectly, now caused global catastrophe rather than a few dozen deaths. Dominion brings back the cast of Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, meaning the series can address Hammond’s unseen shortcomings and correct the record on his deadly legacy with the original stars in tow.
How Jurassic World 3 Can Revisit John Hammond’s Story
The most audacious way to address the differences between Hammond’s novel iteration and Jurassic Park’s sanitized, kindly billionaire would be to feature a flashback that tells the story of how the original park came into existence. This could depict Hammond as his self-centered, irresponsible novel self, retconning Jurassic Park’s sweet-natured version of the character. Failing this, Jurassic World Dominion could simply feature the characters acknowledging that Nedry went to BioSyn because he was overworked and underpaid or that Hammond’s hubris caused the original park’s failure, which led to all of these later missteps and eventually resulted in a world overrun by dinosaurs. Interestingly, the Jurassic World trilogy has toyed with this plot territory before by depicting BD Wong’s Dr. Henry Wu as an outright malicious actor rather than a misguided scientist given too much power and too little oversight.
How Henry Wu Can Bring Back Jurassic Park’s Hammond
The fact that Wu worked with Hammond in the original Jurassic Park movie means that one of Jurassic World Dominion’s villains has a solid canon connection to the late heroic character. As such, rather than idolizing a character who is explicitly the villain of the original novel, Jurassic World Dominion can depict Hammond as his book self without requiring a Ghostbusters: Afterlife-style CGI cameo from his late actor’s likeness. By having Wu explain that his decision to create ever more lethal dinosaur hybrids was inspired by Hammond, Jurassic World Dominion could explain the sort of character that Crichton’s book makes Hammond out to be without having his Jurassic Park iteration appear onscreen.
Why John Hammond Shouldn’t Appear In Jurassic World: Dominion
While CGI makes a lot possible in of late actors appearing onscreen via special effects, John Hammond should not make an onscreen comeback in Jurassic World: Dominion. The final movie in the Jurassic World trilogy should rewrite the character as a self-centered villain, and bringing back the lovable Richard Attenborough would not help this goal since the well-loved late actor was never much of a villain (except arguably in 1948’s Brighton Rock, when he was 25). Instead, using the existing cast of the original Jurassic Park trilogy and the earlier Jurassic World movies to interrogate the legacy of the character, rather than depicting him onscreen again, would be the most effective way of revising the record regarding the novel Jurassic Park’s original not-so-sweet villain.
