Jurassic Park's most iconic moments feature the Velociraptors and the T-Rex, but it's the human characters that make the scenes memorable, and their absence in the sequels is why they failed. The original 1993 movie was revolutionary, as no other action movie had seamlessly intertwined digital and practical effects. While it's a little more obvious now, at the time, it was impossible to decipher between the two. Seeing the gigantic creatures on the big screen was jaw-dropping, and there had been nothing like it before, and there hasn't been much like it since, not even in the sequels.

However, while the dinosaurs are undeniably a big appeal of the franchise, it's easy to overlook the real heroes, Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), and John Hammond (Richard Attenborough). Everything from their iconic outfits to their different stances on the idea of genetically modified dinosaurs is why the characters in Jurassic Park are so unique. They're all so lovable, including Hammond, as he realizes that playing God isn't the best idea. Not only are the human characters the real heroes of the Jurassic Park series, but they're more important than the dinosaurs too, and the diminishing returns of the sequels prove exactly that.

Jurassic Park’s Iconic Characters Were Separated For The Sequels

While Jurassic Park brought all of these entirely different characters with strikingly similar interests together, the sequels pulled them apart. The main three characters in the first movie, Ellie, Alan, and Ian, wouldn't reunite again until almost 30 years later in Jurassic World Dominion. Jurassic Park's first sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, saw Ian as the lead character, Hammond only had a brief appearance, and Alan and Ellie were totally left out. Ellie and Alan weren't in the sequel, simply because they weren't written into the screenplay, but it could have been due to Goldblum's popularity and being a bankable star too.

However, while Jurassic Park III attempted to right this wrong, it went too far in the other direction by having Alan as the main character and leaving out Ian. Ellie appeared in Jurassic Park III extremely briefly, as she had remarried and refused to remain in the world of dinosaurs following her visit to Isla Nubar. Following years of development hell, Jurassic World arrived 14 years later. Unfortunately, there wasn't a single returning character except for one tertiary character that most audiences would have forgotten if not for it being explained. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom brought back Ian, and Jurassic World Dominion reunited the whole trio, but at that point, the franchise was too far gone.

Human Characters Were Always The Best Thing About Jurassic Park

The setup between the characters in Jurassic Park is genius, as every character has totally conflicting opinions about the park, and they all voice their concerns and opinions in distinctly different ways. The characters are perfectly written and cleverly grouped with other characters that are the total antithesis of them, which leads to some of the most fun and entertaining dialogue and scenes in any family adventure movie. For example, it's foreshadowed at the beginning that Alan despises children, but he then gets stuck with Tim and Lex Murphy (Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards) for almost the entire trip and has to protect them. That leads to him bonding with them and somewhat changing his mind about children.

Equally, Alan clearly feels threatened by the younger and cooler Dr. Ian Malcolm, which is what makes Ian being grouped with Ellie so entertaining too. Even minor characters like Robert Muldoon (Bob Peck), Denis Nedry (Wayne Knight), and Donald Gennaro (Martin Ferrero) have their own motivations and reasoning for being there. And everyone's conflicting feelings and anxiety brilliantly reach boiling point as they're trapped on an island with man-eating dinosaurs. That's what makes the movie so great, not people actually being eaten by dinosaurs. The characters are the heart and soul of the original movie.

Dropping Human Characters Made The Jurassic Park Sequels Worse

The immediate Jurassic Park sequels were a case of diminishing returns, as each one made far less at the box office than its predecessor (via The Numbers), and they weren't just small drops but significant jumps down. After Jurassic Park made $1.045 billion worldwide, The Lost World Jurassic Park made $618.6 million, and after that, Jurassic Park III made $365.9 million, barely even a third of what the original movie had made. There was a steep decline in the movies' critical receptions too. Jurassic Park has a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, whereas the sequel has a "rotten" 54%, and the threequel has an even worse 49%.

Though there were evidently a lot of other things wrong with the two sequels, not having that ensemble cast together in either of them and not having that group dynamic was their biggest problem. The movies still had the thrills of the dinosaurs, but they still ended up being "rotten," proving that the human characters really are more important than the dinosaurs. Both The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III could have benefited from having all the characters back together, both in terms of critical and commercial success, and there's no reason it couldn't have happened.

Jurassic World's Sequels Made The Same Mistake

The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III were undoubtedly most guilty of the mistake, as giving Ian and Alan their own movies is a lopsided and strange decision. However, the Jurassic World sequels are guilty of the same mistake too. Jurassic World might have been a reboot and gone in a completely different direction from any of the three Jurassic Park movies, but the films are still set in the same universe, allowing for old characters to potentially return. But most insultingly, out of all the fun and original characters writer/director Colin Trevorrow could have brought back, he chose Dr. Henry Wu (B.D. Wong). By the time the original main characters did return in Dominion, it was narratively too late.

Henry Wu has one scene in the original film and can barely even be called a tertiary character. His only scene happens in the first act of the movie when he's describing to Ellie and Alan how they genetically modify dinosaurs in the lab. However, he does have a more prominent role in the original Michael Crichton-written novel. However, the Jurassic World movies still sidelined the most important part of the entire franchise – the original characters' group dynamic. This resulted in Universal not making as much money as it potentially could have. While Jurassic World Dominion tried to write that wrong, it was too little too late. Ultimately, waiting 30 years to reunite the Jurassic Park characters cost the franchise dearly.