Jurassic World 3 can do justice to Sam Neill's Dr. Alan Grant with a return of the romantic subplot of the original Jurassic Park. Neill's heroic curmudgeon is one of the upcoming movie's returning cast and the sequel looks set to pay off his character arc better than the original Jurassic Park trilogy did.
Director Colin Trevorrow will have his work cut out for him restoring faith in the franchise after Fallen Kingdom had such glaring issues. Although his 2015 Jurassic World was well-liked by both critics and fans, Fallen Kingdom was riddled with plot holes and bizarre choices, ending on a bombshell twist that changed the trajectory of the entire series. Fortunately, despite having to make sense of a dinosaur-overrun human world, Trevorrow has wisely opted to bring back some familiar faces to ground the action of Jurassic World: Dominion including Drs. Grant and Sattler.
Where Fallen Kingdom was limited to a glorified cameo from Jeff Goldblum’s Dr. Ian Malcolm, the third film in the Jurassic World franchise sees Sam Neill’s Dr. Alan Grant and Laura Dern’s Dr. Ellie Sattler returning for more than mere bit parts. According to the creators, the pair of screen veterans are guaranteed to have important, pivotal roles in the film’s action. And on top of that, recent news out of the film’s set suggests that Jurassic World: Dominion will offer a long-awaited pay off for the romance between Grant and Sattler in the original film. Although neither was around for the events of The Lost World, this decision pays off Dr. Grant’s arc better than his return at the end of Jurassic Park's original trilogy, Jurassic Park III, did.
In the original film, Dr. Grant was set up as a cantankerous dinosaur obsessive who had limited space in his life for family, as epitomized by his inability to interact with kids positively, which seems a sticking point in his relationship with Dr. Sattler. By the end, this hardness and uncompromising demeanor seemed to have softened as Grant realized he had some paternal instincts after all. The film's young stars are realistically helpless, with none of the self-sufficient toughness of most of Spielberg's movie children (The Goonies similarities end with Dennis Nedry's wardrobe). As such, Grant is forced to rise to the occasion and does a great job, gradually shedding his tough-guy persona and connecting with the kids.
By the time the film’s ending rolls around, he’s essentially a father figure to Hammond's grandchildren and it’s reasonable to assume that he and love interest Ellie have a bright future ahead of them. But cut to the disappointing Jurassic Park III and not only has he split up with Sattler, but she has married someone else offscreen and started a family. Meanwhile, despite a cute moment with Ellie’s child, Grant is just sort of the same. He’s still stuck in the commitment-phobic arrested development of the first film, only now he's obsessed with dinosaurs in a slightly different way (and even his nice interactions with Ellie’s offspring are dinosaur-centric).
Jurassic World 3’s decision to pay off their romance will finally give Grant not only the happy ending that he deserves after saving so many characters from rampaging dinosaurs, but also the character development that the first film left implied and the third film retconned for no real reason. Grant's life must find a way, to paraphrase his one-time ally Ian Malcolm and paying off that romance pays off his humanity and breaks Grant's same obsession with dinosaurs that threatened to destroy Hammond. Unless Jurassic World: Dominion sees him eaten by a T-Rex, that is, or becoming one of John Sayles’ infamous human-dinosaur hybrids in a wild conclusion reminiscent of Fallen Kingdom's stranger moments.
