Jurassic World: Dominion saw its story tweaked to fit with the COVID pandemic. Released in 1993, Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park brought state-of-the art CGI dinosaurs to movie screens, thrilling audiences to the tune of $1.033 billion at the worldwide box office. At the same time, the film delivered a classic monster movie message about the danger of tampering in God’s domain.
Given its huge box office numbers it was no surprise to see Jurassic Park spawn a pair of sequels, 1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park and 2001’s Jurassic Park III. The franchise would then go on hiatus for nearly 15 years before roaring back to theaters with 2015’s reboot Jurassic World. Proving audiences still had a huge appetite for dinosaur action, the reboot grossed a massive $1.67 billion. Like previous movies in the series, Jurassic World touched on themes related to the delicate balance of Earth’s ecology and humanity’s huge responsibility for maintaining this balance (while also delivering outrageous dinosaur carnage). After a successful sequel in 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, a third dino-movie is now on the way with Jurassic World: Dominion.
Of course like all the other Jurassic Park and World films, the new movie will explore the issue of humanity’s place in the natural scheme of things. Such themes are obviously much more on people’s minds these days with the COVID pandemic still on-going, and indeed in its own way, the new Jurassic World movie will address this reality. According to star Jeff Goldblum (speaking to EW), some changes were made to the film to reflect the current state of things (via CinemaBlend):
There are things that my character talks about, has always talked a little bit about, the fragility of our species and the global cooperation that’s needed and the foundation and science that is needed. Oh, and the ethical use of science that’s needed to unite us in trust and connectedness as a family. To reach our potential and do right by ourselves and this glorious planet -- all of that. So all of those things are now as you can imagine more relevant than ever. In many aspects of this [Dominion] plot, there are other things we’re kind of finding that are kind of apropos, but there are some sensitive things they are tweaking and adjusting to make it right for now, and contributive and nourishing for right now.
Goldblum’s character Ian Malcolm, the occasionally shirtless scientist first introduced in the original Jurassic Park, would of course be the natural one to help deliver the new movie’s message of balance and connectedness and the ethical use of science, as that’s been his role since the very beginning. Indeed, the movies have occasionally slowed down to have Goldblum literally deliver speeches, as in the first film when he uttered his now famous line “Life finds a way.”
Goldblum is naturally very vague when it comes to discussing what “tweaks” are being made to Jurassic World: Dominion in order to be more “contributive” to what’s going on at the current time, but his remarks certainly imply that the COVID pandemic will find its way into the movie in some capacity. It's interesting too to wonder what parts of the movie were considered "sensitive" and in need of adjusting given the new reality, as it's presumably about dinosaurs and not a pandemic. COVID has of course already played a very real part in production of Jurassic World: Dominion as the film saw its shoot extended to 18 months as a result of delays, and has seen its release date pushed back a year. But despite all this the movie will eventually arrive, as Hollywood finds a way.
Source: EW (via CinemaBlend)
