Warning! Spoilers for Jurassic World: Dominion ahead.
The reactions to Jurassic World: Dominion have been highly divisive, but the movie's biggest sin is advertising itself in a way that wasn't honest. The recent arrival of Jurassic World: Dominion was a long time coming due to extensive delays imposed by complications during the Coronavirus pandemic. Heading into release, Dominion received scathing reviews from critics, and while the audience response hasn't been quite as dire, there is definitely a large segment of moviegoers who left their local theater disappointed.
There was initially much anticipation for Jurassic World: Dominion, which promised to end the current trilogy and possibly the entire Jurassic Park franchise. A lot of this hype stretched back to the ending of 2018's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, which saw the dinosaurs get released on the American mainland. This seemingly promised a compelling tale of dinosaurs and humans being suddenly forced to coexist in society, as well as the likely consequences of the struggle to reach any kind of happy medium between humans and dinosaurs. Sadly, that is not at all what Jurassic World: Dominion delivered.
Instead, Jurassic World: Dominion spends most of its runtime focused on Owen and Claire's quest to rescue their adopted clone daughter Maisie, a character audiences barely see in Fallen Kingdom. The other half of the plot focuses on a genetically engineered locust plague threatening to cause global famine. While dinosaurs certainly appear in a good amount of the movie and do occasionally attack the characters, their presence is largely incidental to the story being told. Jurassic World: Dominion isn't a dinosaur story, it's a story that dinosaurs just happen to be in, and that's not what the trailers, TV spots, and other various marketing promised. From the Battle at Big Rock short to the initial trailer featuring a T-Rex rampaging at a drive-in theater, no impression was given of Dominion's true nature.
While misleading movie trailers are by no means a new phenomenon, this deceptive marketing strategy especially hurts the Jurassic World franchise. Audiences propelled both Jurassic World and Fallen Kingdom to $1 billion-plus grosses, and while both films were far from perfect entries in the Jurassic Park timeline, they also weren't sold as something they were not. Jurassic World: Dominion was marketed as a thrilling, dinosaur-based adventure movie featuring legacy Jurassic Park cast members and, to a lesser extent, a story about dinosaurs let loose upon human society. That is not at all representative of the final product, which does not even contain the much talked about trailer scene of the T-Rex at the drive-in.
Sadly, Jurassic World: Dominion's marketing deception proved successful out of the gate, with the sequel earning the biggest opening weekend of the pandemic era with the exception of movies in Marvel Studios' MCU - likely ensuring a Jurassic World 4. It will be interesting to see just how much of a box office tumble Dominion suffers during its second weekend in theaters now that the ins and outs of what it offers plot-wise are becoming well-known. While it is doubtful that Jurassic World: Dominion will be any kind of a financial flop in the final reckoning, there could be a backlash against Universal selling audiences something they were not prepared to provide.
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