I Watched ‘Jurassic World Dominion: Extended Version' So You Don't Have To

Gizmodo

3 days ago

If you've ever been curious to see the impact of editing on a movie, the extended version of Jurassic World Dominion is a fascinating case. Clocking in 14 minutes longer than the original film, the extended version (which is streaming on Peacock) is somehow both better and worse than its predecessor at the exact same time. The new scenes add welcome scope and pathos to the film, taking a movie that was all over the place and giving it some welcome focus. However, those scenes are also poison to the film's pacing, making it feel 20-30 minutes longer than it actually is. So, you're left watching the film like you are the director. Would you have released a slightly better, but slower, movie? Or a slightly faster, but less interesting, movie?
Of course, we can assume that director Colin Trevorrow went with the latter, releasing the theatrical version at two hours and 26 minutes as opposed to two hours and 40 minutes, which, in the end, was probably the right call. Despite dismal reviews, Dominion was a certified smash, grossing over $1 billion worldwide and making it certain Universal wasn't done with dinosaurs just yet, which is why we revisited this film in the first place. And, if we were going to revisit Dominion, why not watch the extended version that came out for home release? That brings us to today.
Next week, Jurassic World Rebirth hits theaters, taking the six-film franchise off in a brand new direction. It's set after the events of Dominion, so a rewatch to get some facts straight in our heads seemed worthwhile. Facts like dinosaurs now roam the world freely, but are relegated to isolated areas in certain places. One is in Italy, where the evil company BioSyn almost killed the planet with its genetically modified locusts. But thanks to the DNA of Maisie Lockwood, a clone of one of Jurassic Park's original scientists, Charlotte Lockwood, that crisis was averted. BioSyn was, presumably, shut down, and all is right with the world.
As someone who saw Jurassic Park on opening night in 1993, few films have made me as angry as Jurassic World Dominion did back in 2022. Billed as a big culmination of two Jurassic trilogies, the film tragically fumbles that for a story that seems wholly uninterested in dinosaurs. I wrote about it—extensively—at the time, so I won't get too deep into it again. Rewatching the film now, though, especially in this slightly extended version, you do see that a much better film was in there. Additional scenes like a 2001: A Space Odyssey-inspired opening, completely absent of music, which follows one of the mosquitoes John Hammond used to unlock Jurassic Park DNA in the first place, really work to link the full franchise together. A subsequent scene of a T-Rex running around a drive-in movie theater shows the potential fear living in this now integrated world. Both were cut (and later released as an online short), but those scenes and others give the film a much broader scope to explore the world that the previous five films worked so hard to set up.
Extended and additional scenes are sprinkled throughout the entire movie. One early scene speaks to Maisie's rebellious nature as she visits a store. Another adds smart context to the poachers who eventually kidnap her. Blue and Beta murder a couple in the woods, adding to their aura. There's a lot of stuff. One of the most fascinating additions, though, is in the reintroduction of Alan Grant, Sam Neill's character from the first and third films. The original cut shows him pontificating about dinosaur bones and, while you barely even notice it, several young students sitting around, on their phones, ignoring him. However, in the extended version, Grant calls out the kids and they ask him why they should care about dinosaurs because 'they've been around since the '90s.' The idea that modern kids have been totally demystified to dinosaurs is a borderline shocking sentiment that seemed ripe for exploration. Alas, it's not in the movie at all, especially with this brief scene cut.
Those are just a few examples, but almost all of the added scenes help the movie explore present themes and even touch on new ones. The question becomes, at what cost? With the extended scenes, Dominion now takes almost 30 minutes to get a whiff of the film's actual story. Every time there's something that makes the movie better, it also slows it down enough to make it worse. By the time we get all of the characters together at BioSyn for the big finale, you might as well have watched the five other movies first. It feels that long and drawn out.
In the end, Jurassic World Dominion: Extended Edition is, without a doubt, the superior version of this movie. But, that's mostly because it's widely accepted that the original cut of the movie is so bad. This version of the movie is still bad, but at least it illustrates more of the good ideas and intentions behind the scenes. Ideas and intentions that, unfortunately, were largely absent in the final film. Here's hoping the new film finds that balance and brings the Jurassic franchise back to its roots.
The first six Jurassic films are all streaming on Peacock. Jurassic World Rebirth opens July 2.
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