Netflix's 4-Part Jurassic Park Series Makes The Franchise's Most Disappointing Movie Better

Netflix has a couple of exciting Jurassic World series, and the latest helps the franchise in a crucial way, making its most disappointing movie better. A spinoff TV show making a core release of a famous sci-fi movie franchise is not a new event. It has happened multiple times in the best, with one of the most successful cases coming from Star Wars.

The animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars had seven seasons and over 100 episodes to make a new generation of fans care about the Star Wars Prequels, breathing new life into the franchise and changing public opinion of major characters like Anakin Skywalker. That is precisely what one of Netflix’s best TV shows, which comes from the Jurassic Park franchise, does for it.

There have been seven movies released in the Jurassic Park franchise so far, with four of them coming from the more recent Jurassic World branch of the universe. It is from that pocket of the franchise that two animated series on Netflix came to life. One of them is crucial to making the franchise’s most disappointing movie better.

That TV show is Jurassic World: Chaos Theory. The animated series debuted on Netflix on May 24, 2024, serving as a sequel series to the hit Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, now following young adult versions of the Nublar Six, who survived a long time on Isla Nublar all alone when they were teenagers. Chaos Theory is a blessing to the franchise.

Jurassic World: Chaos Theory Improves On Jurassic World Dominion In Nearly Every Way

Jurassic World Dominion, the final movie starring Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, is the poster film for wasted potential. The movie took its predecessor’s setup of a world where dinosaurs and humans had to co-exist and shockingly thought that forcing a plot about genetically altered locusts would be more exciting than going for a simpler approach. Jurassic World: Chaos Theory fixes that by showcasing the tension and fear that having dinosaurs living amid humans could cause, and the locusts even appear in a better, less focused on, capacity.

Throughout Jurassic World: Chaos Theory‘s four seasons, viewers learn way more about Soyona Santos and Lewis Dodgson than they do in Jurassic World Dominion. In the Netflix series, both characters are multi-layered, with Soyona serving as a terrifying and manipulative antagonist who is built up to be a much bigger deal than what is seen of the character in Dominion‘s black market scene. As for Dodgson, the character also gets more to do in the show, and the result is that he becomes a more ruthless villain, compared to the forgettable foe in Jurassic World Dominion.

Jurassic World Dominion Does Have One Exciting Element That Chaos Theory Can’t Match

Universal Pictures

The main factors that made Jurassic World Dominion so disappointing is that it wasted the return of the original Jurassic Park trio — Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum — and their crossover with Pratt and Howard’s characters in what could be the final movie in the sci-fi franchise for all the involved with a divisive storyline. While Chaos Theory helps improve the movie, making it more enjoyable after finishing all four seasons of the Netflix series, the show could never recreate the excitement that came from seeing those beloved characters interact.

It was as if Neill, Dern, and Goldblum had not missed a day, easily slipping back into the shoes of Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, and Ian Malcolm. Their return in Jurassic World Dominion allowed the sci-fi franchise to perfectly close their story arcs, with many exciting moments, such as the long-awaited kiss and start of a relationship between Grant and Sattler. While the iconic characters are not present in the Netflix series, Jurassic World: Chaos Theory features a strong cast of main characters with complex ties to one another, guaranteeing viewers will be engaged throughout its four seasons.