Park guest Robert here! When the Jurassic Park franchise was rebooted in 2015 reception was mixed. There was surely lots of dino chaos to behold, but the movie lacked the spark of the original trilogy.
I was personally horrified that they brought on beloved character actress Judy Greer only to have her be relegated to the worst kind of "worried mom crying on the phone" role. That being said, I love the Jurassic Park films and will no doubt be seeing every sequel that gets ground out of the Hollywood script machine for years to come. I wouldn't say that I was hype for the next installment until I laid my eyes upon the news that JEFF "DR. IAN MALCOM" GOLDBLUM HAS SIGNED ON FOR JURASSIC WORLD 2...
Those familiar with the franchise will of course remember Dr. Malcom as the off-beat, flirtatious mathematician who stole the show so much so that he stared in the sequel, The Lost World (spoiler alert: Michael Crichton even brought the character back from the dead in his second novel, which he wrote after the success of the first film), and was spared from the unpopular threequel Jurassic Park III.
Goldblum's inclusion in Jurassic World II will mark the first overt cross over between the two sets of films, B.D. Wong's reprisal of his minor role from the original movie notwithstanding. Considering the popularity of Dr. Malcom from the original trilogy it isn't surprising that he would be brought back, although I am very pleasantly surprised that it actually came to fruition. If anything I hope this opens the door for more of an influence from the original trilogy on the new films, and possibly also for a certain golden haired paleontologist to make a return.
Are you excited about Goldblum's reprisal? Or would you rather Jurassic World carve its own path?