'Jurassic' journey, part 2: Spielberg returns for amped-up 'The Lost World'

It’s been 25 years since “Jurassic Park” launched one of Hollywood’s most enduring franchises. Now, before “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” arrives in June, we’re taking a look back at the events of the first four films.

Set four years after the events of the first film, “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” follows Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) as he attempts to bring attention to Jurassic Park and the disastrous efforts by John Hammond (Sir Richard Attenborough) to clone dinosaurs.

Malcolm initially refuses Hammond’s offer to help generate public support against human interference at the former theme park site. But when he learns that his paleontologist girlfriend Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) has gone to study the creatures in their natural habitat, Malcolm reluctantly agrees to return to the island.

He teams with equipment specialist Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff) and videographer Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn) to locate Harding. Along the way he discovers that Hammond’s nephew, Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard), is selling high-priced expeditions to big-game hunters in a bid to recoup some of his uncle’s losses.

Requiring less exposition than its predecessor, “The Lost World” is heavier on action. It also features one of the franchise’s best sequences when an attempt to set a tyrannosaur pup’s broken leg turns into a showdown between two grown T-Rexes and an unlucky high-tech camper protecting Malcolm, Harding and Van Owen.

Worth noting: The film features the only appearance of Malcolm’s daughter Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester), a young woman whose aptitude as a gymnast unexpectedly comes in handy during a standoff with a pack of velociraptors. The film also incorporates several ideas that were either conceived for the first film or written into Crichton’s book but left out of the adaptation. Meanwhile, Spielberg tacked the San Diego sequence onto the film because it was something he wanted to shoot, figuring he wouldn’t return to the franchise as director.

Did you know? The two T-Rex models used during filming each weighed nine tons. Due to their weight, the crew constructed sets around them rather than moving them onto sets.

Click on the image below to continue the Jurassic Journey with “Jurassic Park III”: