Usually when a franchise gets 5+ sequels at least one is pretty good, but none of the JP sequels have been.
Jurassic World Rebirth spoilers
And this latest one with ScarJo was particularly bad; they took the Star Wars 7-9 approach where they copy and paste scenes from the original movie and weave a slightly different story around them.
Meanwhile the few “new” things they added were thinly veiled shots at the audience “no one is interested in these creatures anymore so we have to invent hybrids”… and the hybrid they created was basically a Rancor from Star Wars.
(Also wtf does the title “rebirth” have anything to do with what happened in the movie? It’s all about collecting dino blood for Pharma research into human heart disease medication. Nothing is “reborn” at all.)
When I read that book as a kid, that confused me so much. I reread the beginning of the book so many times trying to figure out if I had missed a line saying “but it turns out it was his twin who died” or something. I think I had gotten the first book from the library then returned it, else I would have reread it looking for an explanation. No, though; justifying his resurrection was left as an exercise for the reader.
I was confused too until I hit the reference to the kids age swap and then I was like “Oh! Sequel to the MOVIE, not the BOOK!”
Sadly, I wasn’t very savvy and there was enough of a time gap that I didn’t catch on.