Occasionally, I sit and ruminate about the Jurassic Park movies. It’s a series with diminishing returns. The first one is one of my all-time favorite films. The third one is just…fucking awful. Tonight I had a sudden epiphany. Three small changes to the third movie would have taken it from “shrill mess I don’t give a fuck about” to “shrill mess with some emotionally impactful moments that make sitting through Tea Leoni’s acting worthwhile.”

1. Make Alan and Ellie a couple: It would alter one single scene, but it’s important. There was no fucking reason for those two to not be a couple. It makes that ending of the first movie much little less satisfying to see her having a kid with someone else when the whole point of the first movie was him opening up to the idea of loving children. I’m fine with happy childless characters but that wasn’t his arc.

2. Make Billy their son. This would change very little of the on-screen happenings of the film. It might add a scene or two and a few lines of dialogue, but it would completely alter the tension and motivation. Alan is trying to keep the annoying couple’s son safe and is trying to get back to his own son, who has an agenda and is a bit of an idiot, but maybe, one worth rescuing.

3. Billy is the one who agrees to go with the couple. So when Alan finds out and hops aboard to try to stop him, he gets dragged along for the ride, and he doesn’t look like a total fucking sellout for agreeing to go for the money after emphatically stating that no force on heaven or earth could get him on that island. This might add a scene.

So at best, you’d be adding let’s say four short scenes and a handful of lines, in a movie that’s only 90 minutes long anyhow. It would double the tension, give you something to care about and make the ridiculous ending cathartic and satisfying.