Last week, I sat through the second Jurassic Park movie for the first time since seeing it in theaters. That’s Jurassic Park II: The Lost World, from 1997, which Spielberg directed. The previous week, we introduced the kids to the first Jurassic Park film. It still holds up. The sequel does not.

There are many reasons for this, but all of them go down to Sequelitis, the difficulty of adding to a story that’s already complete. Jurassic Park works fine on its own: you have hubris, you have nemesis, you have likeable characters and exciting situations. Recreating this scenario with different scenes does not improve upon it, and mostly diminishes it. Precisely two things stand out: the fun of watching a T-Rex do a Godzilla run through San Diego, and Pete Postlethwaite’s Gigachad turn as the White Hunter (he was my favorite character the first time I watched it, and remained so. He’s the only person completely uninvolved in the movie’s tedious debate between climate and capital. The one side is preachy and boring, the other oily and malicious. Postlethwaite looks at T-Rex and sees neither an object of exploitation nor adoration, but simply what it is, a large and dangerous animal).

But this experience, mediocre as it was, was stimulating in a critical sense. I wasn’t expecting the thing to be any good, so I wasn’t disappointed, and could enjoy certain bits without feeling that they were somehow tainted. And since I hadn’t watched it for any other reason but to continue the series, I felt no buyer’s remorse. I had decided to watch a movie, I watched a movie. It was what it was.

Back in the 90’s, this was a common experience. You spent time and money on a movie, and it was the movie’s responsibility to entertain you. You took no responsibility for it, even though you made the choice to pick *this* movie, and not *that* movie. There was always next weekend.

I always think of that whenever someone talks or writes about “choice paralysis”.

This links “analysis paralysis” with regret, doubting choices previously made, leading to an unwillingness to make choices again. This is called FOMO when applied to the Millenial Generation, but really its universal. It’s way harder to pick something on Netflix than it was at Blockbuster back in the day, or at a movie theater. You pick something that looks good and starts soon. If it sucked, oh well. But when there’s 100 options sitting on your Netflix screen, it feels impossible to ignore the fear that you’re making the wrong choice, no matter what you do.

Thus, people rewatch the same stuff on Netflix or YouTube for the same reason people went to see Jurassic World or Star Wars Sequels or Disney “Live Action” reboots. It’s something you know. It’s safe. Even if it’s not as good as the original, you’ll still see a T-Rex rampaging through San Diego. That was pretty cool, right? It’s not your fault they couldn’t do as good a job this time around.

That’s why it’s necessary, in the pursuit of good content, to Embrace the Suck. Sometimes, you will take a chance on something, and it will not please you. Sometimes it will disappoint you. I was enjoying 1899, until I wasn’t (begone, Spooky Kids Who Won’t Talk. I have lost all sympathy). That’s okay. I don’t regret it. It’s not terrible. I just lost interest. I’ll try something else instead. This is fine.

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