Today's moviegoers split into two camps: some love "Jurassic Park," others have lost track of its sequels. Let's briefly refresh our memory of cinema's biggest dinosaur franchise.
History
Rebirth
Work on the seventh film began almost immediately after the sixth was released, and the story's central knot also went through a "rebirth" of its own, so that today's audience genuinely wouldn't need to know what happened in the earlier trilogies.
So "Jurassic World: Rebirth" can fairly be called a return to the source: Frank Marshall came back as one of the lead producers, and Steven Spielberg as executive producer. The screenwriter is David Koepp, whose collaboration with Spielberg launched the entire franchise back in 1993. This time they decided to fully refresh the characters and build a standalone story, so as not to burden new viewers with the old context of a cult universe.
From the Creator of "The Creator"
Directing duties went to Gareth Edwards, a filmmaker who knows dinosaurs firsthand, with "Godzilla" (2014) and "The Creator" (2023) — shot, incidentally, in Thailand — on his résumé. Spielberg himself backed the choice, given Edwards's genuine fandom for the franchise and his CGI experience. Even so, the decision was made to shoot on 35mm film with Panavision anamorphic lenses, in the spirit of the original "Jurassic Park" and against the grain of the more recent installments, where an abundance of high-end CGI already felt like too much for the modest human eye of the post-industrial age. That's why — in terms of production, screenwriting, and cinematography alike — this film became a genuine rebirth of the franchise.
Jurassic DNA
After Koepp reread both of Michael Crichton's novels (Crichton co-wrote the first screenplay too) and rewatched every installment of the franchise, he laid out a set of rules for how the story would move forward: no canon violations (no retcons); only scientifically grounded assumptions; humor in the dialogue was mandatory. In the process, Koepp landed on the idea that large dinosaurs would have unusually long lifespans, which could be of pharmacological interest. That's how the plot was born: Scarlett Johansson, alongside Rupert Friend ("Homeland") and Oscar winner Mahershala Ali, heads to a secret island where genetic experiments were once carried out on dinosaurs. Their goal is to extract genetic material for life-saving drugs. Unfortunately, they end up surrounded by terrifying monsters, chief among them a mutant tyrannosaur with six limbs.
Familiar Locations
The blockbuster was filmed in the UK, Malta, and Thailand. Originally, the South African coast was meant to stand in for the landscapes of Mauritius, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic — but once Edwards joined the team, everyone headed straight to Thailand, where the director already felt at home after "The Creator."
Filming in the Kingdom took place in three main locations: Khao Phanom Bencha National Park (Krabi), Koh Kradan Island (part of Hat Chao Mai National Park, Trang province), and Ao Phang Nga National Park. So before watching the film, we'd suggest visiting the source material first, for the full immersive effect once you do sit down to watch.
History
- "Jurassic Park," for Steven Spielberg — whose debut fifteen years earlier had been "Jaws" — became the vehicle for long-standing ideas in the horror genre, ideas that had been patiently waiting for CGI technology to mature enough for a new set of "jaws," this time a tyrannosaur's, to look convincing. In the original blockbuster's plot, a billionaire builds a park on Isla Nublar, clones a population of dinosaurs — and something goes wrong.
- Spielberg continues: scientists head to the neighboring Isla Sorna, where, it turns out, dinosaurs have been living without human interference. An attempt to bring a T. rex to San Diego turns into a Godzilla-style disaster.
- "Jurassic Park III," directed by Joe Johnston, known to us from "Jumanji" and "Captain America." Here a teenager goes missing on the dinosaur island, and the search for him introduces a new type of alpha predator — the Spinosaurus.
- Fourteen years later, the relatively unknown Colin Trevorrow continues the story, this time unveiling the Indominus Rex — a tyrannosaur with no equal.
- Juan Antonio Bayona, who'd previously made the very frightening "The Orphanage" and the equally frightening tsunami film "The Impossible" (set in Thailand), brought even more catastrophe to "Jurassic World": the dinosaur island, it turns out, is a volcano, and it erupts, sending the monsters fleeing into the human world. This chapter's subtitle is "Fallen Kingdom."
- Colin Trevorrow, who once made "The Book of Henry," lets the creatures loose to roam the entire world in "Jurassic World: Dominion," uniting characters from both trilogies against the shared threat. All told, across six installments, not much has really changed plot-wise, apart from the size of the main antagonists. Which is why the seventh installment promised to be unlike any of its predecessors.
Rebirth
Work on the seventh film began almost immediately after the sixth was released, and the story's central knot also went through a "rebirth" of its own, so that today's audience genuinely wouldn't need to know what happened in the earlier trilogies.
So "Jurassic World: Rebirth" can fairly be called a return to the source: Frank Marshall came back as one of the lead producers, and Steven Spielberg as executive producer. The screenwriter is David Koepp, whose collaboration with Spielberg launched the entire franchise back in 1993. This time they decided to fully refresh the characters and build a standalone story, so as not to burden new viewers with the old context of a cult universe.
From the Creator of "The Creator"
Directing duties went to Gareth Edwards, a filmmaker who knows dinosaurs firsthand, with "Godzilla" (2014) and "The Creator" (2023) — shot, incidentally, in Thailand — on his résumé. Spielberg himself backed the choice, given Edwards's genuine fandom for the franchise and his CGI experience. Even so, the decision was made to shoot on 35mm film with Panavision anamorphic lenses, in the spirit of the original "Jurassic Park" and against the grain of the more recent installments, where an abundance of high-end CGI already felt like too much for the modest human eye of the post-industrial age. That's why — in terms of production, screenwriting, and cinematography alike — this film became a genuine rebirth of the franchise.
Jurassic DNA
After Koepp reread both of Michael Crichton's novels (Crichton co-wrote the first screenplay too) and rewatched every installment of the franchise, he laid out a set of rules for how the story would move forward: no canon violations (no retcons); only scientifically grounded assumptions; humor in the dialogue was mandatory. In the process, Koepp landed on the idea that large dinosaurs would have unusually long lifespans, which could be of pharmacological interest. That's how the plot was born: Scarlett Johansson, alongside Rupert Friend ("Homeland") and Oscar winner Mahershala Ali, heads to a secret island where genetic experiments were once carried out on dinosaurs. Their goal is to extract genetic material for life-saving drugs. Unfortunately, they end up surrounded by terrifying monsters, chief among them a mutant tyrannosaur with six limbs.
Familiar Locations
The blockbuster was filmed in the UK, Malta, and Thailand. Originally, the South African coast was meant to stand in for the landscapes of Mauritius, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic — but once Edwards joined the team, everyone headed straight to Thailand, where the director already felt at home after "The Creator."
Filming in the Kingdom took place in three main locations: Khao Phanom Bencha National Park (Krabi), Koh Kradan Island (part of Hat Chao Mai National Park, Trang province), and Ao Phang Nga National Park. So before watching the film, we'd suggest visiting the source material first, for the full immersive effect once you do sit down to watch.
Jurassic Renaissance
Original text translated by Claude