Nearly three years after the conclusion of Colin Trevorrow’s “Jurassic World” trilogy, Universal Pictures is once again bringing audiences back to a dino-filled world. This time, it’s “Godzilla” (2014) and “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” director Gareth Edwards at the helm on “Jurassic World Rebirth,” which recently unveiled its first trailer. The film promises a new beginning for the franchise and, above all else, lots and lots of dinosaurs. These aren’t the same old dinosaurs though. These ones are even more dangerous.
“These are the dinosaurs that didn’t work. There’s some mutations in there,” as producer Frank Marshall told Vanity Fair in a preview piece for the film. “They’re all based on real dinosaur research, but they look a little different.”
Those who have watched the “Rebirth” trailer probably took note of a bizarre dinosaur that appears several times and looks quite unlike anything we’ve seen in these movies before. It appears largely shrouded in darkness, lit only by flares or hidden behind glass, yet it’s clear that this is a man-made abomination with prehistoric influences. But what is this mutant dinosaur, exactly? That’s the big, lingering question. For now, we have some answers, even if the whole picture hasn’t come into focus just yet.
“Jurassic World Rebirth” is telling a new story centered on all new characters. It picks up five years after the events of 2022’s “Dominion,” with Earth’s ecosystem having proven largely inhospitable to dinosaurs. The ones that remain exist in isolated environments near the Equator with climates resembling the one they lived in some 65 million years ago. However, because the three biggest dinosaurs contain the key to a drug in their DNA that can bring life-saving benefits to humankind, a dangerous mission is hatched to retrieve this genetic material from the dinos.
What has Gareth Edwards said about the mutant dinosaur?
Universal’s official synopsis for “Rebirth” also states that its main characters will “come face-to-face with a sinister, shocking discovery that has been hidden from the world for decades.” That certainly appears to be hinting at this failed experiment of a dinosaur we see in the trailer. Edwards, speaking in that same Vanity Fair piece, talked a little bit about the creature, explaining that other famous movie monsters influenced the look of this mystery beast:
“When you make a creature, you get a big, massive pot and you pour in your favorite monsters from other films and books … Some Rancor went in there, some H.R. Giger went in there, a little T-Rex went in there …”
H.R. Giger is known for having created the Xenomorphs in the “Alien” franchise, which is certainly a terrifying place to start. Then there’s the Rancor, which “Star Wars” fans will know as the beast in the basement of Jabba’s palace in “Return of the Jedi.” That’s certainly present in the mutant dinosaur we see in the trailers. Add some T-Rex in there, which is very present in the creature’s arms, and this thing sounds like a monster in the truest sense of the word.
“This island was the research facility for the original Jurassic Park,” Scarlett Johansson’s Zora Bennett says in the “Rebirth” trailer. Jonathan Bailey’s Dr. Henry Loomis later adds, “These dinosaurs were too dangerous for the original park. The worst of the worst were left here.”
Of course, it’s not like dangerous dinosaurs or man-made creatures are new concepts. 2015’s “Jurassic World” introduced the notion of hybrid dinosaurs to the franchise, beginning with the Indominous Rex. Other hybrids such as the Indoraptor subsequently appeared in the film’s 2018 sequel, “Fallen Kingdom,” with the animated series “Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous” exploring this idea even further by incorporating creatures such as the Scorpios Rex and the Spinoceratops. So, is this mutant dinosaur an earlier attempt at a hybrid? Or is it something else entirely?
What exactly could the mutant dinosaur in Jurassic World Rebirth be?
As of this writing, there are no clear answers, although it’s certainly possible this mutant dinosaur is another hybrid. It’s also worth emphasizing, as Zora points out in the “Rebirth” trailer, that the film’s characters encounter this creature at the original research facility for John Hammond’s (who was previously played by the late Richard Attenborough) first Jurassic Park. This isn’t Site B, aka Isla Sorna, which was first introduced in Steven Spielberg’s “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” in 1997. This was the place where Hammond’s team initially figured out how to make dinosaurs. Undoubtedly, there was a steep learning curve early on. Even as Hammond was getting ready to open his park, not everything went according to plan. Just imagine what went wrong in those early days.
Indeed, it’s possible that this mutant dinosaur was a failed attempt at bringing a real dinosaur to life. It has some T-Rex in it, according to Edwards, and it has T-Rex-like arms based on the trailer. Was this an early attempt by the Jurassic Park genetics team to create a T-Rex that went horribly awry? That seems like a possibility based on the information currently available to us. It also seems like a way for “Rebirth” to further explore Alan Grant’s (Sam Neill) “This is how you play God” line from “Jurassic Park III.”
Not to get too far into wild speculation territory here, but it’s worth remembering that John Sayles’ abandoned “Jurassic Park 4” script included human/dinosaur hybrids. Some of the concept sketches for the film made their way online years back and it’s possible, however unlikely, that this idea has been dusted off by Edwards and writer David Koepp for “Rebirth.” There is far less evidence for this theory, although it does demonstrate that Universal has at least entertained the notion of things getting really weird with this franchise in the past. We’ll just have to wait and see what they cooked up in that lab this summer.
“Jurassic World Rebirth” hits theaters on July 2, 2025.
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