The news that Jurassic World Rebirth will not reconfigure any element from the previous one Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies is excellent and makes me think the reboot might be able to make its story work after all. When I First Heard About the Upcoming 2025 Reboot Jurassic World RebirthI wasn't convinced it would work. Jurassic World: DominionThe ending didn't exactly leave the franchise with a compelling story to continue, and its abhorrent reviews left me less optimistic about its future. That being said, David Koepp signing on to write the script gave me hope.
Koepp wrote the 1993 original Jurassic Park and its first sequel, The lost worldSo the reboot seemed to be in good hands. However, my hopes were quickly dashed when I discovered that the reboot's director, David Leitch, had left the project. Your replacement, Monsters Helmer Gareth Edwards, seemed like a perfect candidate since 2014 Godzilla it nicely combined the intimate character drama with large-scale monster movie destruction. However, the reboot's July 2025 release date seemed like too little time until I heard Koepp's comments about The Speech podcast and I finally started to feel hopeful about the reboot.
Writer David Koepp revealed there will be no retcons in Jurassic World Rebirth
Jurassic World Rebirth will not be another reinvention of the franchise canon
On The SpeechKoepp revealed that there was a creative bible for Jurassic World Rebirth which outlined the rules that the film's creative team followed. One of them didn't involve retcons, which means Everything from the previous films is canon and will not be changed. By Koepp, “The events of the previous six films that cannot be contradicted or denied because I don't like retcons.” Koepp noted a few more important rules that he and Edwards followed, saying that humor was a vital ingredient and that science needed to be “Real” to work on reboot.
The Jurassic World films relentlessly reconfigured their predecessors whenever it was convenient.
Although a commitment to realistic science means Jurassic World 4The ridiculous ew dinosaurs shouldn't be a problem, the first comment was the one that really intrigued me. THE Jurassic World the films relentlessly reconfigured their predecessors whenever it was convenient, changing basic facts about the franchise's dinosaurs and main characters to suit new plot developments. Maisie Lockwood was revealed to be a clone in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdomjust for Jurassic World: Dominion to effectively reconnect this with her mother's story. Likewise, the chaotic introduction of dinosaurs into human civilization in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Somehow it ended up being no big deal.
The Jurassic World trilogy retconned major plot points from the original Jurassic Park films
The Jurassic World films changed many important plot elements
Jurassic World: Dominion was the worst offender when it came to the franchise reconfiguring entire areas of the existing canonas the sequel introduced Maisie's unmentioned mother too late and inexplicably turned Dr. Wu into a hero. However, the Jurassic World the trilogy more broadly suffered greatly from sequel bloat. THE Jurassic World franchise Rotten tomatoes The ratings reflect this, as director Colin Trevorrow's 2015 original fared well thanks to its decision to remain a relatively faithful, albeit much larger-scale, retread of Jurassic Park. The next two films strayed from the spirit of the franchise and suffered for it.
|
Jurassic Park / Jurassic World Film |
Rotten Tomatoes critical rating |
|---|---|
|
Jurassic Park |
91% |
|
The Lost World: Jurassic Park |
53% |
|
Jurassic Park III |
49% |
|
Jurassic World |
72% |
|
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom' |
47% |
|
Jurassic World: Dominion |
29% |
As The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom struggled to find an excuse to take its characters back to an island infested with killer dinosaurs after the failure of the titular theme park. Like Spielberg's previous sequel, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom also used poachers as a plot device, but this soon led to a bizarre spy story where the heroes spent the final act infiltrating a group of arms dealers making bids for dinosaurs as biological weapons. This plot twist might have worked in a fundamentally campier and goofier series, but the standalone survival horror of Jurassic Park and Jurassic World I felt completely abandoned.
David Koepp returning for Jurassic World 4 is another great sign for the franchise
Koepp's Jurassic Park and The Lost World scripts are classics
In this regard, Jurassic World Rebirthbringing back Koepp as screenwriter is great news. Jurassic World Rebirththe writer has not returned to the series since The Lost World: Jurassic Parkbut your script for the original Jurassic Park remains an all-time classic. The subsequent Jurassic World the films may have made a lot of money at the box office, but the critical consensus largely agreed that they simply weren't as good as Spielberg's collaborations with Koepp or even Trevorrow's loving homage to the original film. This makes Koepp's return even more exciting as he can fix the franchise's flaws.
Koepp said this in The Speechdiscussing how the series needs a change in tone. Koepp wanted something he called “Maybe more like the first film”, arguing that the film should be“Driven by bottles, by containment.” What this means for the series in practical terms is that Jurassic World Rebirth is likely to bring back the isolated, self-contained survival horror tone of the original film, rather than the sprawling, global adventure feel of Jurassic Worldsequences. After Jurassic World: Dominionit's terrible Fast and Furiousstyle scenarios, I'm very happy to hear that from the screenwriter.
Jurassic World Rebirth Could Return the Jurassic Park Franchise to Its Spiritual Roots
Jurassic World Rebirth could revive the franchise's original tone
THE Jurassic World the sequels went wrong when they tried to turn the franchise into something it never should have been. Jurassic WorldThe sequels were too big and not scary enoughnever replicating the intensity and claustrophobia of Spielberg's early films. Koepp understands this clearly, arguing that the franchise needs to return to its roots to Jurassic World Rebirth. Jurassic World Rebirthsynopsis (via Universal) claims that Scarlett Johansson's covert ops heroine Zora Bennett ends up stranded on an island with a family of civilian tourists, implying that the series will once again focus on small-scale survival amidst worldwide chaos.
Koepp's comments convinced me that Jurassic World Rebirth could be the best accompaniment for Jurassic World or Jurassic Park in decades.
All about Jurassic World RebirthThe synopsis points in the right direction for the franchise, fusing survival horror elements with an old-fashioned disaster movie, avoiding the sprawling adventure story of Jurassic Worldprevious sequences. I'm even happier to see that this won't come at the expense of the rest of the franchise, resetting anything inconvenient and making the series unwatchable as a result. This bodes well for Jurassic World Rebirth and, together with Koepp's comments, convinced me that it could be the best accompaniment to Jurassic World or Jurassic Park in decades.
Sources: The Speech podcast (via Spotify)