The movie, the seventh installment in the Jurassic series, also draws inspiration from the original Jurassic Park books by Michael Crichton.
Gareth Edwards, the director behind Jurassic World Rebirth and known for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, has revealed that his latest addition to the Jurassic franchise aims to bring the franchise back to its “horror” roots. The director, who replaced outer space for dinosaurs, sought to create a scarier movie than its predecessors, inspired by the terror he felt as a child watching the original Jurassic Park in 1993.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Edwards described the original Jurassic Park as a “horror film in the witness protection program” and admitted that he was terrified by the T. rex attack scene, calling it “one of the most well-directed scenes in cinema history.” He believes that the fear of larger animals, deeply rooted in human evolution, is what makes the franchise so primal and terrifying. “As mammals, we evolved with this fear of the bigger animal that’s going to come one day and maybe kill us or our family,” Edwards said, explaining the universal fear that the film taps into.
To craft a truly frightening experience, Edwards took inspiration from some of his favorite films, including Alien and the Star Wars franchises. He explained, “When you make a creature, you get a big, massive pot and you pour in your favorite monsters from other films and books.” Elements from the Star Wars Rancor and Alien’s H.R. Giger-designed monsters were combined with the iconic T. rex to create a new, terrifying dinosaur for the film.
The movie, the seventh installment in the Jurassic series, also draws inspiration from the original Jurassic Park books by Michael Crichton. The screenplay by David Koepp, who worked on the first two films, revisits a famous scene from the books in which Alan Grant (played by Sam Neill in the films) protects two children from a Tyrannosaurus rex in a lagoon. While the characters won’t appear in the movie, the scene will influence the storyline.
Koepp, who revisited the novels to refresh his creative process, explained that the new movie would incorporate scenes from the books that were previously cut from the original films. He reflected, “We did take some things from them [the books]… There was a sequence from the first novel that we’d always wanted in the original movie, but didn’t have room for. We were like: ‘Hey, we get to use that now.’”
With expectations high, Jurassic World Rebirth promises to reignite the thrills and tension that made the original Jurassic Park a groundbreaking success while continuing the legacy of the Jurassic series.
