7 Questions Jurassic World Rebirth Needs to Answer

We're two days away from Jurassic World Rebirth and I've got questions.

In this short solo episode I work through exactly what I need from this film — the hopes, the anxieties, and what it would actually take for Jurassic to feel genuinely exciting again.

Nine minutes. No guest. Just me, before it's too late to speculate.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome back to Road to Rebirth. I'm Roland Squire. A couple of days ago, I was just sitting down, and I've got this notebook here that I've been using to sketch out episode plans, interview questions, all that sort of thing. And I was sat down and I just decided to write out my questions for rebirth, the questions that have come up throughout all of the episodes and try and distill my thoughts going into the film before I've even seen it. And I thought I'd just go through the seven that I came up with. So, number one, how does this film fit into all the others? And this comes about through lots of conversations that I've had around canon, which sometimes can be a really annoying word, and sometimes I really like it. But the speed of which this film has happened just makes you think about, and this came out of a conversation with Brad, and it's what Universal's endgame is for this all. And I was just trying to think of what that was. And then as we get closer to the release date, I understand that I'm not too fussed, actually, about any explicitly stated connections to the world films, for example, or Lost World or Jurassic Part 3. I think they will be highlights for me, and I'll enjoy them if I see them. But this is the first time ever in a Jurassic film, at least what we know of the film, where we don't have a returning character. Lost World, we had Ian Malcolm, John Hammond, uh you know, uh Jurassic World we had Henry Wu. We've never been able to break away. This might be the chance to start again. Fresh, bunch of characters. And that leads me into question number two, and that is about the characters. Are they fleshed out? Is there a conflict and dynamic between them? That's what I've wanted from a Jurassic film for such a long time. There needs to be a believability to them. There needs to be reality to them in order for me to buy into the mystery of the story, the unreality of the situation. Who survives as well? Who actually survives to the end of this film? I don't believe everybody will. And also, interestingly, maybe I won't even like all of them. That conflict that I talked about, that I've talked about many times through the episodes, I want that. I want that spark between characters. I want that friction. Because friction drives stories for me. Good ones, anyway. Number three, set pieces. Are we gonna have something that is akin to the Pteranodon sequence in Jurassic Park 3? Are we gonna have something like the road attack sequence from the original Jurassic Park? I want this film to stop for a moment and let us have a big, suspenseful Jurassic Park dinosaur moment. That's what I want this film to do. I want our characters and myself in the audience to feel unsettled and nervous for the characters on the screen. I don't necessarily want a big bombastic moment. I'm sure there will be some, but I want one moment that is suspenseful, that takes its time. And hopefully, because we've built up the characters and we understand those characters and we like those characters or dislike them, many motivations going on, that the set pieces hit more, even like Jurassic Part 3 managed. Number four is about exposition. This sort of ties into number one. Are we going to have lots of exposition to explain what's going on every time we step into a new scene? I really, really hope that David Kepp, being a vintage now screenwriter, that he hasn't fallen into the traps of many of these newer blockbusters in order for us to sit and watch it with our phone when it's on on television at home, that we don't suffer from the second screen exposition dump all the time. I recently watched Fountain of Youth on Apple TV Plus, and my God, every time we left the scene, we were told what was coming up next. When we go into a new scene, we were told what was happening at that moment and what had just happened. I want to be able to watch a film where the characters maybe shut up for a minute, just let us watch a film. We can see what's going on. I'm I'm not listening to an audiobook of this. I just want to see what's going on and let me, in my own mind, work out what you, the filmmaker, want me to think of, what you want me to feel. That's what I want from rebirth. Number five, the music. Now, these are some stupid questions when you think of the fact that we've got Alexander Desplah doing the music. I want it to have emotional weight using that Jurassic Park themes. I want both themes, please. I want Journey to the Island theme as well. Quite how they fit that in, I don't know, but I want both of them. And I want them to hit at moments where I want that nostalgic moment in this film. This is a reason why I'm going to see it. I want a new story, but I also want those threads musically to keep me attached to the experience I had when I first watched Jurassic Park. I'm not really expecting any music to be carried over from the world films, Gekino's music. Fantastic though it is, I love listening to the soundtracks for those three films actually. Over this past few months, I've just put them on and listened to them all the time. But I also want the music to take a step back at certain times. Will we have a moment where the music completely departs? I'm not sure whether we will. I think modern blockbusters just can't do that anymore. They can't stop the music running all the way through. So it's unlikely that that's going to happen. But I would love it if the music stopped and I didn't notice. That's what I want. Number six is all about the visual effects. Now we've seen snippets from the trailer, the T-Rex walking into the water, and that feels like it's got real heft and weight. And actually, listen to Gareth Edwards talk about how he does visual effects. He knows it inside out because he's had to do it by himself at home in his bedroom. You know, I want a visual effect that I don't think about. I want them to be believable. I want to care for these animals. I want to have a moment where we're just walking through the jungle and we stumble across a dinosaur, for example, doing dinosaur things. And do we miss the animatronics? I've been thinking about this more and more. Can these characters touch the visual effects in the way that they can react and emote when they're up against real animatronics? It'll be a really interesting question. And finally, number seven is the ending. I have absolutely no idea where this film will leave us at the end. We know that we're walking back from the fact that dinosaurs are everywhere. I want to know how that's handled. And I want to know at the end of the film whether this tees us up for a rebirth 2, a rebirth 3. Is this the start of a new trilogy? Or is this a one and done story? All of that will depend on the box office, I'm sure. But also from story point of view. I keep coming back to the fact that this is called the D-Rex. Are we gonna have the DX virus? Why are they wearing so much protective gear at the start of this film? Is it just because they're handling embryos and all that sort of thing? So sort of ties back to the visors that we see in Jurassic Park when they're extracting the DNA. Maybe that's just a visual reference. But otherwise, is the reason why this creature is contained because it's got a virus? I just don't I just don't know. I don't know what the implications of the end of this film will be. Is this gonna be sailing off into the sunset, like Jurassic Park, where it doesn't set up for a sequel at all? Now, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please let me know in the comments down below what you think. Maybe tell me your questions, your seven questions for Jurassic World Rebirth. I'm also gonna link below to everybody else's podcasts. I haven't listened to See Jurassic Wright, Stephen Morris's episode yet, because I wanted to get this done first before I go and binge absolutely everybody's theories and questions about this film. But any ones that I can find, I will add them into the show notes for this episode. But it's really interesting, isn't it? I hope these questions have been interesting for you. Find myself thinking about this film a lot in different ways, and what I want from it. And I think the main thing I want from it is for it just to be good. My my wants from this film beyond that are really small. I I just want it to be good. I want to have a good time. I want other people to have a good time when they go and see it. And that's all I can really ask for.