Jurassic World Rebirth, the newest film in the franchise for dinosaur aficionados that hit theaters everywhere recently, gets the franchise going in a new direction with a new island and new faces. While screenwriter David Koepp worked to minimize callbacks, while director Gareth Edwards did not shy and placed throwback hints, recurring lines and even reorganized scenes to accommodate the new cast with Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey in the lead roles. Rebirth honors a number of chapters in the franchise, but numerous nods to the classic 1993 film Jurassic Park that you'll forget in the time that it takes to blink your eyes.
These are six of the best scenes in Jurassic World Rebirth that salute the 1993 classic by Spielberg:
Rearview Mirror References Jurassic Park
In the original Jurassic Park film, we have the classic scenario of a T-Rex chasing a Jeep while Laura Dern's Ellie Sattler, Jeff Goldblum's Ian Malcolm and Bob Peck's Robert Muldoon in panic try to escape. In Rebirth, the same scene is recreated with a variation with Rupert Friend's Martin Krebs using the same "objects in mirror are closer than they appear" trick in the wing mirror in the car. Edwards has admitted that he had wanted to re-use the same gag again. While the scene did not make the final version, he slipped in the mirror close-up in the final shoot in New York to offer nostalgia. He claimed: "I said to the guy providing the car, 'Is there any way you can "show objects up close" in the wing mirror?'"
Reference to Alan Grant
In the first trilogy with Sam Neill in the role of Dr. Alan Grant, he is mentioned with a reference in a conversation with Zora and Henry when Henry's character comments that he was Grant's pupil. The director added fine-detail prop assistance for this. Henry wears a patch in the region with the dig site at the Snake water dig site (the same opening dig in the first Jurassic Park movie), and he has a digging tool clipped to his belt that is identical to Grant's. "It was like a national park badge from that dig site, like [Henry] was a kid and worked there growing up," Edwards described.
Jurassic World Rebirth's Opening Attack Sequence
In the initial Jurassic Park movie, one classic opening scene has Robert Muldoon and men attempting to relocate a Velociraptor to its enclosure. That is when the raptor assaults the handler and pulls him in the cage, and that is the opening that sets up the rest of the film. Rebirth re-creates that same emotional feel but with a twist. The prologue that happens 17 years before the main story finds how a shred of candy wrapper causes a malfunction in an InGen facility. This small malfunction basically gives the D-Rex its chance to break loose.
Chemistry
Another great Easter egg was Bailey and Johansson's chemistry and it had the same feeling that Alan and Ellie had in the first film. The romance never takes off and maybe that is the point. Throughout the movie we have a strained will-they-won't-they-will-they feeling going through the movie but at the end the movie does end up taking Spielberg's lead from this point in time. They did actually shoot Ellie and Alan sharing a kiss at the dig site but did end up editing it in the final cut most likely because who has time to kiss when dinosaurs are going to kill you?
Titanosaurs and Awesome Moments
Not to forget when Alan and Ellie first lay eyes on their first Brachiosaurus, they looked in disbelief with John Williams' theme music in the foreground to sum up the moment? Rebirth brings to mind the same situation except mating in the center of the giant titanosaur and with the same music.
Pelican T-Shirt
At one point in the episode, Isabella is wearing a T-shirt with a pelican imprinted in it. This is a direct allusion to the end of Jurassic Park when Alan and kids see the pelican in flight. This shirt also has "Life finds a way" imprinted in Spanish. Rebirth also gives its own twist to that classic ending, this time substituting the pelican with a dolphin. The film ends with its survivors looking through a boat while dolphins swim calmly in the waters to suggest that things are back to normal in life.
Mutadons
Finally, the Mutadons, hybrids of Pteranodon and Raptor, arrive to carry on the tradition of the Raptor. Their attack sequence is basically a modern day re-creation of the classic Raptor Kitchen attack sequence. Except this time, in lieu of the visitor center, it's a vacant convenience store. They even have a ground-level tunnel pursuit sequence à la the good ol' air duct pursuits in the good old days.
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