2025’s summer movie season is officially going prehistoric, because the first trailer for Jurassic World Rebirth is here. The seventh film in the Jurassic Park franchise and the first of a “new era” after the Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard-led trilogy wrapped up with Jurassic World Dominion, this new entry comes from director Gareth Edwards and has an entirely new cast, including Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, and Mahershala Ali. However, despite the talent involved, including the return of original Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp, the film’s premise as shown in the trailer feels like a step backward for this series. Where is the world of dinosaurs that Fallen Kingdom promised, and Dominion once again seemed to tease?
Let’s take a look at what the trailer does and doesn’t show, and why the Jurassic World series seems to be missing out on its biggest opportunity.
Back to the Cretaceous
The Jurassic World trilogy may have had a mixed reception from critics, but the franchise stands as one of the most consistently lucrative blockbuster properties at the worldwide box office for the past decade and change. Global audiences love their dinosaurs, and even if Universal planned on retiring the cast from the first three World films, more dino blockbusters were all but guaranteed. The studio was quick to snap up a new cast and crew for further installments, with director Gareth Edwards of 2014’s Godzilla and Rogue One fame being the most interesting element. Edwards is perhaps unmatched among his contemporaries when it comes to conveying scale in VFX-heavy blockbusters, and his background in CGI gives him a leg up on four-quadrant films compared to the many Sundance babies or indie film darlings that the likes of Marvel commonly scoop up for their projects.
And it shows in the trailer: The dinosaurs look fantastic in motion, and Edwards’ eye behind the camera and keen attention to detail when it comes to proportions and lighting already make this new film look leagues ahead of many unsightly blockbusters we’ve seen in recent years. That he accomplished this on a truncated schedule (he was only hired in February 2024 and was already in production by June) is all the more remarkable. We don’t get enough time with the new cast of characters in the trailer to get the best sense of whether they’ll be worth investing in, but the action looks good and we’re clearly getting plenty of dino screentime, something that isn’t as guaranteed as we’d like to think. Remember the evil locusts from Jurassic World Dominion? Wait, you don’t? Well, we don’t blame you.
Yet although we have reasons to be cautiously optimistic about Rebirth, the fact that the film doesn’t seem to be using the "world of dinosaurs" concept that’s been teased since Fallen Kingdom’s ending hangs over the trailer like an exploding volcano.
An Island? Again?!
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: There’s another island full of dinosaurs. Seemingly neither Isla Nublar or Isla Sorna, but a secret third thing, Jurassic World Rebirth takes place on an island said to be “the research facility for the original Jurassic Park.” Setting aside that that doesn’t really square with previous canon, it’s retreating back to franchise tradition to set the film on a tropical island populated by dinosaurs removed from any kind of civilization. Why are we doing this same song and dance when the previous trilogy ended with dinosaurs all over the globe? Well, according to the official synopsis provided by Universal, “Five years after the events of Jurassic World Dominion, the planet’s ecology has proven largely inhospitable to dinosaurs. Those remaining exist in isolated equatorial environments with climates resembling the one in which they once thrived.”
I mean, sure, I guess, but does this not strike anyone as an unnecessary course correction? Why spend so much of the previous trilogy trying to set up a literal Jurassic World if you weren’t going to use it? In the same way Dominion walked back Fallen Kingdom’s ending to contain most of the dinosaur action within a gated-off preserve in the Italian Alps, Rebirth is now tossing out the best new idea the series had in years with dinosaurs overrunning the world in the aftermath of Fallen Kingdom’s events. It’s a bizarre creative choice when you’re trying to establish Rebirth as a relaunch of the brand with new characters and ideas when they keep running back to the same well the franchise has always boxed itself in.
It also just doesn’t really seem to make sense with the established lore of the previous films. Dominion showed dinosaurs all over the world in its first half, from snowy areas to urban environments. If the outside world was so inhospitable to dinosaurs, why did they seem to have no trouble with it in the last movie? Especially when the Malta chase in Dominion, where we saw carnivores tearing their way through a city, was the best and most creative setpiece in that film? The Jurassic franchise is one of the safest bets in Hollywood; people are clearly always going to want to see dinosaurs. So why not take a chance and do something truly different with this series, and perhaps unlock new dimensions you haven’t explored before?
Of course, it’s possible Jurassic World Rebirth has more tricks up its sleeve than they’re showing in this first trailer. The movie’s original title was even rumored to be Jurassic City, hinting at a type of environment the trailer may intentionally be hiding. But whatever the case may be, it is way past time for the Jurassic franchise to move past the tropical island motif. We’re not saying they have to go full Planet of the Apes with dinosaurs (but maybe they should…), but surely there can be some middle ground to see the dinos in new environments. We’ll see how Jurassic World Rebirth shakes out, but for now, we hope the franchise will finally learn the value of exploring something new instead of repackaging something old.
Carlos Morales writes novels, articles and Mass Effect essays. You can follow his fixations on Bluesky.
