Summary

The original Jurassic Park set a standard with its mix of CGI and practical effects for realistic dinosaurs.
The producers of Jurassic World Rebirth are focusing on nostalgia, but should incorporate hand-crafted models for authenticity.
Practical effects inspired by the original film should be considered for Jurassic World Rebirth to enhance realism and engagement.

In 1993, Jurassic Park redefined visual effects in film, being the first to integrate practical models and animatronics with computer-generated imagery, or CGI, to create realistic dinosaurs which were, at the time, lifelike. Today, nearly every blockbuster utilizes the CGI pioneered in Jurassic Park to dazzle audiences and keep them coming back to the big screen.

A new Jurassic World Rebirth promo claims it "harkens back to the original," and goes on to spend almost two minutes detailing callbacks to the first film in story and thematic senses. That's all good and well, but Jurassic World Rebirth producers should know just as well as fans that what we really want are hand-crafted dinosaur models and cutting-edge camera work to bring them to life. In Jurassic Park (1993), scientists and billionaires genetically engineer monstrous dinosaurs that eclipse their creators' level of control over them. Ironically, that film's introduction of life-synthesizing CGI has spawned an irreversible monster of innovation that's grown wildly out of hand.

Mutated Dinosaurs Prove The Jurassic World Franchise Is Out Of Ideas

The Jurassic World franchise is all out of ideas as mutated dinosaurs are set to join.

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By Matthew Wilkinson

In the 'Classic Jurassic' promotional video for Jurassic World Rebirth, David Koepp recalls speaking with Steven Spielberg, who asks Koepp, the original Jurassic Park film's screenwriter, if he'd "like to make another one of those." This kicks off a rather lengthy description of Jurassic World Rebirth's triage of Spielberg influences, kicked off by Dr. Henry Loomis actor Jonathan Bailey insists this is the Jurassic film for anyone who's a fan of the original. Later, acknowledging the central question of the original film, which asks, "Just because we can, should we?"

This is a question that seems to have quintessentially evaded the producers of Jurassic World Rebirth. Should a second iteration of the original trilogy have been made at all after the declining quality of Chris Pratt's Jurassic World trilogy? Maybe, but only if the series received a complete overhaul with assets from the original films to ensure faithfulness instead of phoning in past characters for weak nostalgia points. That's what they did. Now that they've brought in original writer Koepp to pair with Executive Producer Steven Spielberg, shouldn't they double down by building animatronic dinosaur models to renew the realism and immersion of the original film? Nope. Odds are, they'll never mention it either.

Why Are Practical Effects So Important To Jurassic Park And Its Indelible Legacy?

First off, practical effects are expensive, and apparently, they cost studios a lot of time and money that they aren't readily willing to spend. If we've learned anything from the Jurassic World trilogy, studios are more interested in selling CGI dinosaurs than they are in preserving the legacy of their properties. Still, there's an argument to be made that the trifecta of Koepp, Spielberg, and that special handcrafted sauce that made the original film endure across generations becomes required viewing for Jurassic fans and cinema junkies alike. There wouldn't be an end of the movie-goer spectrum that a Spielberg-driven film such as that wouldn't reach.

For reference, consider the iconic Jurassic Park scene when the largely practical T. Rex escapes the paddock and compare it to the Jurassic World scene in which Chris Pratt and company first encounter the computer-generated Indominus Rex.

The reactions of the soldiers, battle-tested or not, do not accurately reflect audience expectations of anyone first seeing a camouflaged T. Rex pop out of thin air to tower over them all. The dinosaurs in Jurassic World suffer from a hollow lifelessness that translates to the human talent opposite them. There's a genuineness to the reactions of the actors in Jurassic Park that's almost completely lost on the majority of performances in the Jurassic World trilogy, which would be a shame to see continue in Rebirth.

Will There Be Any Kind Of Practical Effects In Jurassic World Rebirth?

Even in the early 1990s, Spielberg realized that full practical effects weren't financially feasible to make Jurassic Park, and an ace Hollywood team to blend practical and special effects. Due to heavy time constraints, Spielberg wouldn't be able to computer generate the introduction of the T. Rex. Using tight parameters to create true art, Spielberg used nighttime, rain, and a single lamp light to render his puppeteered full-scale T. Rex as a genuinely terrifying real-world movie monster.

If anyone could figure out how to recapture that magic today, it would be the same man responsible for Jurassic Park Rebirth as Executive Producer. Sure, CGI has advanced handily over the past few decades, but practical effects have to have also made some strides, right?

In Jurassic World Rebirth, it's assumed there will be some sorts of small-scale models for incidental close-up shots, maybe. There doesn't seem to be any boundary-pushing full-scale model work or animatronics, though, as of this writing. For what it's worth, the production does utilize on-location filming instead of relying on a studio stage, which is something.

So, How Will Jurassic World Rebirth Set Itself Apart From The Chris Pratt Trilogy?

From the 'Classic Jurassic' promo, fans can expect a story that's reminiscent of the original film, including a reported raft scene which was left out of the first film from the novel it was based on. Additionally, Jurassic World Rebirth will supposedly highlight themes of adventure, friendship, and loyalty to go along with a nearly impossible task to root for. Let's hope that's enough.

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