With Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom trampling all over the worldwide box office, there’s plenty of life in the dinosaur saga yet – even if the fifth instalment in the franchise puts them dangerously close to re-extinction thanks to an erupting volcano. Empire sat down with Fallen Kingdom director J.A Bayona and its producer and co-writer Colin Trevorrow (who also directed Jurassic World) to talk up the sequel in spoiler-filled detail, from the big final-act revelations to the major decisions that change the landscape of the series for good. If you haven’t seen the film yet, turn away now. If you have, listen to the Empire Podcast Spoiler Special here, and read on for 18 fossilised nuggets the duo brushed off in the interviews.
WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM
1) It’s packed with classic cinema references
Bayona not only pays homage to previous Jurassic films – he also throws in more subtle visual references to other iconic movies. For starters, the beach that Owen and Claire wash up on after the gyrosphere sequence was the same one from 1953’s From Here to Eternity. “I said, ‘OK we need to do the same shot, the famous kiss shot of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr’,” Bayona recalled. ‘So we did the same with Owen and Claire, without kissing each other." The Indoraptor creeping into Maisie’s bedroom was inspired by John Badham's 1979 Dracula. "I saw that movie at five years old, by accident of course, and I couldn't live close to a window for months because I thought that Frank Langella was going to come in,” said Bayona. “Colin had that same moment in the script, and I really made something about that scene, thinking about that moment in my life."
Fallen Kingdom also features several Steven Spielberg nods. There are two call-backs to Raiders of the Lost Ark – firstly in the shot of Owen evading the stampede of dinosaurs, which echoes Indiana Jones escaping from the natives, and then in the explosion as the gang run towards the boat to escape the island, mirroring Raiders’ exploding plane. The closing shot of Blue in suburbia was also shot in the same location as the similar scene in E.T.*
2) Tom Holland was one of the first people to see it – and it terrified him
Fallen Kingdom is one of the scariest Jurassic films in years, and to gauge how a young audience would react to it Bayona called on friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man (or, his former The Impossible star) Tom Holland. "I invited his whole family to a screening. I was sitting with him and it was so much fun to see how he was reacting to the movie. In the emotional moments he was just like, 'No!', and then jumping – he had a lot of fun." The one shot that really got him? The Indoraptor clawing Maisie’s ponytail through the cage. "That is the shot that Tom Holland, like, shit on his pants!" recalls Bayona.
3) Colin Trevorrow didn’t want Ian Malcolm to return to Isla Nublar
Jurassic sequels face one major story hurdle – how do you get your characters back to dino-infested land? It’s a question that meant Trevorrow couldn’t justify bringing Ian Malcolm back to the original Park. "It always felt really cheap to me, it always felt fake,” the writer reasons. “I have so much respect for those characters that I just wouldn't want them doing something that I don't think they would naturally do. In this one [Ian] is our Al Gore, he's someone who warned us of chaos theory and now we're seeing it play out. What's amazing is that we were able to go back into Crichton's book – about half of that dialogue is directly from the book."
While Goldblum’s screentime is minimal, Bayona sees his minor role as a “significant and meaningful” one. "The whole movie talks about losing control,” says the director, “and we're crossing so many red lines in the story that we had to bring back Ian Malcolm because he's always been this voice of conscience telling us what’s the right thing to do and what’s the wrong thing to do.”
4) The other classic characters could be back for Jurassic World 3
As exciting as Goldblum’s return to the franchise is, the idea of also bringing back Sam Neill and Laura Dern is even more enticing. While Bayona confirms that they were never set to appear in Fallen Kingdom, Trevorrow strongly hints that they could appear in the final instalment of the World trilogy. "The pattern that I've tried to follow here is that instead of putting everyone in the first movie and slowly killing them, we're going to slowly bring people in,” he says, “which hopefully will keep people interested in coming back to see how their favourite characters fit into this new world."
5) The Isla Nublar volcano was teased in the first Jurassic World
Fallen Kingdom has some island-centric retconning going on with the reveal that Hammond’s original Park was constructed on an island with a dormant volcano that’s… well, no longer dormant. But it turns out those (lava-strewn) foundations were laid in the first Jurassic World. “[The volcano] was actually something we put on the map in the first movie, to establish that there was the potential for an extinction-level event that could happen and create a moral question, an ethical dilemma around the world," notes Trevorrow. Look it up – it’s on there.
6) Jake Johnson’s Jurassic World character could have returned
Along for the ride in Fallen Kingdom is the understandably terrified tech nerd Franklin – but an early draft of the story could have brought Jake Johnson’s Jurassic World employee Lowery back in a similar role. "There may have even been an early moment where Lowery was Franklin's character, because he potentially could have done that job,” reveals Trevorrow. “But he didn't quite have the same spirit. We did like the idea of [Zia and Franklin] being pretty idealistic young people who are activists who really believe in the cause that Claire believes in. I wasn't really able to shoehorn [Lowery] into that, he's kind of a cynical guy."
7) The decision to destroy Isla Nublar was not taken lightly
After two failed theme park attempts, the volcano on Isla Nublar wipes a classic series location off the board – a bold step, carefully taken. "We treated it with great reverence, we take it very seriously,” says Trevorrow. “We looked at it almost like, if our characters are watching that happen, it's like they're witnessing the burning down of a church or a temple. I honestly think it's like killing off a character in a way, and if you're going to do that, as long as you approach it with the proper respect and acknowledgement that you understand how indelible and permanent what you're doing is, then hopefully people will have an emotional response but they won't hate you for it."
8) The brachiosaur left on the island is the same from the first film
You thought that brachiosaur death in the cloud of acrid volcano smog was sad enough already? Brace yourself: that was the brachiosaur from Jurassic Park. You know, the very first dinosaur in the entire franchise, the one that made audiences believe in photoreal prehistoric big-screen beasts to begin with. “That's the brachiosaurus that Alan Grant saw for the first time in Jurassic Park,” Bayona confirms, adding that it uses the exact same animation from the 1993 original. “I think it's a beautiful moment – it's sad but it's beautiful, and it's so relevant.”
Bayona isn’t the only one to blame for reducing audiences to tears – the moment was written in Trevorrow’s script. "For that to be the last dinosaur we see on the island, I found to be emotionally effective,” the writer explains. “But then the way that J.A. executed it – the colours, the very spiritual way that he shot it and finished it… It was actually the last shot that we finished on the whole movie, everyone had been up all night. He's so meticulous, especially with his color and his composition. He worked on that shot until he had seconds left."
9) The scene with Blue’s surgery is part CGI, part animatronics
Fallen Kingdom features more physical animatronic dinosaurs than the first Jurassic World, from the chained-up Stegosaurus to the caged T-rex. But the line between practical and digital is more blurred than ever this time around. "The secret of creating a good scene in visual effects is merging both technologies,” explains Bayona. “Of course animatronics are great, they give you great visual references for the textures and the colours, but they're limited. You can't make an animatronic run, for example.”
The ideal scene to show that off? Blue’s surgery on the boat (“the heart of the story”) which was shot twice – one time with a physical dinosaur, and one time without. “You have the same shots, exactly the same framing, and in one shot you replace the head for CGI and keep the real animatronic hands, and in the next shot you replace the hands for CGI hands and you leave the real animatronic head,” Bayona says. “There was a moment when I was doing the visual effects reviews, and I was even myself lost in the process – I didn't know what was real and what was not, which was exactly what I was looking for.”
That’s not the only ‘real’ Raptor in the film – the shots of Owen training Baby Blue saw the actor reacting to a tiny puppet. "It was so cute that you can tell, when you look at that scene and you look at Chris' face, you can tell how excited he is. Those reactions are totally genuine, totally honest and real."
10) Owen’s fight scene was a late addition
There’s been so much human-vs-dinosaur carnage in the Jurassic series that physical human-on-human brawls have never been top of the agenda – but Fallen Kingdom has Owen beating up tattooed heavies in the franchise’s first fight scene. "That came pretty late in the process of the story,” says Bayona. “We needed our heroes to still be in the auction, so then we had to improvise a fight scene. But we didn't have much time because that came very late in the process of designing the movie. I put all the fighting in one single shot so you have a dolly track following Owen with the Indoraptor behind inside the cage. It's pretty cool, I really like it. Sometimes when you have limitations you get the best ideas, and that's one perfect example."
11) The Indoraptor’s design was informed by kids
How do you cook up a hybrid dinosaur that will drive kids out of their minds? Take notes from your target audience. "I talked a lot to kids to find out what they like about dinosaurs, and they talk about the textures and the colors, those elements,” Bayona says. “And I thought that being a kid, what I would be more terrified by would be about the teeth and the eyes. I wanted the Indoraptor to be basically like a black shadow, and from there it's very terrifying when you see the Indoraptor in the dark because you can only see the eyes and the teeth. And especially the long arms – he has almost human arms."
12) Those Trump references are all intentional
America has changed considerably between Jurassic World and Fallen Kingdom, largely thanks to a certain someone in the White House. There are several Trump digs in Bayona’s film, from the scrolling news line that the President ‘doesn’t believe dinosaurs ever existed’ (a Trevorrow gag), to Toby Jones’ villainous Gunnar Eversol and his big flapping yellow wig. “We're dealing with themes of megalomania, of political megalomania and greed, and making decisions with lack of care for how it affects people's lives,” explains Trevorrow, who also confirmed that Ken Wheatley’s ‘nasty woman’ line was thought up by actor Ted Levine.
13) The deaths are all deserved this time
Jurassic World caught flack for the nasty end of PA Zara, dying brutally at the hands – or, beaks – of several Pteranodons and the jaws of the Mosasaur. Some criticised such a grisly demise befalling a character who wasn’t out-and-out evil – so for Fallen Kingdom there were clearer moral lines drawn. "We made sure that every death was earned,” says Trevorrow. “Everybody deserves their death in this movie, a lesson learned. In 2018 everyone earns it. Horrible people.”
Bayona’s favourite death scene is Wheatley being chomped by the Indoraptor. “These movies need to be PG-13 because they're family movies, but you want them to be brutal. So you all the time think about how you're going to show without showing, so you cannot show human blood. I had this idea of the Indoraptor biting Wheatley's arm and he lands on the floor but the hand stays on the mouth. And you don't see any blood in there but you can tell how brutal the moment is anyway."
14) Spielberg was all for the human cloning twist
One of the bold story strides that Trevorrow’s screenplay takes is introducing human cloning to the Jurassic universe through the character of Maisie – and while it’s a possibly controversial decision, it’s one that the original Park director was all for. "[Spielberg] really dug the Maisie element of it. He dug the way that we were evolving it, and he was really excited about the questions that it leaves at the end as far as where the future could go,” Trevorrow says, adding that he was personally ‘nervous’ about how audiences would react to it. “I see it as an evolution of the themes that Crichton laid out. It's so much closer in our world than making dinosaurs is. To me, it's a family creation myth. Owen and Claire start off the first movie as these sexually-charged Hepburn and Tracy characters, and in the second film they're taking on much more responsibility as adults, and by the end they're parents – they have this child, and they're driving off into an uncertain future. And that moment when Malcolm is saying irrevocable change, that is happening to them and it's happening right now. I just found that very effective to put that in the context of these people who are evolving in a big way over the course of this story."
15) It had to be Maisie pushing the button
After discovering she’s a clone and surviving the Indoraptor, Maisie makes a drastic decision – saving the dying dinosaurs from poisonous smog and setting them loose in the real world as a result. "There was never an answer of who else it would be [pressing the button,]” explains Trevorrow. “I found it to be just deeply satisfying that she would be evolved enough as a human being for that to be her reaction to her horrible day, for her discovery of what she is and what she represents and of her connection to these animals, and the feeling of, 'I'm gonna set us all free right now'. It seemed like the answer could only come from the instincts through the mind of a child. Was it even the right decision? It's not for me to say. But I feel like for her at that moment she didn't have a choice."
16) The ending sets the road map for Jurassic World 3
The landscape by the end of Fallen Kingdom is very different to where things start, setting up a final instalment in the trilogy where dinosaurs are loose in the wild. The filmmakers already have ideas set aside for the next film. "There were moments that we thought, this is more like a Jurassic [World] 3 scene so we took them out from the script,” confirms Bayona. “Some of those scenes we thought were better seen in a world where dinosaurs had spread all over the world. Colin, from time to time, came to me and said, 'I want this character to say that line because this is a moment that's referencing something I want to use in Jurassic 3'."
Trevorrow will be back to direct, and he’s currently writing the script alongside Emily Carmichael. “[Derek Connolly and I] have [broken down the story for Jurassic World 3],” he teases. “I just wanted the end of [Fallen Kingdom] to show that the equilibrium has changed for the characters and for the world, that nothing will ever be the same as it was at the beginning of the film, and to have a wish-fulfillment promise of us being able to take this into a place that is truly exciting and something that we haven't seen before. I have a dinosaur movie that I've always wanted to see, and it took two movies to earn it."
17) The cloning technology is loose in the world too
It’s not just the dinosaurs themselves that are set to cause havoc in part three – Trevorrow stresses that the cloning tech is up for grabs too. "DNA and embryos and everything, it's out of the box," he says. Expect the effects of that technology entering the wrong hands to factor into the next film.
18) Ken Wheatley is not a reference to Ben Wheatley
And finally, a note of disappointment for fans of gritty British genre films: the villainous tooth-collecting mercenary Ken Wheatley has nothing to do with Kill List, A Field in England, Free Fire and High-Rise director Ben Wheatley. "I had met Ben, and I do know that name, and it's possible that that wove in,” Trevorrow admits, “but I didn't do it on purpose."
Listen to the full J.A. Bayona and Colin Trevorrow interviews in the Empire Podcast Spoiler Special here. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is out now in cinemas.