Jurassic Works Rebirth just finished its opening weekend with an amazing $318M worldwide, the biggest of the year so far!
It currently has a 52% critic score on rotten tomatoes, but a 72% users score. I saw it on opening night on Thursday, and it was a fun ride. This isn’t necessarily a review of the movie, so I’ll save that for later, but I noticed a lot of Jurassic Park call-backs and winks, which makes sense since David Koepp wrote both the first two Jurassic Parks and now Rebirth. Some of the call-backs worked and some didn’t. I despised most of the call-backs that were used in Jurassic World Dominion, they felt so forced and cheap, but some of the following call-backs in Jurassic World Rebirth actually worked. Here is my list, if you noticed any other call-backs, comment below! Note: I do not own any of these images.
1 – Towards the beginning of the film, we see Martin Krebs, played by Rupert Friend, driving in New York. The shot shows him looking into the drivers side mirror with the text “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear” a call-back to the T-Rex chase in the first movie when Robert Muldoon sees the T-Rex closing in on them as they try to escape in the Jeep.
2 – As Martin Krebs and Zora Bennett, played by Scarlett Johansson, approach Jonathan Bailey’s character, Henry Loomis, in the museum, the classic banner “When dinosaurs ruled the Earth” is taken down, a clear reference to the ending of Jurassic Park.
3 – Similar to Jurassic Park 3, a team of mercenaries is hired to guide and protect the main team, but when their vehicle, a plane in Jurassic Park 3 and a boat in Rebirth, crashes, all hell breaks loose. Multiple characters are eaten quickly by the Spinosaurus, leaving the team without guides and supplies.
4 – On the boat while being attacked by the Mosasaur, Zora falls off of the bow of the boat, luckily she’s strapped to the railings so she doesn’t fall into the water, but the Mosasaur is directly underneath the boat and you can see its massive eye staring at Zora, preparing its attack, just like the T-Rex in Jurassic Park peering into the car before it attacks the kids.
5 – The Titanosaurs in the fields was very reminiscent of the first time the group sees the Brachiosaurus in the first movie, even down to the musical score.
6 – It’s not a Jurassic Park Easter egg, but a Spielberg Easter egg nonetheless, but when Henry Loomis picks up the Quetzalcoatlus egg, it’s looks just like the Indiana Jones scene when Indy picks up the golden idol.
7 – There’s a scene where the Delgado family is taking a rest on the first night on the island, and are huddled together around the father, Reuben Delgado, played by Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, just like the first movie when the kids huddle up next to Alan Grant after the T-Rex breakout as they brave the jungle for the night.
8 – When Henry and Duncan discover the old InGen labs, they notice the test chambers with deformed raptors, which reminded me of the scene in Jurassic Park 3 when they’re looking at the test chambers and the raptor pops out at them.
9 – When they reach the helipad area, both groups reunite, but are shortly separated again when 2 Mutadons attack. Half of the group hides in an abandoned gas station convenience store, reminiscent of the raptors in the kitchen scene from Jurassic Park, one of the scariest scenes in the movie. It even includes the shot of the Mutadon’s feet walking down the aisle with its massive toe claws.
10 – It’s not an exact call-back, but while they’re in the gas station store, one of the Mutadons breaks through the ceiling and crawls through, similar to the scene when the group is crawling above the ceiling and the velociraptor pops up to attack Lex.
11 – While one of the Mutadons is attacking the people in the gas station, the other is trying to attack Zora and Martin while they hide underneath a vehicle, like the scene where Chris Pratt’s character, Owen Grady, hides underneath a truck when the Indominus Rex first breaks out of its exhibit in the first Jurassic World.
12 – Reminiscent of Dennis Nedry from Jurassic Park, Martin reveals his true character and tries to flee with the dinosaur DNA, leaving everyone else behind, but he gets his just deserts when the D-Rex stops him and eats him.
13 – The red flare, of course. This call-back has been used in all 3 Jurassic Worlds, and now in Rebirth. An obvious call-back to the first movie, Mahershala Ali’s character Duncan Kincaid, uses a red flare to distract the D-Rex so the rest of the group can escape, just like Alan Grant and Ian Malcolm attempt to do with the T-Rex in the first movie.
14 – The end of the D-Rex battle reminded me of the ending battle with the Spinosaurus from Jurassic Park 3, where they attacked it with a flare that ignited gasoline and scared it away. It was a disappointing end to the Spinosaurus in the movie and it was a disappointing end to the D-Rex in this movie. I know the last 3 Jurassic Worlds had big T-Rex Dino battles at the end, so maybe it was overdone at this point, but I think the D-Rex was very underutilized, as well as the T-Rex, and all of the dinosaurs really…sorry, this isn’t supposed to be a review!
15 – The last call-back I noticed is when they finally escape the island in a boat, they notice a pod of dolphins swimming alongside them, and stare off into the distance, like the ending of the first movie when they’ve made it to the helicopter and they see a group of pelicans flying alongside the helicopter.
No matter how far the directors try to take the series, it still needs to pay homage to the Dino bones that it was built on. Did you notice anything else? Leave a comment below!
The Qualmist 