'Jurassic World Rebirth' brings back iconic scene that Spielberg cut

USA Today

02-07-2025

"Jurassic Park" is all about bringing the past back to life, so for one of the most pulse-pounding sequences in the new entry, the franchise returns to where it all began.
In a standout scene from "Jurassic World Rebirth" (in theaters July 2), Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) and his family, who find themselves on an island filled with dinosaurs, board a raft and are pursued on a river by a Tyrannosaurus rex. When director Gareth Edwards read the script by "Jurassic Park" screenwriter David Koepp, he was so impressed, he thought, "This film's worth directing just for this scene alone."
It was only after he finished shooting that Edwards stumbled upon a book about the making of "Jurassic Park" and discovered a nearly identical scene was intended to be in the original Steven Spielberg film more than three decades ago.
"I had no idea," he says.
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The scene is straight out of Michael Crichton's 1990 "Jurassic Park" novel, only instead of the Delgados, Alan Grant (played by Sam Neill in the movie), Tim Murphy and Lex Murphy board a raft and are pursued by a T. rex. There were even storyboards made during the production of the Spielberg classic, but the scene was dropped because of technical limitations.
"This was 1992, and making a T. rex, period, was going to be this enormous challenge," Koepp recalls. "In the early '90s, water was still a big challenge for CG, and so the idea of making a T. rex and then having it swim was a bridge too far."
Coming off a trilogy of films starring Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, "Rebirth" introduces a whole new cast of characters to the "Jurassic" world. Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali and Jonathan Bailey are adventurers on a mission to obtain dinosaur DNA for a breakthrough drug that could cure heart disease. The trio cross paths with the Delgados after a dinosaur has destroyed the family's sailboat and they're making their way across the island to find rescue.
Koepp, who hasn't written a "Jurassic" movie since 1997's "The Lost World," was recruited for "Rebirth" by Spielberg, an executive producer on the film. When brainstorming, one of the first things they talked about was finally revisiting the raft scene. "That was like being able to scratch something that has itched for 32 years," Koepp says, and adds it was "worth the wait" for computer-generated imagery to get good enough to do the sequence justice.
This wasn't the only instance of scrapped "Jurassic" material being revived in "Rebirth." In one scene, paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) delivers a monologue about humanity's capacity to destroy itself, remarking that "when the Earth gets tired of us, it will shake us off like a summer cold." Koepp, drawing on Crichton's novel, had Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) utter that line in an early draft of "Jurassic Park" and has wanted to find a place for it ever since.
"I remember asking Steven ... did that line ever show up?" Koepp says. "And he said, 'Nope, that's definitely not in ("Jurassic Park").' So it was like, great. It's going in here."
'Jurassic World Rebirth' aims to make dinosaurs 'special again'
The raft scene may not have fit in, had "Rebirth" not gone back to "Jurassic" basics by returning to the island setting.
While 2022's "Jurassic World Dominion" ended with dinosaurs and humans coexisting around the world, "Rebirth" effectively resets to the status quo of the first "Jurassic" trilogy by revealing the Earth's climate has made it impossible for dinosaurs to survive outside of a few tropical islands.
Koepp wanted to make dinosaurs "special again and harder to find" and bring back the "ocean and jungle adventure aspect" of the series. The idea of dinosaurs interacting with humans on the mainland had been explored thoroughly enough in previous films, he felt − including his own "The Lost World," which ended with a T. rex loose in San Diego.
The plot point was also once again inspired by the original novel, in which Ian points out how different the environment is today compared to 65 million years ago during his famous "life finds a way" speech.
That's not the only reason it's a tough time to be a dinosaur in "Rebirth," which establishes the public has largely lost interest in the creatures. Edwards and Koepp both saw this as a meta reflection of the issue facing "Jurassic" itself, six sequels in.
"My biggest problem is, there's been a lot of 'Jurassic' films," Edwards says. "What can you do that people haven't seen before? The script acknowledged that problem on page 1. I thought it was very honest and a really good way to reset and start a new chapter."