Spoilers! 'Jurassic World Rebirth' originally killed off this character
In "Jurassic World Rebirth," survival is a long shot, but Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) still manages to pull it off.
The latest "Jurassic" film culminates in what appears to be a heroic sacrifice by Ali's character. Duncan draws the horrifying mutant Distortus rex away from Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) and the shipwrecked Delgado family so they can all escape on a boat. It seems like Duncan is about to be eaten off screen, only for the final moments to reveal he made it out. He sends up a flare to signal for the group to wait up for him, then joins Zora and Henry as they leave the island together.
But the movie didn't always have such a happy outcome, as director Gareth Edwards tells USA TODAY that Duncan was originally meant to die at the end.
"My first gut feeling was to kill him, and that's what I tried to do," Edwards says, noting that Ali felt the same way. According to screenwriter David Koepp, there were also versions of the script where Duncan died earlier.
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During production, though, Edwards says the studio talked him into sparing Duncan. "The director's cut had him dying, and I played it to the studio, and they said, 'Is there any version where we could just see him living?' " While initially reluctant, Edwards cut together a new version and ended up warming to it.
"Because it's written and filmed for him to die, all the little tropes and subconscious things you would do to (set that up) are happening in the movie," he says. "So then, weirdly, I think it's a surprise when he lives, because we've played all the cards you play when someone's about to have their last moment."
He says he was moved to watch the film with a crowd and hear the audience cheer when Duncan's flare goes up, revealing that he's alive.
First look at 'Jurassic World Rebirth': See new cast Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey
"It was one of those occasions where sometimes the studio knows what they're on about," Edwards says.
Koepp was also on board with the change, noting that as the movie evolved, "Duncan became a bigger part and a more interesting character, and we have a fantastic actor (playing him), so killing him 90 seconds before the end of the movie would not have made a lot of sense."
How does 'Jurassic World Rebirth' end?
After Duncan joins up with Zora and Henry, the film closes with a scene of the trio leaving the island. Now that they have the dinosaur DNA necessary to create a drug that could cure heart disease, Zora decides they will give the entire world access to the new medicine, rather than handing it over to a pharmaceutical company to profit from.
But there's a lingering threat still out there. While the three previous "Jurassic" movies introduced a new dinosaur villain that is then killed at the end, in "Rebirth," the Distortus rex remains alive and kicking when the credits roll.
Edwards says he second-guessed this while editing the film and started wondering if it would be better for the Tyrannosaurus rex to reappear and fight the D. rex. "I thought, 'Oh, my God, is this something we should be doing?' " he recalls. "It hadn't occurred to me before."
While he was contemplating creating a new ending where the T. rex returned, Edwards polled everyone working on the film to see what they thought. It was the movie's visual effects supervisor who talked him out of it by telling Edwards, "That's what happens in all the movies, Gareth! The T. rex turns up and saves the day, and everyone's expecting that. I was so pleased when you didn't do that."
Edwards notes that leaving the Distortus rex alive isn't meant to set up its return in a possible sequel. But "it's hard to kill that thing unless it was another animal that did it," which would lead to a similar ending as other "Jurassic" movies.
"There's that phrase 'ex machina,' where God comes and saves everyone," he says. "In 'Jurassic,' there's something I call 'rex machina,' where a T. rex comes and saves everyone. I felt like, maybe we don't do that. Maybe that's one of our differences."
What's the future of 'Jurassic World' after 'Rebirth'?
Given that Zora, Henry and Duncan all live to fight another day at the end of "Rebirth," should fans expect them to reunite in future "Jurassic" movies?
Nothing is set in stone, but "it's hard to imagine them not being in the next film," Edwards says.
While no discussions about a sequel have taken place, the director also teases that he has a specific concept in mind for where the franchise could go after "Rebirth," which he doesn't want to reveal in case he has an opportunity to make it happen.
"As a fan, there's a type of movie I've just been wishing for with each incarnation," he says. "I have a feeling what I would love to see next."
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The director of 'Jurassic World Rebirth', Gareth Edwards, explains why he put Steven Spielberg easter eggs in the film
Director Gareth Edwards spoke to Business Insider about fulfilling a childhood dream by directing "Jurassic World Rebirth." Steven Spielberg, who directed the original "Jurassic Park," was heavily involved, leading Edwards to add several nostalgic elements. "Jurassic World Rebirth" is now in theaters. Kids often dream of becoming police officers or doctors. For "Jurassic World Rebirth" director Gareth Edwards, however, his childhood dream was a bit more specific: working with iconic director Steven Spielberg. And now it's finally come true with the latest in the dinosaur action film franchise. Edwards has found the Hollywood moviemaking sweet spot: directing major blockbusters that are also creatively satisfying. He found geek boy superstardom when he made the first-ever spin-off in the "Star Wars" franchise, 2016's "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story." It's gone on to be regarded as one of the best ever within the beloved galaxy far, far away (though he disagrees with that opinion). He followed that up by creating an original idea out of the studio system, a rarity these days, when he released 2023's "The Creator." The movie stars John David Washington as a special forces agent hired to hunt down and kill an AI. Now, Edwards is taking on the legacy IP genre by helming "Jurassic World Rebirth," out now. Taking place decades after the events of "Jurassic World Dominion," the story, penned by "Jurassic Park" screenwriter David Koepp, follows Scarlett Johansson as the leader of a team of operatives who travel to an island research facility to take genetic material from dinosaurs. For Edwards, making the movie checked off a childhood dream of working alongside Steven Spielberg, who was heavily involved in the filmmaking process. And it shows as "Rebirth" features several hat tips to the master, ranging from "Jurassic Park" to "Jaws." "I hate the word IP, but there are only two franchises I would absolutely drop everything for and just do them. I already did one of them with 'Star Wars,' and this was the other one," Edwards told Business Insider. "So when Steven gives you this script, you're just checkmated immediately. The idea that you turn Steven Spielberg down is impossible." BI spoke with Edwards while he was in New York City about the hourslong conversations he had with Spielberg while making the movie, his thoughts on "Rogue One" as it nears its 10th anniversary, and whether he'd ever consider making another "Star Wars" movie. Business Insider: So what led you to sign onto "Jurassic"? After "The Creator," I started the process of what am I going to do next. There was a thing in my mind that I was excited about. And in that process, a sequence from "Jurassic Park" entered my mind, and I forgot how they pulled it off, so I just put it on to get a refresher. I'm doing this with "Jurassic" and the next day my friend saw on the internet that Universal was looking for a director for a new "Jurassic" movie. So I sent that to my agent, and I just typed in the text with the link to the story, "Is this stupid?" hoping he'd say, "Yes, stay away." And hours later, my agent got back to me, and the ball started rolling. Be careful what you wish for. What I really enjoyed about "Rebirth" is its stand-alone feel. Was that intentional? It was in David Koepp's script. That's why I really liked it. What the best sequels have in common is that the first one didn't know it was part of a trilogy or the start of sequels. It was just this self-contained story. So that's the way to go, to try to tell the best film you can. It's then a high-class problem after that. And I'm not joking, but I haven't had a single conversation about a sequel with anyone from Universal or the producers. That was my follow-up. Nobody tapped you on the shoulder and suggested a more heavy-handed way to tease another movie? No. It was even a joke with the actors. But the movie also has a lot of nostalgia, with hat tips ranging from "Jurassic Park" to "Jaws. " Did that come organically? When I got the script, it felt like a magical ticket back to being a kid again. So a lot of that was already in there, and half of it I probably brought with me. I mean, you're making a movie for Amblin that features a giant creature in the water. Of course, you're going to lean into "Jaws." Yeah. The script said, "They're chasing a giant dinosaur in the water, on a boat, with a rifle leading out the front," and you're like, "Guys, I don't know if you've ever seen this movie called 'Jaws,' but I don't know how we escape those visuals." So it was a difficult situation, and the only way I got through it was this being a giant love letter to Steven Spielberg. Whenever there's a gap, I'm going to put something in that is a reflection of something from his movies that we love. You have now worked with two faces on the Mt. Rushmore of American cinema, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Compare and contrast working for them. Well, George had retired when we started "Rogue One," so he was totally happy for us to go do our thing. But I did have the more surreal moment of showing him around the set of "Rogue One." But what I did to take the pressure off myself, seeing I was doing a "Star Wars" spin-off, I was competing with the likes of the holiday special and Caravan of Courage, the Ewok adventure. So I jokingly framed those movie posters in my office as a reminder to me that I just have to do better than those. Then, one day I was told George is here, and he just walked into the office, and I was blown away. And as I was talking to him, I realized the posters on the wall. So I'm trying to be as animated as possible so he wouldn't look at the wall. Steven developed the story with David, so he was fully engaged from the start. He was in the meetings during preproduction. He would call me when I started shooting. He watched the dallies every day. We even sent him the first cut of the movie. I would have hour and a half phone calls with him giving me feedback. Were you prepared he'd be so hands-on? It was definitely the right amount, but going in I didn't know if I'd see him once or all the time. I didn't know how it was going to play out. And I remember on day one, the first meeting at Universal, I get there early, and the next person who walked in was Steven Spielberg. I'll never forget the first interaction I ever had with him. It was right after "Godzilla." I got an email from ["The Lord of the Rings" creator] Peter Jackson, and there's a video attached. I hit play and it's Steven Spielberg. Peter Jackson was filming Steven Spielberg at George Lucas' birthday party. Steven had just seen "Godzilla" and was saying really nice things about it, so Peter sent it to me. I watched it and collapsed and burst into tears. There are moments as a filmmaker where everything you're doing in your life, you ask, Why am I doing this? What is the goal? You don't know. That is the answer to why I'm doing this; for that moment, for that little video. We're coming close to 10 years of "Rogue One" coming out in theaters. Do you appreciate your contribution to "Star Wars"? It's arguably the best "Star Wars" movie since Disney bought Lucasfilm, and it's up there as one of the best out of all the movies. Can you appreciate that? I don't agree with it, but I appreciate it. I'm very grateful that people say nice things. But what's super interesting about it, which you have to keep in your pocket as you go through making other films, is that it's not about how people feel the day it gets released, it's how people feel about it 10, 20 years from now. When you make a movie, you're living at least a year from now. You're trying to imagine what it's like, all these decisions you're making, what they are going to be like a year from now when this movie is released. What's the audience going to think? And as the movie comes out, you go, "I'm going to pretend I'm living 10 years from now and it doesn't matter what people say in the moment." It's the kid who comes up to you 20 years from now and goes, "Oh my god, I loved that movie!" I think that's the reward. Would you ever go down that road of doing "Star Wars" again? It's the thing that was in my life before I knew what a film was. And so it's like your mom; it's like something so a part of you. I'm always fascinated by what they're doing. I never stop loving that trilogy, but I'm very happy to move on and do my thing. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. Read the original article on Business Insider
Business Insider
2 hours ago
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The director of 'Jurassic World Rebirth', Gareth Edwards, explains why he put Steven Spielberg easter eggs in the film
Kids often dream of becoming police officers or doctors. For "Jurassic World Rebirth" director Gareth Edwards, however, his childhood dream was a bit more specific: working with iconic director Steven Spielberg. And now it's finally come true with the latest in the dinosaur action film franchise. Edwards has found the Hollywood moviemaking sweet spot: directing major blockbusters that are also creatively satisfying. He found geek boy superstardom when he made the first-ever spin-off in the " Star Wars" franchise, 2016's " Rogue One: A Star Wars Story." It's gone on to be regarded as one of the best ever within the beloved galaxy far, far away (though he disagrees with that opinion). He followed that up by creating an original idea out of the studio system, a rarity these days, when he released 2023's "The Creator." The movie stars John David Washington as a special forces agent hired to hunt down and kill an AI. Now, Edwards is taking on the legacy IP genre by helming "Jurassic World Rebirth," out now. Taking place decades after the events of "Jurassic World Dominion," the story, penned by " Jurassic Park" screenwriter David Koepp, follows Scarlett Johansson as the leader of a team of operatives who travel to an island research facility to take genetic material from dinosaurs. For Edwards, making the movie checked off a childhood dream of working alongside Steven Spielberg, who was heavily involved in the filmmaking process. And it shows as "Rebirth" features several hat tips to the master, ranging from "Jurassic Park" to "Jaws." "I hate the word IP, but there are only two franchises I would absolutely drop everything for and just do them. I already did one of them with 'Star Wars,' and this was the other one," Edwards told Business Insider. "So when Steven gives you this script, you're just checkmated immediately. The idea that you turn Steven Spielberg down is impossible." BI spoke with Edwards while he was in New York City about the hourslong conversations he had with Spielberg while making the movie, his thoughts on "Rogue One" as it nears its 10th anniversary, and whether he'd ever consider making another "Star Wars" movie. After "The Creator," I started the process of what am I going to do next. There was a thing in my mind that I was excited about. And in that process, a sequence from "Jurassic Park" entered my mind, and I forgot how they pulled it off, so I just put it on to get a refresher. I'm doing this with "Jurassic" and the next day my friend saw on the internet that Universal was looking for a director for a new "Jurassic" movie. So I sent that to my agent, and I just typed in the text with the link to the story, "Is this stupid?" hoping he'd say, "Yes, stay away." And hours later, my agent got back to me, and the ball started rolling. Be careful what you wish for. What I really enjoyed about "Rebirth" is its stand-alone feel. Was that intentional? It was in David Koepp's script. That's why I really liked it. What the best sequels have in common is that the first one didn't know it was part of a trilogy or the start of sequels. It was just this self-contained story. So that's the way to go, to try to tell the best film you can. It's then a high-class problem after that. And I'm not joking, but I haven't had a single conversation about a sequel with anyone from Universal or the producers. That was my follow-up. Nobody tapped you on the shoulder and suggested a more heavy-handed way to tease another movie? No. It was even a joke with the actors. But the movie also has a lot of nostalgia, with hat tips ranging from "Jurassic Park" to "Jaws. " Did that come organically? When I got the script, it felt like a magical ticket back to being a kid again. So a lot of that was already in there, and half of it I probably brought with me. I mean, you're making a movie for Amblin that features a giant creature in the water. Of course, you're going to lean into "Jaws." Yeah. The script said, "They're chasing a giant dinosaur in the water, on a boat, with a rifle leading out the front," and you're like, "Guys, I don't know if you've ever seen this movie called 'Jaws,' but I don't know how we escape those visuals." So it was a difficult situation, and the only way I got through it was this being a giant love letter to Steven Spielberg. Whenever there's a gap, I'm going to put something in that is a reflection of something from his movies that we love. You have now worked with two faces on the Mt. Rushmore of American cinema, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Compare and contrast working for them. Well, George had retired when we started "Rogue One," so he was totally happy for us to go do our thing. But I did have the more surreal moment of showing him around the set of "Rogue One." But what I did to take the pressure off myself, seeing I was doing a "Star Wars" spin-off, I was competing with the likes of the holiday special and Caravan of Courage, the Ewok adventure. So I jokingly framed those movie posters in my office as a reminder to me that I just have to do better than those. Then, one day I was told George is here, and he just walked into the office, and I was blown away. And as I was talking to him, I realized the posters on the wall. So I'm trying to be as animated as possible so he wouldn't look at the wall. Steven developed the story with David, so he was fully engaged from the start. He was in the meetings during preproduction. He would call me when I started shooting. He watched the dallies every day. We even sent him the first cut of the movie. I would have hour and a half phone calls with him giving me feedback. Were you prepared he'd be so hands-on? It was definitely the right amount, but going in I didn't know if I'd see him once or all the time. I didn't know how it was going to play out. And I remember on day one, the first meeting at Universal, I get there early, and the next person who walked in was Steven Spielberg. I'll never forget the first interaction I ever had with him. It was right after "Godzilla." I got an email from ["The Lord of the Rings" creator] Peter Jackson, and there's a video attached. I hit play and it's Steven Spielberg. Peter Jackson was filming Steven Spielberg at George Lucas' birthday party. Steven had just seen "Godzilla" and was saying really nice things about it, so Peter sent it to me. I watched it and collapsed and burst into tears. There are moments as a filmmaker where everything you're doing in your life, you ask, Why am I doing this? What is the goal? You don't know. That is the answer to why I'm doing this; for that moment, for that little video. We're coming close to 10 years of "Rogue One" coming out in theaters. Do you appreciate your contribution to "Star Wars"? It's arguably the best "Star Wars" movie since Disney bought Lucasfilm, and it's up there as one of the best out of all the movies. Can you appreciate that? I don't agree with it, but I appreciate it. I'm very grateful that people say nice things. But what's super interesting about it, which you have to keep in your pocket as you go through making other films, is that it's not about how people feel the day it gets released, it's how people feel about it 10, 20 years from now. When you make a movie, you're living at least a year from now. You're trying to imagine what it's like, all these decisions you're making, what they are going to be like a year from now when this movie is released. What's the audience going to think? And as the movie comes out, you go, "I'm going to pretend I'm living 10 years from now and it doesn't matter what people say in the moment." It's the kid who comes up to you 20 years from now and goes, "Oh my god, I loved that movie!" I think that's the reward. Would you ever go down that road of doing "Star Wars" again? It's the thing that was in my life before I knew what a film was. And so it's like your mom; it's like something so a part of you. I'm always fascinated by what they're doing. I never stop loving that trilogy, but I'm very happy to move on and do my thing.
Geek Wire
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Paleontologists dig into the facts and fiction in the latest ‘Jurassic World' dinosaur movie
Ready … set … action! Scarlett Johansson gets ready to film a scene for 'Jurassic World Rebirth.' (Jasin Boland / Universal Pictures – © Universal Studios) Nathan Myhrvold, a Seattle tech titan who also studies titanosaurs and other denizens of the dinosaur era, realizes that 'Jurassic World Rebirth' is science fiction, not a documentary — nevertheless, he has a few bones to pick with the filmmakers. 'There are some lines that it would be silly to cross, but they did anyway,' says Myhrvold, who was Microsoft's first chief technology officer back in the 1990s and is currently the CEO of Bellevue, Wash.-based Intellectual Ventures. Paleontology is one of Myhrvold's many interests, and he's a co-author of more than a dozen peer-reviewed papers on the subject. He was inspired to get into dinosaur research almost 30 years ago, when he visited a 'Jurassic Park' movie set at the invitation of director Steven Spielberg. That visit led to connections with leading paleontologists. 'At that point in my life, I was interested in dinosaurs, but I'd never been professionally or seriously, in a scientific sense, into dinosaurs,' Myhrvold recalls. 'So, the movie was a little bit instrumental in me, just as a way of meeting a bunch of those people.' On the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast, Myhrvold and University of Maryland paleontologist Thomas Holtz discuss how much scientists — and filmmakers — have learned about dinosaurs over the past three decades. And they also critique 'Jurassic World Rebirth,' the latest offering in a multibillion-dollar movie franchise that was born back in 1993. Holtz, who specializes in the study of meat-eating dinosaurs like the ones that grab the spotlight in the movie, is a co-author of the educational field guides for the early 'Jurassic Park' movies as well as the 'Jurassic World' sequels that followed. He's also been a scientific consultant for dino-documentaries including the BBC's 'Walking With Dinosaurs' series and the Discovery Channel's 'When Dinosaurs Roamed America.' He argues that the Jurassic movies elevated the general public's long-running fascination with dinosaurs to a whole new level. 'There was a time when no one but paleontologists had ever heard the word 'Velociraptor,' and that time was 1993,' Holtz says. 'Prior to that, the general public would have never heard of this particular sort of dinosaur, which is now by far one of the most common.' 'Jurassic Park' reflected the state of the art for dinosaur science when it came out, and the special effects have only gotten better with each sequel. But Holtz admits that the movies' depictions of dinosaurs haven't always kept pace with what paleontologists have discovered. 'I've talked with special-effects people who've been involved with some of these movies, and they said, yes, they would like to run a little more wild, a little more modern,' Holtz says. 'But there is the pressure to have the look and feel of a Jurassic World / Jurassic Park franchise dinosaur. And you know, that's kind of a shame.' University of Maryland paleontologist Thomas Holtz (left) and Intellectual Ventures CEO Nathan Myhrvold both have connections to the early days of the 'Jurassic Park' movie franchise. (Left photo: Courtesy of Thomas Holtz via Bluesky. Right photo: Intellectual Ventures) There are several ways to go wild with dinosaurs. For example, fossil specimens that were unearthed in China's Liaoning Province in the 1990s confirmed that non-avian dinosaurs had feathers. And when scientists studied fossilized traces of microscopic structures known as melanosomes, they determined that dinosaurs came in different colors. Such traits aren't seen so much in the creatures of 'Jurassic World.' 'They did start to add patches of colors in more of the dinosaurs in the 'Jurassic World' series,' Holtz says. 'The raptors — although they're not feathered as they should be, they at least have more interesting colors on them. In fact, Blue gets its name because of the blue streaks down its body.' Myhrvold wishes the filmmakers had included some of the more bizarre species that paleontologists have turned up in the fossil record. One such species is Microraptor gui — a type of raptor that was discovered in the early 2000s and had four wings with black feathers. The goal of the people making the movie is to be entertaining, not to satisfy all the whims of us paleontologists. Nathan Myhrvold 'There are insects with four wings, like dragonflies, but there aren't any birds,' Myhrvold says. 'Deinocheirus … that's another raptor relative that everyone thought was going to be the most vicious-looking dinosaur on earth because they found the claws and the arms in the 1970s. They finally found the rest of it, and it turns out it has a face like a horse. There are things like that, that would be cool to see more of … but you know, the goal of the people making the movie is to be entertaining, not to satisfy all the whims of us paleontologists.' Some of the dinosaur depictions in the latest movie are debatable. For example, one scene has a school of spinosaurs with colorful sails menacing a ship and its occupants on the open sea. Both Myhrvold and Holtz have played a part in research arguing that spinosaurs couldn't possibly behave that way. 'I believe, and I know Tom believes, that Spinosaurus was a shoreline animal,' Myhrvold says. 'It undoubtedly ate fish, but you can eat fish without swimming 43 kilometers offshore. Grizzly bears eat fish, and they don't swim offshore if they can help it. Now, admittedly, that's controversial.' Another slight misstep has to do with titanosaur tails. One scene in 'Jurassic World Rebirth' shows a flock of titanosaurs flicking long, sinuous tails as they graze. Myhrvold actually conducted research into dino-tails, focusing on whether some dinosaurs could whip their tails at supersonic speeds. To show that they could, he went so far as to have a mechanical tail built that could simulate the whipping action. Unfortunately, titanosaurs didn't have the type of tail that's shown in the movie. 'When I saw the long tail, I first thought, hey, this can't be a titanosaur,' Myhrvold says. 'And then I thought they're going to crack it supersonically, and I would forgive everything else.' Myhrvold argues that it's worth the effort for science-fiction movies to stay as close to the science as possible, with limited exceptions for entertainment value. 'There are movies that really do pride themselves on getting details right — details of spycraft, details of weapons, details of historical facts — and then they spend their suspension-of-disbelief items on a smaller set of things,' he says. 'They're rewarded in having those details be accurate with a lot of people loving that.' The basic premise of the 'Jurassic Park' and 'Jurassic World' movies is broad enough to give the filmmakers plenty of literary license. If you're able to reconstruct dinosaur species from bits of DNA, you should be able to mix and match that genetic code to create new hybrid species. In the 'Rebirth' movie, Scarlett Johansson and a team that includes a greedy business executive and a virtuous paleontologist have to grab blood samples from genetically altered dinosaurs that were too dangerous to be set loose, but too expensive to kill. 'The worst of the worst were left here,' says the executive (played by Rupert Friend). The idea of resurrecting extinct species from their DNA isn't nearly as far-fetched as it sounded back in 1993: Today, commercial ventures including Colossal Biosciences are working on ways to create modern-day versions of dire wolves, woolly mammoths and even woolly mice. But those efforts pale in comparison with the over-the-top creatures created by the filmmakers behind the 'Jurassic World' movies. Two made-up species take the spotlight in 'Rebirth': Mutadon, which is a cross between a velociraptor and a pterosaur; and Distortus rex, a monster with six arms and an oversized, misshapen head. Myhrvold thinks it's unnecessary to make up imaginary monsters. 'The part that is funny to me about this is that there are lots more dinosaurs,' Myhrvold says. 'It turns out, in most cases, the actual fossil record of Earth is more interesting than made-up creatures.' The real-world technology of paleontology isn't quite as advanced as the fictional technology of 'Jurassic World,' but it's come a long way since 1993. Holtz notes that CT scans of dinosaur skulls 'have revealed lots of information about their brain cavities and nerve passages … which were extremely difficult to try to see before.' 'Isotopic studies of the bones and teeth can tell us something about what they were feeding on,' Holtz says. 'Very clever geochemists and biogeochemists have been able to tease out organic goo from fossils in a way that tells us something about certain aspects of their physiology.' Even artificial intelligence comes into play. Holtz says some paleontologists are using AI tools to classify their fossil specimens. 'Machine learning might be able to pick up things that we don't immediately think of,' he says. 'So far, that's been the main use of it I've seen professionally, but it's still early days. We'll see where this technology goes in the future.' How much of a future is there for paleontology — and for the 'Jurassic World' franchise? Will there come a time when dinosaur movies go extinct? During the opening scenes of 'Jurassic World Rebirth,' we learn that the general public has become so bored with dinosaurs that the museums are shutting down their exhibits. 'Sorry, I find that deeply unrealistic,' Myhrvold says. 'That was maybe the most unrealistic thing in the film. You can give me a six-legged dinosaur, OK? Don't tell me no one's gonna like dinosaurs, because dinosaurs have the great additional feature that they're real. And at some level, the fact that they're real keeps bringing them home again.' Dino bites Mini-review: Setting aside their scientific qualms, Holtz and Myhrvold give two thumbs up to 'Jurassic World Rebirth' for its entertainment value. 'This is not a film that's supposed to be deeply philosophical. This is a film that's supposed to show you lots of action, lots of thrilling sequences, and dinosaurs eating people. And as long as you check each of those, hey, you're there,' Myhrvold says. Holtz adds that the movie has another key element for dinosaur movies: children at risk. Myhrvold agrees: 'Not only do dinosaurs have to eat people … they have to almost eat children, right? If they did eat children, I think that would be off-putting.' The next 'Jurassic' movie? Deadline reports that 'Jurassic World Rebirth' has gotten off to a 'stomping good start,' and it seems as if the path is open for yet another sequel. 'I bet you could build a story around the dinosaur field biologist who's not working with fossils or bones in plaster jackets — they're working with live animals, but trying to figure out cool things about them,' Myhrvold says. Delve deeper into dinosaurs: Check out Myhrvold's detailed analysis of what 'Jurassic World Rebirth' got right and wrong about paleontology, which also includes a lineup card for the movie's creatures. Holtz provides his own perspective on facts vs. film fiction in a report from the University of Maryland. And for the full treatment, you can turn to the Jurassic World Dinosaur Field Guide, which Holtz had a hand in writing; or 'The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs,' which was written by paleontologist Steve Brusatte, a science consultant for 'Jurassic World Rebirth.' Fiction Science is included in FeedSpot's 100 Best Sci-Fi Podcasts. Stay tuned for future episodes of the Fiction Science podcast via Apple, Spotify, Pocket Casts and Podchaser. If you like Fiction Science, please rate the podcast and subscribe to get alerts for future episodes.
