The first Jurassic Park film culminates with a banner that reads “When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth” billowing toward the ground before a triumphant Tyrannosaurus rex. There was also a time when one could look back fondly on when dinosaurs ruled the silver screen, with the original trilogy being about the consequences of manipulating dino DNA for our entertainment ending back in 2001. Fourteen years later, however, the franchise that was bioengineered by Steven Spielberg in 1993 from the Michael Crichton novel of the same name had been brought back from extinction with Jurassic World. Cut to February 2025, and the first trailer has released for Gareth Edwards’ Jurassic World: Rebirth, a requel of the reboot trilogy – the 7th in the franchise – and you may be wondering how exactly we went from Sam Neil having a panic attack over a majestic Brachiosaurus to Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and Fiyero from Wicked going toe-to-toe with a mutated “Xenorancor rex.”

The deeper you dive, the more convoluted and, as much as I hate to say it, contrived the franchise and its lore become; besides the films, there are comics, video games, TV series, and more to explore. In the essence of simplicity, I’m here to lay out the facts of the film franchise alone. The original is hands-down one of the best films of all time with SFX that holds up to this day, and the rest of the bunch are great summer popcorn fun if you turn off the Letterboxd Snooty Cinephile Filter in your brain.

So, in honor of the great Mr. DNA, let’s slice open some prehistoric celluloid and get down to it! 

All About the Jurassic Park Franchise

How Exactly Did They Dig Up Those Dinosaurs?

When I attempted to read the novel as a kid, the dense scientific lingo explaining the intricacies of how Jurassic Park got its start proved hard to comprehend, after all – to borrow a quote from the extravagant Russian diva Katya Zamolodchikova: “I don’t know. I’m not a scientist.”

Screenwriter David Koepp and director Spielberg did their damndest to whittle it down into layman’s terms with great success, so here’s the gist of it in easy order:

1. Extract dinosaur DNA from the blood of pesky mosquitoes that have been trapped in amber for millions of years.
2. Since DNA degrades over time, fill in the gaps with amphibian (in this case, frog) DNA.
3. Commit further genetic manipulation by making all of the dinosaurs female and lysine (an essential amino acid) deficient, retaining control over the population through an inability to procreate and a dependence on supplements.
4. Use the completed DNA strands to clone dinosaurs in the lab and birth the embryos in artificial eggs.

To have an exciting movie franchise, one or more of these things must go awry, and so they do. Because certain amphibians can change sex due to environmental conditions, Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neil) discovered that the dinosaurs began to breed in captivity despite their all-female engineering. And that lysine contingency that would cause the dinos to die off if not given specific supplements? Yeah, they ended up getting enough elsewhere in their diets. So, while a power outage due to corporate espionage is what ultimately sets the creatures free in the park, these two critical scientific oversights explain how life finds a way so that the ancient beasts can survive in the wild throughout the franchise. As paleontologist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) admonished park founder John Hammond, “You never had control.”

Who Are the Major Players?

Before going any further, it is best to rattle off some names and nouns within the franchise to arrive at our mutated dino freakshow destination as efficiently as possible. And though the films contain a multitude of famous faces and iconic characters ranging from Neil, Dern, and Jeff Goldblum to Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, and even Julianne Moore – they are all mainly irrelevant to the gene-splicing drama we’re here to get to the bottom of.

• John Hammond (Richard Attenborough): Scottish venture capitalist with big dreams, Hammond learns the truths of chaos theory the hard way when his early access tour of the world’s first dinosaur theme park turns deadly. He survives the ordeal but later dies of natural causes in 1998.
• Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell): Introduced in the 5th film, Fallen Kingdom, we learn that Lockwood was besties with Hammond and a co-founder of their biotech company, InGen, before a falling out over the morals of turning their cloning efforts toward human experimentation.
• InGen (International Genetic Technologies): Responsible for the pair’s dino cloning efforts, InGen ran various facilities on a group of islands sold to the company by the Costa Rican government ominously nicknamed Las Cinco Muertes (The Five Deaths). After the disastrous events of the first film, InGen was later bought by Masrani Corp, which created the fully operational Jurassic World sequel park in 2005.
• BioSyn: InGen’s much more nefarious rival company that seeks to exploit the dinosaur population through military and pharmaceutical means. They are responsible for the theft of embryos in the first film, which leads to the park’s power outage and shutdown, as well as the ecological disaster our heroes must stop in Jurassic World: Dominion.
• Isla Nublar: The main island where the original park and its sequel park, Jurassic World, reside. During the events of Fallen Kingdom, a volcano erupts and destroys the island and its remaining dinosaurs.
• Isla Sorna: Also known as Site B, it is where InGen bred their dinosaurs and serves as the setting for the second and third films. Following those sequels, the dinosaurs were left on the island to roam free.
• Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong): InGen’s chief geneticist, Wu worked for the company up through the events of Jurassic World before turning to its rival BioSyn. He redeems himself for his questionable work in genetic engineering by helping the protagonists at the end of Dominion.
• Charlotte & Maise Lockwood (Isabella Sermon): Charlotte was Benjamin Lockwood’s daughter and a brilliant scientist who successfully impregnated herself with her clone (yes, it goes there) in an elaborate workaround for her fertility issues. After giving birth to her daughter/clone, Maise, she dies due to a genetic disorder. In classic sci-fi fashion, evildoers at BioSyn seek to study Maise to better understand the cloning process.
• Indominous rex: The franchise’s first monstrous hybrid leads the charge of what’s to come. Created by Dr. Henry Wu under the orders of the Masrani Corp. to serve as a shocking exhibit at Jurassic World, it is a terrifying hybrid of T-rex, Velociraptor, cuttlefish, tree frog, and snake DNA. Larger and more deadly than the T-rex, it has the agility of a raptor and the flexible jaw of a snake, along with the ability to camouflage and regulate its body temperature.
• Indoraptor: Designed by Wu to be a smaller and more efficient version of the Indominous, its primary use is as a terrifying bioweapon for sale on the black market. 

Is Bigger Always Better?

After the pretty straightforward events of the original trilogy, Jurassic World resurrected the franchise in 2015 by bringing us into a fully functional luxury dino resort on Isla Nublar. In operation for ten years, Masrani felt the public was becoming jaded by the shock and awe of these ancient reptiles. Rather than becoming complacent, Dr. Henry Wu created the Indominous rex to satiate our ever-over-it appetites — a fatal mistake. Unlike the events of the first film, which saw destruction come at the hands of meddling men, the Indomious breaks free all on its own because it’s just that good. Personnel and park-goers alike are subsequently ripped through like barbeque, including the most violent death the franchise had seen yet, and the dream that began decades ago as a twinkle in John Hammond’s eye was condemned once more. The Indominous also met its end, shuttered between the jaws of the aquatic giant, Mosasaurus.

So Is the Jurassic Park Franchise Scary?

While the sequels have always been fun, sweaty adventures in their own right, that visceral fear that made audiences drip with terror back in 1993 had largely been missing from the franchise. Despite taking plot points straight out of the 5th sequel playbook with human cloning and black market dealings, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom miraculously stuck the landing in the horror department. The first half, which finds our heroes Owen Grady (Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Howard) attempting to save as many dinosaurs as possible on Isla Nublar before the volcano destroys them all, includes its fair share of thrilling sequences. It’s the latter half, however, that shines in a way not seen since Spielberg’s original. Set entirely at Lockwood Manor in Northern California during the night of a black market dino auction, all hell breaks loose when the Indoraptor frees itself from confinement. It’s dark, menacing, and the stuff of nightmares; everything I imagined as a kid under the covers in my bedroom after watching Jurassic Park all those years ago – and hopefully, the direction we see Rebirth head.

What About Jurassic World: Dominion (2022)?

We don’t talk about her. It’s the worst of the bunch, propped up by a few decent set pieces and fan service that reunites the original trio for a few cute moments. Instead of focusing on the fact that dinosaurs are now running wild around the world following the events of Fallen Kingdom, the plot somehow revolves around an ecological disaster caused by mutant locusts engineered by Dr. Wu. It’s The Rise of Skywalker all over again.

Jurassic World: Rebirth and the Isle of Misfit Dinos

Much remains unknown about the plot of this Gareth Edwards-directed requel, but what morsels we’ve seen look like a potential return to form. What we can gather from the trailer is that Zora Bennett (Johansson) and Duncan Kincaid (Ali) are mercenary types hired to travel with Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) to one of the presumed Las Cinco Muertes so that they can recover specimens from the three largest dinos of land, sea, and air in search for a cure for heart disease. The island is known to be the home of the failed dino clones from InGen’s past – everything these corporations have sought to leave behind – and the trailer teases us with seemingly enhanced or altogether different versions of iconic beasts we’ve seen throughout the franchise. It builds to reveal a disfigured and partially obstructed beast that Edwards described to Vanity Fair as part Rancor (of Star Wars), part H.R. Giger (of Alien fame), and a little bit of T-rex.

Sure, the “capture three legendary dinos” plot sounds like something out of a video game. Still, after the disaster of Dominion, the franchise needed to step away from the previous films, and with monster movie auteur Edwards and OG screenwriter Koepp at the helm, things sound promising. By doubling down on long-time themes of man vs. nature and the enduring consequences of genetic manipulation rather than focusing on giant bugs and cloned little girls, Rebirth has hopefully ventured into the proper jungle. And, in alignment with our goals here at Horror Press, Hammonds’s broken dreams have continued their ripple effect of tearing people limb from limb.

We are so back.

Jurassic World Rebirth is heading to theaters on July 2, 2025.