HOW I WOULD REWRITE JURASSIC WORLD REBIRTH (IN A GOOD MOVIE)
The latest Jurassic World has undoubtedly been the subject of extreme controversy, and not without reason. Ranging from those who consider it the worst of the franchise to those who label it as at least an acceptable film, most reviews only give it a 5/10. This doesn't mean it's a bad movie: humanity has undoubtedly churned out much worse films, and they could have made it much worse. But it certainly has substantial plot flaws that can't be easy ignored. So, here we are in this new post, where I illustrate how Jurassic World Rebirth could have been written better.
Now, before we begin: like previous rewrites, this post isn't intended to write a completely new movie. Yes, many people probably would have preferred a different plot than usual (since we've seen people go to an island full of dinosaurs many times, and it gets tiring after a while), but this is still just a creative exercise. Therefore, the goal here is to stay AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE to the storyline we had, and only change it just enough to make the movie more appealing to the audience. With that said, let's get started.
Since we need to stay as close as possible to the main plot, this film essentially needs to have three things: first, a disease that requires harvesting dinosaur DNA; second, an island where they must go to find the dinosaurs; and third, a giant mutant dinosaur at the end. Let's start by covering the first point. In Jurassic World Rebirth, the reason for the protagonists' journey is simply that this new, previously unknown company, ParkerGenix, discovers that the DNA of three dinosaurs can provide a medicine that cures cardiovascular disease; we're given no explanation as to what ParkerGenix is, how it was founded, or even what kind of influence it has on the world. Quite a lame concept that basically just serves as an excuse to get the plot going. So, how can we make this better?
Well, for starters, let's get rid of the bullshit about dinosaurs being unable to adapt to modern Earth: JWR says they couldn't survive because of the lower oxygen and colder climate, but that's something that's been debunked since 1990. Yes, there were times during the Mesozoic when oxygen levels were higher than today, but that was almost exclusively toward the very end of the Cretaceous; throughout the rest of the dinosaur era, oxygen levels remained close to modern levels, and in some cases even decreased, and this never shrank dinosaurs. Not only that, but we have evidence that animals at the end of the Cretaceous would have survived well into our time: recent studies on the evolution of the Deccan Traps, a chain of volcanoes that erupted shortly before the asteroid impact, seem to suggest that oxygen level plummeted from 27-29% to just 15-17% in the span of a few hundred thousands years. Yet we have evidence that giants like T. rex, triceratops, and even the 50+ tons alamosaurus were still around when the asteroid hit a few hundred thousand years later. Here's a myth to dispel: more oxygen doesn't necessarily mean a larger body. Yes, this is true for some animals, like arthropods, but this is because arthropods have a diffuse circulatory system; animals like vertebrates, on the other hand, have a different type of circulatory system, skeleton, muscles, and metabolism. Take a cockroach and put it in a tank pumped with a lot of oxygen, and it will grow much larger than its normal counterparts; then do the same with a lizard, and it will simply be much more active and faster, but will remain more or less the same size. And all this if we take into account small animals: the bigger an organism gets, the more the issue became less about the oxygen and more about how efficiently you can breathe and fight against gravity. In the case of dinosaurs, the reason for their evolutionary success was their air sacs: just like modern birds, they possessed a system of sacs adjacent to their lungs that facilitated breathing, lightened the body, improved metabolism, and allowed for a more active lifestyle. Take any dinosaur and bring it to our time, and it will breathe just fine; some of them may not be as fast and active as they were in their era, but they will still survive well. It's a similar case with climate: even the myth that the age of the dinosaurs was consistently hot and tropical has long been debunked. We know that dinosaurs faced harsh winters, and some even lived in areas of permanent snow; there have even been cases where actual ice ages have occurred, and this has not prevented them from adapting. Sure, if you took a sauropod and dropped it in Antarctica, it would die; but in most modern environments, many dinosaurs would feel quite at home. North America, where dinosaurs in JWFK were released, is particularly rich in environments where these animals could thrive: vast forests and vast plains suitable for migratory routes, as well as a wide variety of plants and, consequently, food. Some dinosaurs, like stegosaurs, might struggle due to their selective diets, but for the most of them, modern plants would be fine, and so they would survive without major problems; this, of course, assuming humans don't start killing them for fun or to keep them away from population centers. So, if neither oxygen nor climate nor diet are a problem, what's killing dinosaurs in this rewrite of JWR?
Well, there's one thing in the modern world that dinosaurs are truly unprepared for, the same thing we humans constantly fear: germs. Bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi, and protozoa pose a threat even to us who were born and raised among them, so you can imagine how terrible they would be for animals whose immune systems aren't prepared for this threat. And this is where our movie truly begins and where the first pivotal point is established: dinosaurs are dying not from environmental conditions, but from a disease. And that's... well... a big problem.
Let's set the stage. Instead of introducing ParkerGenix, which, as we've said, is a company created solely to set the plot in motion, our protagonist Zora is instead called by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) itself. Here we learn a worrying fact: among dinosaurs a strange disease is appeared, that's rapidly killing them. According to the Center's doctors, it's a prion. Here, Michael Crichton fans will surely already know what I'm referring to: the infamous DX. The reason this disease is so worrying is that doctors fear that, with so many vectors available, it could soon mutate and spread to humans as well. It may seem absurd to think that a dinosaur could infect an ape, but keep in mind that many modern diseases are transmitted from birds to humans; not as many as mammals, but still a fair amount of bacteria and parasites. And since birds are dinosaurs, there's no reason to believe non-avian dinosaurs couldn't do the same, especially considering that JW's dinosaurs have DNA mixed with modern species, making it even easier to break the genetic barrier. The doctors at the Center therefore believe it is imperative to find a cure, and for that they need DNA from three species with pure genetic material. Here we can take two approaches: either we can decide that Zora was completely unaware of all of this, or that she was the one who found the documents relating to Saint Hubert from the beginning. In both cases, the result is the same: Saint Hubert isn't just any island, but the place where InGen attempted to create the first dinosaurs, and therefore their DNA is undoubtedly the purest; therefore, they must go there, and they must do so hidden from the public to avoid creating panic over a potential pandemic.
So, time to assemble the team. Here's a plea to all the directors of these films: please, hire a real paleontologist. Not only because hearing a so-called expert call a mosasaur and a pterosaur "dinosaurs" is a real pain in the ass, but also because you don't have to be a dinosaur expert to know that no sauropod has ever weighed as little as 11 tons, and the titanosaurs seen on screen certainly can't weigh that light; even ignoring the scenes where they're deliberately magnified for spectacular effect, these animals definitely can't be less than 100 tons. When you make a movie about prehistoric creatures, at least make sure the supposed expert makes sense. In any case, the team is brought to the island; in this scenario, the government itself is funding the expedition, so they're flown by helicopter to one of the laboratories; here they discover that the DNA they need is that of titanosaurus, mosasaurus, and quetzalcoatlus. Our protagonists are then left on the island to collect the samples, with the promise of being picked up twenty-four hours later. It may seem strange that people working for the military are left to fend for themselves, but keep in mind that this is often the modus operandi in operations they don't want to reveal to the public: it's better to use a few well-equipped people than an army that everyone will notice. Thus begins our protagonists' work.
If any of you are wondering what happened to the Delgado family, well, I've decided to cut them entirely. Yes, I said we needed to rewrite JWR as closely as possible to the original, and yes, family is a common trope in the Jurassic Park franchise, but in this case, it adds absolutely nothing to the plot. The Delgado family was so unnecessary that I even forgot their names immediately after watching the movie. Rather than using them, it's much better to have Zora talk about family, citing her relationship with her mother (in JWR, she has a heart condition; in this rewrite, she's not sick but at serious risk, and therefore potentially in danger if DX were to pass to humans). All this without even considering that adding the Delgado family would mean that there's a father idiot enough to take his kids to a notoriously dangerous area, only to be surprised when a mosasaurus attacks them (they were close to the island since they could see the spinosaurs). Therefore, let's cut this unnecessary family entirely and focus on Zora and her crew. The hunt for the mosasaur and the ensuing battle with the spinosaurs unfolds exactly as in the movie; however, immediately afterward, instead of proceeding on foot, they decide to get a dinghy to travel upriver. It's here that we encounter Ember, the tyrannosaurus, who chases them into the river in a dynamic sequence that ends with the dinosaur giving up, perhaps due to the arrival of the spinosaur herd. Here, our expert Henry already begins to notice some oddities: it's unusual for a T. rex to live so close to the coast, competing for resources with spinosaurs; it's like something is keeping it away from the interior of the island. Something wrong is happening here.
The team continues, finding themselves on the titanosaur plain; this sequence plays out similarly to JWR, although perhaps the animals' proportions could be improved, as in some cases they seem to become kaijus. Immediately afterward, we witness another strange occurrence: the discovery of a titanosaur corpse. The bite marks appear to belong to a T. rex, but they are much larger, and even the expert Henry claims that no T. rex could take down such a large animal. Just then, the roar of a tyrannosaurus is heard, but it seems horribly distorted. It's now clear that something is on the island. Zora thus forces Krebs (in JWR the ParkerGenix executive, here a government agent) to confess the truth: InGen not only created pureblood dinosaurs on the island, but also experimented to make them more "suitable" for the public, and this led to horrible experiments and then an unknown incident that caused the complete destruction of human activity on Saint Hubert. Realizing that whatever took down the titanosaur is likely the same thing that drove the T. rex from the mainland and killed everyone working on the island, the team rushes to complete the mission as quickly as possible.
We then arrive at the quetzalcoatlus sequence. This plays out similarly, but after the protagonists manage to escape, they find themselves surrounded by velociraptors in the jungle. A fight naturally ensues, but it's stopped by the arrival of a second pack of velociraptors who begin fighting with the previous ones, giving the humans a chance to escape. This is the ultimate oddity: Henry explains that this level of competition, with dinosaurs fighting for every available piece of territory, is typical of an unbalanced ecosystem. Whatever is on the island is so terrifying and dangerous that the other dinosaurs have no choice but to take refuge in the most difficult areas, like the coasts and mountains, as they perceive everything else as a death zone. Henry also treats us to a little paleontological tidbit: the velociraptors that attacked them were likely the first attempt to make them "appealing" to audiences, since the real velociraptors of 70 million years ago were much smaller. This creates the first real connection to the other movies, as we finally learn where those two-meter-tall velociraptors came from.
The group then returns to the lab, waiting for the government helicopter to return to pick them up. Here, in JWR, we have the mutadon scene, but I propose something different. Unlike the Distortus rex, the mutadons add almost nothing to the plot, so we might as well replace them with something much more disturbing and... stealthy. Again, Michael Crichton fans will have already guessed what I mean: I'm talking about the camouflaged carnotaurs from the book. In this scenario, they are another attempt by InGen to make dinosaurs appealing to the audience. The fight is played out just like the original one against the mutadons, and is finally interrupted by earth-shaking footsteps: the carnotaurs flee in terror as the tower of power that we waited and feared for the whole movie enters the scene. The Distortus rex, in all its monstrosity, has arrived. Naturally, a gunfight ensues, which, in this case, ends with the actual death of the Distortus rex. How did they do it? Well, that's a topic for another post. The point here is that the Distortus rex dies, finally freeing Saint Hubert from its presence. The movie ends with the protagonists returning home and providing DNA to the Center for Disease Control, which develops a cure for DX, saving the dinosaurs and eradicating the disease. However, in a post-credits scene, a secret laboratory is shown where shady figures are experimenting with DX, and an infected human is also shown: the terrible prion may not have been eradicated at all.
There you have it. This is what JWR could have been with just a few tweaks: not a masterpiece, obviously, but certainly a much more interesting movie than the one we got, one that would have laid the groundwork for a genuine new trilogy. It would have been enjoyable for fans of Crichton's books, and the film would have had a crescendo of unease throughout, culminating in the spectacular showdown with the Distortus rex. Honestly, I think many modern producers tend to underestimate the importance of writing in a movie; after all, if even I conceived this rewrite in just half an hour, surely an experienced writer with weeks to spare could have done much better. The very sketchy and rushed plot we got in JWR is unfortunately a clear sign that no one during production considered the writing important, focusing only on the spectacular nature of the scenes. And that was, well, a big mistake. A mistake that unfortunately is now very common in movie productions, though luckly not in all.