Join me on a lengthy and engaging discussion with David Lowery! He was the storyboard artist on the entire ‘Jurassic Park’ trilogy and the first ‘Jurassic World’ film. His talents were also part of the productions for ‘Honey, I Shrunk The Kids’, ‘Rango’, ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’, ‘The Mandalorian’, and many others. Included in the interview are a myriad of David’s storyboards, with some that have never been seen before!
Click Image To Watch The Full Interview Playlist!
There are four parts to the interview, with each one focusing on a different film. The first part delves into how it all began with ‘Jurassic Park’! David explains how he got involved with the film, what it was like to shape classic sequences with Steven Spielberg, why certain scenes were cut, and a lot more! Newly-revealed storyboards show Robert Muldoon attempting to tranquilize the Tyrannosaurus Rex after it has escaped from its paddock; a scene inspired by the novel that was never filmed! There is also a drawing featured that was made by Spielberg himself!
In Part Two, David recounts his memories from working on ‘The Lost World: Jurassic Park’. Before the film even began, he first helped Spielberg create a new studio: DreamWorks! From there, his role expanded in the first ‘Jurassic’ sequel, working even closer with Spielberg and storyboarding many sequences, including: the thrilling Stegosaurus meeting, the terrifying trailer attack by the Tyrannosaurs, and the divisive San Diego chase (a bigger climax that was created due to pressure from the success of ‘Independence Day’ the year prior)! For the first time, we also get a look at the full storyboards for the Rex raid on the hunter camp and the raptor attack in the long grass! He also details how the film’s paleontologist advisor, Jack Horner, helped shape the look of a shot involving footprints that was left largely unfilmed!
The third part of the interview touches on ‘Jurassic Park 3’, and what it was like shifting to a different director: Joe Johnston. David remembers what it was like being at the extraordinary indoor jungle sets! He also details the challenges he and the production faced to please eager audiences with the anticipated film. The story went through many changes, with several never-before-seen storyboard sequences featuring a group of kids as they are faced with Isla Sorna’s fierce inhabitants! We also discuss the interesting change of the film’s lead dinosaur from Baryonyx to Spinosaurus; something that was evident in an early logo!
In the final part of the interview, we discuss the early storyboards David did for ‘Jurassic Park 4’, which would eventually become ‘Jurassic World’. Many of the sequences he storyboarded either didn’t make it into the film or were tweaked in various ways after he had left the project. He explains what the original opening of the film was before Colin Trevorrow came on board to direct, and it definitely sounded… interesting! Despite leaving the film during its production hiatus to work for Jon Favreau on Disney’s ‘The Jungle Book’ remake (leading David to eventually storyboard for the highly-praised ‘Star Wars’ Disney+ show, ‘The Mandalorian’), he was thrilled with how the film, and largely the series as whole, turned out. At the end of the interview, we are treated with a video “animatic” of David Lowery’s “Opening Montage” storyboards from the film, fan-made by BernardA. Kyer (beginning with footage from the fantastic computer game ‘Jurassic Explorer‘)! It shows a vastly expanded version of what the opening to ‘Jurassic World’ could have been!
I’d like to thank David Lowery for taking the time to reminisce about his experiences working on the ‘Jurassic’ films, and the many fantastic storyboards he created that are truly a work of art!
I hope you enjoy this multi-part interview! After watching it, what were some of your favorite stories David told? Which storyboard sequences captured your imagination the most! Share your thoughts in the comments below, and as always stay tuned to Jurassic Outpost for the latest!
It’s been over 3 years since the original Jurassic World Evolution released on consoles and PC, and the anticipated sequel delivers on the promise of Fallen Kingdom: we’re not on an island anymore (except when we are, but more on that later).
Jurassic World Evolution 2 offers some new updates to the established gameplay from the first title, but will also be immediately familiar to players of the first – perhaps too familiar at times. However, for those unfamiliar with Evolution, it is a park building and management game where you’re tasked with creating your very own Jurassic worlds.
The core gameplay loop in Jurassic World Evolution 2 is all about building park attractions with key operation and exhibition facilities, seeing to guest and animal comfort, all while making sure you remain profitable and don’t run out of money. As you may expect, things don’t always go to plan, and chaos will come into play – from natural disasters like tornadoes and blizzards, dinosaurs growing distressed by their health and needs, and occasionally, dinosaurs breaking free and eating your guests (which is a very quick way to run out of funds).
You can help avoid unhappy dinosaurs trying to escape by making sure you’ve crafted an enclosure meeting their environmental needs, such as making sure you’ve grown the correct prehistoric flora for herbivores to feed upon, have enough water, open space, and other factors such as making sure species cohabitating a particular enclosure actually like one another.
If your dinosaurs break free you’ll need to send in ranger teams to round up the ramping threats before they cause too much mayhem, so it’s important to have them placed close by. While this may be easy in the early stages of your park, it becomes more of a challenge as your park grows and is something that will greatly affect your ability to mitigate the collapse of your park – especially as some maps are quite restrictive in size (but fret not, others are quite large).
Likewise, you’ll want to make sure you’ve researched the best facilities to contain and care for your dinos – such as the new medical center for taking care of sick and injured dinosaurs. As sick dinosaurs can die or spread illness, you’ll want to make sure your mobile veterinary teams can access the species as quickly as possible.
Research is integral to keeping your park well managed and profitable, and will also provide you the means to train your scientists whomst are integral to the core game mechanics. Scientists are hired staff required to be assigned to all management tasks such as aforementioned research, expeditions for fossils and dinosaurs, DNA synthesis, and egg incubation.
Each scientist has three skill categories with associated levels: logistics, genetics, and welfare. The various management tasks, such as sending out a team to look for fossils, have required skills in the category or categories, therefore making sure your various staff are properly leveraged for the tasks ahead is crucial. Likewise, each scientist has a specific perk. Some simply have a higher stamina rate, meaning you can assign them more tasks in a row without them needing a break from overworking, while others may allow for things such as 50% cheaper DNA synthesis or 30% faster egg incubation. You’ll have to make hard choices to make sure you’re saving as much money and time as possible while having enough skill points for the tasks your park requires, and this staff system brings a lot of strategy into the game.
As I mentioned before, the staff can get overworked and require rest. If you’re not careful, the scientists may become disgruntled, causing setbacks in your park such as sabotage. These new functionalities make the gameplay more dynamic as you expand your park, requiring more strategy in your choices as opposed to only arbitrary wait times while tasks complete.
The way you edit the environment is far more dynamic than the first game. For example, herbivores no longer have feeders and rather require the proper plant life to support their diets. While some may feed off of ground fiber and nuts, others will feed off tall leaves. With limited space in each paddock for what you can grow, you need to be mindful about the species you place together so their dietary and general comfort needs (which include things like open space, the amount of rocks, and more) can sync up.
Then, of course, there are the park guests – the people you want to keep happy to fund your dino-park escapades. Their comfort in the park boils down to amenities such as food, shopping, and restrooms, the placement of emergency bunkers, transportation, and of course attractions. Your star attractions are the dinosaurs, and you want to make sure you have the other desired amenities in close proximity to them. Viewing galleries are a primary way for guests to see dinosaurs, and the placement of the galleries is key to make sure the guests actually have sight-lines on the various species. Guests also don’t like to travel too much by foot, so researching and placing structures such as hotels and monorail stations around your focal dino-hubs really helps maximize the success of your park.
Each level features different environmental locations with different sizes and shapes, sometimes including narrow choke points where building and movement will be restricted. Making smart use of that space to fit all the needed structures, pathways, and dinosaur paddocks is crucial. If you’re not careful, you can easily build yourself into a corner where the needed facilities cannot fit. This will affect profit, guest comfort, and your ability to properly care for the dinosaurs – this can become even worse if disaster strikes.
Another great feature is the ability to pause time and assess a situation while assigning tasks within the park or choosing building placements. When a park is large, a lot can happen at once, and this feature allows you to manage many occurrences simultaneously before resuming the action and letting your choices play out. Likewise, you can speed up time by 2 and 3 times, allowing for tasks to complete in a blink of an eye. Be careful though – if things start going wrong, every second counts.
While many of these elements existed in the first Jurassic World Evolution, there are many small quality of life adjustments across the board which make the gameplay more dynamic, and in theory, more fun.
Unlike the first game, Evolution 2 offers 4 different modes of play: Campaign, Chaos Theory, Challenge Mode, and Sandbox.
Campaign mode picks up after the events of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, with dinosaurs now free in the mainland across various wilds in the US and elsewhere. The story picks up with Owen Grady and Claire Dearing now employed by the United States Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) working to help humans and dinosaurs successfully co-exist. The United States Government is concerned by the potential threat dinosaurs pose, and have set up many departments to help keep a close eye on the dinos. These include the DFW and another key player: the newly formed Dangerous Species Division (DSD) of the CIA. While the DFW and DSD cooperate together, there is some tension and distrust between the government agencies, particularly as the CIA isn’t the most forthcoming about their activities with dinosaurs outside of those the DFW directly assist with.
The single player mode marks the largest departure from Jurassic World Evolution and frankly even Evolution 2’s core gameplay mechanics. Rather than building parks, worrying about guest comfort, and profits, you’re simply tasked with tracking down nuisance dinosaurs and containing, observing, and relocating them – just as normal, non-prehistoric nuisance animals are often dealt with.
As such, the levels are divided into distinct playspaces within each map: the “buildable area” for creating and maintaining the DFW’s facilities and the “wild area”. The wild area consists of large expanses of wilderness where you cannot build but can take direct control of ranger teams to drive and fly across, tracking down dinosaurs, capturing them, and bringing them back to your containment facility that you build. Primarily you will build simple operation facilities such as paleo veterinary centers, paddocks, and observation platforms for the DFW to study the dinosaurs. Essentially, you want to make sure you have the right size paddock with the right terrain inside for the dinosaurs’ comfort, and once you’ve done that, you’ve got nothing else to worry about.
As such, you wont utilize most of the game’s core gameplay features and building options in the single player which, quite frankly, is a bizarre choice in a park building and management game. In fact, the the entire single player feels like a short, snappy narrative driven tutorial for a larger game that Frontier forgot to include. The story ends abruptly, only running a few hours, with a narrative that feels like it’s just setting up the first act. While the campaign of the first Jurassic World Evolution admittedly could drag, it was much larger and felt more content complete. The sequel’s main story can be beat faster than it takes to achieve a 5-star rating on some of the challenge mode locations.
It truly feels like rather than adjust the story to account for the fact that Jurassic World Dominion was delayed, they kept the initial set up and cut the rest of campaign that would intersect too closely with the upcoming film. The story makes mention of a third party and unknown location (seemingly alluding to BioSyn), and it seems like things are just getting ready to explore that thread when the credits role unceremoniously.
If you’re a player more interested in the narrative single player campaign be warned: campaign feels more like a small expansion to the first game rather than a standalone sequel experience. While the new environments are gorgeous, you won’t spend much time in them within the context of campaign. Some levels, such as Pennsylvania’s beautiful Appalachians, aren’t even featured in the various sandbox and challenge modes.
Chaos Theory mode feels like a secondary campaign, only smaller in story scope. It does offer some expanded narrative “what if” situations which are introduced with absolutely stunning intro cut-scenes narrated by Jeff Goldblum, reprising his role of Ian Malcolm (though he sometimes sounds less like Malcolm and goes into his weird and whimsical Goldblum voice). Each level is its own standalone story with simple premises attributed to the five films: build and open Jurassic Park successfully for the first film, Build and open Jurassic Park San Diego successfully for The Lost World, Create Jurassic World and successfully remain open with the Indominus Rex for the fourth movie. However, all of those quickly become repetitive gameplay with less narrative threads as your task is simply to achieve a 5-star rating with certain arbitrary chore-like challenges thrown at you along the way. This mode is hit and miss, particularly as it limits player freedom and can quickly become a little too chaotic if you make one wrong move. Personally, I found the San Diego level to be more engaging than the other two which just felt like they dragged on too long. I’m pretty sure I spent more time on Jurassic World’s Chaos Theory level than I did the main campaign – most of my star dinosaurs dying of old age before I cleared the level.
The issue in Chaos Theory mode is that it mostly assumes you understand the intricacies of park building and management. While it does introduce you to some basics, they’re not enough to realize the long road you have ahead to reach 5-stars. The mode may have felt like less of a chore had the main campaign done more introductory legwork work to introduce the player to the expanded core park management mechanics, but as it stands, the average player may find the experience overwhelming. Spending hours on a simple ‘what if’ scenario shouldn’t be a trial by fire to learn the games core mechanics – because if you make too many mistakes, you may be forced to start from scratch.
Jurassic Park 3 and Fallen Kingdom’s Chaos Theory modes shake up the formula, and while the other three levels may last too long, these two feel too short. Fallen Kingdom’s plot essentially boils down to returning to Nublar sans a volcanic threat, scanning a few dinosaurs, and then using the removal tool to destroy the pre-built park. It’s weird – and not fun.
Jurassic Park 3 stands out, as it seems to be an actual lore expansion set between the events of Jurassic Park 3 and Jurassic World rather than a “what if”, returning to Isla Sorna to capture dinosaurs and relocate them to Isla Nublar for Jurassic World. This level plays more like the single player where you capture wild dinosaurs and create basic paddocks for their comfort only. As such, it is short, but it is also a fun break with some curious lore implications.
Challenge mode is where the game really shines and seems to find better balance between pacing, mission structure, and player expression. It features entire suite of gameplay mechanics all with the goal of reaching a 5-star rating in various locations, while contending different challenge modifiers (for example, a level where dinosaurs are more prone to sickness). While this may sound similar to the Chaos Theory mode, you have more freedom and less arbitrary requirements, allowing you to build and respond to the various challenges in the way you personally wish. Likewise, this mode offers the full suite of ways to obtain dinosaurs for your park, including finding them within the map, sending expeditions to find fossils, and occasionally expeditions to capture wild dinosaurs transporting them directly to your park. It’s a shame the game’s more narrative-driven campaigns don’t embrace this wider sandbox of gameplay, as it offers a sense of freedom and diversity critically lacking in the campaign and Chaos Theory.
That said, much like the first Jurassic World Evolution, the game still lacks a sense of personal freedom to entirely craft a park as you wish with the many facilities and attractions you would come to expect from the films. While the Gyrosphere tour returns, as does a Jurassic Park and World themed vehicle tour, no new rides or dinosaur themed attractions are present – such as the river tour, Pachy arena, or T. rex kingdom. While some of these additions may seem arbitrary, the idea of this game very much revolves around building your own park – and when each park has the same limited suite of options, it quickly becomes repetitive.
This is an issue the first game suffered from, and by result, it often times felt boring when compared to other park management titles. While this game has some new additions, and thus can be more engaging, many of the changes feel more like lateral moves. This is especially because most of the buildings, features, and dinosaurs are straight out of the first game. In fact, some species featured in the first didn’t even make the cut for the sequel.
A fun albeit small addition is the ability to customize some buildings, choosing from a few presets like Jurassic Park or Jurassic World styled walls, entrances, and decorative displays – while also being allowed to customize portions of the colors and lights. While this doesn’t effect gameplay, it does give the player more forms of expression. Although most of it is hard to notice while properly playing the game in its birds eye view.
Some of the buildings you would expect to have alternative models and skins from various eras – such as the aviary or paddock fencing – sadly do not. And while you can choose skins for your vehicles, including the pre-order and deluxe addition bonuses, in sandbox mode you cannot freely choose any skin. If you want Jurassic World-themed ranger teams, you have to choose that building style for the ranger station, and vice versa for Jurassic Park, only allowing for the bonus skins to be freely swapped in. Curiously, the DFW vehicles from campaign seem to be absent.
The ability to genetically modify your dinosaur returns allows you to adjust things like their temperament, lifespan, and of course, how they look. Each species has a variety of skins – imagine them as basic color presets and patterns. You can apply a pattern to a skin to bring out more complexity, usually resulting more contrasting colors and striping. Sadly, like the first game, you cannot actually preview the skins to know what they create and there is no proper database for all the varieties of species designs in-game.
Some of the legacy dinosaur designs also appear as skins, and they also can result in model changes. These include the Tyrannosaurs with skins from all 3 Jurassic Park films, Parasaurolophus from the two sequels, Velociraptors from all three films, the Brachiosaurs from both Jurassic Park and JP3, Stegosaurs, Triceratops, and more. Some legacy species don’t have skin that directly calls out the film its from – such as Spinosaurus, Dilophosaurus or Pachycephalosaurs – yet they do have film accurate colors achievable by choosing the correct generic skin/pattern combos. Just good luck figuring that out on your first try.
While some dinosaurs are incredibly accurate and offer a fantastic look at their film counterparts, others are lacking or have issues. For instance, Jurassic Park 3 female raptors have great colors, yet sport the quills of the males. The Allosaurus retains its look from the first game, which predates Battle at Big Rock and does not reflect Fallen Kingdom either. This means it’s an entirely canon on-screen species with entirely fictional in-game design. The Pteranodons do not have their Lost World or JP3 skin/models, and sadly the Mamenchisaurus does not reflect its design from the The Lost World which was recently shown in better detail for the first time.
The aviaries are engaging and the flying reptiles can escape from them wreaking havoc on your park – however they don’t offer much in the terms of customization, theming, or shape. The species list is on the small side, but does include the Jurassic World Pteranodons and Dimorphodons. Sadly the Dimorphodons lack the fuzzy filaments called pycnofibres that they sport in the films.
The ability to build lagoons and breed marine reptiles also makes its debut, but these facilities have even fewer customizations and gameplay options.
Despite the various frustrating inaccuracies, when the game looks good, it looks fantastic. However, it’s not always firing on all cylinders in the art department or engine performance. While some levels look gorgeous, with the environments looking rich, realistic, and detailed, others have a decidedly dated and lower detailed look which effects visual readability. The same could be said for the dinosaurs. While some species are so detailed you can see each scale and bump in crisp detail up close, others look waxy with muddier textures. That said, as the game is often played at distance from the dinosaurs, the animation, lighting and environments are what really make or breaks the visual experience.
The game suffers from some noticeable draw distance pop-in, especially with shadows which just blip in and out of existence – which can be very distracting. Likewise, lighting effects turn off and on at various distances, and while that may not be obvious when hovering in one location, as you pan across your park it jumps out more and more. This is very obvious while in “capture mode” which turns off the hud and gives you more cinematic control over the camera.
I played the game on the Xbox Series X, one of the most powerful home consoles out there, and these issues were immediately obvious. While I didn’t play the game on the less powerful Xbox One or PS4, I imagine they’re even more notable. Which brings me to the other, more important point: performance.
When things really get going this game struggles, with huge frame hitches as you zoom in and out or pan over particularly complex areas. Again, I can only guess how it runs on the less powerful machines, but it feels like a certain layer of optimization and polish is missing – further illustrated by the numerous crashes I experienced while playing. Thankfully, autosave meant not much progress was lost, although I do recommend saving frequently.
The game also suffers from frequent bugs, and while most are minor and don’t impact the game some can lead to frustrating results. Sometimes dinosaurs can become stuck in place – they attempt to move, making flying or walking motions, but they go nowhere. This leads to them slowly dying from starvation and dehydration. At the very least, that can sometimes be fixed by tranquilizing the dinosaur and relocating them. However, it’s not always that easy in an aviary as you can’t exact direct control over the task. You have to let the AI do it by deploying a drone into the aviary, and guess what: the drone can become stuck. There is no easy fix for that – I found myself destroying aviary hatcheries and rebuilding them simply to allow for a new drone that hopefully doesn’t get stuck. Unfortunately this issue popped up frequently, enough to deter me from flying reptiles in the more difficult challenge modes if possible.
With so few changes from the first game, a shockingly short and simple campaign mode, and the various performance issues I can’t help but feel this game was rushed and surely could have benefited from a delay to release alongside Jurassic World Dominion – if not further out. I also have no doubt content was removed from the game due to the films delay – I suspect it will be released next June alongside the upcoming sequel – but this sadly contributes to what feels like an incomplete package.
Don’t get me wrong, the game can be fun, but much like the first it has the foundations of a decent park management simulation without the much needed finer level of control, freedom, and variety. The gameplay can be repetitive and oftentimes doesn’t feel rewarding. While the dinosaurs do have more behaviors this time, such as pack hunting, they’re essentially just pretty looking props to challenge you that you can’t really appreciate outside of sandbox mode – where you can turn off disasters, have unlimited cash, and can get up close taking your time without concern of park collapse. Even there, there’s not much to do with the dinos if you’re not interested in building environments and then using capture mode to grab cinematic footage of them. I just can’t help but feel there is some core gameplay element lacking here that would make it all more worth it.
While this game isn’t bad – it’s also not great. I suspect it will find its real home with modders and content creators, but the average player likely won’t entirely get what they’re looking for. Likewise, park management fans may find the gameplay more shallow than they’re used to. This was easier to forgive with the first Jurassic World Evolution, but it’s doubly frustrating with the sequel, which seems more interested in re-skinning the first game than offering a proper evolution and improvement. While I do believe Jurassic-fans will find something they enjoy in this game, if you don’t mind waiting a little, I recommend waiting for it to go on sale.
BD Wong sporting a Jurassic World: Dominion jacket while making his directorial debut on the set of “Nora From Queens.”
Jurassic Park and Jurassic World icon BD Wong (Dr. Henry Wu himself) recently joined the Lights, Camera, Barstool podcast for an interview about his life, directing and acting, and of course, Jurassic.
The interview discussed what it’s like to be an actor and director in today’s world, the classic nature of Jurassic Park, and most excitingly BD’s thoughts and excitement for next summer’s Jurassic World: Dominion.
Before we move on: This interview contains mild spoilers for Jurassic World: Dominion. If you don’t wish to see them, we advise not reading further.
When asked if he had a different appreciation for Jurassic Park as a cornerstone of cinema after all this time, he responded:
“I would say I do have a growing appreciation, and there’s a kind of depth to that appreciation. I started out doing the first movie and I didn’t take it seriously at all. First of all, it didn’t feel like I was taken seriously as a character in that first movie; they didn’t explain what happened to that person. And the fact that they didn’t explain what happened to that person opened the door for him to return… So their negligence actually became something that was an opportunity for me. And now I’ve done three more of these Jurassic World films, the third one just having been completed.”
Continuing on about his character in Jurassic World: Dominion:
“In the arc (of the Jurassic World films), the filmmakers have a real allegiance to the character, a real affection for him, and want that arc to be satisfying to the fans. And so I feel that effort being made on his behalf, and I appreciate that because I didn’t want to just do the same thing every single time. I feel like it evolves, and it evolves to a very satisfying place to me. He had this incredibly epic death in the book that just never really got delivered in the first movie. And so now we have this, no spoilers, but, this resolution and an ending that is really satisfying to me.”
When asked about the scale of Jurassic World: Dominionand if he could tease it at all, he said:
“I’m not allowed to give spoilers, but I will say – it is bigger. Like, they really wanted to go out with a bang, and they made the last one really big. I think it’s bigger and longer and more like a ‘film’ than just ‘another installment of‘… All the principles from Jurassic Park are in it. Laura Dern, Sam Neill, and Jeff Goldblum are in it, and they’re not just like ‘Oh, look, there they are.’ They’re playing leading parts in the movie. So there’s Bryce and Chris Pratt who are the Jurassic World couple, and then there are these three honorary, huge, iconic characters that are coming back, resolving their relationships and their relationships to the whole conundrum of dinosaurs existing… and so it’s kinda big! There’s a weight to it that I like thinking about.”
You can watch a clip of that moment in the interview below:
“Laura Dern, Sam Neill, and Jeff Goldblum are in it. And they’re not in it like ‘Oh look there they are.’ They’re playing leading parts in the movie.”@wongbd gives a sneak peek on what to expect from the upcoming Jurassic World: Dominion.https://t.co/DpjuUoPyE4pic.twitter.com/DLeDi0EVHv
Wong also spoke to the unique nature of production during the pandemic, saying:
“It was the first movie that came back into production after the movies all shut down last year, and that was meaningful because it set up a lot of protocols that are still being used today and that were so important to getting the industry back on its feet… The side effect of that for us was that we were all quarantined in the same hotel, and there was this kind of ‘team spirit’ feeling that came as a result of that… We were all there, working on the same scene the night of the election… and so that was memorable.”
And continuing about the scale of the film:
“But it is big… Every single person who has gone in to the studio to re-record their lines – it’s called looping – gets to see, like three minutes of the film. Every single person has come back to the group text that we have saying, “Guys, this is incredible. Like, incredibly beautifully shot and, you know, really epic. And I can’t believe that it’s even more than the other two were before it.”
You can listen to the entire interview on Apple Podcasts here, and on Spotify here. BD Wong’s portion of the episode begins at around 1:02:00.
All in all, Wong seemed extremely grateful to be able to revisit a character decades later and to be a part of the Jurassic franchise as a whole. It is thrilling to hear his excitement and affection for Jurassic World: Dominion and the Jurassic franchise.
What do you think about what BD Wong shared in this interview and what it means for the next Jurassic World film? Let us know in the comments below!
The closing episode of our collectors focused web-series Beyond The Gates is here! As we mentioned last month, this show has been a blast to produce and speaking with the talented designers behind these products provides a unique look at the development, work, and passion that goes into making such collectibles.
Last month we debuted the Jurassic World Apatosaurus, welcoming it to Mattel’s Legacy Collection. This month we reveal the latest to Funko’s Jurassic Pop! collection, John Hammond’s animated mascot, Mr. DNA!
In this final episode, we hear from 3D sculptor at Funko Katelyn Simon who takes us through the process of designing a Funko Pop! from concept to shelves!
Whether you have all of the Jurassic World Funko Pops, or just a few, Mr. DNA will sit alongside your collection perfectly, reminding you how John Hammond and his team of scientists managed the impossible.
Will you be adding Mr. DNA to your collection? You can head to Target.com now to pre-order before stock runs out!
And with the final episode now live, we really hope you have enjoyed Beyond The Gates and wanted to thank each and every one of you for watching, sharing, and commenting on the episodes.
It has meant so much to be able to produce this show, and we hope you have enjoyed learning more about the behind the scenes process that the designers take to put these Jurassic collectibles together!
Five new Jurassic LEGO sets have been released for the world to construct and enjoy. The sets feature new moments with dinosaurs and characters from bothJurassic Worldand Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous.
This set includes mini-figures of Camp Cretaceous‘ Darius and Jurassic World‘s Owen Grady, a baby triceratops, and a fantastic T. rex fossil display in a setting that resembles a natural history museum. Other items included are a fossil diagram, museum equipment, and a dinosaur egg.
This set features mini-figures of Camp Cretaceous‘ Kenji and Sammy being pursued by a Carnotaurus in a vehicle that directly resembles those used by camp counselors in Camp Cretaceous. Close behind in a Jurassic World helicopter is a mini-figure of Owen Grady, seemingly launching a non-lethal round at the Carnotaurus.
This set includes mini-figures of Camp Cretaceous‘ Darius and Yaz and Jurassic World‘s Owen Grady, a Jurassic World “guard”, a Baby Velociraptor, and a full size Baryonyx whose coloring resembles that of Grim from Camp Cretaceous. Darius, Owen, and the Guard are being menaced by the Baryonyx on a boat marked “28” in the Jurassic World colors next to the staple T. rex logo. Yaz is in pursuit on a small boat with the Baby Velociraptor and what seem to be multiple dinosaur eggs.
This set features mini-figures of Camp Cretaceous‘ Ben and Brooklynn and Jurassic World‘s Claire Dearing, a Baby Ankylosaurus, and a Stygimoloch. Claire is driving a vehicle that resembles those used in Camp Cretaceous behind the escaping Stygimoloch while Brooklynn prepares to fire a tranquilizer at the dino. Ben, however, is doing his own thing with his baby ankylosaur pal near a very cool tree-slide construction.
This set is branded under LEGO’s Duplo brand, which is generally targeted toward younger builders. It includes more stylized versions of the T. rex and Triceratops, a stylized version of Jurassic World‘s Owen Grady on his motorcycle, and the iconic Jurassic World gates.
These sets are exciting for Jurassic builders and collectors of all ages – and while they’re not based upon any specific scenes, we expect even more LEGO with Camp Cretaceous Season 4 due out in December, and Jurassic World Dominion in June 2022!
What do you think about the characters, dinosaurs, and moments showcased in these new sets? Let us know below!
All are available for purchase now on the LEGO, Amazon, and Target websites!
Today we reach the penultimate episode of our collectors focused web-series Beyond The Gates. We have had such a blast piecing together interviews from the incredibly talented designers behind these toys, along with behind the scenes design sheets and assets that provide an even deeper look at Mattel’s design process.
Last month we debuted the long-awaited Dr. Alan Grant Amber Collection figure, and the dinosaur of his dreams: the Jurassic Park 3 Isla Sorna Male Velociraptor!
This month, and what marks the second to last episode, we are excited to debut the dinosaur that made Claire Dearing realise that her “assets” were more than just that… the monstrously sized Apatosaurus!
In this episode, we hear from the legendary Mattel Jurassic World Designer Rafael Bencosme who talks us through the process of designing such a large toy, and how the previously released Jurassic Park Brachiosaurus influenced the design!
This Legacy Collection item is sure to make an impression on your collection and will feel right at home on your shelf utterly dominating the space.
Will you be adding the Jurassic World Apatosaurus to your collection? You can head to Target.com now to pre-order these two items!
We really hope you have enjoyed Beyond The Gates! We are reaching the final episode and want to thank you for coming on this journey with us! Stay tuned next month for an exclusive item for all generations of Jurassic…
While initially announced in February of 2020 that Jake Johnson would be reprising his role of Lowery Cruthers in 2022’s Jurassic World: Dominion, unfortunately due to the Covid-19 outbreak and other unforeseen circumstances, he was not able to film the role that the original script had called for. In an exclusive interview with Looper, Jake announced the sad news.
When Looper asked Jake Johnson if he could tell us anything about “Jurassic World: Dominion,” he bluntly said, “Well, unfortunately, I’m not in the third one.” He clarified, “Well, I was written in, so it’s announced that I was, but what happened was the pandemic hit.” And, of course, the pandemic ruins everything.
“No, I was in it. So, Colin [Trevorrow] had written a great part. Lowery came back. It was a great conclusion. I was excited to do it. The pandemic hit, and at that time, there was a two-week quarantine. It was a bunch of stuff that I couldn’t get out and leave the family, and we kept trying to make it work. And in the end, the dates just didn’t work out for that one, which was heartbreaking because apart from being in that movie, Colin’s a very old friend.”
What are your thoughts on Jake Johnson’s Lowery not appearing in Jurassic World: Dominion? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
We’re now at the halfway point with our collectors focused web-series Beyond The Gates and so far we’ve revealed some very exciting Jurassic products from Mattel!
We hope you’ve been enjoying the show, and enjoyed last month’s exciting debut of the Legacy Collection’s Jurassic Park Tyrannosaurus Rex Escape Pack, featuring the Ford Explorer, Tim Murphy, and Lady Rex herself.
This month, we’re super excited to reveal some new and exclusive Amber Collection figures – Dr. Ellie Sattler, John Parker Hammond, the Jurassic Park Velociraptor, and a 2-pack of Jurassic World’s Dimorphodons!
In episode 5 we hear from the masterminds from the Mattel toy design team: Rafael Bencosme, Chandra Hicks, and newcomer Nikolai Dryuchin who talk us through the design process behind these all-new figures!
From early sketches on a piece of paper to the final product sitting on the shelves of Target, the Mattel designers run us through the process of designing a toy from start to finish, making this episode not one to miss!
Recreate your favorite scenes from both Jurassic Park AND Jurassic World with these brand new Amber Collection items, the excitement to collect has never been greater! Head to Target.com now to get your pre-orders in!
We were excited to debut the items in this episode, and next month’s episode of Beyond The Gates will debut even more Amber Collection items, don’t miss out!
SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t watched Season 3 of ‘Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous’ yet, do yourself a favor and get on it! In this writer’s opinion it is the best, and darkest, season of the show yet!
Season 3 of ‘Camp Cretaceous’ has a lot going on: island escape attempts, fun callbacks at the Visitor Center of ‘Jurassic Park’, and the scary scene-stealing poisonous hybrid Scorpious Rex (also known as E750). The kids that were left behind during Isla Nublar’s second breakout, thanks to the Indominus Rex, spent 6 months on the island before finally getting off the shores. Presumably they are off the island for good, but who knows where they will end up or return to?
Right before their departure, the kids have an unfortunate clash with the same team that was sent by Eli Mills (a rather untrustworthy man who would eventually steal dinosaurs out from under Benjamin Lockwood’s nose and sell them in an auction) to retrieve genetic information from the Indominus Rex so Dr. Henry Wu can create a new hybrid: the Indoraptor. This connects the series directly, not just to ‘Jurassic World’, but to its first sequel ‘Fallen Kingdom’.
Entertainment Weekly shared a conversation they had with showrunner Scott Kreamer and executive producer Colin Trevorrow (co-writer & director of ‘Jurassic World’), where Trevorrow explains:
“They’re on this island and, at a certain point, it seems as if they’ve been there for this indeterminate amount of time. To make clear, first of all, what the timeline was at the beginning of ‘Fallen Kingdom’ — it was about six months after the fall of ‘Jurassic World’ — for kids who’ve grown up on it, it’s cool to allow them to connect to these touchstones in the story and recognize that the story we’re telling is part of the larger story. It’s not just some cartoon show for kids…”
‘Camp Cretaceous’ reveals that a lot more was going on at the island during the incredible opening sequence of ‘Fallen Kingdom’. After the kids are forced back ashore by part of the same team sent by Mills, about half of them are rushed on board a helicopter until our lady T-rex charges in and chomps on an unsuspecting mercenary. The helicopter takes off prematurely due to the attack, leaving behind the other half of the kids to fend for themselves. This sends the helpless kids on a chase through the jungle, until the T-rex is distracted by the same helicopter we see in ‘Fallen Kingdom’ near the Mosasaur Lagoon. We watch from the perspective of the kids as the event plays out, with their reaction to the Mosasaur chomping on the guy at the last moment mimicking how many had felt when they saw it on theater screens in 2018.
It doesn’t stop there. Entertainment Weekly’s article continues with additional anecdotes regarding Dr. Wu’s return to the island with a group of mercenaries and more. However, the most interesting details are about how this series ties into what lies ahead for ‘Dominion’, the second upcoming ‘Jurassic World’ sequel. Trevorrow explains:
“There are connections that we’re making for sure […] When you see ‘Dominion’, it will be clear that it takes place on the same timeline and in the same world as our show.”
This admission certainly makes ‘Camp Cretaceous’ much more of an important show than many may have guessed. While some can argue until the skies are gray that it is only “soft canon”, this is still an incredibly entertaining way to tie in new elements of the same story that we would have never gotten otherwise.
Trevorrow continues further, expressing just how mapped out the story for ‘Camp Cretaceous’ is:
“We do have a beginning, middle, and an end for it […] I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to think that we don’t have a plan. We do, and there is an ending in sight.”
Given that ‘Dominion’ has already finished filming, and the story for this television series is already set, it would appear that there will certainly be many more connections ahead that will blend the stories of the film and the show into one (hopefully) coherent whole. Everyone here at Jurassic Outpost are certainly looking forward to it.
Are you excited for more ‘Camp Cretaceous’? Do you like how the show continues to connect to the films? Let us know in the comments below, and as always, stay tuned to Jurassic Outpost for more!
Universal Studios Hollywood announced today that the theme park, which closed in March of 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, will officially re-open to the public on Friday April 16th!
— Universal Studios Hollywood (@UniStudios) March 30, 2021
With the re-opening of the park that means that Jurassic World: The Ride will also be re-opening. But the ride will look a little bit different than it did the last time guests experienced it. Added to the ride is a new animatronic Indominus Rex!
The grand reopening of Universal Studios Hollywood also brings guests face-to-face with “Jurassic World—The Ride’s” all-new, extraordinarily realistic dinosaur, the Indominus rex, who stakes her claim at the ride’s finale in a forceful battle with her arch-rival, the Tyrannosaurus rex.”
“Breaking new ground with highly complex innovations, this fully-articulated lifelike Indominus injects intense new thrills, excitement and intrigue to the already dynamic ride. Spanning nearly 55 feet horizontally from head to tail and over 22 feet vertically, the Indominus’ imposing presence will be amplified by the fluidity of her motions and synchronized movements that deliver an unprecedented level of authenticity. From the subtle blinking of her eyes, the flexing of her arms and claws and clenching of her jaw as she bears her razor-sharp teeth, the colossal Indominus rex will lunge from her hillside setting, stalking guests just before they descend the giant waterfall drop to escape her grasp.”
Included with the press release of the ride updates is a new advertisement poster showing the Indominus Rex squaring off with the Tyrannosaurus Rex as a ride boat is about to plummet down a waterfall.
What are your thoughts on Universal Studios Hollywood re-opening and the addition of the Indominus Rex to the Jurassic World ride? Please let us know your thoughts in the comments section down below!
