If you’re of a certain age bracket or generation, Steven Spielberg’s 1993 dinosaur adventure Jurassic Park was a monumental moment. It inspired kids to learn about science, maybe read about chaos theory at a weirdly young age, and one quote in particular from the movie actually inspired Colin Trevorrow when he was making this summer’s mega blockbuster Jurassic World.
Talking to the Jurassic Cast, Trevorrow talked about how he and writing partner Derek Connolly used specific lines from the original film to help motivate and shape their own installment in the massive dino franchise. He said:
Honestly, the trilogy is articulated in Jurassic Park, it’s all in there… Jurassic World is all based on Ian Malcolm’s quote, ‘You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you wanna sell it.’ That to me is Jurassic World, that’s why I had all the product placement, that’s what it was.
Of course he looked to Jeff Goldblum’s character, maverick mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm, who went on to star in the sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, in 1997. He’s easily the most quotable and insightful of the film’s characters, and he was the real breakout star of Jurassic Park.
The quote he chose is also very apropos given their situation. They took something that came before them, a beloved movie by a legendary filmmaker in this case, and built off of that work, taking it even further than the originator. They certainly went very, very big. Does that mean Jurassic World is destined to become an out of control monster that breaks free from its confines and goes on a kill crazy rampage? Perhaps.
The movie was intended as the starting point of a new trilogy, and with Jurassic World’s overwhelming success—it even took the studio and filmmakers by surprise—that’s for sure going to happen now. While he won’t be back to helm the next Jurassic World, Trevorrow will still have a hand in guiding it as a producer, and he and Connolly will reportedly handle the script again.
He has talked a bit about Jurassic World 2, hinting that the plot may revolve around the science for dinosaur cloning could go open source, and that multiple groups could have their hands in the pot. Talking about inspirational quotes for the next chapter, he said:
The second one, Jurassic World 2, and as we were driving we tried to find, what is the foundation? ‘Dinosaurs and man, separated by 65 million years of evolution have been thrown back into the mix together. How can we know what to expect?’ That’s why it’s exciting that the movie did well, that leaves us a lot of room to run, and it was part of this design, it had a beginning, middle, and end when we wrote the first movie. Now that the movie did well, we get to play that out.
Colin Trevorrow won’t be back to direct Jurassic World 2 because he has another pretty decent gig lined up, helping to retool yet another beloved franchise. He’s going to direct a small little movie called Star Wars: Episode IX, delivering the final installment of that new trilogy. Though his chapter doesn’t hit theaters until 2019, he’s already started work.
