Jurassic World Dominion Featurette Teases Nostalgia And 'The Culmination Of The Franchise'

Can you remember where you were when you sat down to watch one of Steven Spielberg's seminal summer blockbusters, "Jurassic Park," for the very first time? Are you able to recall exactly how it felt watching living, breathing dinosaurs recreated in all their (scientifically inaccurate) majesty? Having been born the same year that the original movie was first released, I had to settle for wearing out my VHS copy until it was basically unwatchable. It took me an embarrassingly long time to finally get the chance to see the movie on the big screen, but the wait turned out to be well worth it. The only way I can describe the thrill of watching those incredible set pieces and still-convincing VFX would be something resembling a religious experience, which is pretty close to how the various cast members of "Jurassic World: Dominion" explain their own personal feelings for the 1993 original that started it all.

A new featurette has just been released for the upcoming big-budget threequel, which will bring Chris Pratt's Rex Dangervest Owen Grady and Bryce Dallas Howard's Claire Dearing on a crash course with the original trio of stars from the first "Jurassic Park" movie: Sam Neill's Alan Grant, Laura Dern's Ellie Sattler, and Jeff Goldblum's Ian Malcolm. Though primarily concerned with waxing nostalgic over the original movie (amusingly enough, there isn't a single mention of either of the 2 pre-"Jurassic World" sequels) and how "Dominion" hopes to bookend many of the ideas that Steven Spielberg first tackled almost 30 years ago, this new look at the movie boasts some intriguing new footage that further hints at what lies in store for unsuspecting audiences.

If I'm being totally honest, it's a little funny to see the "Jurassic Park" franchise get the "Star Wars" treatment, with a featurette pushing all the nostalgia buttons and treating the next movie as some sort of grand finale that will bookend the lofty generational aspirations of the original movie. Even as a huge fan of "Jurassic Park" (I even listed it as my all-time favorite movie, #neverforget!), it never got much deeper than the idea that humanity is meddling with things it had no business interfering with and paid for their arrogance. Those themes were pretty succinctly wrapped up within that 2 hour runtime and didn't really demand any more follow-ups after that ... but that's not the narrative you're left with after watching this featurette. As director Colin Trevorrow (who is returning to the director's chair after handing over the reins to J.A. Bayona for 2018's "Fallen Kingdom") lays out in the video,

"'Jurassic World: Dominon' is the culmination of the franchise. It concludes a story that Steven Spielberg started telling in 1993."

In between some fun behind-the-scenes footage of both "Jurassic Park" and the various movies in the "Jurassic World" trilogy, however, we do get some new looks at completed footage from "Dominion" that involves both the "Jurassic World" cast and our triumvirate of fan-favorite original stars. Trevorrow goes on to describe the film as a "true, honest-to-God, scary as hell adventure," possibly pointing to a return to a similar horror-infused tone of the original movie. Along with various cast members, both new and old, narrating the footage with some of the usual PR talk, we also see new details like a returning Dr. Henry Wu (played by BD Wong in the original movie and who returns in the "Jurassic World" movies as almost a villain of some sort) bemoaning how "We need to fix a terrible mistake."

Sounds like we can expect plenty of plot twists, nostalgic reunions, and action galore when "Jurassic World: Dominion" roars into theaters on June 10, 2022.

Universal Pictures

Dominion takes place four years after Isla Nublar has been destroyed. Dinosaurs now live—and hunt—alongside humans all over the world. This fragile balance will reshape the future and determine, once and for all, whether human beings are to remain the apex predators on a planet they now share with history's most fearsome creatures.