With Season 2 of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous dropping on Netflix this weekend, it is absolutely an excellent time to be a fan of the Jurassic World franchise. As someone who has been obsessed with anything Jurassic related since I was around five-years-old, I can attest that the last few years have given us a lot to be excited about with the franchise and what the future may hold in further seasons of Camp Cretaceous and the latest film in the series, Jurassic World: Dominion.
Jurassic World: Dominion is the third installment of the Jurassic World trilogy and the sixth and supposedly final film in the Jurassic Park franchise overall. Filming wrapped on the movie last fall during the global pandemic amid strict Covid-19 prevention guidelines, which should allow the film to meet its currently scheduled 2022 release date. Even with filming completed, story details for the film have been kept surprisingly quiet. Fans are certainly eager to find out more information on the film that is said to be the culmination of the entire Jurassic franchise that has spanned the better part of the last three decades.
Just ahead of the Season 2 premiere of Jurassic Park: Camp Cretaceous, series executive producer and Jurassic World: Dominion director Colin Trevorrow sat down for an interview with EW to discuss his time in the Jurassic World franchise and what fans can expect from both the new season of the hit animated show and the upcoming live-action film.
The plans for Jurassic World: Dominion is going to try and tie up any loose ends from the Jurassic Park film series and bring the entire story together for what is being viewed as a “final act.” Director Colin Trevorrow certainly seems excited about what they have planned, especially with franchise heavy hitters like Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum from the first Jurassic Park film trilogy joining current trilogy stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard. The director claims that all of the lead cast members will be equally important to the story, regardless of which era they joined the franchise. Trevorrow said:
[The film is] a celebration of the whole franchise. To me, ‘Dominion’ is a culmination of one story that’s been told. When you got to the end of the ‘Jurassic Park’ trilogy, it may not have been as clear in what the complete story of those three movies was because they were a bit more episodic in the way that they were approached. But this trilogy is not that way. It’s very much a serialized story.
What was important for me was, when you watch ‘Dominion’, you really feel like you are learning how much of a story that first set of movies was and how everything that happened in those movies actually informs what ultimately is able to happen in this. If kids who are born today are going to be presented with six ‘Jurassic Park’ movies — you hope the parents will buy them the box set — you hope they are going to get to feel like they watch one long story.
One of the most interesting aspects of this is that Trevorrow is even planning to include aspects of the story being told in the animated spin-off series from Dreamworks Animation, Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous. The show was developed alongside the last film in the franchise, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, but didn’t premiere until last fall, several years after Fallen Kingdom‘s release. While the show started as a way to capture the imagination of younger audiences with a new story set during the events of the first Jurassic World film in 2015, it quickly found its own legs and looks to be telling a truly unique story in its newly released second season.
Season 1 of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous followed a mismatched group of teens that were attending a special summer camp within the confines of the Jurassic World theme park, Camp Cretaceous. Unfortunately, they happened to show up right around the same time as the events of 2015’s Jurassic World film, which means all hell (and lots of dinosaurs) is breaking loose. The group finds themselves on the opposite side of Isla Nublar as evacuations begin, and it’s a race against time to fight their way back through the park before they miss the last boat off the island! Nevermind the fact that the infamous Indominous Rex is on the loose and destroying everything in its path!
Season 2 is set to pick up immediately after the events of Season 1, which gives the story a lot more freedom to do its own thing. While the first season was beholden to the timeline of events from the first Jurassic World film, we now find our heroes trapped on an abandoned Isla Nublar. The door is wide open for Camp Cretaceous showrunners Scott Kreamer and Aaron Hammersley to have some fun with the story and explore new ideas during the four years between the first Jurassic World film and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. The kids are now going to be struggling to survive in the abandoned island theme park full of dinosaurs on the loose.
Colin Trevorrow, who executive produces Camp Cretaceous, hinted that Season 2 is going to help set up several things for the future of the Jurassic franchise, teasing connections between the show and the upcoming Jurassic World: Dominion. He was also sure to clarify that while these plot points are there in an attempt to bridge the show with the live-action films, they were included with respect to the story they planned to tell with Camp Cretaceous from the start. According to Trevorrow:
It’s important to me, out of respect for the writers who are continuing to expand and create, to recognize [Camp Cretaceous] as clearly its own story and its own show. But this season — and if we’re granted further opportunities to tell the story that we have [in season 3] — will keep weaving in to the larger story and really inform some things, even in Dominion that will connect to discoveries made that I’m really excited about.
One of the challenges is trying to make this feel like it’s grounded not just in the world of the movies but in our real world that we live in. It’s a scary time to be a kid right now, and the world feels more dangerous than it ever has. I think we can do our best to shelter them from certain things, but I think they feel what’s going on at a deeper level. So in this show we have a bunch of characters who feel like the rest of us, who are isolated and very alone, and survival is their priority.
While the show will absolutely be connecting into the plot of the upcoming film, Trevorrow also feels that it is important that the show can stand on its own as a story. Now that the story has taken them to the relatively untouched area in the Jurassic World timeline, the possibilities are nearly endless for what kind of adventure the show wants to become moving forward. What started as an entertaining tie-in show for children is already evolving into something bigger that begins to close the gap between two very different forms of media that are telling one cohesive bigger story.
On the evolution of the Jurassic franchise and the new direction the series is taking after all these years, Trevorrow said:
What these movies are is changing in a way. All of the Jurassic movies have fundamentally been about people who go to an island and there are dangerous dinosaurs there who very well may harm them. As we take it into a new place where it’s about humans and dinosaurs sharing the planet as we do with animals, it gives us an opportunity to make more character stories with people you know and love and care about. That’s really our same exercise on the show.
Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World: Dominion stars Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, B.D. Wong, Omar Sy, Jake Johnson, Daniella Pineda, Justice Smith, Campbell Scott, and Isabella Sermon. The film is currently set to hit theaters on June 10, 2022.
Thankfully you won’t have to wait that long for more Jurassic World content, as all eight episodes of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Season 2 premiered on Netflix on January 22 and are available for streaming now!
Are you excited for the new season of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous? What new Dinosaurs are you hoping to see in the new season? Let us know your thoughts in the comments down below and stick around Geek Anything for all the latest Jurassic World updates!
