Warning: Spoilers for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom's after-credits scene sees the dinosaur franchise finally evolve past theme parks, with the bright lights of Las Vegas the latest setting for a rampage. But what does it really mean for the Jurassic series past and future?

From the moment he first pitched Jurassic World, writer-director Colin Trevorrow had plans for a full trilogy of films. This is quite evident with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, which not only continues the saga with volcanos and auctions, but makes a concerted effort to introduce a new status quo ahead of Jurassic World 3. At the end of the movie, Maisie Lockwood (the cloned "granddaughter" of Jurassic Park's co-creator) releases all of the rescued dinosaurs into the Californian wild, just as vials of their DNA are taken for more experimentation.

But that's not the only way the film sets up the future. Breaking from franchise tradition (if you ignore a Close Encounters of the Third Kind audio Easter Egg in Jurassic Park), Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom has an extra scene at the end of the credits that further sets up the future. It may not seem like much by itself, but in the context of the franchise - looking both forward and back - it's apocalyptic.

What Happens In Jurassic World 2's Post-Credits Scene

Jurassic World 2 Fallen Kingdom Post Credits Scene

For those who didn't sit through the long credits, first a quick recap. The end-credits scene for Jurassic World 2 continues the expansion of dinosaurs into the real world, seeing the new releases crossing state lines. It opens with a pair of Pteranodon - last seen by Owen and Claire over the ocean - flying across the Las Vegas skyline before coming to rest on top of the replica of the Eiffel Tower. They screech, pedestrians down on the ground scream, sirens can be heard in the distance, and the movie cuts to black.

It's a brief moment that could have really been factored into the montage of dinosaurs on the run from the end of Fallen Kingdom - there's little to distinguish this from the Mosasaurus attacking surfers or T-Rex squaring up against a lion - but that it doesn't is suggestive on its own. The other sequences show prehistoric creatures going against modern life directly - the oceans are no longer a safe place of leisure, while the cages we built to gawp at majestic animals have been literally smashed down - but with the Vegas sequence there's a sense of randomness.

Does The Post-Credits Scene Make Jurassic World 3 "Jurassic Earth"?

Like the ending of Jurassic World 2 proper, its stinger is intended to set up where the franchise is going with Jurassic World 3. The final part of the trilogy - as it is now planned - is due for release in 2021, with Colin Trevorrow returning to the director chair.

Read More: Fallen Kingdom's Ending: How It Sets Up Jurassic World 3

While the ending is pretty clear in how Jurassic World is leaving the park well and truly behind, the end-credits scene suggests with more force that the escaped dinosaurs from the Lockwood estate are going to be a serious problem before we get to whatever Henry Wu and other scientists are going to cook up next. The promise of seeing Claire and Owen traversing the Pacific Northwest trying to save the time-displaced animals is definitely fitting of Jurassic World 2's conservation themes and promises something more akin to Jurassic Earth.

Page 2 of 2: The Hidden Jurassic Park 2 Reference

Pterodactyl in The Lost World Jurassic Park

Fallen Kingdom's End-Credits Scene Is A The Lost World Reference

After the final trailer revealed the full scope of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom's plot - from the volcano through to the chase on the Lockwood estate in the real world - fans picked up that the film was in many ways mirroring original sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Repeating or "remaking" classic movies within the same franchise has become a trait of legacy-quels - see Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Creed and, yes, the first Jurassic World - but taking on the mildly received sequel seemed an odd choice. In reality, outside of a confused view on the ethics of resurrecting dinosaurs, the films don't have that much in common, although Fallen Kingdom's end-credits scene does bring back some memories of The Lost World.

After the T-Rex rampaging through San Diego has been packaged off to Isla Sorna (the Site B), John Hammond gives an impassioned plea to protect the animals over a tracking shot of the creatures living in isolation on the island. All the dinos from earlier in the film are there, joined by the new addition of Pteranodons. Hitherto unseen, at the time they posed a pretty big concern: if flying dinosaurs have been genetically re-engineered, what's to stop them flying to the mainland. This was complicated by Jurassic Park III, which ended with the triumphant theme playing as Pteranodons (shown to be incredibly dangerous earlier in the film) flew alongside a helicopter to the mainland.

Jurassic World 2's post-credits scene goes some way to atoning for these questionable moments by returning to the winged dinosaurs, but in a situation where the movie is fully aware of their threat level. Whether it was intentional or not is another question, but for long-in-the-tooth Jurassic fans it's some sense of closure.

How Jurassic World 2's Post-Credits Scene Could Have Been Better

T-Rex in Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom

It must be said that Jurassic World 2's post-credits scene is definitely on the lesser side compared to what audiences have come to expect from Marvel: heavy teases (Avengers: Infinity War revealed where Nick Fury was and established Captain Marvel) or big jokes (Spider-Man: Homecoming's "patience" fakeout infuriated as many as it delighted). This is an extension of something in the film, and any real impact on the future is more intonation.

Could it have been better? Quite easily, yes - and in a way that actually improves the film's ending. Jurassic World 2 as it is is about the characters wrestling with what to do with the dinosaurs; they are an unavoidable part of the modern world yet don't fit; are they creatures or monsters? The conclusion is the former, reflected in the innocence of human clone Maisie, leading to her releasing the survivors of the volcano and auction into the wild. That action and realization is the core of the story, with Owen and Claire reconnecting the extent of the characters' learnings. The dinosaur rampage may be spectacle, but it comes almost at random in the narrative: like Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines' Judgement Day twist without it being overtly setup up prior.

With that in mind, it would have made sense to twist things, having the movie end on a discussion of what's to come - including Jeff Goldblum's "Welcome to Jurassic World" - but saving a visualization of what that looks like for after the credits. It separates the ending of Jurassic World 2's story from the explicit setup for Part 3, giving a more complete experience while still providing the majority of viewers with the lion vs. T-Rex showdown (and more).

Next: Jurassic World 3: Every Update You Need To Know

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