Jurassic World 2 is Basically The Lost World

The third trailer for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is out, revealing the film's overarching plot, and it looks suspiciously like The Lost World. Universal has been playing a clever game; the first trailer only really included scenes from the first act, and marketing has focused in on that part of the plot too. But there's always been a sense that the trailers were hiding something. The official synopsis, after all, referred to "a conspiracy that threatens the entire planet.""It was all a lie," Claire shouts in this third trailer. There's a sense in which that's true of Fallen Kingdom's marketing approach. Marketing had bee pointing to the one story, when in reality they had a major twist planned. Sooner or later, though, they were always going to have to change focus and reveal some secrets. This third and final trailer sees the studio hold nothing back. It's clearly an attempt to give viewers a strong sense of what to expect from the film. It's also a justification for the movie's existence, given this franchise started out in 1993. Unfortunately, it also means that the movie is now a lot less secret than it was before.RELATED: Why Jurassic World 2's Trailers Are All So Boring

This Page: The Jurassic World 2 Plot Isn't What We Thought it Was

The Volcano is a Red Herring

Early marketing for the film focused on the threat of an impending volcanic eruption. Isla Nubla was revealed to be a volcanic island, one that had awoken after a period of dormancy, and was preparing for a spectacular eruption. The first trailer showed the volcano "clearing its throat," in the early stages of an eruption cycle. That kind of eruption has the power to wipe out all life on the island.

A viral website reinforced this message, suggesting Claire has dedicated herself to ensuring the safety and protection of the dinosaurs. "We must save the dinosaurs," she insisted in one video on the site. It seemed clear that the main plot would be some sort of rescue mission.

But that's what we - and, indeed, Claire - were supposed to believe. It seems the volcano is a red herring; the powerful forces who have funded the rescue mission aren't really interested in saving the dinosaurs at all. Instead, they want to acquire the DNA samples to continue creating dinosaurs - and, indeed, to create a new breed. That's why they're shown diving for the Indominus Rex DNA. But it's also why Blue is so important.

It's a Direct Sequel To Jurassic World

The first Jurassic World movie saw shadowy forces attempt to create dinosaurs as weapons. While they accomplished their goal, they created a horrific creature that could not be controlled. At the same time, though, the film also proved that some dinosaurs can be trained. Owen raised Blue from when she was just a hatchling, and she grew to trust him. So much so that she even fought against the Indominus Rex for him. Velociraptors, it seems, can actually be controlled.

That's vital information for the villains of Jurassic World, including James Cromwell's Benjamin Lockwood. They don't really care about preserving the lives of dinosaurs; they want to acquire dinosaurs as weapons, and they want to create ever-better weapons too. The Indominus Rex was powerful and effective, but they already dreamed of improving on the creature. "Imagine that one, a fraction of the size," Hoskins commented in the first film. "Deadly. Intelligent. Able to hide from the most advanced military technology. A living weapon unlike anything we've ever seen." And, crucially, able to be controlled. That (in theory) is the Indoraptor, the terrifying new creature that's going to be created in Jurassic World 2.

We now know that the film's "big twist" is that the dinosaurs will be sold as weapons. No doubt it's a lucrative business, and the Indoraptor will be their greatest success to date. But, in true Jurassic Park style, it's one thing to create an Indoraptor; it's another thing to control it. The creature will break loose, and go on a rampage across the American estate. That's where the movie will shift tones, becoming darker, more suspenseful, almost Gothic.

Owen Grady and Blue in Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom

It makes sense of the official synopsis, which had already teased that Claire and Owen would "encounter terrifying new breeds of gigantic dinos while uncovering a conspiracy that threatens the entire planet." The danger, no doubt, is that life will always find a way; Lockwood's attempt to auction off dinosaurs as weapons would lead to dinosaurs getting out into the wild. Certainly a recurring "money shot" has been the Indoraptor in a little girl's bedroom, a terrifyingly surreal image that's entirely new to the franchise.

As a "next step" for the Jurassic World franchise, it certainly seems to be a logical one. It's a pretty seamless continuation of the first film, albeit with a few twists in the tale. While the movie won't end with a cliffhanger, writer and producer Colin Trevorrow has described the entire Jurassic World trilogy as one single story. Jurassic World was the beginning, this is the middle, and the third film will be the end. That claim had seemed a little odd, because up until this new trailer, there didn't seem to be a massive thematic throughline between Jurassic World and this sequel. Now, that's changed.

The same character dynamics are in play, including the pivotal relationship between Owen and Blue. Lockwood is cast from the same mold, and have a similar motivation. Conceptually, the films are exploring very similar ideas - ethical questions about how far human beings will go in order to create weapons of war. There's even the straight narrative throughline running from the Indominus Rex to the Indoraptor. Jurassic World 2 is indeed a direct sequel to the first film, more so than it ever seemed from the initial marketing push.

Is Fallen Kingdom Remaking The Lost World?

It's easy to see why viewers have been comparing Fallen Kingdom with The Lost World. Both films deal with a very similar overarching concept, the idea of transporting dinosaurs from a remote island to the United States. Both see the heroes object to the way the dinosaurs are being treated, and presumably free some of the creatures from their cages. Of course, in Fallen Kingdom the reason is a little more sinister; The Lost World saw dinosaurs being taken to the U.S. for a theme park. Still, the comparisons are hardly difficult to spot.

The main difference, however, appears to be in tone and style. Fallen Kingdom attempts to embrace the best aspects of the horror genre, placing the fantastical alongside the everyday. The contrasts between the light and dark as the indoraptor approaches the little girl - the brightness of the home environment and the darkness of its drooling jaws - is played out perfectly. This is what the marketing team wanted to be seen; that the movie would place the horrors of a carnivorous dinosaur, created as a weapon of war, in an American home setting.

In thematic terms, it looks as though the first half of the film focuses on themes of environmentalism and human responsibility; humans have created the dinosaurs, and now have responsibility for them. The second half, though, appears to hone in on the horror of what happens when humans act without any sense of responsibility. That theme may well give Jurassic World 2 a unique tone and style, one that makes it stand out from the rest of the dinosaur films. If it does, though, it will be in spite of narrative similarities to The Lost World rather than because of its having original concepts.

The marketing team for Fallen Kingdom clearly faced a difficult challenge. Their initial approach was to keep as much as possible from the second half under wraps. But that just wasn't quite paying off, so this final trailer has revealed what could be pretty much every twist in the tale. It still leaves the film open to comparisons with previous installments in the Jurassic Park franchise, but it also confirms why the studio believes this movie is worth making in the first place, and why they believe it's distinctive in its own right.

Are There Any Surprises Left?

Chris Pratt with a T-Rex in Jurassic World 2

When it comes to trailers, studios face a difficult choice. If they give away too little in the trailers, viewers don't really know what to expect. If they give away too much, though, the movie's plot structure and character arcs are revealed. In the case of Fallen Kingdom, Universal initially chose to take a secretive approach; the first trailer only revealed scenes from the first act. That didn't quite seem to work in terms of selling the movie, though. Shortly after the trailer's release, Trevorrow was fielding questions about why the film looked so similar to The Lost World. "Really the heart and soul of the movie, the turn of the movie, is not what we've shown in this [first] trailer," he explained in one interview.

Part of the problem seems to be that the film justifies its existence through the horror of its second half. But you can't reveal that without giving some sense of just how the first half leads on to the second - otherwise the trailer simply feels too disjointed. So with the third trailer, Universal decided to opt for revealing a lot more. They wanted to give viewers a sense of what to expect, and why this film was worth watching in the first place.

Unfortunately, Universal seems to have gone too far. In this case, the third trailer essentially explains all the plot twists that will lead viewers to the Lockwood Mansion. The entire plot structure feels as though it's been laid bare, to the extent that the trailer almost feels like a plot summary. Even major character beats have been hinted at; it seems likely Blue will believe she's been betrayed by Owen, but will still come to his rescue and save him from the Indoraptor. The only remaining questions are, essentially, who dies and how?