Make sure to grab a feature screenplay consultation or logline consultation over the weekend!
When they announced this new Jurassic Park movie seemingly minutes after the latest trilogy had ended, I threw up my arms in frustration, went out on my balcony, screamed at the Hollywood sign, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”, and proceeded to get a visit from the police 15 minutes later telling me that some of my neighbors were “scared.” I explained to them that, yeah, they should be scared! Typically it takes five years before rebooting a franchise. Jurassic Park just did it in five minutes!!
You see Mr. Officer, one of Hollywood’s biggest mistakes is that they don’t build movies around scripts. They build scripts around movies. This is despite the fact that the best movies we’ve ever seen have come from building the movie around the script. It RARELY works the other way around. To be frank, it only works when they get lucky!
So when they don’t even PRETEND that they’re going to sit down and take a bunch of pitches and find the best one and have the writer write it, I say go F yourself. Cause that means you don’t care about us. Okay officer?
I’m happy to report that I’m now on a special list for LA County titled, “Suspicious People to Look Out For.” Whatever. Here I am trying to save the movie industry. If I have to publicly humiliate myself on that hill to do the job, then by gosh, I’m going to do it!
However, as I began collecting data on the movie’s performance, I was shocked to watch it climb up the box office charts, finishing as the number 2 live action movie of 2025. And I was pissssssed about it. Because it meant audiences were willing to show up for a bad movie, reinforcing this toxic belief studios have that you can just keep feeding the masses crap and they’ll buy it. This would surely lead to more quickly produced franchise entries that sucked.
I eventually forgot about Jurassic World Rebirth and went on with my life but then last week it showed up on Netflix and I thought, “Well, it’s free now. And there are literally no other movies streaming at the moment. Let’s check it out.” I crossed my arms, fired up the Roku, and dared the movie to entertain me.
You know what?
It did.
Mikey likes it! (Bonus Scriptshadow points if you know that reference)
How in the world did this happen?
As per usual in these parts, I sat in silence while listening to the gentle sounds of Youtube-generated waves for twenty minutes before the answer emerged.
Universal made one big change with this film. They decided to make one awesome Jurassic Park movie and who the hell gives a shit about a franchise that comes after it. I realized that the second they took that path, it freed them up to explore all sorts of cool story possibilities that weren’t available to them had they designed a trilogy.
They essentially made their version of “Aliens meets Jurassic Park.” A bunch of mercenary types go to the Jurassic equator, which houses the last of the dinosaurs, to collect some blood samples in the hopes of turning the result into a miracle life extension. Their plan goes astray when a family on a boat throws up a mayday signal.
You might be saying, “But Carson, that plot isn’t anything special.” It isn’t. It’s actually quite simple. And that’s the point. You want simple plots in these movies. These films fall apart fast once you start stacking plotlines one on top of the other. Plot overload creates fuzzy story engines.
Let me explain something to you about screenwriting when it comes to big concepts. Your plot’s only purpose is to become a vessel that allows you to explore what’s unique about your premise as easily as possible.
In other words, the plot’s job here is to make it as easy as possible to get our characters into as many cool dinosaur-led set-pieces as possible. And that’s exactly what it did.
Our first dino set piece is a giant dinosaur fish-thing attacking a small sailboat. And it’s great! What I loved about it was how simple it was. So many of these set pieces these days are big and busy and convoluted. You don’t know what’s going on half the time. Here, it’s simple! Big fish try to knock over boat. That’s it! So it keeps swimming around and bumping the boat. And it keeps getting worse and worse for the family on the boat. And it’s riveting! I was on the edge of my seat.
The second set piece is just as good. Even though it ups the complexity, it still keeps things simple enough that we understand the scenario. That’s the trick here. You can get more complex with a set piece AS LONG AS YOU EXPLAIN TO US WHAT’S HAPPENING AND WE ARE CRYSTAL CLEAR ABOUT IT. If we’re only 80% there when it comes to understanding the scene, that means the maximum we can enjoy the set piece is at 80% of what you’ve created.
So here, we’ve moved to the mercenary boat. The family has been saved by the mercs. And these five semi-big dinosaurs start swimming around the boat in a menacing way. And the dinosaur expert quickly explains that these are special dinosaurs that actually team-up with other species of dinosaurs to hunt. And so they’re helping that big scary fish hunt this ship. And that’s it! That’s the scene.
And it’s great! Cause it’s so clear. The mercs are trying to outrun the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are whizzing around the boat and try to snatch up the humans in their mouths. Guardrails are broken, humans are holding on for their lives. Hungry dinosaurs get closer and closer. It’s good old fashioned set piece storytelling without all the excess nonsense that has destroyed the Marvel Universe with their abysmally over-constructed fuzzy set pieces.
And I have to give props to David Koepp, who came up with the concept and wrote the script. I’ve always seen Koepp as a glorified studio stenographer. He’s never written anything that’s had any major impact on me. But he kicks ass here. Because he understands what I said earlier. Which is that these huge concept movies are not about anything other than building a story that creates great set pieces.
The T-Rex set piece here is a show-stopper. It’s better than the T-Rex jeep scene in the original movie. And again – I know I’m beating a dead dinohippus here – but it’s because it’s so simple. It’s just a T-Rex stalking the family on an inflatable raft down the stream. So the T-Rex is sort of dancing around from side to side on the stream as it picks at this strange contraption full of potential hors d’oeuvres. It’s actually quite brilliant spatially. The T-Rex is on the right side, then the left side, at one point when the water gets deep, it swims under them.
But the point is, it’s such a simple setup. And that creates clear GSU. If you do that for your set pieces, you’re winning most of the time.
Another thing Koepp did that impressed me was he created two different groups of people to follow on the island. This allowed him to create twice as many set pieces.
I think what Koepp realized, possibly in early drafts, was that if he only followed a team of mercs, that they would be able to stand their ground against the dinosaurs. I mean they have giant guns and weapons. By creating a family as well, he could place characters into situations that the audience genuinely didn’t think they could survive. Like that T-Rex scene. You’re sitting there thinking, “There is literally no way they can survive against this thing.”
So, let’s ask the most important question of all here. Or, at least the most important question in my Universe. What does this mean for Star Wars? Cause I want to save Star Wars. And when a big franchise does a good job, I ask if the same approach might be able to resuscitate my favorite dying franchise.
The big “what I learned” from Jurassic World Rebirth is that when you don’t have to worry about trilogies, you can just create a good singular story concept. And that’s when I realized, this is the same track that Star Wars is already taking. Both Mandalorian & Grogu and Starfighter are standalone movies. So, maybe I’ve been too hard on them. Maybe they did the same thing as Koepp – just figure out what the best story to tell is and tell it.
If that happens and those movies are awesome, I’ll be the first to cheer, just like I’m cheering this movie on now. I suggest all of you do the same. Fire up Netflix and enjoy yourself a heck of a well-written action-adventure film.
