A Guide To The 'Jurassic World 2' Plot And New Director J.A. Bayona

It’s official, J.A. Bayona will direct Jurassic World 2. So does it have a chance of avoiding the distinct dinosaur doo odor of Jurassic World? Unfortunately, Jurassic World writers Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly will be writing this outing as well. Still, Bayona is an unexpected pick that could lead to an interesting fifth Jurassic Park movie. Here’s a comprehensive guide to what we know so far.

J.A. Bayona previously directed The Orphanage and The Impossible, two very different movies that highlight his versatility as a filmmaker and demonstrate some enviable strengths that could really benefit Jurassic World 2.

Bayona’s first movie, The Orphanage, was a familial horror flick with great performances, good scares and precise control over tone and character.

His follow-up, The Impossible, made the disaster film intimate, combining big spectacle special effects and well-tuned performances from Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts. It’d be remarkable if he could bring the same attention to the personal in his Jurassic World sequel, grounding the kind of nonsense spectacle that just seemed silly in Jurassic World.

But what about the plot of Jurassic World 2? There’s only so much J.A. Bayona can do as a director if confronted with a horrible script. Here’s what Trevorrow has said about his sequel plot:

• Claire and Owen will return

“We know Owen is going to be in it and Claire will be in it and neither will be in the same place that we left them in this movie, Even though Claire is the one who evolves the most over the trilogy, it’s her story that mirrors this changing world, Owen has shit to deal with. The two of them opened Pandora’s Box in Jurassic World and each of them are responsible for different elements of it in different ways, and I think the way that these characters are connected to the circumstances of what’s happening it’s different than the previous films.”

• The script is based on a quote from Dr. Alan Grant

“Jurassic World is all based on Ian Malcolm’s quote, ‘You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you knew what you had, you’d packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox and now you want to sell it.’ That to me IS Jurassic World. That’s why I had all the product placement, that’s what it was. The second one — Jurassic World 2 — we tried to find the foundation: ‘dinosaurs and man separated by 65 million years of evolution have been thrown back into the mix together. How can we know what to expect?’”

• The dinosaurs won’t belong to one company

“A bunch of dinosaurs chasing people on an island, that’ll get old real fast… I feel like the idea that this isn’t always going to be limited to theme parks, and there are applications for this science that reach far beyond entertainment. And when you look back at nuclear power and how that started, the first instinct was to weaponize it and later on we found it could be used for energy. And this isn’t something necessarily that was in the book but it is a seed I wanted to plant in this movie, is that it might be able to grow in more of these movies if they decide to make more of them, is: What if this went open source?”

• Dinosaurs could endanger our status as the dominant species on the planet

“ We dominate all of the other animals. But when you throw in animals that were the Alpha on this planet for far longer than we’ve ever existed in with us… I don’t really know who’s in charge there.”

• Yes, the war raptors are back

“It would be like the way we have relationships with animals on this planet right now – there are animals that are kept in zoos, like Jurassic Park, but they are also used in agriculture, and medicine and in war.”

Despite making a terrible movie, Jurassic World director and writer Colin Trevorrow has clearly given Jurassic World 2 a lot of thought. Hopefully he’ll deliver a script worthy of J.A. Bayona’s talents.