SEATTLE — "Jurassic World: Rebirth" seeks to bring back the awe and wonder of the very first "Jurassic Park" movie, directed by Steven Spielberg in 1993. At the New York City premiere, Rebirth director Gareth Edwards revealed he was just 17 years old in '93.
"It's the summer I went to film school," Edwards said. "And it changed my life. I basically bought a computer that summer and eventually learned how to do CGI and ended up rendering dinosaurs in my bedroom and silly things like that."
The film is executive produced by Spielberg, with a screenplay by David Koepp, the same man who wrote the Jurassic Park script, and follows covert operations experts Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali as they help paleontologist Jonathan Bailey retrieve lifesaving DNA from not one but three large dinosaurs, one each from land, sea and air.
"It's a simple narrative structure and then big thrills, big shocks and a lot of love and heart as well," Bailey said.
Principal photography started last summer in Thailand, where it was so hot and muggy that Ali said he felt like he was being cooked from the inside out. The actors bonded in their isolation.
"It was like summer camp honestly," Ali said.
"Sometimes you make a film and actors can be really good at pretending that they like each other," Edwards said. "They really became a family on this one. We were in the middle of nowhere in the jungles and the swamps and things like this really doing it for real."
With its many references to "Jaws," "Jurassic World: Rebirth" may come across as a tribute to Spielberg, who challenged the team to recreate a life rafting sequence that was in the original Michael Crichton novel.
"I love the T-Rex," producer Frank Marshall said. "And who knew they could swim? Right? And they could. That was a surprise."
In Malta, they shot the boat attack scenes. The actors were baking in the hot sun, asking their director endless questions about what the Mosasaurus looked like.
"Gareth is such a visionary," Johansson said. "He sees everything in his mind and it's complicated. I mean, he sees these massive set pieces while also, you know, having an understanding of what the continuity is throughout this huge, thrilling adventure.
"Not one character comes across as anything more than potential protein for dinosaurs," Saint Bryan said in his review of the film. "That said, there are two exhilarating action scenes that are absolutely worth the price of admission."
"Jurassic World: Rebirth" is rated PG-13 and opens Wednesday.
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