If three important moments in Jurassic World’s short film, Battle at Big Rock, looked familiar, that’s because they already happened in a previous Jurassic Park movie. These scenes appear to be copied from the second installment in the franchise, The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
Directed by Colin Trevorrow, Universal’s eight-minute short film, Jurassic World: Battle at Big Rock, takes place one year after the events of the last movie, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, which saw the entire dinosaur population that was left alive set free into the wild. The short film addresses Fallen Kingdom’s cliffhanger ending by giving viewers a taste of what happens when humans are forced to coexist with dinosaurs. Starring Andre Holland and Natalie Martinez, Battle at Big Rock centers on a family who are camping out in an RV in Big Rock National Park. However, the family camping trip takes a bad turn when dinosaurs arrive on the scene.
What transpires in the eight-minute short seems to come directly from The Lost World: Jurassic Park. In Battle at Big Rock, an Allosaurus attacks the family’s RV and, due to his large size, is able to tip it over. Just when it looks like the family’s vacation is about to come to a grisly end, one of the children uses a crossbow to wound and scare away the Allosaurus. Both are key moments in The Lost World: Jurassic Park. The 1997 movie featured a famous scene where two T-Rexes attacked a trailer - with the main characters still inside - and knocked it off a cliff. Later in the movie, a young girl, Kelly, saves Jeff Goldblum’s character from a raptor by kicking it.
The comparison to The Lost World doesn’t end there. The end-credits of Battle at Big Rock recreates another moment from the movie by showing a child being chased by a pack of Compsognathus. This event in the original film is what the sets up the plot of The Lost World. The inclusion of not one, but three pivotal scenes from The Lost World shows that director Colin Trevorrow was intentionally paying homage to a fan-favorite film and one of two movies in the franchise to receive the Academy Award for “Best Visual Effects”.
In a way, Battle at Big Rock feels less like a sequel to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom or a prequel to Jurassic World 3, and much more like a spiritual sequel to The Lost World. This is part of what makes Battle at Big Rock the best of Jurassic World. If Battle at Big Rock is a sign that the franchise is prepared to look to older Jurassic Park films for inspiration in creating well-crafted, scary moments and good characters, then things may be looking up for Jurassic World 3.
More: Every Dinosaur In Jurassic World: Battle At Big Rock
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