Everything you need to know about Jurassic World: Dominion, from disasters on set to new ‘Edward Scissorhands’ dinosaur

GET ready for a rip-ROAR-ing ride to Jurassic World as Hollywood’s biggest beasts return for the final instalment of the second trilogy in the dinosaur franchise.

Jurassic World: Dominion sees Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard joined by original cast members Laura Dern, Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum from 1993’s Jurassic Park.

It is the first time the trio have all got back together.

As the movie premiered in LA this week, Chris revealed: “It’s the end of an era and, in a way, it’s sad, but it’s also really beautiful.”

Grant Rollings digs through the bones to tell you what to expect as the days of the dino draw to a close.

The film opens on Friday.

STORYLINE

IT is four years on from the action of previous film Fallen Kingdom and dinosaurs have spread to all parts of the planet.

Big cats now find they are prey, while kids pet mini dinosaurs in parks and large ones cause major road hazards.

The beasts from the past are also being exploited by illegal trading and suffering at the hands of a corporation carrying out genetic experiments.

Dr Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) has to convince Dr Alan Grant (Sam Neill) to put his life at risk one more time to investigate the biotech giant.

Meanwhile, the survivors of previous Jurassic World disasters, Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) struggle to keep adopted daughter Maisie Lockwood (British actress Isabella Sermon) safe as she is a genetic clone that others are desperate to get their hands on.

NEW CHARACTERS

EVEN the daring Grady and fearless Dearing need a little help when taking on biotech baddies and meat-eating reptiles.

Stepping up to the plate is former military pilot Kayla Watts, who makes a living illegally running dinosaur cargo.

Played by DeWanda Wise (from Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It), Watts takes on a pterodactyl and other deadly creatures. Also lending a hand is activist Zia Rodriguez (Daniella Pineda) who first appeared in 2018’s Fallen Kingdom.

Another key new character is Ramsay Cole, a bright young scientist at genetic firm Biosyn.

Played by Mauritanian actor Mamoudou Athie (The Circle), he guides Doctors Grant and Sattler around his firm’s secretive Italian base, where dinosaurs are kept in a “secure” facility.

FOSSILS FROM THE PAST

THE Jurassic Park and Jurassic World trilogies collide in Dominion, which digs up fan favourites from the past.

Sam Neill is 74 and gets to rekindle his on-screen romance with 55-year-old Laura Dern.

He was previously surprised to be cast as her would-be partner in the original 1993 film, sarcastically commenting: “I am 20 years older than Laura, which at the time was a completely appropriate age difference for a leading man and lady.”

Jeff Goldblum returned as Dr Ian Malcolm in Fallen Kingdom, but this is the first time all three have reunited for almost three decades.

Jeff, 69, who was joined at the LA premiere by his 39-year-old wife Emilie Livingston, a dancer, says of the reunion: “We laughed, we cried, we improvised.”

Being back on set together was also emotional for Laura, who recalls: “We all got a bit weepy and nostalgic about all we have experienced in the family we’ve become.

“It’s been really special to us.”

FILM FINDS A WAY

JUST like with the original film, disaster struck to throw Dominion into chaos.

When they were making Jurassic Park in August 1992 a category four cyclone tore through the Hawaiian island of Kauai, where it was being filmed.

Hurricane Iniki damaged sets, while the cast and crew had to bunk down in their hotel cellar for safety.

This time around, filming on the £130million blockbuster had to shut down between March and July 2020 due to the Covid pandemic.

The team spent months in a little hotel in Buckinghamshire, close to Pinewood studios, unable to mix with the outside world.

Sam Neill said: “We just had each other. We became very close once again. We weren’t allowed out, we could go for walks in the park that surrounded the hotel, but that was it.

“So we were very dependent on each other’s company but happily we all love each other – it could have been intolerable.”

NEW DINOSAURS

AS always, the real stars are the dinosaurs, smashing through windows and overturning jeeps.

This time the T-Rex faces competition from the even bigger Giganotosaurus for the right to be the apex predator.

The ancestors of Giganotosaurus once “ruled the world”, according to Edinburgh University palaeontologist Steve Brusatte, who was a consultant on Dominion. He was pleased to see feathered dinosaurs make a major appearance because scientists believe many birds are descended from them.

One that appears is the Pyroraptor, which has a bright red plumage and is a relative of the deadly Velociraptor.

Audiences may also find their hands over their eyes when the towering Therrizinosaurus looms large on the screen.

It has huge claws, which Prof Brusatte describes as being “like Edward Scissor-hands”.

CREATURE COMFORTS

RATHER than going big with the CGI, Dominion favours animatronic devices – and they are more hi-tech than ever before.

Director Colin Trevorrow hired 42-year-old Brit John Nolan to build an army of dino-bots.

And this sees the special effects come closer to those that made the 1993 original so brilliant.

Animatronics expert John told The Sun: “When I was working on Harry Potter in creature effects, people were saying, ‘Why are you getting into animatronics? We are a dying breed, CGI is going to take over’.

“But it is completely the opposite.

“This is a British-made film, with a British crew.”

He had 75 staff building the 48 dinosaurs and 30 puppeteers on set to work them.

The Giganotosaurus took three months to complete and required five people to operate it.

John says: “They operated eyes, pupil dilation and an animatronic tongue the size of an ironing board moving around – it’s pretty gross.”