The Jurassic Park movies are truly iconic, and the franchise has remained a vital part of pop culture in the decades since the 1993 original. Most recently Jurassic World Rebirth hit theaters, and further expanded the franchise. Director Gareth Edwards was behind the camera, and recently shared the story about Steven Spielberg‘s notes on the new movie… specifically the easter eggs. Let’s break it all down.
Rebirth is arguably one of the best Jurassic World movies, and we may have to thank the feedback of Spielberg himself for how it was handled. During an interview shared on ComicBook’s TikTok, Edwards revealed that she shared an early cut of the film, saying:
To be honest, the first director’s cut, the first version of the movie had a lot of Jurassic nods. Because I’m a massive fan, I think the world’s a massive fan of that first film. And then what happened is that we showed it to Steven Spielberg and David Koepp, and it was ‘naughty Gareth!’
Spielberg and Koepp directed and wrote the original Jurassic Park , which broke new ground with its use of CGI. And it turns out that, despite the respect that Rebirth tried to pay, they originally weren’t big fans of all the easter eggs that Gareth Edwards wanted to include.
The OG Jurassic Park (which is streaming now with a Netflix subscription) changed the film world forever. So you can’t blame Edwards for wanting to pay respect with his movie. It turns out the easter eggs were their biggest issue with Rebirth, as the filmmaker said:
It was an and a half phone call and it got sent and the very last one was like, ‘Oh yeah, by the way take out all the easter eggs and the Jurassic references.’ And it as like ‘Oh…’
Gareth Edwards is self-described superfan of the 1993 original, so I understand why he’s want to include plenty of references and easter eggs when writing and directing Jurassic World Rebirth. Alas, that’s not what the filmmakers who started the franchise wanted to see in their early screening.
So what happened? As Edwards explained, he took them all out and send a new cut to Spielberg, Koepp and whoever else was making the big decisions. As the Rogue One director put it:
It was one of those things where you go okay, let’s do that and see how everyone feels about it. And thankfully we did it and they were obviously like ‘fair enough, you can put some of that back in.’ And so I think we landed in a good place.
Honestly, it sounds like they found the right balance in Rebirth. While we got some delightful connections to the 1993 original, it still brought a brand island, set of of circumstances and characters to the big screen. Currently it’s unclear whether or not the studio will green light another sequel.
Gareth Edwards further explained the POV from the original filmmakers, and joked about his penchant for including references to Jurassic Park in Rebirth. In his words:
They’re very humble, they don’t want to self-reference their own movie. To me it’s not self-reference. Because to me, it’s not my film, the original. So you go ‘No we all love that, and that’s half the reason we come in.’ I think the odd easter egg every 30 seconds is okay.
CinemaBlend’s Jurassic World Rebirth review was middling, but audiences seem to be enjoying it more than critics did. The audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is currently 71%, and it’s the fourth-highest grossing movie of the year. But whether or not Edwards gets to come back to the director’s chair for a second installment remains to be seen.
Jurassic World Rebirth is still in theaters now as part of the 2025 movie release list. While we wait for news about a sequel, many of the franchise’s titles can be re-watched on Netflix.