Jurassic World: Rebirth was released in July 2025, directed by Gareth Edwards and starring Scarlett Johansson. The film tried to open a new direction for this long-standing and culturally influential series. It no longer directly continued the characters and narratives of the first three Jurassic World films, but instead restarted the story framework with a new character combination and relatively independent mission lines.
The global box office of the film exceeded 869 million US dollars, indicating that Jurassic still had strong market appeal as an industrial brand. But the problem also arose precisely here: strong brand recognition did not necessarily mean that the film successfully established itself as a Jurassic film in terms of aesthetic tone and narrative core.
Therefore, what was really worth discussing about Rebirth was extended the franchise commercially, whether it understood the audience’s core expectations. when attempting to renew the series.
The divided responses were not simply because audiences resisted change, but were also reflected across review platforms such as Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb and Metacritic, where the film received generally mixed responses.
“When dinosaurs stop looking like dinosaurs, the film stops feeling like Jurassic.”
The most controversial point of this film is the introduction of the setting of mutant dinosaurs. These creatures are obviously designed to enhance the sense of excitement and freshness, and look more exaggerated and more directly threatening.
However, this change does not bring a better movie-watching experience. On the contrary, these mutant creatures are visually closer to science fiction monsters and are no longer recognisable prehistoric animals. Their mixed shape and unstable biological characteristics blur the boundary between dinosaurs and alien creatures, and make it difficult for the audience to regard them as real life forms.
This is also reflected in the film review. The frequent appearance of words such as mutation and strange in the comments shows that these designs are no longer regarded as an extension of dinosaurs, but more like an alternative to the original type elements. This actually means that the genre positioning of the film has changed.
This also further exposes a deeper problem. The reason why the early Jurassic series was established was not only based on visual spectacles, but also on an imagination with a scientific basis. What the audience sees is not only monsters, but also life that seems to have may existed. When this rationality is weakened, the sense of immersion also decreases.
In other words, the question is not whether these designs are exciting enough, but whether the audience is still willing to believe in the world. The moment dinosaurs cease to be dinosaurs, the narrative of the entire film crumbles.
Besides the dinosaur design, Jurassic World: Rebirth also possesses evident fractures on the character level.
In the earlier Jurassic World films, the theme of friendship between Owen and Blue created a significant emotional center. Such a relation enables the spectators to create an ongoing emotional investment besides being able to be stimulated visually.
In Rebirth, however, the sequel to this tale is entirely terminated. The movie brings new characters and rather autonomous plots, which are practically unrelated to the past material. Even though the star effect is heightened with the introduction of Scarlett Johansson, the emotional attachment that the audience already had with the original character cannot be substituted by it.
In the case of a series, whether the audience will want to come back is not only due to whether the scene is larger and more thrilling, but also whether the characters familiar to the audience and the experience of watching movies can persist. As soon as this continuity is broken the entire film becomes less of a sequel and more of a borrowing of IP. Thus, Rebirth retains the title Jurassic World, but in terms of emotion, it is even more like a standalone biography.
These choices of Rebirth actually translates into a common Hollywood logic from the perspective of creation: maintaining the “freshness” through constant expansion; expanding in size, expanding in risk-taking, and including ever more extreme elements. However, the audience has spoken: that kind of logic doesn’t always work. This can also be seen through conversations on things like IMDb and Letterboxd.
The Jurassic audience perhaps (probably) doesn’t require more outré biological environments or wholly original stories. Conversely, they care more about a stable “sense of familiarity,” to have recognisable dinosaur images, a mostly unchanged worldview, an unbroken emotional connection.
The commercial success of Jurassic World: Rebirth, however, remains, and the film remains appealing in terms of viewing, yet, there is a deeper issue with the creative choice. It is not that there is no innovation, but the fact that there is a deviation of the essence that should not be substituted. The movie lays too much stress on the novelty and more radical visual effects, but rather it squashes the element that the viewers appreciate the most. The plausible dinosaur image and the time-honored emotional attachment.
Because of that, the movie is still able to be a visual blockbuster, but it does not fully bear the distinct flavor of Jurassic World anymore.
Shoujie Wang 
Yinan Zhou 
SUN Yinchen