How Jurassic World's Final Trailer Homages Spielberg's Hook

The final trailer for J.A. Bayona's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is here, and it gives us a much better look at the film's focus. And in addition to the expected homages to Steven Spielberg's mega-hit original film, Bayona, whose filmmaking aesthetic often includes themes around adolescence and growing up, appears to homage another Spielberg film. His most famous anti-growing up film, Hook, be it intentional or not.

In the trailer, Chris Pratt's raptor trainer, Owen Grady, returns to Isla Nubar with Bryce Dallas Howard's Claire Dearing on a rescue mission. In a cruel twist of evolution, the island is about to be rampaged by an active volcano, and Claire and Owen are on a rescue mission to save a number of dinosaur species, including Owen's favorite velociraptor, Blue. It turns out the rescue mission was a ruse, and its funders have nefarious intentions to collect the dinosaurs and sell them to the highest bidders. It's unclear whether Toby Jones' Gunnar Eversol is attempting to sell the dinosaurs as weapons or as dangerous and exotic house pets, but it doesn't matter. In the end, of course, the dinosaurs simply don't like to be caged.

Like Jurassic World, the villains once again create a genetically modified dinosaur, this one is a nastier Velociraptor built from Blue's blood called the Indoraptor. Eversol says in the trailer "This is the most dangerous creature that ever walked the earth," so, obviously, he somehow escapes, leaving Owen and Blue to track him down. The Indoraptor ends up at Lockwood Manor, which we got a first look at in a behind-the-scenes featurette, which is where James Cromwell's Benjamin Lockwood lives, as well as what appears to be his granddaughter, Maisie, played by Brooke Norbury.

In the trailer's final scene (and an opening scene in an earlier trailer) the Indoraptor sneaks into Maisie's bedroom as she hides under her covers. The room's fairytale-esque decor, the night light, the door-frame windows, all feel very much like a scene from Hook -- one scene in particular, actually, where Peter (Pan) Banning's (Robin Williams) children are kidnapped by Captain Hook from Granny Wendy's home. The dinosaur opens the room's window, sneaking in through flowing curtains, and its huge claws (hook-like in shape, eh?) slowly descend toward the cowering child under the covers. It's all remarkably similar.

Sure, it could all be coincidental; after all, Bayona has established himself as especially adroit when it comes to horror. He made 2007's The Orphanage and handled the dark heaviness of adolescent grief in 2016's A Monster Calls. His films often feature children and their point of view; it stands to reason he'd want to hail back to a Spielberg film framed entirely around growing up, or anti-growing up, as it were. The fantastical nature of dinosaurs in our modern world is basically on par with the fantastical villain Captain Hook snatching kids out of their beds.

There also appear to be a few other Spielbergian homages in the film. There are multiple references to the original Jurassic Park, including the T-Rex coming in to save the day by ripping into an attacking (and smaller) dinosaur and then roaring to the heavens in his standard "I'm the baddest" way. There's also a quick shot of Owen seen via the side view mirror of a dilapidated car in the park, a la the "must go faster" scene in the original film. The Indoraptor also clacks his giant toe claws on the floor before going hunting in Maisie's bedroom in the same way the Velociraptors teased their would-be victims in the kitchen of Jurassic Park.

Another Spielberg homage in the trailer is the Mosasaurus (the whale-sized sea creature) sneaking up through the water toward unsuspecting surfers in a rather Jaws-inspired manner. Maisie's bedroom has a few blink-or-you'll-miss-them toys that could be Spielbergian nods as well, including a Jaws-like shark pillow, a little green army man (Saving Private Ryan, perhaps?), a few dinosaur toys (that the Indoraptor squishes), and a horse figurine. (OK, that one's a stretch, but it could maybe be a War Horse reference.) Intentional or not, they all bring a very Spielbergian warmth to the film that already makes it quite a bit different in feel than the first Jurassic World film.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, directed by J.A. Bayona from a script by Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly, arrives June 22 and stars Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard and B.D. Wong, joined by Toby Jones, Rafe Spall, Justice Smith, Daniella Pineda, Ted Levine, Geraldine Chaplin, James Cromwell and Jeff Goldblum.

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How Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom's Final Trailer Homages Spielberg's Hook