10 hidden details you missed in the Jurassic World Rebirth trailer

The first trailer for Jurassic World Rebirth is here, and it's got its jaws firmly fixed around my attention span. Directed by Gareth Edwards (The Creator) and written by original Jurassic Park scribe David Koepp, Rebirth is about a team of special operatives and scientists who set out for a remote island containing the original park's research facility, where they hope to gather some dinosaur DNA in order to create a cure for heart disease. They're led by covert operative Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), and the charismatic mercenary Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali). As with any good Jurassic movie, we can rest assured all their carefully laid plans will go awry.

I'll admit, I've been a little hesitant to get on board with Jurassic World Rebirth, since the previous film, Jurassic World Dominion, was marketed as a capstone to the Jurassic World saga and it came out only three years ago. But after seeing the trailer, I'm much more intrigued. This looks like a fun return to form for the series, digging into its thriller roots as our daring team of scientists and soldiers tries to survive long enough to escape the island.

As with any good trailer, there are plenty of hidden details that have extra significance. Here are 10 you may have missed from this first glimpse of Jurassic World Rebirth.

1. The T. Rex skeleton and banner

Let's start with an easy one. The very first shot of this trailer shows a T. Rex skeleton in a museum, with a banner falling behind it which reads "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth." That, of course, is a nod to the iconic scene from the first Jurassic Park movie where the T. Rex savaged a pair of Velociraptors in the lobby of the park's visitor center, unwittingly saving Alan Grant, Ellie Saddler, Lex and Tim. The exact same banner falls on it as it roars, in a scene that is etched into cinema history.

Things have changed quite a bit since then. This time we see that scene mirrored in a dinosaur museum that's closing its doors, since people have lost interest in the terrible lizards. “Well, the banner’s coming down again,” producer Frank Marshall told Vanity Fair. “Jonny Bailey’s a scientist at a museum that’s closing up their dinosaur exhibit.”

2. Titanosaurus

The first living dinosaur we see in the trailer is a massive sauropod. According to Screen Rant, this is a Titanosaur, a species of dinosaur that will be making its franchise debut in Jurassic World Rebirth. These massive herbivores are the largest land dinosaurs known to scientists, which means they'll probably be the first dinos the research team tries to extract DNA from.

There are a few other interesting details about this scene. The first is that the shot of Loomis and Bennett staring up at the Titanosaurus in awe recalls the scene from the first Jurassic Park where Alan Grant and Ellie Saddler stare agog at sauropods. Those are the first dinosaurs they see on the island, while these are the first we see in the trailer.

3. The new dinosaur island is not near Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna

The original Jurassic Park movies introduced two islands with dinosaurs: Isla Nublar, where the park was created, and Isla Sorna, where most of the genetic research for the animals was done. Both of those were located west of Costa Rica in the Pacific Ocean.

In the trailer for Jurassic World Rebirth, Duncan Kincaid lays out the plan for going to the mysterious new island, which served as the original scientific site for the dinosaurs, presumably before even Isla Sorna. He says their plan is to "go up towards Barbados" by boat in order to avoid government patrols. Barbados is around 1,600 mils east of Costa Rica. Unless the team's plan is to sail through the Panama Canal for no reason, they're heading to an island that's in a completely different area than Isla Nublar or Isla Sorna, out in the Atlantic Ocean.

4. The aquatic shark-like jaw bone

In the shot where Scarlett Johansson's Zora Bennett is hanging out in the bar where the team recruits Duncan Kincaid, there's a large jaw bone visible in the background behind her. It's clearly from a carnivorous aquatic animal. My guess is it's either from an enormous shark, or some kind of dinosaur. Jurassic World Rebirth takes place five years after Jurassic World Dominion; dinosaurs have become much more commonplace, although their populations are dwindling across the globe because the climate doesn't suit them. It would stand to reason that a trophy like that wouldn't be all that out of place in this new dino-familiar world.

5. DANGER: 10,000 Volts

This one's just a fun little easter egg. We get a brief shot of an electric fence in front of a rundown paddock at the 0:45 mark. It has a sign which warns that its electric fence is dangerous, reading "DANGER: 10,000 Volts." That sign features the exact same graphic design as the signs on the electric fences in the original Jurassic Park. You remember, the one where Timmy got zapped just before Dr. Grant got him and Lex back to the visitor center.

6. Inca-style ruins

During the trailer, we see Dr. Henry Loomis and Zora Bennett climb up to a Quetzacoatlus nest in order to extract some DNA from one of their eggs. The ruins here were designed to reflect the Inca, one of the great pre-Columbian empires of the Americas. “The original script just referenced the nest in a cliff and I really felt like we’re in Central America, and I like the idea that there was an old civilization here at one point,” director Gareth Edwards told Vanity Fair, adding that this cavern was designed to look like “an Inca-style old temple that had been abandoned hundreds of thousands of years ago."

This raises an interesting point: the Inca are primarily associated with South America; Central America is typically associated with the Maya and Aztec, who had their seats of power there. That has me wondering whether Jurassic World Rebirth is going to justify this somehow in the movie. Or perhaps it's merely a design aesthetic that appealed to Edwards, and they didn't worry too much about the historical specifics. I'm probably just overthinking it, but I can't help wondering.

7. The Indiana Jones egg

Of course, once you put characters in an ancient ruin instead of a dank cave, it's going to recall one of executive producer Steven Spielberg's other big franchises: Indiana Jones. If you thought that the shot of Henry Loomis lifting the egg out of the Quetzacoatlus nest looked a bit like the famous opening of Raiders of the Lost Arc, you were right: that was intentional.

When Edwards explained about the decision to model the nest cavern after an Inca-style ruin, he also hinted at the influence of Dr. Jones. "Inevitably, the second you do that, you’re suddenly going, ‘This is very Indiana Jones.’” The egg itself is even the same size, roughly, as the golden idol Indy nabs in that iconic scene.

8. The new Rancor-monster dinosaur

One of the highlights of the Jurassic World Rebirth trailer is a monstrous beast that looks more like something out of a horror movie than a traditional dinosaur. This creature has a domed head, snaggly teeth, and a hulking form that looks like it could give a T. Rex a run for its money.

We don't know the identity of this monster, although producer Frank Marshall hinted to Vanity Fair that it's a "mutation" based on failed dinosaur experiments. In other words, it's possible this creature has attributes of several different dinosaur species. Edwards specifically cited the Rancor from Star Wars as an inspiration, as well as H.R. Giger, the artist who created the xenomorph for the Alien movies. So yeah, this thing is gonna be scary.

One particular point of interest I noticed is that the creature's front legs are thicker and more trunk-like than we see on a lot of the carnivores in the Jurassic franchise. At the 1:34 mark, we see its leg come out of the mist and stomp down on a dock by our heroes. That leg looks like the leg of a herbivore to me, like a sauropod or Triceratops. This thing could be a real Frankenstein's monster of a dinosaur.

And of course, a shout out has to be given to the scene of Duncan Kincaid waving a flare in the style of Ian Malcolm to get the dinosaur's attention. Classic Jurassic Park, that.

9. The Spinosaurus returns

One dinosaur which we haven't seen in a long time in the Jurassic franchise is the Spinosaurus. This towering carnivore was introduced in Jurassic Park III, where it immediately killed a T. Rex and proved it was the most dangerous predator in the jungles of Isla Sorna. No other Jurassic movie has featured it since.

That's about to change. Near the end of the trailer we see three Spinosaurs swimming around a boat, circling it to keep it from escaping. Loomis believes they're hunting in tandem with a Mosasaur, the massive underwater dino which debuted in Jurassic World; you know the one, it bursts out of the water in the final shot of the trailer.

10. The identity of the three target dinosaurs

The set up of Jurassic World Rebirth is that Bennett and Loomis' team needs to gather DNA from the largest dinosaurs on land, air, and sea; a mysterious character played by Rupert Friend believes the DNA can be used to create a cure for heart disease. While the trailer doesn't explicitly name each of these three dinosaurs, we have enough clues to be able to make a pretty good guess at their identity. And surprise: they all feature in the trailer.

We already mentioned the largest known land dinosaur: the Titanosaurus. There are other big land dinos, like the T. Rex or Spinosaur, but paleontological evidence points to Titanosaur being much, much larger than either. So that seems like a very safe bet.

The air dinosaur is the only one the trailer confirms outright: the Quetzacoatlus. This aerial lizard first appeared in Jurassic World Dominion, where it tore an aircraft to shreds. Loomis says it's roughly the size of an F-16 fighter jet.

As for the water dinosaur, that is undoubtedly the Mosasaurus. Of all of them, that's the one whose DNA will likely be the hardest for our heroes to harvest. How do you get a sample from a giant sea creature who can dive to get away from you? There is a known aquatic dinosaur which is larger than Mosasaur, which is a type of Icthysaur called Shastasaurus, but since it has never been introduced in the Jurassic franchise, it's a fairly safe bet that Rebirth will focus on the fan-favorite Mosasaur instead.

What other hidden details did you find in the Jurassic World Rebirth trailer? Let us know in the comments!

Jurassic World Rebirth comes out in theaters on July 2.

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