Jurassic World Rebirth serves as a stand-alone sequel to 2022’s Jurassic World Dominion, but doesn’t retcon any of the past movies, something writer David Koepp recently opened up on as to why.

Why doesn’t Jurassic World Rebirth retcon any past Jurassic Park movies?

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Koepp — who wrote the screenplays for the first two Jurassic Park films — said he wanted to respect the first six movies in the franchise without trying to “gaslight” the audience that they never happened.

“Well, I felt like in the in the last film, in particular, they took that idea all the way. Dinosaurs were nesting on the Chrysler Building and renting apartments downtown. I didn’t have a single idea about where to go with that,” Koepp said of getting away from the storyline of dinosaurs being an everyday part of the real world.

“But I wanted to respect what occurred in the first six movies, because I hate when you watch a franchise movie and they gaslight you and say, ‘No, that never happened.’ Or, ‘That was a timeline.’ I hate that shit. So I said, ‘No, that all happened, but I want to make them special again. How do we do that?’ I wanted us to be back in their environment instead of them in ours.”

Although Jurassic World Rebirth does feature some callbacks and references to the previous era of Jurassic World films, it largely stands on its own. Starring Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, Mahershala Ali, and more, Jurassic World Rebirth is out now in theaters.

(Source: The Hollywood Reporter)