Steven Spielberg is almost singlehandedly responsible for creating '80s American movie pop culture as we know it. His work not only broke commercial records and broke new ground in how films could get made, but they defined the look and feel of the '80s on screen. He also influenced virtually every filmmaker of the last 30 years in one way or another, so it's hard for a high-concept genre film not to have some inspiration from a Spielberg movie, whether it's an action-adventure movie grabbing from "Raiders
of the Lost Ark," a sci-fi family movie grabbing from "E.T.," or a creature feature taking cues from "Jurassic Park" or "Jaws."
Homages, callbacks, nods, and outright recreations of Spielberg's movies are common, but when it comes to movies Spielberg himself is involved with, they become a big no-no for the legendary filmmaker. At least, that's what Gareth Edwards experienced when working on "Jurassic World Rebirth," the latest chapter in the somehow only major movie franchise about dinosaurs.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Edwards talked about how Spielberg, who loves referencing other filmmakers in his work, absolutely hates quoting himself on screen. After screening a rough cut of the film for Spielberg, the Oscar-winning director had one big final note. "By the way, take out all the nods and references to all the previous Spielberg films and 'Jurassic Park' Easter eggs."
According to Edwards, Spielberg had a good reason to be so hesitant to reference his own movies. "It probably feels like a snake eating its own tail," Edwards said. "I wouldn't want to do that if I was them. But — because I'm not them, and I'm a fan, and I love their work, and so does the rest of the world, I feel like [they're] the only people in the world that have a problem with this."
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There Was One Exception To The Rule
It makes sense that Spielberg would try to avoid referencing his own work, especially in sequels. Say what you will about "The Lost World" (which /Film's Danielle Ryan claims is the best "Jurassic Park" movie), but it at least tried to do different things rather than just copy the first one. As much as "Rebirth" tries to distance itself from the rest of the franchise, it does end up feeling quite a lot like both "The Lost World" and "Jurassic Park III" without much of an original idea that's not just a remix on an old one.
Though Edwards agreed to follow Spielberg's notes, he still tried to salvage as many of the references as he could, or at least find a way to sneak some in anyway. "I think we got the right balance in the end. And I think it's just humbleness on his part," Edwards added.
Apparently, there used to be a very different prologue sequence that was much more in the vein of the first "Jurassic Park," recalling the scene where the raptors are delivered to their pen. The scene in "Rebirth" would have involved primates watching as something big moves in the trees, but rather than a dinosaur, it was a bulldozer arriving to build the lab that appears in the prologue. (The monkey/bulldozer bit was scrapped, and the movie jumps straight to the already-built lab instead.) Additionally, "Rebirth" was also going to include the return of Mr. DNA, before that was ultimately cut.
Another big note Spielberg had for Edwards was to stick to scariness and try and stick to the science. This came in especially handy when it came to one of the biggest Spielberg homages that remains in the movie: the sequence with the Quetzalcoatlus in the cliffside temple. This is clearly a "Raiders of the Lost Ark" homage, which producer Frank Marshall recognized immediately during filming. Eventually, however, even Spielberg allowed the scene to remain as-is, in part because David Koepp sided with Edwards. "One of David Koepp's favorite films is 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,'" Edwards told Vanity Fair. "So he was never going to fight me about that."
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Read the original article on SlashFilm.
