Credit: Universal PicturesJurassic World Rebirth (2025) is widely considered to be one of the worst films in the series.
Released last year, the film was a commercial hit, grossing $869.1 million globally, but it came under heavy fire from longtime fans and critics after doing away with the global dinosaurs storyline, a concept first introduced in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) and expanded in Jurassic World Dominion (2022).
Rebirth explains that “the planet’s ecology has proven largely inhospitable to dinosaurs,” adding, “Those remaining exist in isolated equatorial environments with climates resembling the one in which they once thrived.”
While Dominion also has its problems, from focusing far too much on corporate espionage and not enough on humans learning to co-exist with dinosaurs, it still perfectly set the stage for future stories by ending with a montage that showed the prehistoric creatures flourishing around the planet. Three years later, however, Rebirth essentially undid that entire premise. But why?
Why Did Rebirth Undo the Global Dinosaurs Storyline?
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter last year following the film’s release, Rebirth screenwriter David Koepp, who worked on the original two films, Jurassic Park (1993) and The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), admitted that he “didn’t have a single idea about where to go” with that storyline after Dominion.
“Let’s make dinosaurs exotic and special so that we have to go seek them out instead of, you know, fighting with them over a cab,” he told the outlet.
While the idea of seeing dinosaurs on an island setting is hardly the most offensive idea in a franchise whose first four-and-a-half films (up until midway through Fallen Kingdom) did just that, for fans who hoped to see a continuation of the global dinosaurs storyline, this reversal felt like a huge betrayal.
Then, as if to rub salt in the wound, Universal retired DinoTracker, an official Jurassic World website that offered fans “real-time” updates on dinosaur populations and their geo-locations.
Considered canon with the films, DinoTracker was launched in early 2022 to promote the release of Dominion, and was run “in-universe” by the Department of Prehistoric Wildlife (DPW). Now, attempts to access DinoTracker.com redirected users to the main website, JurassicWorld.com.
According to Jurassic Wiki, to coincide with the release of the first trailer for Jurassic World Rebirth, on February 5, 2025 “the website was updated to continuously display a list of error logs for all the dinosaurs previously sighted around the world, each identified with an ENTRY_ID.”
Of course, this data was perfectly in line with the 2025 film given the dwindling dinosaur populations; however, in November, 2025, DinoTracker was removed entirely. which further disappointed fans who had already been left disheartened by the latest sequel’s retconning.
Related: ‘Jurassic Park’ Film Series Unlikely To Return, as New Announcement Shared
A New Jurassic World Rebirth Will Offer a Big Fix
While another film is in early development,, Universal hasn’t officially confirmed anything.
Fortunately, tie-in content like the animated series Jurassic World: Chaos Theory and the Jurassic World Evolution video game series have leaned heavily into the idea of dinosaurs living around the world alongside humans.
Meanwhile, Frontier Developments recently unveiled the Jurassic World Rebirth Expansion trailer for the video game sequel Jurassic World Evolution 3. The new DLC acts as a prequel to the film. Watch it below:
The upcoming expansion promises to offer explanations around the newly introduced InGen island Île Saint-Hubert, its abandoned facility, genetically mutated dinosaurs like the Distortus rex and the Mutadons, and the mysterious ruins seen scattered throughout the jungle in the film.
“Inspired by Jurassic World Rebirth, push the boundaries of science and develop the top-secret facility on Île Saint-Hubert before its downfall in 2010,” the official website states, adding, “Uncover the mysteries of Mayan architecture on the island with towering temples and decorations, keeping your locations feeling natural and un-touched by the progress of science.”
While it seems Universal is at least finally starting to fill in some major gaps last year’s film created, it has still erased a huge part of Dominion lore and is now leaning more fully into Rebirth with the upcoming expansion.
Jurassic World Evolution 3: Rebirth Expansion will be available for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S from June 16.
What are your thoughts on Jurassic World Rebirth? Do you think the new website and upcoming DLC will help clear things up for fans? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
