Another hit of nostalgia in the latest trailer. That vehicle wreck that Blue jumps onto in the jungle? Take a closer look at it. That's Explorer 04, as in the famous green and yellow 1992 Ford Explorer XLT tour vehicle from the first Jurassic Park movie. The two iconic vehicles that set out from the old Visitor's Center on that fateful day in 1993 were marked EXP 04 and EXP 05. 05 had Alan Grant, Ian Malcolm, and Ellie Sattler in it, while 04 had Donald Gennaro and Lex and Tim Murphy. Explorer 04 ended up overturned, one of its tires chewed off, and its roof crushed as the T. rex attacked it during the Isla Nublar Incident. She eventually pushed the vehicle over the edge of the paddock, where it fell into a tree below. When Dr. Grant went up in the tree to retrieve Tim (who was stuck inside during Rexy's attack and couldn't escape), Grant inadvertently moved the steering wheel, turning the wheels and causing the vehicle to slide down the tree. The damaged Explorer finally crashed down to the ground vertically, and finally came to a rest upside down. Seeing that legendary vehicle still lying there wrecked after 25 years, a reminder of the old park like the two Jeeps in the old Visitor Center from the last movie is heartbreaking.
Not long after, it's consumed and destroyed by lava from the volcano.
When Claire reunites with Owen, he is very jaded about Jurassic World and even callously remarks that he'd rather leave Blue to die than ever return to the island. He has a change of heart, however, when he watches an old video of Blue as a baby and resolves to save her, sneaking aboard Claire's plane before it takes off.
The look that Blue gives Owen after the mercenaries shoot her. You can see in her face that she feels betrayed.
The premise alone is heartbreaking: The dinosaurs that so many people worked so hard to bring back are once again threatened with total extinction thanks to environmental factors beyond anyone's control. All the humans can do is try and save as many as they can without getting themselves killed in the process.
The full teaser's final shot is just full of this. Claire and Franklin are fleeing the eruption in a gyrosphere and can only turn back and watch in horror as Owen, on foot, tries to catch up and is caught in a massive cloud of ash/smoke. The camera then pans back to reveal all the fleeing dinosaurs standing at the edge of a cliff, frightened and unsure what to do. The gyrosphere then hurtles off the cliff into the water and we see dinosaurs also falling in, struggling to swim as balls of lava still strike them. All to a part-sad/part-violent violin rendition of the main theme.
Seeing the happy times Owen had with Blue hits you in the heart as Owen did the same for Delta, Echo, and Charlie. How hard it must have been for Owen to watch three of his surrogate daughters get killed and then also had to force himself to let Blue go because he wanted his daughter to be free.
In the videos showing the Raptor Squad as babies, Owen is testing out his dominating behavior by pretending to be fearful and submissive. The other three raptors always tried to dominate him in a vulnerable position, jumping on him and trying to bite. But when it was Blue's turn, she didn't instantly attack; she seemed to realize Owen was being "sad" and actually tried to cuddle up with him and comfort him, and Owen has to tell her "I'm okay."
As Maisie views the clips of baby Blue displaying empathy, the camera cuts to Blue struggling for life as she is operated on after being shot. Also, if you look closely, you can see tears of pain leaving Blue's eyes. We just saw a dinosaur clearly established to be a deadly killing machine in previous movies is terrified of dying, making it clear that these dinosaurs are living beings with feelings no different than us.
Just to cap off the sads, seeing how much larger Blue has become after two years of living on her own makes it retroactively apparent that her sisters, Charlie, Delta, and Echo, were only half-grown children when they died.
As shown in this image◊ from the Dinosaur Protection Group, a total of 12 dinosaurs are now extinct, including a few that were shown in previous films, such as Spinosaurus, Corythosaurus, Ceratosaurus, and Mamenchisaurus. What's more, a recent report involving the Gene Guard Act reveals that these genera were transferred to Isla Nublar to be attractions in Jurassic World and all the dinosaurs now live on Nublar, shattering hope that there could still be some left on Isla Sorna.
The old website has been altered appropriately for this movie, and anything that isn't Nightmare Fuel is definitely this. Emphasis is placed on the danger the animals are now facing. The DPG has added a lot of things to the "Did You Know" page about how far things have fallen. The Mosasaurus has gone missingnote Unfortunately, she later turns up... when she eats a surfer... on a wave...at the beach... in broad daylight.. The park overall is in ruins and all the attractions are listed as "Destroyed".
The death of the Brachiosaurus. This wasn't one of the vicious predators that has roamed throughout the movies, but the very same dinosaur that first appeared in Jurassic Park and thus kick-started this mega franchise. She is as old as Rexy is, and just as iconic, but unlike Rexy who reclaims her throne as an awesome badass, the poor sauropod comes back to the big screen solely to die. The way it is presented is enough to make anyone feel like a piece of their soul has died. As the clouds of ash envelop the Brachiosaurus, she clearly knows it's over and stands up and gives one more song before she disappears forever.
This last moment really drives it home as the island itself disappears behind the pyroclastic flow. The park is gone.
Also doubles as Tear JerkerIn-Universe, as all of the mercenaries on the ship gather in the cargo hold and watch in silence as this lone dinosaur, and the legendary Jurassic Park/World, is consumed in ash and fire.
Then there's the look on Claire's face with her teary eyes as she powerlessly watches it all. It's the second time she's had to watch a sauropod slowly and painfully die in front of her. And unlike before, she can't even offer any final comforts to the dying creature.
Fridge Horror kicks in if you consider the real reason the Brachiosaurus is calling out and rearing up for the final time. She's not just giving her onlookers a sad farewell moment; the pyroclastic flow has reached her, she's vainly trying to avoid as much of it as she can, and she's crying out in sheer agony and terror as she's being slowly burned alive.
Or she was trying to keep her head above the ash cloud even if the pyroclastic flow hadn't reached her yet, volcanic ash turns into wet cement in your lungs.
Though it's tough to estimate whether a cloned brachiosaurus would be capable of understanding this, it looks like she is calling for the boat to come back and save her. She may have seen them load other dinosaurs on the boat and recognized that the boat would be her last chance at survival, but she's been left behind to die.
Despite its aggressive behavior, the Baryonyx was implied to have died a horrible death, as it was sealed in a basement that was filling with lava. You cannot help but feel a little sorry for it as drops of lava fall and burn its head, and it frantically tries to wriggle through the small exit.
Bonus tearjerker that the Baryonyx is possibly Chaos, from Camp Cretaceous.
The poor dinosaurs who the expedition was unable to save are left to die on the island. The main set-piece during the eruption features dinosaurs, predator and prey alike, fleeing fruitlessly from the volcano. Many of them are struck down by debris from the eruption, while several are able to survive a plummet off a cliff away from the pyroclastic flow (which claims many dinosaurs including a Stygimoloch and some Brachiosaurs. It's hard to see, but in the background of Claire and Franklin in the gyro sphere in the water, you can see an Ankylosaurus and a Parasaurolophus desperately trying to get out of the water onto a rock that's far too small for either of them. They presumably drown if they're not killed by the eruption itself.
The dinosaurs at the Lockwood mansion are on their own, literally. They're all the last of their kind, and since it's made clear the animals were breeding (as evidenced by a baby Triceratops), their young (if they had any) were left to die on the island without them.
Blue and Owen part ways once more. When Blue turns her head to see her trainer one more time, we have an idea what is happening. Watching the video when she was an infant, Owen mentions that she can actually bond and sympathize with those close to her. Meaning, she understands that it's her fault that Owen is in constant danger and her last actions were for both their sakes. However, her last goodbye also shows that she will never forget her father.
The fact that Blue, once again is all alone in a strange and dangerous world. Having grown up with her sisters, seen them all die, and then be reunited years later with her father only to be parted once again, she surely is one lonely specimen of a normally pack-hunting species.
And as if that weren't heartbreaking enough on its own, what's the final sound we hear from her before the end credits roll? Nothing other than that iconic bark, which most longtime fans will recognize as the primary social signal for raptors. She's clearly continuing to seek out others of her kind, possibly still not having grasped the full severity of her isolation in the world.
Seeing the Raptor Squad as babies, four years after their demise can be this. We get to see adorable little baby Charlie play-fighting with Owen, which is doubly upsetting when you remember that she was the first one to break the Indominus rex's command, recognizing her human "dad" and getting killed for it.
Poor Maisie's life in general. In the span of one night, she's almost grabbed by Indoraptor, basically the dinosaur boogeyman, and locked inside her room by her asshole adoptive father after she discovers his nefarious plans. When she escapes to inform her grandfather of what happened, she instead finds him dead on his bed. Soon after, her asshole adoptive father reveals that she's actually an Artificial Human who's a clone of her supposed 'mother'. She ends up being hunted throughout the mansion by the Indoraptor after he was accidentally released from his cage, who seems to pride himself on traumatizing her the best he can, and almost killed her several times. To top it all off, she is almost Forced to Watch the last of her beloved dinosaurs die of poisonous gas when Claire couldn't bring herself to release them. When the pain is too much to bear, she takes it upon herself to free them, making her the person responsible for unleashing the dinosaurs on human civilization, which will not bode well for her if the public ever manages to learn of this. By the end of the film, she's left orphaned and traumatized by the whole ordeal with nowhere to go except along with Owen and Claire. She's possibly one of the most tragic characters in the series by far.
Don't forget that she overhears Mills summarily dismissing her beloved caregiver Iris, who isn't even given a chance to say goodbye to her. Let's hope to God that she, at least, got off the estate unharmed and that Claire and Owen can track her down for Maisie.
With the reveal of Maisie's origin, one can imagine the grief Lockwood must have felt and the ethical lines he ultimately crossed just to have his child back.
Second to that, there's Dr. Lockwood. He trusted in Mills to make his and Hammond's dream come true, of giving the dinosaurs a world safe from human contact, and vice versa. And Mills betrays that trust for money. Worse yet, once he catches wind of the double-dealing happening under his feet, his efforts to put an end to it prove futile when Mills murders him.
Something poignant about how the amber in his cane breaks when it falls. It represents the tragic significance that one of the two remaining pioneers of cloning dinosaurs has gone extinct...
Even deeper, Mills wouldn't even have a dinosaur auction if it weren't for Lockwood's work. And how is this illustrious man thanked? With a pillow tothe face.
There is also something so ignoble in how he was the first human in the franchise to be flat out murdered. Every human killed had been the victim of dinosaurs acting on their instincts (well except for the sport killing Indominus rex), but Lockwood was a victim of pure malice.
Doubling as Nightmare Fuel, the scene with the Indoraptor in Maisie's room. After narrowly escaping the creature just a few minutes earlier, Maisie hides in her bedroom, covering herself with her blankets, as though in shock and trying to escape tonight's trauma like a bad dream. As the dinosaur's shadow appears through the window though, she realizes he has followed her and gives in to her fear, doing nothing but cry desperately as the Indoraptor slowly approaches her bed.
Going off the kingdom metaphor Rexy’s fate is especially sad. The old Queen has just reclaimed her kingdom and now it’s destroyed with her and a handful of her surviving subjects being enslaved.
At the very end, Owen tries to get Blue to come with them, for her safety. She looks at him, then one of the cages, then back to him as if to say, "Sorry, I can't trust you anymore," before running off on her own.
The way both Blue and Owen look to each other when they both see that cage after the latter begs her to come with him. Blue's expression may have said like this, "We both know that isn't possible"
And when they parted ways and have one last look with each other as if both saying "Goodbye Dad" and "Goodbye Blue". Heart wrenching that father and daughter have to be separated once more.
Doubling as Fridge Horror, there's the fact that several dinosaurs were successfully auctioned off to less than scrupulous buyers and will likely have a life of abuse, unethical experimentation, or possibly even being slaughtered for their meat, hides, organs, etc. to look forward to.
When Claire decides to not open the gate and release the dinosaurs to the wild, while Maisie does free them at the end, for a while it looked like it was the end for these creatures.
The state of Jurassic World itself, like the old Visitor Center last time it was left to ruin. Seeing the park, representing John Hammond's dream, just left to die tugs at the heartstrings.
The Indoraptor himself. In the film, he was shown escaping, killing humans until he was killed by Owen and Blue. But given that he was a sociopathic, sickly prototype, he would likely have been destroyed by Ingen once they cloned better specimens from Blue's DNA and had Blue to raise them to be obedient, and even if he successfully escaped into the wild, his lack of survival skills, coupled with his immune and respiratory illnesses, would have quickly done him in. He was clearly smart and supposed to be capable of pack-bonding like Blue, but he was emotionally stunted and twisted from the beginning along with his physical issues. However way you put it, the Indoraptor was inevitably doomed to a short and miserable life, with his kills in a way being his wreaking vengeance onto his creators as much as possible in the brief time he has.
Word of Godeven stated that he was horribly abused. Concept art shows the dinosaur curled up as he's being tased by a guard, which is also shown in the film. This, along with the fact he was made specifically to kill, makes it clear you really can't blame the thing for why it's so vicious. He wasn't killing for fun like the Indominus rex he was made to do so and had no choice.
In his final moments he doesn't cowardly beg for his life and scream pitifully like most villains do. He just quietly closes his eyes and passes on. He's spent his whole life isolated, in a cage and abused. Now he's finally free almost as if saying "Goodbye cruel world. I don't have to suffer anymore.".
Those few moments of screen-time in which he clambers around on the roof of the mansion? They're the only time in his brief, miserable, cage-bound life that he ever even saw the sky.
The Indominus rex at least had a sibling whom she ate showing she was insane from the start. The Indoraptor had no social interaction, no family, was outright abused and mistreated and was prototype with design flaws that was noticeably very skinny and had a severe mental illness. The thing really had no chance at living a happy ending.
The ending. The main villains are dead, but so is Lockwood, leaving Maisie an orphan (though it's implied Owen and Claire intend to adopt her). Some dinosaurs are in the hands of criminals and are more than likely to be mistreated and used as bioweapons, and those that aren't have been released into the American wild, where they will certainly impact the ecosystem negatively, to say nothing of the ones that are shown invading populated areas and hunting humans.
The final shot of the movie mirrors the ending of its prequel, with a theropod roaring atop of a mountain. Only this time the dinosaur in question is Blue. The tearjerking part comes when you compare the sound she makes to the ones from the raptors in the third movie. She is not roaring in triumph like Rexy, she is actually calling for help.
The conversation between Owen and Claire while they're detained in Lockwood's Estate can be heartbreaking, especially since they are reminicing about the first time they saw a dinosaur. Towards the end of the conversation, both Owen and Claire realise that they have unwittingly been helping Mills exploit and sell the animals for money.
◊ from the Dinosaur Protection Group
