Jurᴀssic World Rebirth managed to accomplish something that the trilogy before it was afraid to do. In many ways, Jurᴀssic World Rebirth‘s reviews regarded it as a return to form for the franchise. It was better received than both its predecessors, and Jurᴀssic World Rebirth‘s box office success has proven it to resonate with general audiences.

The film was praised for going back to basics; Jurᴀssic World Rebirth takes place on a secluded island filled with dinosaurs as experts and civilians alike try to survive. Jurᴀssic World Rebirth‘s Easter eggs to the original movie proved just how much the film attempted to reference 1993’s Jurᴀssic Park in a way the prior movies did not.

One of these references linked directly to a Jurᴀssic World Rebirth character. Via this character, the film was able to include an aspect of the franchise that the previous Jurᴀssic World trilogy felt afraid of doing.

Jurᴀssic World Rebirth Finally Gives The Franchise An Alan Grant Replacement

Thanks to Jonathan Bailey’s Dr. Henry Loomis, Jurᴀssic World Rebirth introduced its Alan Grant replacement. In the prior three Jurᴀssic World films, the focus was placed on Chris Pratt’s Owen Grady and Bryce Dallas Howard’s Claire Dearing. Looking at the former, he was a very different character from Sam Neill’s Alan Grant.

Grant was a paleontologist and, while he had his heroic moments, was less of an outright action hero than Owen Grady was. In Jurᴀssic World Rebirth, Loomis fits this bill. Scarlett Johannson’s Zora was the militaristic presence in Jurᴀssic World Rebirth, with Loomis going along as the scientific expert. This echoes why Grant was invited to the original Jurᴀssic Park.

Jurᴀssic World Rebirth even connects Loomis and Grant by stating that the former studied under the latter. The links between the two did not stop there, with Jurᴀssic World Rebirth recreating several iconic scenes from the original 1993 movie using Loomis. The scene involving the тιтanosaurus herd was akin to the first sighting of the Brachiosaurus in Jurᴀssic Park, with Loomis’ wonder aligning with Grant’s.

The final scene of Jurᴀssic World Rebirth also recreates the final scene of Jurᴀssic Park, with Loomis looking at dolphins in the water just as Grant was looking at the birds flying into the sunset. Evidently, Loomis was created as a replacement for Alan Grant, proving another way that Jurᴀssic World Rebirth returned the franchise to its roots.

As alluded to, Jurᴀssic World‘s former trilogy took a different route with Owen Grady. Jurᴀssic World Dominion did try and give Owen and Alan some common ground, but there is no denying the former was depicted more as an action-first character than someone with an inherent love for and knowledge of dinosaurs.

Jurᴀssic World Rebirth, however, was much more on the nose about how Loomis was like Grant. The aforementioned decision to have Loomis be a student of Grant made this clear, with the franchise finally having its potential long-term replacement for Sam Neill’s character over a decade after Jurᴀssic World‘s soft reboot.