Why Sam Neill & Laura Dern Weren't In The First 2 Jurassic World Movies
Given the movie industry's fondness for legacy characters, Sam Neill and Laura Dern's absence from the first two entries in the Jurassic World series seems particularly strange. After all, other familiar faces from the Jurassic Park franchise have featured heavily, including the likes of Jeff Goldblum and BD Wong. As such, Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler's omission from the reboot has raised understandable eyebrows from the devoted fanbase since the 2015 revamp.
Both Neill and Dern were central characters in Steven Spielberg's original Jurassic Park movie. As the curmudgeonly Dr. Grant, Neill formed the emotional core of the movie, along with child actors Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards as Tim and Lex Murphy. Dern, meanwhile, was a consistently heroic presence and remains one of the few characters in the series to successfully negotiate a velociraptor encounter. After missing the 1997 follow-up The Lost World, both actors returned for Jurassic Park III, although Laura Dern's Sattler took something of a backseat to the Isla Sorna-based action.
Related: Proof Jurassic World's New Dinosaurs Are Way Less Scary Than You Realize
Having already been involved in a Jurassic Park follow-up, the pair's conspicuous absence from the Jurassic World series ahead of Dominion has been something of a mystery. However, the reasons for their omission may be much more prosaic than much speculation suggests. According to contemporary interviews with Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow, the decision to leave out the original characters was made so that the new series could look forward, rather than back. As the filmmaker explained in a 2015 interview with CinemaBlend, "...Steven had a mission to make something new, and he really wanted it
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