Original Jurassic Park T. Rex Confirmed For Jurassic World

04/30/2015 12:20 am EDT

As we speculated back when we first saw her, Slashfilm has confirmed that the tyrannosaurus rex seen in Jurassic World will be the same one who famously saved the heroes of Jurassic Park from a grisly end thanks to the velociraptors of the park.

Almost immediately after the photo above and at left was released of the Jurassic World t-rex, fans noticed that the scars depicted on its neck matched up with injuries sustained by the tyrannosaurus who saved Alan, Ellie and the kids from raptors in the third act of Jurassic Park.

Slashfilm, in a feature about the film's special effects, has now confirmed that it's the same beast.

"Yeah. I mean, we took the original design and obviously, technology has changed," director Colin Trevorrow told Slashfilm. "So, it's going to move a little bit differently, but it'll move differently because it's older. And we're giving her some scars and we're tightening her skin. So, she has that feeling of, like, an older Burt Lancaster. And this movie is her Unforgiven."

There's been some rumblings that the T-Rex could be a major player in the plot of the new film, potentially serving as a natural opponent to the artificially-created dinosaur who serves as the movie's main antagonist. This wouldn't be all that surprising, given that Jurassic World has taken great pains so far to try and invoke the first film. The initial teaser for the trailer featured the ripples in cups of water visual from Jurassic Park, while the trailer itself had callbacks to a handful of shots from the first movie as well.

Paleontologists speculate that T-Rex probably lived between 20 and 30 years, achieving full size around age 20. With Jurassic Park coming out almost exactly 22 years before Jurassic World, that puts our "hero" T-Rex well within that speculated age range, assuming that nothing about the life expectancy had changed as a result of the genetic tinkering that resurrected the Jurassic Park dinosaurs to begin with.

Steven Spielberg returns to executive produce the long-awaited next installment of his groundbreaking Jurassic Park series, Jurassic World. Colin Trevorrow directs the epic action-adventure from a screenplay he wrote with Derek Connolly. Frank Marshall and Patrick Crowley join the team as producers.

Jurassic World will be released in 3D by Universal Pictures on June 12, 2015.

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