Jurassic World Rebirth Producer Reveals Which Unused Jurassic Park Scene Returns (And It Sounds Great)

Jurassic World Rebirth may share its name with the recent trilogy of dinosaur films spearheaded by Colin Trevorrow, but the DNA of this new adventure appears to be firmly rooted in the Steven Spielberg blockbuster that kicked off the franchise back in 1993. Original Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp returned to pen the script for Rebirth, while director Gareth Edwards has taken every opportunity to talk about bringing the Jurassic franchise back to where it began.

The ties to the original go even deeper than you might think, though, as Jurassic World Rebirth contains a sequence from Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park novel that Koepp and Spielberg originally wanted to put in the first movie. They couldn’t find a good place for it and had to abandon it, but Koepp took this opportunity with Rebirth to finally bring it to life.

Koepp mentioned the scene in an interview with Variety last month, but he didn’t reveal which scene it was. This week, as part of Vanity Fair‘s big preview piece for Jurassic World Rebirth, producer Frank Marshall confirmed that the scene in question is one that featured Dr. Alan Grant and the kids on a raft in a lagoon, trying to get across the water without disturbing a sleeping T-rex. They eventually fail to keep the dozing dino asleep, and all hell breaks loose as they try to escape.

“The tyrannosaur was now chest-deep in the water, but it could hold its big head high above the surface,” reads an excerpt from Crichton’s Jurassic Park novel. “Then Grant realized the animal wasn’t swimming, it was walking, because moments later only the very top of the head—the eyes and nostrils—protruded above the surface. By then it looked like a crocodile, and it swam like a crocodile, swinging its big tail back and forth, so the water churned behind it.”

In addition to the lagoon scene, there are two other key pieces of connective tissue between Jurassic Park and Jurassic World Rebirth. First and foremost, the new movie sends its characters to the island where the original Jurassic Park lab was located, as they try to hunt down dinosaur DNA that could help save humanity.

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There’s also the matter of Dr. Henry Loomis, the paleontologist played by Jonathan Bailey. While speaking to Vanity Fair, Bailey explained that his character has a connection to Sam Neill’s Alan Grant, though the specifics of that link are being kept secret.

“I’ve always wanted to make Dr. Alan Grant proud,” Bailey said. “You’ll have to wait and see to see what sort of link there is between them.”

We do know, at least, that Loomis isn’t some grown up version of John Hammond’s grandson, Tim, who idolized Dr. Grant when he was a child. It has been confirmed that the two Hammond grandchildren, who were key characters in Jurassic Park, will not be involved in the new movie.

Jurassic World Rebirth is set to hit theaters on July 2nd.