It’s been over a week since the return of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, the fan-favorite Netflix series spinning out of the events of the Jurassic World franchise. The series followed a group of ragtag teenage campers in a fight for survival on Isla Nublar — a fight that turned emotional, epic, and incredibly watchable throughout. One of the figures most instrumental in bringing Camp Cretaceous to life has been showrunner and executive producer Scott Kreamer, who took the idea of the “Nublar Six” journeying home to heart.
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In celebration of Camp Cretaceous‘ recent final season debut, ComicBook.com got a chance to chat with Kreamer about all things tied to the final episodes. We spoke about those surprising returns, that long-awaited romance, that cliffhanger ending, and so much more!
ComicBook.com: Did you feel any sort of extra pressure, just based on like how much the fans love the show, to stick the landing in this final season, and to get the opportunity to tell a complete story?
Scott Kreamer: Heck yeah. And I think almost, even more than that, we felt a responsibility to the Nublar Six. Even though they were made up characters, you grow to love these characters, and we really wanted to do right by them as well. But yeah, you can absolutely say we felt more pressure to land the plane.
I have to ask about one of the biggest surprises of the season, which was Yaz and Sammy. I think you guys did such an incredible job of putting the two of them together. I spoke to Raini about it the other day, and she kind of talked about like how long this has been in the works. I was curious, from a creative standpoint, about getting the two of them together and how you guys felt it was the right time.
It’s interesting — We didn’t set out to tell that story when we started the show. You can have an idea of who the characters are before, when you’re developing a show, but it’s really when you get into script and boards and everything where you really discover who they are. It just started making more and more sense to all of us. It’s like these characters are leading us, that they should be together. So we’ve been thinking about the story for a long time. Those first three seasons, there’s a lot of time of running for your life, and there wasn’t a ton of time for introspection. There was a time when I was also like, “Oh man, did we just run out of runway? Are we not going to be able to tell this story?” And one of our writers, Bethany Armstrong Johnson, just said “No, it totally makes sense to tell that story, and here’s why.” And she and Rick Williams did such a beautiful job on that.
The script where Yaz is sort of realizing her feelings and talking to Ben with it, we work with a really smart advisor from GLAAD. It made sense within the story and then anytime it gives you a chance to tell a story with more inclusion, and more diversity, and putting more of that out there into the world, that just made it all the more worthwhile.
Kind of on the topic of introspection, I love Kenji’s storyline this season, and his villain turn that ends up being much more than meets the eye. I was curious how you approached that, while still keeping the Kenji that everyone knows and loves.
Again, that goes back to season one. You start with this kid who is clearly, maybe not as big a jerk as you think he is from that first episode, and just little, little tidbits of an absentee father. He’s desperate for his approval or even acknowledgement. I think that in season one or season two, as we were kind of looking at an overall arc, we always talked about the final season being the battle for Kenji’s soul. To find out, is it your Camp Fam, or are you finally getting acknowledgement, even if it’s in a manipulative way, from his father? So the idea of really testing Kenji, and seeing him evolve from that first episode of the guy in the pink polo shirt with a popped collar, it just seemed like a really compelling story to tell.
You bring back a lot of familiar faces across the season. You bring back the counselors, you bring back Bumpy. It feels like the “Avengers assemble” moment of everyone coming back. What went into the decision of who to bring back and at the right moment, and kind of having the whole world of the show culminate together?
As far as Bumpy goes, look, we all know what happens in Fallen Kingdom. So we had to get Bumpy — we had many different ways in the writer’s room about how we got her off Nublar. So, that was always a given.
As far as everyone else, I loved the performances that Jameela and Glen gave in season one and almost — not almost — I hated to see them go. But it’s a show about kids alone against dinosaurs, and if you throw some authority figure grownups in there, you can’t tell that story. And also in just how we approached the ending, we didn’t want them to show up and save the day. It’s always been our kids forward. So that was something we wanted to do.
And then, Benji Flores just gave such a beautiful performance in not a lot of time as Brand. Just the way Darius — it’s an ensemble piece, but Darius is our lead. So the idea of bringing back that big brother who was looking at his dino nerd, video game-playing little brother in that first episode — to see how far he’s come and what he’s capable of. Again, those are the fun stories to tell.
Of course, I have to ask about the ending and about the time jump. How did that ending, in particular, come about?
To be honest, the last shot of Darius there seeing a dinosaur — when we started developing the show early on is right when Fallen Kingdom had come out. And maybe before we even started writing other scripts, other than the pilot, that was shot I had in head as far as where we want to go to. But I didn’t know how we were going to there, because these movies are two, three years apart. So, as we started getting closer to it, the idea of a time jump was the only thing that kind of made sense. But also you want to see, as we close this chapter of these six kids who are probably more equipped to be around dinosaurs than anyone in the world, what that looks like.
And I think most importantly — look, we’ve really put these kids through it every season and every episode. And I think as a writing staff, we went, ‘Boy, we got to give these kids a happy ending.’ There were definitely some discussions of not [doing that], but I think we did the right thing and just wanted them to at least relax for a little bit. So that’s where we ended up.
This season has so much going on, between the time jump and the happy ending. What are you most excited to see the reaction to?
I’ll be honest. The Sammy and Yaz of it all is just… I really love that story. So, that’s part of it, for the people. But look, when I saw the Barbasol can in Dominion and knew that [came back] on our little TV cartoon, that was really cool. So I enjoyed that. The surprise of Toro’s arc, of all things, across the series. That’s been surprising. There’s a lot dinosaurs, there’s a lot of heart, there’s a rematch with a Spinosaurus.
And just, seeing how these kids have evolved, together and as individuals. Yeah, there’s a lot. I hope folks like it. We’re not doing it just for ourselves, obviously. So hopefully, people enjoy it. There’s a lot of smart talents and folks who care a lot, who work really hard on this thing, and you hope that the people enjoy it.
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All five seasons of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous are now streaming exclusively on Netflix.
