Jurassic World Rebirth promises to return to the franchise’s darker roots. Releasing July 2, 2025, the latest in the Jurassic Park franchise involves Scarlett Johansson’s covert operations expert, Zora Bennett, who leads a team of operatives to retrieve dinosaur DNA that can be used to cure humanity of a mystery illness. Director Gareth Edwards has teased to Movieweb how the movie will be more tense than recent Jurassic World installments, describing how viewers will be left on «the edge of your seat.» This return to a more horrifying Spielberg tone has me excited, especially as it evokes another iconic Steven Spielberg franchise, Jaws.
Jaws celebrates its 50th Anniversary this year, making Jurassic World Rebirth’s adoption of a similar tone feel poignant. This classic Summer blockbuster sees police chief Martin Brody team up with the experienced shark hunter Captain Quint, and the knowledgeable marine expert, Matt Hooper to take down a shark that has been terrorizing Amity Island. Jaws is bloody and terrifying, showing the extreme threat that one shark can pose to the human populace. Jurassic World Rebirth’s recent clip reveals that the film owes a clear debt to Jaws, especially considering how the franchise already contains many similarities to the Spielbergian favorite.
The Mosasaurus Scene Evokes Jaws' Classic Shark Hunt Sequence
The Mosasaurus is highly regarded by fans as one of Jurassic World’s coolest dinosaurs, so it’s little surprise that Gareth Edwards chose to bring back the Mosasaurus for Jurassic World Rebirth. A recent clip from IGN Live 2025 follows Zora and her crew hunting the dinosaur on their ship. The scene brilliantly evokes a classic sequence from Jaws, when Martin Brody and his team set off on Quint’s ship, the Orca, to face the shark. The intense, melodramatic score by the composer, Alexandre Desplat, echoes the famous music from Jaws, which signifies the shark’s arrival. Alexandre Desplat’s music helps to sell the fear that Zora and the others feel as they try to take down the Mosasaurus, just as the unsettling tune from Jaws captures the shark’s menace.
Zora essentially fulfills the same role as Martin Brody in this clip. In Jaws, the role of destroying the shark falls to Martin, while Quint pilots the Orca and Matt tries to capture the shark in a metal cage. Like Martin, Zora is the one who finds herself hunched over the side of the ship with a gun, fearlessly confronting the Mosasarus and shooting at the dinosaur as the ship traverses the sea. Zora and Martin both act as the heroic protectors of their respective crews, who place their lives on the line to defend their team against the creature that they are tracking down. Their motivations are also to save human lives, who have been threatened by the creatures in question, with Zora needing the Mosasaurus’s DNA to cure a disease spread by the dinosaurs, while Martin aims to stop the shark from killing more people at Amity Island. Zora and Martin’s actions are about humanity versus nature, with both characters fighting the animals to protect their people’s best interests.
This theme of self-preservation is evident through both sequences. The Jurassic World Rebirth clip shows Zora firing tranquilizers into the Mosasaurus, while Martin uses a mixture of bullets and a scuba tank to kill the shark. Both segments are similarly dramatic action sequences where a gang of brave individuals are stalked by a ferocious underwater predator, and the lead character aims to shoot the marine animal before it can eat them first. In both Jaws and the footage from Jurassic World Rebirth, the heroes are vulnerable by being out at sea, in the creature’s natural habitat. Zora is nearly knocked off the ship by the Mosasaurus, while the shark In Jaws destroys the ship’s engine. Jaws and Jurassic World Rebirth’s scenes at sea are classic «David Versus Goliath» tales, with both the Mosasaurus and the shark having a clear advantage over their opponents due to how they are creatures adapted to marine life, unlike the human protagonists.
Jurassic Park And Jaws' Similarities Have Always Been Noticeable
Among the things I adore most about the Jurassic Park and Jaws franchises is how much they owe to the horror genre. These Steven Spielberg classics feature many disturbing scenes. Jaws, for instance, makes the wise decision to spend most of its runtime not showing the shark. Instead, its presence is hinted at through the haunting music that accompanies the shark whenever it stalks its prey. Its opening sees a young woman dragged underwater by an unseen force, which immediately establishes the danger that the shark poses for Amity Island’s visitors. One of the darkest moments in Jaws sees Martin and Matt uncover the fisherman, Ben Gardner’s, disembodied head after investigating a half-sunken boat in the island’s waters. It is a deeply disturbing image that haunts the mind long after the movie is over.
Jurassic Park is not quite as dark as Jaws, but still has its fair share of scary sequences. The most iconic is when the T-Rex escapes from its paddock, and Alan Grant and Ian Malcolm lead it away with the flare. The horror and dread experienced by the characters during this moment are felt by viewers, thanks to the unsettling ambiance, as thunder rumbles around the T-Rex Paddock and rain falls moodily from the night sky. The T-Rex strikes an intimidating presence, stomping around the vehicles and delivering an ear-splitting roar. Jurassic Park’s climax is equally frightening, as a pair of raptors stalk Lex and Tim Murphy in the visitor center’s kitchens. Jurassic Park does a grand job of establishing how dangerous the raptors can be, through Alan’s words at the beginning of the movie describing a velociraptor attack, and how they ruthlessly chewed off John Arnold’s hand off-screen. The raptors’ vicious behavior makes them scarier than the T-Rex, and knowing how deadly they can be makes audiences fearful for Lex and Tim. These savage dinosaurs are so indomitable that it is only the T-Rex who can challenge the raptors, and take them down.
Most significantly, the Jurassic Park and Jaws series are both warnings against playing with nature. These movies convey the message that human beings mess with nature at their own peril. John Hammond’s vision of a dinosaur theme park ends in disaster on both occasions that the park is built, in Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, with the dinosaurs running amok and claiming many victims, including the lawyer, Donald Gennaro, and Claire Dearing’s assistant, Zara Young. Meanwhile, Mayor Larry Vaughn’s decision to keep Amity Island’s waters open in Jaws despite the spate of shark attacks backfires, when the shark claims more human lives. Similarly, the series both feature various figures who warn against these situations. John Hammond is advised that Jurassic Park is a bad idea by Ian Malcolm, who ominously declares that «life finds a way,» while Martin Brody immediately takes issue with Larry’s unwise call to allow people to swim through Amity Island’s shark-infested sea. Alan and Larry are motivated by corporate greed, which they prioritize over the safety of others, and their ignorance of nature’s power is their downfall. Jaws and Jurassic Park demonstrate the importance of respecting the natural world, over exploiting it for monetary gain.
