This is far from the only time the “Jurassic” movies have had to pivot due to being victims of nature’s wrath. Much like “Jaws,” this franchise is full of moments of brilliance created by happenstance and necessity. Case in point: The first “Jurassic Park” movie was filming when Hawaii suffered the worst hurricane in recorded history. The hurricane destroyed sets and ruined a planned scene where Samuel L. Jackson’s character, Ray Arnold, runs to the shed before he is killed by raptors. With the sets destroyed, the scene was scrapped. Instead, we got one of the best jump scares in the entire film when all we see is Arnold’s torn-off arm, the rest of his body never to be found.
Similarly, rather than a unremarkable boat scene where the characters disembark on shore, “The Lost World” gives us an ominous moment that foreshadows the carnage and horror to come while also introducing an interesting piece of lore to the franchise with Las Cinco Muertes (“Five Deaths” in Spanish), the set of islands that includes Nublar and Sorna. Granted, the concept was abandoned and we never heard of the other islands, but that’s par for the course in this franchise; there’s a lot of lore that is briefly introduced then mostly abandoned. Heck, for the longest time, the idea of InGen and its bioengineering competitors was never really examined, until “Jurassic World Dominion” finally did something with it.
Then there’s “Camp Cretaceous,” the animated series set after “Jurassic World” that greatly expanded the lore of the movies, picking up lost threads and introducing new ones. That show also revisited the concept of additional islands connected to Nublar and Sorna and properly re-introduced Biosyn as an overarching villain.