James R | On 16, Sep 2019

Jurassic World has stomped back on to our screens this week, but not as you know it: the franchise has returned in mini-form (except for the dinosaurs), with an all-new short film, Battle at Big Rock.

Directed by Colin Trevorrow, and written by Trevorrow and Emily Carmichael, the short takes place one year after the events of the last Jurassic World film in Big Rock National Park, where dinosaurs are now living in our world. The story follows a family of four whose encounter with these wild animals becomes a terrifying fight for survival.

Starring André Holland, Natalie Martinez, Melody Hurd and Pierson Salvador, the film premiered on FX on Sunday night before being released worldwide on YouTube. The standalone tale confirms that Jurassic World has turned the corner into new territory, with humans and dinos forced to co-exist.

“We wanted to show a glimpse of that new reality,” Trevorrow told Collider. “If this really happened, you’d see a series of random, disconnected incidents that would create a pattern of chaos. I wanted to see one of those incidents.”

“It felt like an indie film, but with a massive animatronic,” he added in his interview.

“We did it in 5 days with a small crew. We had two child actors, a giant animatronic dinosaur and a baby. It shouldn’t have worked, but it did.”

While the events aren’t expected to tie directly into Jurassic World 3, the short does pave the way for a new era in the long-running series, taking The Lost World’s famous (and famously uneven) climax and expanding it out on a whole new scale. The short is certainly aiming for a cinematic scope, with Amie Doherty’s score incorporating themes from John Williams and Michael Giacchino. It also introduces two new species to the screen: the Nasutoceratops and the Allosaurus.

You can see Jurassic World 3 in cinemas in June 2021. Until then, here’s the short:

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