Why the hell are kids still wandering around dinos in Jurassic World: Rebirth trailer?

The Jurassic World: Rebirth trailer touts itself as the beginning of a new era for the beloved dinosaur franchise. And yet the more things change, the more things stay the same. Namely, somehow, some way, there are still kids getting stuck in the path of rampaging dinosaurs! From a practical standpoint, this makes sense: Jurassic Park began as a family-friendly adventure, so you've got to include adventurers of all ages. From a storytelling standpoint, though, the trailer begs the question of how such young people got mixed up in a dangerous covert dinosaur mission. 

The Jurassic World: Rebirth trailer itself doesn't answer that question, but the synopsis from Universal Pictures does. Covert operations expert Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) is leading a top-secret mission to a "forbidden island that once housed an undisclosed research facility for Jurassic Park." While there, her team encounters "a civilian family whose boating expedition was capsized by marauding aquatic dinos." Bad luck for everybody involved—now Zora not only has to protect her team and anxious paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), but she's also got to worry about these civilians and their kids. Sorry, girl, that's just Jurassic tradition!



Also in keeping with franchise tradition, Jurassic World: Rebirth hinges on a pharmacological premise. Five years after the events of Jurassic World Dominion, a new pharma guy (Rupert Friend) promises that the world's biggest dinos "hold, in their DNA, the key to a drug that will bring miraculous life-saving benefits to humankind," according to the synopsis. Dr. Loomis is tasked with extracting the genetic material, and Zora and her partner Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) are tasked with getting him in and out alive. But as they traverse the "forbidden island," the team (and their unfortunate civilian party crashers, played by Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Luna Blaise, David Iacono, and Audrina Miranda) "come face-to-face with a sinister, shocking discovery that has been hidden from the world for decades." 

Jurassic World: Rebirth is directed by Gareth Edwards (Rogue One) from a script by original Jurassic Park screenwriter, David Koepp. The film premieres in theaters July 2.