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Do the current films set in the "Jurassic Park Universe" share the same canon universe?

For the first three films (Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and Jurassic Park III) I think this is indeed a "YES" because we see many of the same characters (Dr. Grant, Ian Malcolm, etc.).

However, the fourth film Jurassic World, seems to be a reboot of the franchise. While we do have some of the history (the park was John Hammond's vision), a recurring character (Dr. Wu), and the original park's ruins these could just be homage to the original series.

An interesting note from an out-of-universe perspective is that the author of the original Jurassic Park novel, Michael Crichton, passed away in 2008. I do not know how involved he was the making of the first three films, but he was alive during that time at least.

It it stated in any advertising materials, interviews, or elsewhere that all films share the same canon?

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    You may wish to note that there are also viral short films, comics, video games, novels, novelisations, Graphic novelisations and 'young reader' books to take into accont
    – Valorum
    Jul 6, 2016 at 17:49
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    Not to mention several viral websites (uk.jurassicworldintl.com + masraniglobal.com/about/divisions/jurassicworld) that were set up to market the latest film
    – Valorum
    Jul 6, 2016 at 17:53
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    not like the second film bore much resemblance to the second book anyway, so 'canon' is loosely defined ;) #stillbitter
    – NKCampbell
    Jul 6, 2016 at 18:29
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    @NKCampbell - I don't honestly think I've seen the third one. Or if I have, it was long enough ago that I've managed to forget it completely. Maybe it was bad enough that I've repressed it.
    – Valorum
    Jul 6, 2016 at 19:07
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    I agree with NKCampbell... the first movie doesn't even stick to the main plot structure, and things only got much weirder from there. Jurassic Park 3 had a lot of the scenes from the original book in it. There is no canon JP film if anyone cares about what Michael Crichton actually wrote :P
    – Darren Ringer
    Jul 6, 2016 at 20:11

1 Answer 1

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Yes. All five movies are canon to each other.

According to a Yahoo Movies interview with Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow, the rebooted sequel is indeed canonical with the earlier trilogy. That being said, there was a conscious decision to exclude references to the two original sequels (Lost World and JP3) because he didn't like them very much and wanted to recapture the excitement of the original (and most popular) film.

Of course, Jurassic World isn’t a mere re-creation of Jurassic Park; it’s a direct sequel to the original, set some 20 years after the events of Spielberg’s film. (According to Trevorrow, the previous sequels aren’t being written out of continuity so much as placed to the side, as they both unfolded on a different island.) In that time, a functioning theme park has been constructed on Isla Nubar, overseen by operations manager Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) and employing hundreds of staffers, including velociraptor trainer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt).

'Jurassic World' Set Visit: Recapturing the Dino Magic of the First Trip to the 'Park'

To confirm the link, information was added to the film's viral website detailing the events of the first three films, along with what's happened since the end of Jurassic Park 3.

Trevorrow: Yeah, we actually have a website that has a lot of backstory on it. It’s called “Masrani Global” and it’s the corporate website for Irrfan Khan’s character’s company, and it details very clearly the history all the way back to the Canadian Tiranodon clean-up of 2001 and what exactly happened since “Jurassic Park III” and how we reached this point. We mention it very briefly in the film, just a couple moments to make sure that people understand that this is in the same world and all of that is canon, which it is. Even though this is a direct sequel to “Jurassic Park,” it isn’t that necessarily in any official way, it’s just because that was a movie about a theme park and so is this, and “Lost World” and “Jurassic Park III” took part on another island and had nothing to do with the theme park business, so they just were very organically not as connected, but they do exist in this world.

Jurassic World Interview with Director Colin Trevorrow

Purely FYI, Colin Trevorrow was completely clear that the latest film is a sequel, not a reboot

Q. Mr. Trevorrow, everytime I read something, it says JW is a reboot. Please tell us that its not a reboot?! I'm going bonkers!

Colin Trevorrow: Reboot is a strong word. This is a new sci-fi terror adventure set 22 years after the horrific events of Jurassic Park.

The fifth (and upcoming sixth) films are obvious sequels to Jurassic World and hence are also canon.

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  • Awesome answer, as usual! This also explains how the park seemed to open so quickly compared to JP3 (which was something else I was wondering)...
    – Skooba
    Jul 6, 2016 at 18:36
  • "because he didn't like them very much and wanted to recapture the excitement of the original film." - Epic fail.
    – bobbyalex
    Jul 7, 2016 at 0:18
  • Not only this, but the director of Jurassic World is on public record in interviews stating that the T-Rex in this film is the same T-Rex from the first Jurassic Park film (out of universe, it is even scanned from an original model from the first film, and then aged), and has been living on the island for like 25 years, and still has scars from the raptor attack at the end of the first film. Also, there are scenes in Jurassic World that take place in the original visitor building from the first Jurassic Park, too. So it is clearly a sequel in the same universe, not a reboot.
    – Remy Lebeau
    Jul 7, 2016 at 2:33
  • @bobbyalex you beat me to it. The irony that he didn't like them...
    – Mikey
    Dec 15, 2016 at 0:48

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