Moriarty wrote:One of the biggest dangling threads in "Jurassic World" is the fate of Dr. Henry Wu.
I thought it was fun casting to bring B.D. Wong back for "Jurassic World," but when I saw the film, I was surprised by just how much screen time they gave him and how clearly he's turned the corner from "bright guy hired by Hammond to do something fantastic and ethically questionable" to "mad scientist screwing his theme park bosses while coming up with some sinister applications for his work."
What surprised me more was that they let him live. After all, "Jurassic World" is unafraid to kill even the most peripheral character in violent and preposterous manners, so why wouldn't they kill the man responsible for creating the just-plain-evil dinosaur that's running around eating everyone?
The obvious answer is that they still need him, and sure enough, "Jurassic World" makes it clear that Dr. Wu was airlifted out to continue his work under the auspices of InGen, a company that is now crystal clear on the way they can use these things as smart weapons. Why, it almost feels like they're setting up a way for the studio to repurpose some of the ideas that were originally developed by William Monahan and John Sayles for what was just called "Jurassic Park 4" when they were writing it circa 2006-2008.
While there are plenty of things in there that they can't use, including Hammond and a return to an abandoned Isla Nublar, my guess is that there are parts they can still strip out and use. That opening scene with kids getting attacked on a Little League diamond makes perfect sense after seeing the pteranadons fly out of the park.
Can you see where the seeds of Chris Pratt's raptor team started in the ideas of this film? Now that they've laid the groundwork, anyone want to bet on whether or not Blue ends up at Owen's side for the new film? And now that Wu's starting creating his own dinosaurs, I wouldn't be remotely surprised if the InGen labs are surrounded by some very sophisticated organic security measure, like those "excavaraptors."
Universal announced the release date of the film today, and they confirmed that pretty much the whole team will return. Pratt and Howard are both set to star again, and Colin Trevorrow is onboard to co-write with Derek Connolly.
While that doesn't completely knock him out of that rumored "Star Wars Episode 9" gig, it's obvious this will be his main priority as long as Universal wants it to be, and if he feels any ownership of these characters, he may well make the commitment to directing this instead. Whatever the case, it's clear that Universal sees this as a new franchise now, with "Jurassic World" as the beginning point, and they'll make their creative decisions moving forward with this one as the template. I'm not even saying that they'll specifically tell Trevorrow and Connolly to borrow from this one. I just know that Spielberg loved some of these ideas, and it wouldn't be shocking if he were still trying to find a way to bring some of those ideas to life.
But, seriously… they have to give Wu a spectacular death. They've set him up too well at this point for that not to pay off.
