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Don’t you hate it when you’re trying to escape by raft from an island riddled with dinosaurs and you manage to wake up a sleeping T-Rex in the process?
That scenario becomes one of the signature moments in “Jurassic World Rebirth,” the latest in the long-running dino thriller franchise.
In the scene, a family becomes trapped on an island where the setting is lush and the creature threats are plentiful. One family member, Teresa (Luna Blaise), finds a raft but also encounters a certain snoozing theropod nearby. The raft, per the instructions written on the side of it (seen in a close-up shot), must be opened on land.
“This was something we added in the edit,” Edwards said, narrating the scene and discussing the close-up, “because we did a test screening and the audience was just like, why would you inflate it in front of a T-Rex?”
Next, the filmmakers used the opportunity to make a dino disappear before the viewers’ eyes. The T-Rex is in the background of the shot, but then is hidden from view once the raft inflates on its side. When the raft gets turned flat in the water, the dinosaur has disappeared. “You sort of get this David Copperfield moment,” Edwards said.
In discussing where the sequence was shot, Edwards said, “What you’re looking at is two main locations. One is in Thailand and it’s really actually a lake. We use it as a river, but it’s this big lake within a quarry. And then, once the rafting begins proper, it becomes this location in the U.K. called Lee Valley, which was essentially built for the London Olympics in 2012.”
Only one of these locations was warm.
“In London, in the rapid section,” Edwards said, “it’s freezing cold. And the actors, they were very tolerant, but we had to do take after take after take as you can imagine. And slowly through the day, I could see the look in their eyes. They wanted to kill me.”
Read the “Jurassic World Rebirth” review.
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Mekado Murphy is the assistant film editor. He joined The Times in 2006.
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