Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom | 2018
With the scripts being stretched to breaking point, JA Bayona brings a fresh energy to the franchise, as we say a final goodbye to 'Isla Nublar'.
The film is set on the tropical island and in the US, but filmed in Hawaii and the UK, where the production was based at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire.
It was Bayona who came up with the opening teaser as an undersea vessel approaches Isla Nublar to collect samples from the skeleton of Indomitus Rex.
"Relax – everything's dead by now." – Spoiler: oh no, it isn't.
Although Hawaii stands in for the island most of the time, the subsequent T Rex night-time attack was filmed at Hartland Country Park, a new green space created on the site of the old National Gas Turbine Establishment (where gas turbine engines were developed), at Fleet in Hampshire.
Three years later, the existence of surviving animals on Isla Nublar is causing concern and Dr Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) addresses a hearing as to their future, advising it to "let them die". The committee room is a set built at Pinewood Studios.
On the other side of the moral argument, Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) is atoning for her work at 'Jurassic World' by working for the 'Dinosaur Protection Group', alongside Zia Rodriguez (Daniella Pineda) and Franklin Webb (Justice Smith).
The 'DPG' office is Langley Business Centre, Station Road in Langley, Slough, Berkshire. With an eye to economy, this was also used for the video diary with the young raptors.
It’s here Claire gets a call from something called the 'Benjamin Lockwood Estate' in 'Northern California' asking for her help in protecting dinosaurs, and off she goes.
It's not California of course. The long shot of ‘Lockwood Manor’ is Cragside in Rothbury, Northumberland, though altered digitally to suit the needs of the plot.
The brainchild of a couple of forward-thinking Victorians, Lord William and Lady Armstrong, Cragside is a pioneering Arts & Crafts mansion filled with state-of-the-art (for the time) technology. It was the first house in the world to be lit by electricity, so it seems only fitting it should be the first to host a dinosaur auction.
It's now a National Trust property and open to the public.
Don’t expect the interior of Cragside to look anything like the film – all of that was created in the studio at Pinewood.
What's seen in that first establishing shot is the dramatic-looking rear of the house. In order order to accommodate the necessary action, that elevation of the house was reconstructed – with the addition of a front entrance – at Hawley Common, northwest of Farnborough in Hampshire.
The glass roof, used for the suspenseful climax, is a separate Pinewood Studio set.
In the mansion, Claire is met by nice Eli Mills (Rafe Spall) who asks for her help in populating a new dinosaur sanctuary.
He also fills in the details about John Hammond's collaborator, the hitherto unmentioned Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell). Like ‘Isla Sorna’, it's another one of those little details that nobody thought to mention earlier.
Mills needs Claire's help to access the abandoned 'Isla Nublar', clandestinely, and rescue the remaining creatures. What could possibly go wrong?
Since the priority is Blue, the surviving raptor, Claire drives out to find Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), who’s in the process of building himself a cabin retreat far from all the dinosaur nonsense.
The cabin’s frame was built at familiar old Bourne Wood (famously seen in Gladiator, Robin Hood, War Horse, etc), near Farnham in Surrey, though disguised with a digital backdrop.
Reluctant to get involved, Owen takes some persuading, over a beer at a nearby bar. Surprisingly, for such a brief scene, the dive bar is another – and pretty convincing – set built at Pinewood.
Owen is, of course, persuaded and, along with Claire, and joined by Zia and Franklin, they're soon boarding a small Cessna from a little airstrip, which is Blackbushe Airport, just a little northwest of the 'Lockwood Mansion' set in Hampshire.
Blackbushe is a general aviation airport, built during WWII, west of Camberley in the the north-east corner the county. Starting life in 1942 as RAF Hartford Bridge, the RAF moved out after the war, and the airport became Blackbushe, finally passing into private ownership and reopening as a general aviation field in 1962.
Like many small airfields, it's had its share of screentime, having been seen in Ron Howard's Formula One drama Rush (2013), with Daniel Brühl and Chris Hemsworth, as well as scifi thriller Criminal (2016), with Kevin Costner and Ryan Reynolds.
The first aerial views of 'Isla Nublar' are the spectacular valleys and peaks of the Na Pali Coast of Kauai, the small 'Garden Isle' of Hawaii, where much of the original Jurassic Park was filmed.
But this time, all the real locations were all filmed on the main Hawaiian island of O'ahu.
The Cessna touches down at Dillingham Airfield, Farrington Highway, a public and military-use airport about two miles west of Mokuleʻia on O'ahu's North Shore.
The same airfield serviced ‘Isla Sorna’ in Jurassic World III, as well as featuring in the TV series Lost. Here they're greeted by 'facilitator' Wheatley (Ted Levine) – the kind of smug, unpleasant trophy hunter who's destined to meet a bad end. The base camp was built a couple of miles east, at Dillingham Ranch, 68-540 Farrington Highway, and also seen in Lost, as well as 50 First Dates.
The crumbling remains of the old ‘Jurassic World’ park is a set built at Papa‘Iloa Beach (also known as Police Beach), also on O'ahu's North Shore, north of Haleiwa, augmented with some CGI.
Owen tracks, and eventually finds, Blue in He'eia State Park, 46-465 Kamehameha Highway, Kane'ohe. When Blue is shot, it's up to Zia to try and save her life.
To add to the problems, Isla Nublar's dormant volcano suddenly decides to erupt, causing a dino stampede.
As the lava flows, Claire and Franklin find themselves trapped in that very solid-looking communications bunker, which was built on the familiar Kualoa Ranch, Kamehameha Highway, Ka’a’awa Valley in Kaneohe, famously used for the dino stampede in the first Jurassic Park film.
Everyone needs to get to the ship, and fast.
Finally escaping the bunker, Claire and Franklin commandeer one of the park's old 'gyrospheres' but end up plummeting from a cliff into the sea.
Along with Owen, they're washed ashore at Halona Cove, previously seen as 'Whitecap Bay' in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides – but which achieved lasting screen notoriety in 1953 when Deborah Kerr rolled in the surf here with Burt Lancaster in From Here To Eternity.
Halona Cove is off Kalanianaole Highway, about 10 miles east of Honolulu.
With seconds to spare, they depart from He'eia Kea Boat Harbor. leaving with that poignant shot of the Brachiosaurus from Jurassic Park howling as it's enveloped by smoke.
The ship 'Arcadia' (which is nothing more than a digital addition) docks at Glen Mallan Jetty, on the east shore of Loch Long, south of Arrochar, in Argyll and Bute, Scotland.
The dinosaurs are unloaded and trucked through the grounds of the 'Lockwood Estate' where the truth of Mills' plan becomes clear. It's in the mansion (ie Pinewood Studio) that the second half of the film is played out.
