Danielle Solzman
Scott Kreamer stopped by Solzy at the Movies to discuss the third season of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, which just launched on Netflix.
The Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous showrunner previously stopped by to discuss the first and second seasons. We get into spoiler territory here so I must stress that you please wait until after watching.
Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous just launched for the third season on Netflix. What were the big things that the team was looking to explore this season?
Scott Kreamer: We’re five-six months after the first episode now. Everything on this shows starts with the characters so we really wanted to go, Okay, we’ve got kind of a moment to breathe. Season one was running for their lives. Season two was waiting for rescue and have to deal with the big game hunters. And now season three, we really wanted the kids to take their faith in their own hands and go and take charge and try to get out of there. We wanted to make room for those characters to see that what everybody’s wrestling with and everyone is wrestling with some things. You’re six months on dinosaur island, not everything is perfect but they are learning how to survive more. We wanted to make some room for some more fun, some more action that we haven’t seen. Obviously, we wanted try to weave it into the Jurassic canon so there’s plenty of nods to previous films. We really just kind of wanted to throw the kitchen sink at this season and we’re excited for people to get to see it.
The dinosaur battle at the visitor center—how fun was that and why did you have to destroy it?
Scott Kreamer: Well, it’s funny. We went back and forth on it, but it’s just like, Look, we know in a couple of years, this island’s blowing up anyway so why not just make it this climactic battle? It felt like a fitting way to get rid of these two hybrid monsters. Something felt right about using the original Jurassic Park to end their threat against all the other dinosaurs and the kids on the island.
I loved those Jurassic Park easter eggs. I smiled when I saw that kitchen again.
Scott Kreamer: Yeah. Well, that was fun. When we first saw the model and even putting the ladle on the floor, it was exciting I think for all of us to be able to do that.
I felt that the Scorpios Rex was more terrifying than the Indorapter. Can you talk about the development of the hybrid?
Scott Kreamer: Well, we sort of started with the premise that the Indominus rex could not have been Dr. Wu’s first shot at a hybrid, like nobody gets it right—I mean, if you could say he got it right with the Indominus—but nobody gets it right the first try. We started talking about that. Well, what would it look like? What would it feel like? Why didn’t it work? We definitely wanted to give it the feel of a failed medical experiment. Somewhere along the line, we stumbled upon the idea for the poisonous quills like the scorpion fish. We just went back and forth. We had many iterations of it. We just wanted to feel like nothing else so that’s why we gave it the ability to climb and we got into its head with sort of the special vision. Colin weighed in on it as well. We wanted it to look just creepy and I think the team really came through.
I’d say so. Actually, I was surprised at the discovery of a second Scorpios Rex.
Scott Kreamer: That’s the thing. You do a show like this and it’s part of the Jurassic universe that keeps topping itself. We just kind of wanted to amp it up there and add a surprise to it as opposed to just okay, well, this is our very scary antagonists for the season. That was a fun idea that we wanted to explore.
I love that we got to revisit that opening of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom from a different point of view this time around.
Scott Kreamer: It was cool. It was like harkening back to season one where we saw Masrani’s helicopter go into the aviary but from a different point of view—being able to do that with the movies is pretty exciting. I don’t think we fully realized—because it doesn’t explicitly say at the beginning of Fallen Kingdom when it takes place in the opening sequence. I think Colin was visiting and once we realize that was like six months later, it just sort of kind of all came together for us. It’s like, well, let’s do that! Who else is on the island? Who came to the island to get the Indominus bone? And then we have Dr. Wu and our new character, Hawkes.
What were some of the discussions taking place in the writers’ room and how many times did you all have to watch the film to get the animation just right?
Scott Kreamer: Well, it wasn’t just the writers watching that for Fallen Kingdom—our editors, our directors, all the artists. It was reminding me back to season one when we in the writers room were watching Jurassic World every other day, if not every day, to plot out the season. There was a lot of watching. I love that Leo Birenberg composer, even nodded to the score of the movie of that scene. We wanted to get it as close to right as we could like we always do.
I have to ask especially since “whatever it takes” is used this season, is it a reference to Avengers: Endgame?
Scott Kreamer: It isn’t! I think we wrote this before Endgame came out. I’m not sure now that you say it, maybe not. It wasn’t supposed to necessarily be a nod to Endgame but I don’t mind a comparison there.
As there anything off limits for this season as far as what you can talk about?
Scott Kreamer: No, there really hasn’t been too much stuff off limits. There were times when we were plotting out a possible way to go, now that you mention it, that maybe was straying too close to something that’s coming in Dominion so we just went a different way. Nothing for sure off limits—we wanted to give these kids a fitting goodbye to Isla Nublar. And like I said, the fact that the we know the island’s going to blow up let us do things like bring down the visitor’s center.
I also love that Blue is brought back more than once.
Scott Kreamer: That was fun. Blue’s a great character and like we’ve talked about before, you want to get as many easter eggs or nods to the to the film canon as you can but you don’t want to be gratuitous and you don’t want to make it feel shoehorned in there. We always said if we’re going to bring in Blue, it should be worthy of her. We were pretty happy when we came up with this story. Blue’s a fun character but challenging because Blue is a hero. She also, other than in the first couple episodes of season one, she doesn’t have to bond with our kids yet. She’s a hero but she’s also a velociraptor.
With them appearing to leave the island for good, I love that you all just frame that door and tease something at the end.
Scott Kreamer: We never know what the future holds so I feel this works as a finale to the series but it also, to your point, leaves it open for more episodes if we get lucky enough to be able to do that.
