The Jurassic Park franchise has been mesmerizing audiences since its first appearance on screen in 1993, when dinosaurs, through the magic of science, came alive again on Isla Nublar. After that original film and the sequels, many fans wonder: What happened to Jurassic Park Island? Now, let's take a closer look at the journey of Jurassic Park Island throughout the three movies with regard to those specific changes.
About Isla Nublar Island
This fictional island on which the park in Jurassic Park is situated is called Isla Nublar, which is off Costa Rica. The island is primarily the setting for both the original film and some of its sequels. It was on Isla Nublar that John Hammond and his company, InGen, decided to establish their life-changing dinosaur park, genetically engineering extinct species back into existence. Such an island is represented as far away, isolated, and ideal for quarantine and display of its genetically modified dinosaurs in the park.
What Happened to Isla Nublar in Jurassic Park (1993)
Isla Nublar was first developed by John Hammond and his company InGen to be the site for an amusement park in which the main attractions would be genetically engineered dinosaurs. As a result of a series of catastrophic failures — a power outage, the disabling of all security systems by a disgruntled employee (Dennis Nedry) — a dinosaur breakout ensued in violence.
After the incident, a dream soon became a dinosaur-themed park, quickly turning into a living nightmare. The park, conceived to be a wonder of both science and entertainment, soon became a dangerous and chaotic landscape. The people living on Isla Nublar had to use flares in Jurassic Park to escape the dinosaurs.
As a result, InGen, the company behind bringing back the dinosaurs, had to abandon the whole of Isla Nublar. By the end of the movie Jurassic Park (1993), the island is shown as a dangerous and untamed landscape, where the surviving dinosaurs roam freely.
The State of Isla Nublar in Jurassic World (2015)
With Jurassic World (2015), the Isla Nublar becomes a whole other story. More than two decades since the catastrophic collapse of the original Jurassic Park, the island has awakened anew as a dinosaur theme park entitled Jurassic World.
Simon Masrani, an entrepreneurial businessman in the Masrani Corporation, purchased InGen's assets and spearheaded the rebuilding to fulfill Hammond's dream. Instead of the feral landscape dominated by marauding dinosaurs, Isla Nublar is now a futuristic theme park with millions of visitors from every corner of the world.
Here and now, the dinosaurs are not beasts of a gone-wrong experiment but an attraction, carefully handled, of advanced technology. This new park boasts sophisticated containment systems, automated transportation, and various zones for entertainment designed to submerge its visitors in the prehistoric world. Actually, the whole island has been optimized for tourism, complete with large hotels, aquatic exhibits, and even dinosaur petting zoos - all in the name of creating an experience.
However, all that glitz in Jurassic World barely masks the same flaws that brought down the original park. The park works well without a hitch for some time, but with the pressures of corporate competition and the demand for bigger and greater thrills, dangerous choices begin to be made by those behind Jurassic World.
To keep the visitors thrilled, the geneticists of it, under the command of Dr. Henry Wu, make up some hybrid dinosaurs and thus create the Indominus rex, a genetically modified predator designed to be larger, smarter, and deadlier than any other dinosaur.
And once again, human arrogance was defeated by nature. Indominus rex breaks loose from its enclosure and goes on a spree across Isla Nublar, starting a chain reaction that has deja vu effects of the original disaster in the movie Jurassic Park. Free from their constraints, dinosaurs break loose and send the island into disarray.
By the end of Jurassic World, Isla Nublar is returned to its unruly state. Following the destruction caused by the Indominus rex and the mass evacuation of tourists from the island, park operations shut down. The island becomes abandoned once again, as it did after the breakdown of the original park, with dinosaurs reclaiming their grounds.
The Destruction of Isla Nublar in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
The final act of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom puts Isla Nublar on a suicidal path to destruction. Following both Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, the island met its fateful end in a most tragic way.
After the events of Jurassic World (2015), the island is again abandoned, left to the jungles filled with dinosaurs running free. However, this tranquil isolation is soon disrupted when a natural disaster lands at their feet: the long-dormant volcano of the island, Mount Sibo, finally awakens, threatening to erase the dinosaurs that have lived there.
Claire Dearing, former operations manager of Jurassic World, and Owen Grady, a raptor handler, are leading a team back to Isla Nublar in order to save as many species as possible. Returning to the overgrown, crumbling remnants of Jurassic World, the island is on the brink of destruction; high-tech attractions now lie in ruins, overrun by dinosaurs that know no danger of their original extinction.
In the chaos, some dinosaurs are taken captive and airlifted from the island, while the rest of them, including their favorite species like T. rex and Velociraptors, were left to die with the volcanic eruption. The famous Isla Nublar, hosting the dream of Jurassic Park, got totally decimated and sank in waves of molten lava. This is a sign that the island will be taken away forever as it disappears into the forces of nature.
Will Isla Nublar Be Revived in Future Movies?
No, the chances are very low for seeing Isla Nublar again in any future Jurassic movies because the island was destroyed in the most recent movie from the franchise called "Jurassic World: Dominion." The franchise since then seems to be dealing with dinosaurs living amongst humans across the globe.
Isla Nublar has been the central setting of both trilogies within the franchise, namely Jurassic Park and Jurassic World. This island is also one of the most important symbols within this lore. However, the destruction that its volcanic eruption had caused seemed to close its story once and for all, as if it had little-to-no prospects for a revival in its physical form.
Bottom Up
So, through the article above, we can get the answer for "What happened on Jurassic Park Island?" Throughout the course of the films, Isla Nublar went from an ambitious dinosaur theme park to a symbol of nature's dominance. Following the collapse in 1993, it lay abandoned until it was rebuilt as Jurassic World, which would also meet its disaster.
After all, the island was destroyed once and for all by a volcanic eruption. Even though Isla Nublar no longer exists, it's still a core part of the franchise since what transpired there has continuously set a basis for what happens with the future of the Jurassic Park saga.
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