Today marks the launch of two Jurassic World websites: the official (and beautiful) JurassicWorld.com, and the viral marketing website MasraniGlobal.com. The two websites contain a surprising about of exposition about what’s been happening in the Jurassic Park canon since John Hammond died in 1997.
What you’re seeing above is actor Irrfan Khan in character as Simon Masrani, an Indian telecom and oil mogul who bought out Hammond’s InGen in 1998. Masrani decided to begin rebuilding Hammond’s failed theme park in 2002, and by 2005, Jurassic World was operational. Now, in 2015, the park is known as the “safest theme park in the world”. Instrumental to the success of Jurassic World is Dr. Henry Wu, played by actor B.D. Wong, who escaped Isla Nublar before things went haywire. Here he is in the Hammond Creation Lab, where little miracles are born.
Here’s some more info on InGen and Wu from MasraniGlobal.com:
After the unfortunate incident at Jurassic Park, Dr. Henry Wu returned to Isla Nublar in November of 1994 to assist the clean up teams in cataloging specimen numbers, and to identify exactly how the animals were breeding. Despite the island’s presence of seemingly same sex animals, it was the inclusion of amphibian DNA which he himself had underestimated. Dr. Wu noted that the inclusion of DNA sequences from several species of amphibians including the Common Reed Frog (Hyperolius viridiflavus) adapted extremely well to the cloned DNA of the dinosauria – eventually enabling the animals to change their sex through a chemical trigger which disintegrated the female organs to create male sex organs.
This event intrigued Dr. Wu and inspired him to write the book ‘The Next Step: An Evolution of God’s Concepts’ in 1995. Within its pages he included a theory claiming that, with the right tools and research, he could bring brand new species into fruition by the combination of various species. “Much like selective breeding within domestic animals,” he writes, “but with this, we would be combining several species into one new animal. Today’s technological limitation means we are decades away from achieving this, maybe even fifty years away, but who knows, hopefully in my life time we could see it become a reality.”
By May of 1997 Dr. Wu and his research team at a financially struggling InGen had successfully combined several species of plant life together giving birth to the Karacosis wutansis (or Wu Flower) which gained world-wide media attention, including the attention of Simon Masrani – who incidentally acquired InGen the following year. The son of a close friend of the now late John Hammond, Simon Masrani promoted Dr. Wu within the ranks of the InGen company in December of 2000 and brought the scientist onto the Jurassic World project. Dr. Henry Wu was instantly looked at as a valued member of the Masrani company, proving his unique skill not only as a successful scientist, but a great visionary.
The most intriguing news of all is that JurassicWorld.com shows a counter, and it’s counting down to something that happens in nine days. My money’s on a teaser. Jurassic World arrives in US cinemas June 12, 2015.
UPDATE: Collider.com has some photos of some very official-looking Jurassic World Lego prototypes, which include a potential first look at the film’s new dinosaur, the fearsome Diabolus Rex (or D-Rex). Potential spoilers within.