From what we hear about Jurassic World 2, it’s going to be a heck of a lot different from Jurassic World, and from most of the rest of the Jurassic movies. We don’t know a ton about the plot, but we do know that the dinosaurs will be used as a kind of metaphor for the treatment of animals in modern society. There’s a lot this movie can do with this: the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park are genetically engineered, making them, by law, property of the InGen bioengineering company. But how can you own a living creature, really? James Cromwell says that his Jurassic World 2 character will be used to examine this situation.

Cromwell’s character wasn’t specified when it was announced that he’d been cast, but during a recent appearance on Larry King Now, he explained what his deal is:

I play — the character Richard Attenborough played, I’m his partner, Benjamin Lockwood. We developed the technology of being able to clone the genes. And so I’m trying to deal with the blowback from what we have done.

This honestly sounds way more Michael Crichton-y than the series arguably has ever been. Both of Crichton’s Jurassic Park books — Jurassic Park and The Lost World — use the setting of an island populated by dinosaurs as an allegory for his views on chaos theory. That kind of thing is definitely in the first Jurassic Park movie, but it mostly fell out of the story in later installments in favor of making them big action-adventure tentpoles. Which is fine, but it’s pretty neat to see the series finally delving back into the more cerebral aspects of the original story.

And Cromwell’s Lockwood isn’t the only direct Jurassic Park connection — everyone’s favorite chaos theorist Dr. Ian Malcolm will be, uh, back too. Jurassic World 2 hits theaters June 22, 2018.

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