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Last night we celebrated a very special edition of the Collider Screening Series. Not only did we screen 2015's Jurassic World but we also showed Colin Trevorrow's most recent smash hit, the Jurassic short film The Battle at Big Rock. (Big screen or small, I highly recommend giving the short film a watch if you haven't already. Click here to check it out.)

The Jurassic celebration didn't stop there. After Big Rock rolled, Trevorrow joined Steve Weintraub for a post-screening Q&A with Big Rock and Jurassic World 3 screenwriter  Emily Carmichael and Big Rock composer Amie Doherty to talk about making the short, to discuss what's already happened in the Jurassic World films, and also to tease a little something for the future of the series.

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Image via Universal Pictures

Just as the Q&A was coming to a close, an audience member asked about the possibility of Jurassic Park characters returning for Jurassic World 3 and who was waiting in the wings to discuss just that? None other than Ellie Sattler herself, Laura Dern! You can watch Dern surprise the packed theater with the big news that she is reprising her role as Ellie in Jurassic World 3, not for a cameo but as a significant part of the film, in the video player at the top of this article. And as though that wasn't enough, she also revealed that both Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum will be back as Alan Grant and Ian Malcolm, respectively.

Now the question is, how will Trevorrow and Carmichael work the trio into the new story, particularly Ellie given the fact that she's had less Jurassic screen time since the 1993 original compared to the other two? The last time we saw the character was for a brief appearance in Jurassic Park III that saw her helping Alan escape Isla Sonar remotely by calling in the Marine Corps and the Navy. On today's episode of Collider Movie Talk, I tossed around a few story ideas with John Rocha and Vinnie Mancuso in attempt to predict how Ellie might feel about the state of the world and the Dino's place in it after the events of Fallen Kingdom. You can check out that conversation below at the 8:26 park of today's show.

Finally, the full Q&A with Colin Trevorrow, Emily Carmichael and Amie Doherty will be on Collider in the coming days. Click here for all our previous Jurassic World coverage.

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Image via Universal Pictures