Last week saw the appearance of a whole host of crazy Jurassic World plot and story rumors that we were considerably skeptical of. Chris Pratt‘s character training “good” dinosaurs to fight “bad” dinosaurs and a genetically engineered super dinosaur to up the stakes. Director Colin Trevorrow spoke to /Film because he felt he need to clear up some of the misconceptions that these rumors are spreading about the movie. Turns out, everything is mostly true, but also less crazy sounding.
But first, Trevorrow expressed his disappointment that the information leaked in the first place. Ultimately, his goal for the film is not to “ruin” any adult’s childhood, but to build a movie for the childhood of kids now. “Last week was discouraging for everyone on our crew–not because we want to hide things from the fans, but because we’re working so hard to create something full of surprises. When I was a kid, you got to discover everything at once, it washed over you and blew your mind. Now it only takes one person to spoil it for everyone else.”
To clear up the game of unnamed source and reporter telephone that resulted in a load of Jurassic World info, Trevorrow described the gist of the film’s setting. Twenty-two years after the events of Jurassic Park, John Hammond’s dream has been realized: Isla Nublar is a thriving tourist destination, part luxury resort, part theme park, part biological reserve.
Chris Pratt’s character isn’t exactly training dinosaurs… he’s just doing behavioral research on the raptors, “trying to figure out the limits of the relationship between these highly intelligent creatures and human beings.” The genetically engineered hybrid dinosaur, though, that’s as described. It “exists to fulfill a corporate mandate—they want something bigger, louder, with more teeth. And that’s what they get.” Trevorrow reassures fans worried about tone and realism that it won’t be a monster with a snake head or cuttlefish tentacles. It’s just an animal that’s had its missing DNA filled in with something other than frog code by the Isla Nublar Veterinary Services.
Trevorrow and writer Derek Connolly decided to reprise at least two central themes from Jurassic Park: the hypnotic lure of profit and its ability to erase common sense, and over-dependence on technology. In the future of Jurassic Park, the existence of dinosaurs has become normalized: “We imagined a teenager texting his girlfriend with his back to a T-Rex behind protective glass.”
I’m not sure that I buy that image, unless we’re talking about some rich kid whose parents take him to the park every other summer (a luxury resort with dinosaurs? Doesn’t sound like they kept the “for every child” part of Hammond’s dream)… I can’t wrap my head around it as a general reaction to the existence of Jurassic Park, but there’s plenty of ways that could be contextualized in the film and made more believable. I just hope that bored teenagers aren’t the only folks that Trevorrow will be drawing in connection with dependence on technology. After all, kids with technology saved lives in the original Jurassic Park. You can check out his full interview at /Film.
Previously in Jurassic World
Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?
Published: May 29, 2014 11:02 am