Colin Trevorrow, director of Jurassic World, posted a new image from the movie on Twitter. It’s Chris Pratt and a Velociraptor. If the rumors about the plot are to be believed, and based on the trailer it would seem so, Pratt’s character has a pack of raptors trained to act as dino bloodhounds. Is this cruel? In a world where Jurassic Park exists, would PETA be upset about dino-on-dino crime? Do you think PETA protests Jurassic Park like they do Sea World? Or do the logistics of releasing a Tylosaurus into the wild prevent any logical person from complaining about the treatment of dinosaurs confined to Isla Nublar? Does the fact that we brought dinosaurs back to life for our own entertainment trouble anyone?
As you can see, I have a lot of questions about a real-life Jurassic Park. I’ve been thinking about this for the last twenty years, ever since I first saw Jurassic Park. On my bio, you’ll notice one of my “mortal enemies” is Velociraptors. This is because raptors made me afraid of the dark. I was never a kid who was afraid of the dark, and then I went to see Jurassic Park, in which every time someone went into a dark room, they either got eaten by a raptor, or found someone who had been eaten by a raptor. My ten-year-old brain made the connection: Darkness = raptors.
Then, as soon as we got home from the theater, my dad asked me to go get something from the deep freezer in the basement. I had to go into the dark basement and then into the dark, creepy room at the back of the basement in order to get to the deep freezer. For the first time I was afraid to enter a dark room, and still to this day, I don’t like doing that. I always have the thought—there might be a raptor in there. I know that Jurassic World can’t recreate Jurassic Park, but I hope it captures something of what made that movie special—its ability to induce phobias.
(Lainey: Sarah, the dinosaur nerd, failed to mention how hot Chris Pratt looks in this picture, so I’m doing it now. He looks hot.)
