Three Things I Think About While Watching The Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom Trailer

Make no mistake, this movie looks visually spectacular. But there are some other things I can’t help but think about when I watch the trailer. Broken marriages, high heels, sexism and more.

First. Watch. Then see if you agree.

Okay first off. Let’s get to it right off the bat.

The effects are IN.SANE.

Yes, so good I made INSANE two words. I think I could sit and watch this movie even without the dialogue. I am spellbound by every last detail. From the cutest little baby dinosaur that is yet to grow up and become a killing machine, to the big ones that are ready to snap you like a twig and swallow you, I am transfixed. And mind you, I’m not and never have been one of those people who grew up knowing the different breeds and names – the word triceratops never came out of my mouth as a child. The sheer creativity, cleverness and downright brilliance of the countless people who worked on this film deserves some attention. But that’s in my head only during the action sequences.

I wish I would stop thinking about Chris Pratt’s divorce when I first see him in this trailer.

I’m sure Chris agrees. There is something about his divorce from Anna Faris that lingers on the mind – probably because every little nuance is being reported everywhere. I do not know Chris or Anna, we have never met, and I can only see what’s portrayed in the media about them. I like them both in theory, enjoy their work, and Chris’s social media posts suggest a guy that has a great sense of humor and cares about humanity. It sucks that we live in a world where the media can just get a copy of divorce papers and publish them, as though we have a right to know. There can be a tendency in Hollywood media to portray celebrity divorces with a sort of typecasting: husband doesn’t deliver on promise of eternal commitment, ego gets the best of him, wife struggles to move on and gives emotional response in eventual magazine feature. In this case, there were some outlets that were starting to point towards the narrative of ‘Pratt lost weight, got ‘hotter’, became bankable movie star, moved on to bigger and better things.’ Here’s the thing: that could very well have happened, or something completely different could have gone down. We. Don’t. Know. But what we do know is that for every press junket, despite a publicist’s insistence, there is a likelihood a reporter will search for a clever to ask about what is the most intimate and personal aspect of someone’s life – the disolving or a partnership.

Byce Dallas Howard doesn’t have to run in heels for the whole movie this time, and suddenly we’re reminded of how latently sexist that aspect of the prior film was.

In the last film, it became a running gag in the publicity tour (pun intended) that Howard’s character ran in heels from dinosaurs for hours on end, without so much as a complaint, an angry hurling of said heels in favor of something more practical, you get the idea. Howard laughed about it, spoke of it in interviews, etc. It was a sort of comedic fodder for moviegoers who couldn’t help but acknowledge JUST HOW #*$&@#$ RIDICULOUS IT WAS TO RUN FROM DINOSAURS IN HIGH HEELS. But with the veil of long running Hollywood sexism finally (and still slowly) being lifted, you can’t help but look back and realize that the idea of putting her in heels in the first place was preposterous merely from a storytelling perspective. You can’t help but think what the real motivation was to have Howard traipsing around in stillettos, especially since Rose Macgowan’s now famous calling out of a casting notice that insisted on push up bras and cleavage baring tops for an Adam Sandler movie. This arguably pales in comparison, but you have to imagine that the film wouldn’t have suffered if Howard’s character decided that her trip to a wildlife safari park could have called for something more sensible at the outset. Do we love a woman’s legs in stiletto’s so much that the story called for them? Yes, her character was a ‘professional’ but come on, she’s an outdoor park!

All this aside, I will most definitely be seeing this film. It truly looks riveting. As a fan of the genre and the film’s stars, it looks well worth the wait. And a wait it will be! The movie doesn’t come out until June 2018.