The first trailer for Jurassic World’s landed. But does its final shot hint at a weird sport on Isla Nublar...?
Arriving two days early, the trailer for Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic Worldplunges us back into the most dangerous theme park imaginable.
So far, the web’s been alight with discussions of the sequel’s nods to the originalJurassic Parkfrom 1993 - that loving shot of running dinosaurs, Bryce Dallas Howard clutching a distress flare in a similar fashion to Jeff Goldblum - and the knowing way a prehistoric sea creature leaps up and devours a Jaws-like shark.
There’s one particular shot in the Jurassic World trailer that has us really intrigued, and it’s the last one. In the dead of night, we see a set of metal doors open, and several velociraptors erupt from the darkness and run along next to Chris Pratt, who’s riding a motorcycle.
Aside from the obvious appeal of this image, which almost looks as though Pratt’s riding along with his own dinosaur army, another thought came to mind: is there a Jurassic-themed greyhound track on the island? Take a look again at this sequence of frames:
Admittedly, this might sound like an absurd notion. But wait: the whole story behind Jurassic World is that, with the advent of the interwebs and mobile phones and Minecraftand Iggy Azalea, kids are no longer wowed by the scaly majesty of dinosaurs. Something had to be done to get their jaded imaginations back again, so scientists and marketing-types come up with all sorts of ideas to keep the crowds heading back to Isla Nublar.
We can see some of these in the trailer: canoeing among dinosaurs, like Center Parcs but with larger wildlife. A SeaWorld-like area where visitors can sit and watch a massive, once-extinct beast (an ichthyosaur, we believe) leap from the water.
And then there are the scary, genetically-modified dinosaurs, which go unseen in the trailer but clearly form the spiky spine of Jurassic World’s plot. With the island’s scientists willing to go to these lengths to hook in tourists, isn’t it possible that they’ve also built some sort of greyhound racing track as well?
If you haven’t seen greyhound racing before, it looks like this:
As The Simpsons once put it, “Think of them as little horses.”
We’ll concede that this is partly wishful thinking. But can you imagine being able to go on holiday and watch velociraptors racing round a track while eating chicken in a basket? If you were feeling really adventurous, you could even put £10 down on the dinosaur you think might win.
As ways of getting people interested in Jurassic Park again, we can think of worse tactics than velociraptor racing. And imagine the spin-off movie you could make: an underdog story where a young boy rears an injured velociraptor and trains it up to the status of a thoroughbred racing dinosaur. There could even be a related videogame, or a Jurassic Park-themed Scalextric set with little racing raptors.
Er, we’ve probably been over-thinking this. Alternatively, if our theory's right, remember - you read it here first...
Jurassic World is out in UK cinemas on the 12th June.
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