Jurassic Park’s ‘Turkey’ Boy Refutes Fun Jurassic World Theory
There’s an interesting ‘Jurassic World’ fan theory doing the rounds that you don’t need to have seen the film to appreciate.
The theory (first shared by ‘Community’ creator Dan Harmon on his podcast ‘Harmontown’) suggests that Chris Pratt’s character Owen Grady is the bratty kid from the original ‘Jurassic Park’ film that annoys Alan Grant (Sam Neill) by calling a velociraptor “a six-foot turkey”, all grown up. Watch the famous scene here.
The boy’s listed in the 1993 film’s credits as “Volunteer Kid” and was played by Whit Hertford who’s now 36 in real life. Chris Pratt is 35, so the ages of the characters bear up to scrutiny.
The theory adds that the kid who got so roundly scalded by Grant for his lack of “respect” for the extinct creatures, learned his lesson and went on to become a raptor expert.
According to official press notes for ‘Jurassic World’, Owen is an ex-military animal behaviour specialist who has spent years at the nature park studying a pack of raptors, so there’s no harm joining the dots between these two seemingly unconnected characters.
Above: Whit Hertford now
Slash Film confronted the film’s director Colin Trevorrow with the theory and his answer proved inconclusive, telling them: “I’m not sure I want to answer because the speculation is so much fun. Let’s not kill the fun.”
However Whit Hertford, who’s now a theatre director in London, has shot down the theory on Twitter saying “That role is mine, dammit!”
for the record, @prattprattpratt is not playing a grown up version of my character in @JurrasicWorld. that role is mine, dammit!
— Whit Hertford (@whithertford) June 11, 2015
Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
‘Jurassic World’ is in cinemas now.
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Image credits: Universal/Twitter