Beyond its mass extinction of box office records, 2015′s “Jurassic Park” reboot will go down in history for something else: the heels heard ’round the world.
It was just too hard to ignore actress Bryce Dallas Howard’s footwear in the first “Jurassic World.” Her character, Claire Dearing, traversed the jungle, evaded various predators, and — most notably — outran a charging Tyrannosaurus rex while sporting a pair of corporate-friendly pumps.
Shortly after the movie’s release, the footwear-related controversy emerged like a pack of previously captive dinosaurs unleashed on unsuspecting tourists. Memes were born, parodies were made and a consensus on social media deemed the high heels straight up sexist.
HuffPost’s own Sara Boboltz weighed in with “18 Questions For Claire Dearing From ‘Jurassic World,’ Who Ran From Dinosaurs In Heels,” the first of which was: “Really?”
This month, ahead of the release of the sequel, “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” critics wondered how exactly the shoes would be addressed. So let me clear things up: Claire eventually loses the heels ― but not right away.
And that’s apparently because of Howard.
The very first shot of Claire in the film shows her in heels. In fact, the camera deliberately showcases them. She’s now a dinosaur activist, so a lot has changed in the three years since the first movie, but not her footwear.
So how did this happen? Who decided to keep the contentious shoes?
“Me!” Howard told HuffPost. “Me.”
“I mean, having Claire reintroduced was something that was going to be a callback moment to ‘Jurassic World.’ That was in the script,” she said. “But it was written that I was wearing sneakers [in the scene], and I was like, ‘No, no, no, no, no, no.’ Claire likes her heels. Claire Bear likes her high-heeled shoes.”
On the controversy with the shoes, she said they were “meant to stand out.” And she happily explained why.
“The journey of this woman starts off in this place where you’re like, ‘Oh she’s going to get eaten.’ And then you’re like, ‘I kind of like her, but maybe she’s not going to get eaten; she’s just going to succumb to the elements when [she’s] going through the jungle,’ And like, ‘Oh man, this is a woman in high-heeled shoes, there’s no way she’s going to survive.’ And then she gets to the end thoroughly outrunning a T. Rex in heels. It’s kind of an incredible journey for this woman and a very visual journey and has kind of become a little bit representative of the movie.”
“That kind of lasted, and that’s not a bad thing at all. That’s all accurate. That was all intended,” she said, before adding that in “The Fallen Kingdom,” when Claire’s given the chance to go back to Isla Nublar, “of course she’s going to wear boots.”
Howard also weighed in on another element of Claire’s outfit from the first “Jurassic World” that caught fans’ attention, with some wondering whether the scene where Claire ties her shirt ― and says, “It means I’m ready to go” ― was an homage to Laura Dern’s character in “Jurassic Park.”
Howard said there wasn’t a direct reference there that she knew of, namely because she’s responsible for that moment in the script, as well.
“When we were getting ready to shoot, basically I knew there was a point at which my costume was going to look like that, and then there was a point in which my costume was fully intact,” she said. “And we shot the after part, and we shot the before part ... and I was like, ’Oh my god, this is the only moment. We can’t have it be that I just march off, and the next moment you see me my entire outfit is completely changed.’”
“No joke, Chris Pratt, director Colin Trevorrow and I were huddled in a little tent. There was a slight rain delay, and I was like, ’Guys, this needs to happen. I need to look like this,′ and we were talking through the scene and rehearsing and Colin was like, ’What if the transition happened as a way of showing basically, ‘Fuck you. I’m ready.’ And so that’s how we worked that out.”
No matter the “Jurassic World” wardrobe issue, the shoe must go on.