In Jurassic World, Bryce Dallas Howard played Claire Dearing, the Operations Manager of the fully-realized Jurassic World park. Claire Dearing was a no-nonsense businesswoman who was completely consumed by her job and had little time for family, but the events of Jurassic World turned Claire's life upside down and apparently had a profound effect on her and her priorities. Now, thanks to a bit of viral marketing for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom we have an idea what the character has been up to since the last movie. Claire has went from a high-heeled corporate climber to tender-hearted philanthropist, seeking to care for the dinosaurs she once viewed as little more than financial assets.
Since the incident at Jurassic World in 2015, Claire Dearing went on to found the Dinosaur Protection Group (DPG) with the goal of protecting and caring for the creatures that humanity brought back into this world. According to the Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom promotional website for the Dinosaur Protection Group, the DPG wants to establish rights for the dinosaurs and ensure that they are never again used for experimentation or exploitation for entertainment or financial gain. But the main goal of the DPG seems to be saving the dinosaurs from the imminent extinction they face due to the active volcano, Mount Sibo, on Isla Nublar. The DPG site even has an active tremor monitor for the volcano.
Claire Dearing was not an easy character to like in the first Jurassic World. She viewed the dinosaurs as property and assets to be monetized, and when people's lives were in danger, her first concern was containing the situation so as to not risk a public incident, financial ruin for the park and the end of her career. So it is cool to see that she will be a far more sympathetic character this time around. Despite the horror she suffered at the hands of the Indominous Rex, she still views the dinosaurs as worthy of protection. The DPG site features a blog post from Claire as that is very self-aware. Claire acknowledges that she was part of the machine, and the incident at the park gave her a new understanding of the world around her and helped her to realize that humans have a responsibility to protect dinosaurs.
This is a cool promotional tool that helps fill in some of the gaps for Bryce Dallas Howard's character in the time since Jurassic World and makes her someone with a noble cause we can root for in the upcoming sequel. But since most people won't see this promo site, hopefully the film will flesh some of this transformation as well, perhaps when Claire reconnects with Owen and he discovers she is a different person now. The blog post on the DPG site also references that there are powerful forces still lurking that oppose the DPG's beliefs in animal rights and that dinosaurs should not be exploited. This makes me think that BD Wong's Dr. Henry Wu and InGen will still be a major adversary going forward as they continue their nefarious hybrid and weaponization schemes.
Based on the trailers for the film, Claire Dearing's DPG will have their hands full rescuing the dinosaurs from a natural disaster and opposing forces, all while not getting eaten themselves. That hould be fun. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is directed by J.A. Bayona and hits theaters on June 22.
