Credit: Universal Pictures
The Jurassic Park franchise has never been afraid to evolve, but as the films have grown bigger, the stakes have felt much smaller — which mostly has to do with its newer characters.
How Chris Pratt Changed Jurassic‘s Characters
It all started with Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), who made his debut in Jurassic World (2015) as a raptor trainer and someone who could face down dinosaurs with little more than hand gestures. Previous Jurassic films, however, depicted their characters, whether Alan Grant (Sam Neill) or Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), as real people rather than fearless action heroes.
By the time Jurassic World Dominion (2022) arrived, the series had become increasingly difficult to believe, even reducing once-terrifying predators to manageable threats. Raptors could now be dodged and dispatched with ease, the T.Rex had become an anti-hero of sorts, and the Dilophosaurus was no longer the nightmare fuel it was in the original 1993 film.
Credit: Universal Pictures
The Jurassic World Trilogy Created a Problem That Hasn’t Gone Away
The latest film, Jurassic World Rebirth (2025), is no exception. Despite wiping the slate clean and introducing a new ensemble of characters, Scarlett Johansson’s Zora and the rest of her team are seemingly no less invincible than Owen Grady, while the dinosaurs are just as easy to survive. But those problems also extend to the animated side of the franchise.
It might be the case that Camp Cretaceous and its follow-up Chaos Theory revolve around a group of children, and we know that those “smaller versions of adults” are immune to threats throughout the franchise. But still, the fourth and final season of Chaos Theory, which recently premiered on Netflix, well and truly “jumps the shark” (or dinosaur) while echoing one of Dominion‘s most memorable scenes (memorable for the wrong reasons, that is).
Credit: Universal Pictures
Related: Universal Officially Ends ‘Jurassic Park’ Series Despite Successful Run
Jurassic World Replaces Owen Grady
Season 4 picks up where the last one ended. The Nublar Six — Darius, Kenji, Brooklynn, Yaz, Sammy, and Ben — are now in Biosyn Valley, a story that runs parallel with the 2022 film in question. But in episode 3, something happens that doesn’t go unnoticed by fans: Kenji (Darren Barnet) steps into Owen Grady territory by literally wrestling a Dilophosaurus to protect one of his friends — mirroring the scene in Dominion where Owen tackles the same dinosaur by grabbing its throat to save his girlfriend, Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard).
The scene in the film came under heavy fire from fans, not only for depicting Owen as a ridiculously fearless character, but also by reducing the Dilophosaurus — a once terrifying addition to Jurassic Park — to a dinosaur that could be man-handled and sent whimpering into the jungle. But somehow, Chaos Theory gets away with it — probably because it’s animated. Either way, it still plays like a passing of the torch, or at the very least, a quiet acknowledgment that the franchise may already have its next Owen Grady in Kenji Kon.
Will Chris Pratt Ever Return to Jurassic World?
As for Chris Pratt, there’s no telling whether he’ll ever return to Jurassic. He played Owen Grady in three films: Jurassic World, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018), and Jurassic World Dominion. Though it’s rumored that another film is now in development at Universal Pictures following the success of Rebirth, which grossed $868.8M worldwide, the report claims that the same cast and crew from that film will return, which would leave Pratt, along with his other World trilogy co-stars like Bryce Dallas Howard, on the sidelines once again.
Unfortunately, the latest season of Chaos Theory missed a huge opportunity by not introducing the likes of Owen Grady in animation, instead opting for secondary characters like Lewis Dodgson, Soyona Santos, and Henry Wu. Still, there will likely be many opportunities for Pratt to return in a future Jurassic project — after all, Jeff Goldblum reprises his role as Dr. Ian Malcolm in the new video game “Jurassic World Evolution 3”.
Jurassic World: Chaos Theory Season 4 is now streaming on Netflix. It stars Paul-Mikél Williams as Darius Bowman, Darren Barnet as Kenji Kon, Sean Giambrone as Ben Pincus, Kausar Mohammed as Yasmina “Yaz” Fadoula, Raini Rodriguez as Sammy Gutierrez, and Kiersten Kelly as Brooklynn.
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