Jurassic Park Star Addresses Viral Seatbelt Fan Theory

Jurassic World Dominion is finally hitting theatres next week and will see the long-awaited reunion between Laura Dern (Ellie Sattler), Sam Neill (Alan Grant), and Jeff Goldblum (Ian Malcolm). In honor of their upcoming appearance in Dominion, the legacy cast has been reminiscing about their time making Jurassic Park back in 1993. There's a lot to discuss when it comes to the iconic film, including some longstanding fan theories. In fact, Gizmodo recently asked Neill about the seatbelt theory. In the original film, Alan is unable to get his seatbelt to work on the helicopter, so he takes the two "female" ends and ties them together which many believed was foreshadowing the "life finds a way" reveal that female dinosaurs have figured out how to reproduce. 

"I don't think it had any great metaphorical sense," Neill said with a laugh when asked if director Steven Spielberg ever confirmed this theory. "No, I don't think it was meant that way. It was just about Alan Grant hates technology. He hates computers. He hates anything to do with the modern world and the seatbelt, which you'd think it'd be relatively straightforward. But I've been on helicopters going, 'Where the hell is the other bit of this?' [Pause] That's interesting. This is the sort of thing that happens on the Internet. 'There's two female parts.' That's hilarious." 

Neill added of the seatbelts, "But also I never quite understood that this is the female end and that's the male end, you know? It's sort of a plumbing thing, isn't it? ... Why do pipes and things have to be given sexes? [Laughs]."

Last year, Neill spoke to Collider and admitted he didn't fully embody the character of Alan Grant until Jurassic Park III.

"For me, by the time I got to #3, probably a bit late in the day, I'd sort of worked out how to play that character, which I hadn't really quite gotten around to in the first one," Neill admitted. "I was still trying to work out, how do you play that guy in the hat? Something that comes completely naturally to someone like Harrison Ford. Not naturally to me. And something that Chris Pratt, fantastic guy, has given a lot of thought to and really worked out how to do it. And you have to think how to do that. It's a special skill. You're not just playing a character. You need a whole skillset. You need a whole armory to play an action hero and I wish I had known what those skills were when we did the first one, but there we are!"

Jurassic World: Dominion is set to be released in theaters on June 10th.