Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow addresses Joss Whedon 'sexist' criticism

In April, Avengers: Age Of Ultron director Joss Whedon lashed out against a sneak preview of upcoming film Jurassic World, labelling it as "70s-era sexist" in its depiction of uptight "stiff" Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) and oafish "life-force" Owen Grady (Chris Pratt). The dinosaur disaster's director has finally made a response to that critique.

Talking to Italian website Bad Taste, Trevorrow admitted that, while he could see where Whedon was coming from, the tone was brought about by the poorly assembled trailer rather than the film itself.

"I wasn't bothered by what he said about the movie and, to be honest, I don't totally disagree with him," he said.

"I wonder why [Universal] chose a clip like that, that shows an isolated situation within a movie that has an internal logic, that starts with characters that are almost archetypes, stereotypes that are deconstructed as the story progresses."

Trevorrow went on to argue that the emphasis is on the character of Howard's Claire within the movie rather than Pratt's Grady, despite what some Jurassic Park fans have been getting excited about.

"The real protagonist of the movie is Claire and we embrace her femininity in the story's progression," he revealed. "There's no need for a female character that does things like a male character, that's not what makes interesting female characters in my view. Bryce and I have talked a lot about these concepts and aspects of her character."

Whedon said in a recent interview that judging another movie based on 90 seconds of footage was "bad form", but the damage had already been done.

His comments caused fans to criticise his films for doing the same things – leading to a backlash surrounding Whedon's treatment of Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow within the Avengers franchise. Eventually, the criticism got to Whedon and he deleted his Twitter account, much to the dismay of avid Marvel fans.

Trevorrow revealed he felt sympathy for Whedon when he was was inundated with negativity surrounding Avengers: Age Of Ultron.

"I was upset about people's reaction to his film," he said. "Joss received an incredible amount of anger and vitriolic comments and he doesn't deserve that, because if there is someone who has always paid due respect to the women of his movies that guy is Joss.

"I think he should be the last person in Hollywood to be accused of sexism and if you've seen something like that in his last movie, it's not his fault. We all know that Joss is too kind and polite to rise up and tell people to screw off, so I'll do it on his behalf!"