Dinosaur fanatics get ready to be psyched, because apparently the upcoming newest addition to the Jurassic Park franchise Jurassic World: Dominion is doing something pretty cool. The previously released prologue footage of the upcoming film featured some classic dinosaurs. Now, a dinosaur expert has reacted to said footage, also revealing the main thing the other movies in the franchise got wrong.
For the most part, National History Museum paleontologist Joe Bonsor gets the Jurassic World: Dominion creators some props, saying their portrayal of their prehistoric T Rex is actually pretty accurate, more so than many other films that have depicted the dinosaur. By adding some fuzzy looking feathers and spreading out the commonly misconstrued tiny T-Rex arms, it becomes something a little different than we have come to know, but apparently it’s more accurate that way. Here’s what Bonsor told IGN:
Interestingly, they’ve given the T-Rex some sort of fluffy, feathery coating, which is brilliant to see because that’s exactly how we think it would’ve looked. It probably would’ve had a bit more than that to be honest - I guess they don’t want to deviate too much from what we would expect the T-Rex to look like. It also looks like they’ve improved the positioning of its arms slightly. One of the main things they got wrong in the earlier films was the positioning of dinosaur arms and hands - they would have been more to the side than held out in front of them, and it looks like they’ve addressed that a little bit here.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dinosaur depicted with fuzz in a movie, but honestly I don’t hate the idea. It totally makes sense that this would be a more realistic depiction, seeing as the most closely-related animal we have today to the T-Rex is the chicken. With that in mind, it’s a wonder why we haven’t seen a massive chicken-esque T-Rex before now.
In the same interview, Joe Bonsor speculates on the balance of science and fiction in the upcoming film, saying that, at least based on the prequel footage, Jurassic World: Dominion looks to be taking a little bit of a different approach from the previous films. Here it is in his own words:
This prologue feels a little bit different from the previous films. I’m really looking forward to seeing how they translate this footage, which has a bit more realism and some more recent discoveries, into those more modern dinosaurs from the film. It’ll be interesting to see how they strike a balance between the actual science and their creations. For me, the biggest thing is the feathers on the theropods, the two-legged meat-eating dinosaurs. The raptors are generally just naked, just skin. Perhaps it’s because they don’t look as scary covered in feathers, but I think it would be quite scary - a six-foot tall chicken with razor claws chasing you! You’d still run away.
It seems the more realistic movies make dinosaurs, the scarier they get. Thankfully, the creatures are a thing of the past (or are they?) that we are able to revisit on the big screen and the big screen only. You can check out the prequel footage below, where you can see a T-Rex fighting in the prehistoric past and, jumping through a whole lot of time, crashing a drive-in movie theater:
The seemingly hyper-realistic dinos that are featured in Jurassic World: Dominion aren't the only thing pretty sweet about the film, as some of the iconic OG characters will be making a reappearance in the upcoming film. Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern, and Sam Neill will be returning in this next film, all reprising the roles that they held throughout the original Jurassic Park trilogy (well, just the first two for Goldblum).
You’ll be able to check out some major dinosaur action along with a stellar cast soon. Jurassic Park: Dominion has finished filming and is set to release to theaters next summer on June 10th.
