Did Dinosaurs Really Look Like That?
Almost everyone has seen Jurassic Park or any other movie in the franchise. Dinosaurs, extinct animals from over a hundred million years ago, are the stars, but did they really look at how the movies portrayed them? And, do these movies spread false information?
The Jurassic Park series features various different species of dinosaurs, from sauropods to theropods these movies had it all. Specific dinosaurs like the Tyrannosaurus rex became popular due to the movie’s depictions of a large, ferocious, lizard-like creature living and breathing on the theater screen. While the tyrannosaurus rex is almost positively large and ferocious, there's no guarantee it was reptilian nor as large as the movies characterize the animal to be. Studies have shown that the Tyrannosaurus rex is more likely to have feather-like fur, instead of scales (Duggan). Various other carnivorous dinosaurs are likely to be feathered, but more specifically the Tyrannosaurus has been shown to be furred and not scaled. This one detail causes a drastic difference in the appearance of the T-rex in the Jurassic Park movies.
Another major detail that's overlooked in the Jurassic Park movies is the addition of the excluded and then later added, Giganotosaurus. In the Jurassic Park movies, the Tyrannosaurus rex has always been advertised as the land dinosaur at the top of the food chain and the largest carnivore. To those without extensive knowledge of dinosaurs, this myth is a fact. The Tyrannosaurus rex has a competitor, the Giganotosaurus. The “Giga” is named Giga for a reason, it's a ginormous land carnivore just like the Tyrannosaurus. Only this animal is actually bigger. Excusing the inaccuracy of calling the Tyrannosaurus rex the largest dinosaur, even with the addition of the Giganotosaurus had inconsistencies. Jurassic World Dominion depicted the Tyrannosaurus Rex as the same size as the Giga, which is extremely false. The Giga is named Giga, for a reason- it's way bigger than you think!
Another inaccuracy is the Dilophosaurus’ behavior in the first Jurassic Park movie. The Dilophosaurus is a smaller velociraptor-like creature with large frills on its head and is famously known in the movie as blinding one of the characters in the movie. In this scene, the Dilophosaurus expands its frills and makes a rattling sound before spitting an acid-like mucus into its eyes of Nedry. As cool (and painful) as this part in Jurassic Park is, the Dilophosaurus isn’t actually able to do that! There's even no evidence of the Dilophosaurus even having a frill either. Dilophosaurus, and even all dinosaurs for that matter, have had no evidence of being venomous or able to spit acid of any kind (Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum). These traits of the Dilophosaurus in the movies were most likely added to make the movie more interesting, and while exaggerating isn’t entirely a bad thing, entirely false details are.
To conclude, while some may argue that the Jurassic Park franchise is purely fictional and they don’t exactly have to be accurate, I’d agree. The only issue is that because the films are so popular lots of people are seeing information from the movies and interpreting it as fact. It causes a false knowledge of dinosaurs.
Works Cited
Graham Duggan, “Everything we thought we knew about T. rex is wrong”, 2022 https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/features/everything-we-thought-we-knew-about-t-rex-is-wrong
Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum, “The Real Dilophosaurus”, n.d. https://dinomuseum.ca/2019/04/the-real-dilophosaurus
When I think of Dinasours, I think of Jurassic Park and the dinasours featured in the film. I thought it was really fascinating how you showed that dinosaurs in real life may not have looked like the ones in the movie, and it makes me wonder if we truly know how dinosaurs look because we weren't there back then, and how movies promote this false understanding of dinosaurs. Nice blog!
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting how different the dinosaurs might of been in real life than are depicted in films. I have always thought that the Jurassic Park movie depicted dinosaurs accurately until I read this blog. I found the fact that T-Rexes might have had feather-like fur very surprising.
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