Still from the Jurassic World: Dominion trailer. The film is scheduled for release on 10th June … [+]
Universal Pictures
Dinosaurs are featured in the first Jurassic Park (or just JP), released in 1993, for just about six minutes of its two-hour running time, and yet the movie is considered a milestone in cinematic history.
Brought back to life by a combination of full-scale models, costumes, and computer-generated imagery (CGI), the JP dinosaurs were the most realistic depictions of extinct animals ever seen before on screen. That said, there are still many scientific inaccuracies to be spotted.
The original Jurassic Park won three Oscars for visual effects and sound design, making over one billion dollars worldwide. A standalone movie, its success sparked two sequels: Jurassic Park – The Lost World released in 1997, and Jurassic Park III released in 2001. Still commercial successful, the sequels were criticized as repetitive and with a far less engaging story, lacking any real suspense and wonder as seen in the first movie.
The modern re-imagination of the 1990 Jurassic Park novel, now called Jurassic World (JW), was the first movie in an overarching trilogy. In 2015’s Jurassic World, a park populated by cloned dinosaurs is open to the public, when a genetically improved hybrid dinosaur escapes from its high-security cage, causing havoc and prompting the evacuation of the park. In the 2018 sequel Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the now abandoned park is threatened by a volcanic eruption. Dinosaur-activist save the last surviving dinosaurs, bringing them to the mainland, where they promptly escape. Jurassic World Dominion, to be released this summer, shows a Neo-Mesozoic era, where humans can encounter dinosaurs in the wild.
Industrial Light & Magic will animate the CGI dinosaurs and confirmed that at least seven new species of dinosaurs will make their debut in Dominion.
A sneak preview released in June 2021 showed a large theropod, likely inspired by Giganotosaurus, in a prehistoric setting and engaging with a Tyrannosaurus rex, one of the classic species featured in almost all JP movies.
Parasaurolophus introducing the new trailer includes a variety with a single stripe following the animal’s back, already seen in The Lost World, and a JW “zebra-striped” variety.
One of the most-discussed aspects of the old movies is the lack of feathers on the dinosaurs, especially on the small theropods, like Velociraptor. In the Jurassic World universe, this is explained as a result of the dinosaurs being genetically modified hybrids, created by splicing original dinosaur DNA with DNA derived from amphibians and scaly reptiles. The trailer features the classic feather-less “Raptors”, including the new Atrociraptor, but also a threatening feathered theropod, modeled after Pyroraptor, even if the animal’s size seems to be exaggerated.
A carnivorous Carnotaurus and Allosaurus make a cameo on a city’s plaza and a Therizinosaurus is roaming the dense undergrowth of a Sequoia forest. Therizinosaurs had large arms and claws, but as a complete skeleton was never found, their appearance in life is still debated. It is believed that they were plant-eating dinosaurs despite their claws. Other herbivors, like the large sauropod Apatosaurus and the ceratopsid Nasutoceratops, are briefly seen.
The JP Dilophosaurus, there is no fossil evidence that the animal was able to spit poisonous goo or had frills on his neck like in the movie, is also back.
Non-dinosaur species featured in the trailer include a massive Mosasaurus, a marine reptile already part of the previous JW movies, and Quetzalcoatlus, the largest pterosaur species known so far.
Fans of the classic JP will recognize some old human friends. New Zealand actor Sam Neill plays again paleontologist Alan Grant, American actress Laura Dern appears as paleobotanist Ellie Sattler, and Jeff Goldblum resumes his iconic role as chaos-mathematician Ian Malcolm.
