Dominion Addresses a Major Franchise Criticism

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In addressing franchise criticisms, Jurassic World: Dominion sets itself up to be the original Jurassic Park’s spiritual successor.

Dinosaur fans, from casual to fanatic, are talking about the new trailer for Jurassic World: Dominion. The new movie promises to have many intriguing events, from old favorites returning to new dinosaurs. But certain parts of the trailer are vastly more intriguing than others, especially when considering longstanding criticisms of the series.

Jurassic Park was the most accurate dinosaur movie of its time, bringing then-current scientific knowledge to the public domain and encouraging an entire generation of paleontologists to pursue the career. But time marches on, and the dinosaurs of the first movies are no longer accurate — hence why what Dominion is showing is so promising.

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The Jurassic Park franchise has always toed a delicate line between franchise integrity and scientific accuracy. While the first movie — and the rest of the original trilogy — worked to maintain scientific accuracy, the main issue was that scientific understanding and perceptions of dinosaurs are constantly changing, to the point that a single dinosaur, such as Spinosaurus, can go through several redesigns in the span of a decade. Therefore, the original Jurassic Park trilogy is now a snapshot of how science depicted dinosaurs in the ’90s rather than a modern portrayal.

With that in mind, criticisms of the original Jurassic Park are actually rather pointless. There’s no point in going back and editing the dinosaurs to reflect modern perceptions — it’s a waste of time and energy to take the original films as anything but a snapshot of what people used to think dinosaurs looked like. But then the issue runs into how the sequels portray the dinosaurs — an issue of franchise integrity and scientific accuracy. In order to portray the dinosaurs as scientifically accurate, the depiction would have to shift from that of the original movie, but then there’s no explanation for how they changed so much in so little time. Barring drastic mutations with no scientific source, the dinosaurs had to remain as they were in the ’90s to preserve franchise integrity.

This is where Jurassic World hit stumbling blocks. Some dinosaurs, such as Rexy, retaining their original portrayals makes sense because they are the original dinosaurs. But others, like the raptors, retained their scaley appearance even though there was scientific evidence at the time pointing to them having feathers. Dr. Wu attempts to handwave this criticism by pointing out that they aren’t making “real” dinosaurs, simply people’s perceptions of them. And yet, knowledge of feathered dinosaurs had saturated the paleontological field and was starting to seep into public knowledge.

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This is why the feathered dinosaurs in Dominion are so important. The Jurassic franchise has been criticized for years for a persisting inaccurate portrayal, thus finally giving the audience the dinosaurs of the modern age they’ve been demanding is welcome. Furthermore, Dominion is once again returning to its roots of bringing the modern perception of dinosaurs to the public eye. Dinosaurs have long been classified as reptiles — the name itself means “terrible lizard.” And yet, as more knowledge comes to light, the less accurate that nomenclature is. Dinosaurs walked upright on straight legs as opposed to the splay-legged gait of reptiles. They have feathers — perhaps even fur or quills. Even during the ’90s, dinosaurs were being compared more closely to birds than lizards. In the first film, Dr. Grant draws many parallels between the Velociraptor skeleton the team found to a bird, from how the death rictus is the same to the hollow bones to the fact that “the word raptor means bird of prey.”

And thus, Dominion is challenging the persisting notion of dinosaurs being cold-blooded by portraying them in cold, snowy climates — the very sort of thing that shuts reptiles down and makes them tumble out of trees. Cold weather stunts the growth of reptiles, and yet, Blue appears with a baby raptor that is evidently several months old when compared to the baby raptor of the first franchise film. Reptiles slow down and enter hibernation when it’s cold, and yet, several different species of dinosaurs are shown not only moving about but moving about at speed, with the raptors and the Parasaurolophus running about snowy environments. Fur and feathers help to regulate temperature and are things no modern reptile has — yet, several dinosaurs and one pterosaur have these protective coatings.

In these cases, Dominion is going back to the roots the original Jurassic Park planted. By portraying dinosaurs as accurately as the current scientific perception can provide, they’re bringing that perception into the public eye just as the first film did. Dinosaurs possessing feathers is something that’s been confirmed repeatedly. Certain dinosaurs were thought to have lived in frozen climates. Many fossils have been discovered in Antarctica, to the point that Cryolophosaurus was named for this distinction, being a “cold-crested lizard.” Jurassic Park updated the public perception of dinosaurs from dim-witted, cold-blooded, belly-dragging lizards to upright, intelligent, fearsome, active creatures, and Dominion is poised to update the public perception yet again, perhaps making it a true successor to the first film’s legacy.

To see the updated takes on dinosaurs for yourself, Jurassic World: Dominion roars into theaters on June 10.

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About The Author Kelsey Dickson (124 Articles Published)

Dr. Kelsey Dickson is a writer and artist from Delaware. When she’s not actively engaged in creative media, she’s catering to the whims of her pets, who most likely run the house. Her degrees include a Bachelor’s in Game Art, a Master’s in Creative Writing, and a Doctorate in Online Education. She also spends a lot of time writing fanfiction, but we won’t hold that against her. You can find her on Tumblr where she contributes fanfiction, fan theories, and general chaos.

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