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Was the T. rex 'weak' in 'Jurassic World Dominion'? Colin Trevorrow defends our favorite dino
It wasn't weakness, it was revenge — 65 million years in the making.
Revenge...uh...finds a way. Writer-director Colin Trevorrow took to Twitter over the weekend to address a fan concern about the Tyrannosaurus (essentially the franchise mascot at this point) being made to "look weak" against Giganotosaurus in the climactic dinosaur battle of Jurassic World Dominion (now playing in theaters). Trevorrow stood firmly by the T. rex, citing the film's prologue sequence in which the Rex gets taken out by the largest land predator the world has ever known.
"Worth noting the T. rex had an average lifespan of 28 years, so our Rexy would be near the end of her life in Dominion," he explained. "Even at that age, she found the strength to rise up and avenge her own death, 65 million years later. Sometimes, revenge takes time."
Trevorrow also teamed up with The New York Times to break down the nail-biter of a scene in which Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) evades the feathered and long-clawed Therizinosaurus shortly after parachuting down into the Biosyn Valley.
"Bryce ... has evolved so much over the course of these films and has been the engine of the films, narratively, and yet, never really had even one sequence where it was just her alone with a dinosaur," the director said. "And certainly not one that leans into the suspense element of Jurassic Park; the very slow burn tension that that movie was so brilliant at throughout. So, I built this sequence that I felt would both showcase her as an actor — her absolute best long takes of horrified terrified — while also being able to collaborate with her as a director."
As for the design of the Therizinosaurus, the director and his creative team leaned heavily on "the paleontological record," but also took a few poetic liberties to "create something that was horrifying" and recalled the work of late great effects wizard, Stan Winston, who created the dinosaur animatronics on the original trilogy.
Watch the full breakdown below:
Jurassic World Dominion — which is now playing in theaters everywhere — has ruled the box office for two straight weeks.
