Jurassic Park: Dominion - Now With More Eating People

[Tyndmyr]

How do military forces factor into this equation, as well? Small things like velociraptors are smart enough to hide, and would be pretty hard to methodically hunt - but they cull wolves from helicopters these days, a real military with heavy firepower should be able to eliminate stuff like T-rexes as a viable population if they prove to be a civilization-threatening menace. Predator drones are a lot scarier than rifles and much harder for big lizards to retaliate against.

The military wins, and very easily. Not even the US military, pretty much any military on the planet can handle this. Third rate militias in Africa have killed off a lot of large predators almost accidentally.

Predators invariably need to hunt a decent proportion of the time to sustain themselves. The larger the predator, the stronger this effect. That's why big cats and other megapredators are largely either extinct or endangered now. They have far less ability to cope with prey shortages or population migrations than smaller predators with lower caloric needs. Plus, anything that big ends up with hibernation not really being viable(bear hibernation isn't true hibernation like that seen in small mammals for this reason) so hiding ends up being limited.

Most of the dinos we see are quite large, and have relatively low population numbers in the films. Even fairly light hunting would threaten them. In the real world, when populations dwindle to a couple of hundred, we usually consider them to be in danger. Genetic diversity is likely low, and even a handful of eliminated individuals can set the species in dire straits. Any population we see in any of the movies(with the possible exception of the pterodons in World) likely falls into this area.

Oceanic predators probably have more ability to hide. I *believe* we are only ever shown one of those, but if the humans in World made a breeding population of them in an act of monumental stupidity, they might be the hardest creature to hunt down. One would imagine that nobody sane would do this, but eh, the humans in this franchise playing god unwisely is sort of a theme.

[VoxRationis]

Considering the wide array of locations we saw in that trailer compared to the number of dinosaurs we know of that should still be kicking around in the setting I wonder if some less absurd version of that idea might be the plot here.

I believe it is; it probably ties into the scene where a group of men ensnare Blue's chick. To what end, I don't know; most purposes I can think of using cloned raptors for would be more cost-effectively served with an ordinary German shepherd and/or a guy with a rifle, a piece of logic that the previous movies have not yet grasped.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I *believe* we are only ever shown one of those, but if the humans in World made a breeding population of them in an act of monumental stupidity, they might be the hardest creature to hunt down.

I suspect they’re going to do like they did in Camp Cretaceous and make the dinosaurs asexual - this would also neatly explain why Blue’s baby looks just like her. Short of more idiots just cloning hundreds of dinos and purposely releasing them into the wild, this would also explain where all the extras came from when the last movie had at most two of any given species released onto the mainland.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

"Biggest carnivore the world has ever seen." Giganotosaurus extragiganticus?

Also, bigger than that mega-mosasaur of yours? Because that looked like a pretty big carnivore. I'm not sure piscivore still seems like a valid distinction if your main diet consists of whales and careless Indominus rexes.



I'm pleasantly surprised by the way that the title is in this one not false advertising, that looks like a properly Jurassified world.

[MCerberus]

The Jurassic Park franchise to me just feels kind of like how they don't know how to deliver the absolute fever dream they have in their minds and I don't think I'm seeing anything here to fix that.

The Jurassic World ending both shot the moon in terms of madness and made a specific promise about raising the stakes.
And they refuse to deliver the promise of fighting armies of mega-corp murder chimera using the power of inter-species friendship. I am a simple man, I simply want people to fight an army of mega-corp murder chimera using the power of inter-species friendship.

[GentlemanVoodoo]

Looks about as disappointing as what Fallen Kingdom was. Might see it in a few years when it comes to cable, but not going to pay full price for this.

[VoxRationis]

As far as invasiveness goes, I think Movie!Compsagnathus would probably be the biggest threat, as far as all the dinosaurs we've seen go. Small, fast, carnivorous, travel in groups, and capable of bringing down prey much larger than their individual body masses, these things would be a problem if a breeding population ever got themselves established in a vaguely wild area.

Maybe that's the point, though! I kind of want the antagonists to end up being a group who judge that we've just wasted all our chances at averting catastrophic global warming and so are trying to clone a biosphere from a warmer period. The heroes track them down to their lab and see vast cloning facilities churning out all the boring flora and fauna that InGen found DNA for but didn't think were worth cloning just for the sake of better decor in their theme park. They're just shotgunning species out into various places and seeing what sticks, hoping either there will develop ecosystems that humans can use to support society or that just something survives that's not jellyfish.

*Though truth be told, I think the compies don't really make sense as presented. We see (in Lost World) that they can overwhelm even adult male humans through numbers and viciousness, and in III, the stranded kid sees them and immediately recognizes them as a danger, implying that he's probably seen them successfully kill a dinosaur at least of similar size to him, but they're just so small and fragile that the actual mechanics of how that's supposed to happen don't quite follow. The creek scene in Lost World, where the mercenary is lying down and all the compies swarm him, is probably the best-case scenario as far as the compies' attack plan is concerned, but their mouths are so small that it would be difficult to inflict serious (rather than merely painful and annoying) damage, and all the mercenary would really have had to do was roll around as though he were trying to put out a fire in order to either kill his assailants or force them into a retreat.

[Mechalich]

As far as invasiveness goes, I think Movie!Compsagnathus would probably be the biggest threat, as far as all the dinosaurs we've seen go. Small, fast, carnivorous, travel in groups, and capable of bringing down prey much larger than their individual body masses, these things would be a problem if a breeding population ever got themselves established in a vaguely wild area.

Generally, among macroscale terrestrial animals, herbivores and omnivores are much more likely to be successful as invasive than carnivores. For example, the largest invasive animal of consequence is the Wild Boar. Several other mid-sized invasive vertebrates include Nutria and Raccoons. Carnivorous invasive of any significant size are rare and are mostly limited to snakes, such as the Burmese Python, which have very different metabolic requirements from any dinosaur.

The most likely dinosaur to get established would probably be a small grazer able to live off undergrowth plants like ferns, something like Hypsilophodon. Of course it would face competition from both existing mammals and birds. There's also the issue of vegetation differences. Mesozoic vegetation was nothing like today, with even the Late Cretaceous featuring only relatively primitive angiosperms. Many herbivorous dinosaurs would probably be incapable of surviving off modern vegetation.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

And they refuse to deliver the promise of fighting armies of mega-corp murder chimera using the power of inter-species friendship. I am a simple man, I simply want people to fight an army of mega-corp murder chimera using the power of inter-species friendship.

I would go see that movie.

Maybe that's the point, though! I kind of want the antagonists to end up being a group who judge that we've just wasted all our chances at averting catastrophic global warming and so are trying to clone a biosphere from a warmer period. The heroes track them down to their lab and see vast cloning facilities churning out all the boring flora and fauna that InGen found DNA for but didn't think were worth cloning just for the sake of better decor in their theme park. They're just shotgunning species out into various places and seeing what sticks, hoping either there will develop ecosystems that humans can use to support society or that just something survives that's not jellyfish.

I would happily see this one too.

*Though truth be told, I think the compies don't really make sense as presented. We see (in Lost World) that they can overwhelm even adult male humans through numbers and viciousness, and in III, the straxnded kid sees them and immediately recognizes them as a danger, implying that he's probably seen them successfully kill a dinosaur at least of similar size to him, but they're just so small and fragile that the actual mechanics of how that's supposed to happen don't quite follow. The creek scene in Lost World, where the mercenary is lying down and all the compies swarm him, is probably the best-case scenario as far as the compies' attack plan is concerned, but their mouths are so small that it would be difficult to inflict serious (rather than merely painful and annoying) damage, and all the mercenary would really have had to do was roll around as though he were trying to put out a fire in order to either kill his assailants or force them into a retreat.

I might be misremembering, but aren’t the compies venomous?

There's also the issue of vegetation differences. Mesozoic vegetation was nothing like today, with even the Late Cretaceous featuring only relatively primitive angiosperms. Many herbivorous dinosaurs would probably be incapable of surviving off modern vegetation.

If they were pure dinosaurs sure, but I would give reasonable odds somebody gene-spliced in something to make them capable of eating modern vegetation* back in the park days so they could just import cattle feed or something rather than spend a fortune cloning plants just to use as fodder.

*There was a lysine deficiency coded in, and Dr. Wu mentions that some of the Indominous’ extra powers came from stuff they spliced in for better adaptation to the climate, so this is definitely something they can do.

[Tyndmyr]

The Jurassic World ending both shot the moon in terms of madness and made a specific promise about raising the stakes.
And they refuse to deliver the promise of fighting armies of mega-corp murder chimera using the power of inter-species friendship. I am a simple man, I simply want people to fight an army of mega-corp murder chimera using the power of inter-species friendship.

I would go see that in a heartbeat.

Is it ridiculous? Perhaps a little. But not more than the justifications needed to explain why they keep bioengineering ever larger dinosaurs. Just embrace it. Have the US military fighting raptors in the streets of LA. Just full-on insanity.

[The Glyphstone]

I would go see that in a heartbeat.

Is it ridiculous? Perhaps a little. But not more than the justifications needed to explain why they keep bioengineering ever larger dinosaurs. Just embrace it. Have the US military fighting raptors in the streets of LA. Just full-on insanity.

Someone get The Asylum on this one, ASAP.

[Peelee]

As far as invasiveness goes, I think Movie!Compsagnathus would probably be the biggest threat, as far as all the dinosaurs we've seen go. Small, fast, carnivorous, travel in groups, and capable of bringing down prey much larger than their individual body masses, these things would be a problem if a breeding population ever got themselves established in a vaguely wild area.

Maybe that's the point, though! I kind of want the antagonists to end up being a group who judge that we've just wasted all our chances at averting catastrophic global warming and so are trying to clone a biosphere from a warmer period. The heroes track them down to their lab and see vast cloning facilities churning out all the boring flora and fauna that InGen found DNA for but didn't think were worth cloning just for the sake of better decor in their theme park. They're just shotgunning species out into various places and seeing what sticks, hoping either there will develop ecosystems that humans can use to support society or that just something survives that's not jellyfish.

*Though truth be told, I think the compies don't really make sense as presented. We see (in Lost World) that they can overwhelm even adult male humans through numbers and viciousness, and in III, the straxnded kid sees them and immediately recognizes them as a danger, implying that he's probably seen them successfully kill a dinosaur at least of similar size to him, but they're just so small and fragile that the actual mechanics of how that's supposed to happen don't quite follow. The creek scene in Lost World, where the mercenary is lying down and all the compies swarm him, is probably the best-case scenario as far as the compies' attack plan is concerned, but their mouths are so small that it would be difficult to inflict serious (rather than merely painful and annoying) damage, and all the mercenary would really have had to do was roll around as though he were trying to put out a fire in order to either kill his assailants or force them into a retreat.

You mean book compies, right? Because they had a soporific saliva that numbed their prey and effectively anesthetized them.

Also, movie compies weren't fragile - IIRC he kicked one and hit oen with a rock and they were still fine.

[VoxRationis]

I might be misremembering, but aren’t the compies venomous?

They are in the book, but I don't think the movies ever depict them as being so. Maybe there was a throwaway line in the last couple of movies that I missed, having seen those less often, but Lost World and III never showed their bites having any effect beyond just being bites, and nobody talked about their victims being poisoned (even the little girl at the start of Lost World, who managed to survive and get medical care that would have revealed envenomation, which is what happened in the book).

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Kareeah_Indaga
I might be misremembering, but aren’t the compies venomous?

Pretty sure this was mentioned in one of the movies, since I’m remembering this as well. Might have been a line from the Bob Bakker guy.

Originally Posted by Kareeah_Indaga
If they were pure dinosaurs sure, but I would give reasonable odds somebody gene-spliced in something to make them capable of eating modern vegetation* back in the park days so they could just import cattle feed or something rather than spend a fortune cloning plants just to use as fodder.

Almost certainly they did this, although we do know that the original Jurassic Park was cloning at least some of the original Cretaceous vegetation. It wasn’t explained in the movie, since the mosquito-in-amber approach wouldn’t work for plants, but they may have found something else to work with.

Originally Posted by MCerberus
I am a simple man, I simply want people to fight an army of mega-corp murder chimera using the power of inter-species friendship.

And eating corporate suits. You can’t have too many dinosaurs eating corporate suits.

.

[MCerberus]

I would go see that in a heartbeat.

Is it ridiculous? Perhaps a little. But not more than the justifications needed to explain why they keep bioengineering ever larger dinosaurs. Just embrace it. Have the US military fighting raptors in the streets of LA. Just full-on insanity.

We can't ignore the chimera part. That was a big part about the sequel teasing in World. We'd have raptors that spit venom and tiny swarms with thagomizers.

And eating corporate suits. You can’t have too many dinosaurs eating corporate suits.

And hopefully not the overworked secretary that really didn't deserve that.

[Peelee]

Pretty sure this was mentioned in one of the movies, since I’m remembering this as well. Might have been a line from the Bob Bakker guy.

I don't beleive it was but I could be mistaken.

[Lord Torath]

As others have said, compies were definitely venomous in the book Jurassic Park (that's how Hammond dies). I don't recall anything about that in the movies. I think Spielberg decided to make the dilophosaurus venomous instead.

[Squire Doodad]

On the invasive species analogy, it's worth noting that as most really big animals have been wiped out, most invasive species are smaller things like mussels or lionfish.
The best analogue would likely be the Burmese Python, which hits 12ish feet and can be a danger to inexperienced hunters. Those litter the southeastern US, especially in places like the Everglades, and are a massive pain to manage. Of course, you might not notice a snake is a specific kind of snake; it's pretty clear that a dinosaur is a dinosaur.
In other words, I think major predators like Allosaurus would be taken out without any trouble, but raptors and the like may become more...persistent. Plus, as mentioned, any deep-sea oceanic species would be far more difficult to handle, so the Sperm Whales would be on their own.


Regardless, the premise is completely ridiculous. I get that the last few years have decimated our willingness to believe a critical threat will be successfully handled by the government, but this is just big animals attacking things. If a horde of Tyrannosaurids are moving towards a city looking for food (doubtful but let it happen anyways), you could easily have the population evacuated and some variety of drone strikes or heavy weaponry being used to take them out before they step foot in the outskirts. And with the limited amount of dinosaurs, any notable quantity can be reported and eliminated with ease. I would not be surprised if a Dinosaur Help Line would have opened up within a week of Fallen Kingdom.
A very good point was made earlier - Jurassic Park as a concept works very well with an assortment of lightly armed civilians, but when you're out in the open with the full world being "attacked", that means you have militaries getting involved. And even if pistols and normal rifles aren't able to take on a dinosaur, the big guns definitely can.



Unrelated, I have no clue how these dinosaurs are even getting anywhere, they're not that fast. I can excuse that they're migrating until they find an environment they like, but they still have limits on their top speed.

[VoxRationis]

Unrelated, I have no clue how these dinosaurs are even getting anywhere, they're not that fast. I can excuse that they're migrating until they find an environment they like, but they still have limits on their top speed.

We see only a few distinct regions in the trailer so far; of these, most seem to be in western North America, not that far from the point of release somewhere in northern California. The main exception to this appears to be a city in Italy or thereabouts and is definitely (considering the scene where some pen doors open and release a bunch of raptors into a room) associated with human agents who have transported the dinosaurs there for some unknown purpose. If we assume a year or more has passed between movies, it's not particularly unbelievable.

All in all, though the last scene in the last movie and the marketing associated with this movie are all trying to steer viewers towards the idea of it being some worldwide crisis, I think what we see in these trailers suggests that the plot of the movie will revolve around a much more localized issue, with the "doomsday clock" reference in the trailer being metaphorical.

[Dire_Flumph]

Pretty sure this was mentioned in one of the movies, since I’m remembering this as well. Might have been a line from the Bob Bakker guy.

No, the only on screen quote confirming the Compsognathus being venomous is from the animated Camp Cretaceous series. None of the movies state it on screen, though I think it's the easiest way to interpret what happens to Dieter in Lost World.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

The most likely dinosaur to get established would probably be a small grazer able to live off undergrowth plants like ferns, something like Hypsilophodon. Of course it would face competition from both existing mammals and birds.

You could also make a case for animals that fill (somewhat) different niches than present day animals, precisely because of the competition. Ones birds evolved there were still pretosaurs. The small forest dwelling species disappeared, because birds are more suited for that role, but large gliders with perhaps more albatros or vulture like lifestyles kept going. There might be room for them to reclaim those spots now (if they aren't getting shot down by humans, they seem like kind of obvious targets). Similarly there might be room for some really large grazers, that not only have nothing to fear from wolves and lions and bears, but not from the rampaging theropods either, or from the current mammalian attempts at filling this role, like elephants. That is, if they aren't getting shot down by humans, they seem like kind of obvious targets. When North and South America connected both the invasive raccoons and the native tree sloths kept existing in South America, because they have different roles in the ecosystem. Lots of dinosaurs might be able to succeed in similar "not quite the same role as something that is already here" positions. Of course, that is only if the humans don't shoot them all down, most of the species in Jurassic Park seem like pretty obvious targets...

If they made a dinosaur that's the size of a rat, that burrows in river banks and dikes and that for some reason tastes awful to all present day predators, that's the one I'm supporting. Those tend to be the invasive species that have the most success around here.

[hamishspence]

If they made a dinosaur that's the size of a rat, that burrows in river banks and dikes and that for some reason tastes awful to all present day predators, that's the one I'm supporting. Those tend to be the invasive species that have the most success around here.

Compys maybe? I don't know if we ever see them burrow, but in the novel they were the "troublemaking escapees" which had actually gotten off the island and into the local ecosystem some time before Grant, Ellie, and Malcolm went there.

As others have said, compies were definitely venomous in the book Jurassic Park (that's how Hammond dies). I don't recall anything about that in the movies. I think Spielberg decided to make the dilophosaurus venomous instead.

Dilophs were already poison-spitters in the book.

[Mechalich]

You could also make a case for animals that fill (somewhat) different niches than present day animals, precisely because of the competition. Ones birds evolved there were still pretosaurs. The small forest dwelling species disappeared, because birds are more suited for that role, but large gliders with perhaps more albatros or vulture like lifestyles kept going. There might be room for them to reclaim those spots now (if they aren't getting shot down by humans, they seem like kind of obvious targets). Similarly there might be room for some really large grazers, that not only have nothing to fear from wolves and lions and bears, but not from the rampaging theropods either, or from the current mammalian attempts at filling this role, like elephants. That is, if they aren't getting shot down by humans, they seem like kind of obvious targets. When North and South America connected both the invasive raccoons and the native tree sloths kept existing in South America, because they have different roles in the ecosystem. Lots of dinosaurs might be able to succeed in similar "not quite the same role as something that is already here" positions. Of course, that is only if the humans don't shoot them all down, most of the species in Jurassic Park seem like pretty obvious targets...

Well, there's the habitat loss problem too. It's pretty hard to find a member of the large terrestrial megafauna whose numbers are increasing these days (most of the big 'back from the brink' success stories are at least semi-aquatic, like alligators). Even without active human intervention, the whole 'Jurassic World' premise is that these escaped dinosaurs will drastically outcompete existing mammals and rapidly increase their numbers in opposition to all existing trends. I guess the idea is that they'll feed on humans or livestock but, uh, the chances of not having huge numbers of people go after them with guns from helicopters is zero in that scenario.

[Peelee]

As others have said, compies were definitely venomous in the book Jurassic Park (that's how Hammond dies). I don't recall anything about that in the movies. I think Spielberg decided to make the dilophosaurus venomous instead.

Dilophosaurs were venomous in the book as well. Different venom, though. They spit and blinded while compiles had a more numbing effect. Nedry felt the dilophosaur eating him alive, Hammond didn't really feel the compiles eating him alive (before he fell asleep).

[Grim Portent]

Isn't there a thing where the dinos grow faster than normal as well? Not Indominus fast, but still faster than they should? If so that would harm the ability of dinosaurs to integrate into any ecosystem, even the ones they originally came from.

Rapid growth is all well and good for a species that evolved it, they presumably hit the limits of how fast they can based on the amount of food they can get in their environment. InGen's abominations weren't limited by the same problem, it didn't matter to them if a raptor would be physically unable to hunt enough to feed their young during it's accelerated growth because they were being fed by humans. Take away the humans shoring up the young dinos' dietary needs and I can't imagine any of the carnivores* would be able to compensate, so their young should be starving to death rather than growing up while the parents break their backs trying to hunt constantly.**


*Herbivores and some omnivores can in theory just eat more or less constantly, as their access to food isn't linked to their ability to catch it. At least until they eat everything they can digest in an area and start starving to death.

**This occasionally happens with modern day animals that care for their young, it's not unusual for birds that can't find or catch enough food for their young and themselves to work themselves to death unless they abandon their chicks.

[Lord Torath]

Dilophosaurs were venomous in the book as well. Different venom, though. They spit and blinded while compiles had a more numbing effect. Nedry felt the dilophosaur eating him alive, Hammond didn't really feel the compiles eating him alive (before he fell asleep).

Fair enough. It's been... dang, nearly 30 years since I read that. (Stop making me feel old, life!)