Where next for the Jurassic Park movies?

Which creative direction would you take one of the most successful movie franchises of all time? Apparently, I would start by desaturating it of all colour. Read on to find out more.

To the surprise of no-one, the mega-successful, $1.5 billion box office juggernaut Jurassic World is getting a sequel. If you’re part of the broader contingent who thought the film was silly fun, that’s probably good news. If, like me, you thought the film was lacking in some areas, you may be less excited. Regardless, speculation is now rife about what the film will cover, and where it will pick up the sequel-bait left dangling at the end of the last film. Despite being less than bowled over with the Jurassic World, 22 years of investment in the franchise and obvious interest in the palaeo-theme of the series means I’m still curious about where this franchise goes. I’ve been involved in a lot of Jurassic World dissections online as well as with real human beings, throwing ideas around for what might work in another Jurassic instalment, as well as what could be maintained or improved on from the other films. The process has led to a lot of ideas and even some rough pictures which I thought I’d share here. Note this post contains mild spoilers for Jurassic World. 

Where the series stands

Any opinion about the future of a series is reliant on opinions of the existing products. Hence, it seems sensible to provide some context on where I think the Jurassic films stand before delving into ideas for new films. From conversations with others and reading lots of reviews, I get the feeling that my view is similar to many others: the Jurassic films are very samey, the sequels aren’t especially well structured, and the franchise needs fresh ideas. 

Let’s unpack that a bit. All four films have the same setting (tropical island theme parks which go wrong, or tropical islands where things have already gone wrong), similar characters (kids, a grumpy/cynical lead, a corporate scumbag, a romantic couple of two headstrong individuals) and the same major scenes (the ‘giant dinosaur vs. vehicle attack, which strands victims from civilisation’ scene, a Velociraptor chase, a panning shot of glorious dinosaurs in harmony with nature, exploring abandoned/ruined buildings etc.). Similarly, by at most the 50% run time mark, each film becomes the same 'chased by dinosaurs' skit. Even the new elements brought in for Jurassic World – dinosaur hybrids (we’ll get to those in a moment) – didn’t alter this: the role Indominus was interchangeable with that of the Tyrannosaurus or Spinosaurus from the previous movies. 

This repetition might stem from knowing what has pleased audiences in the past, but perhaps also the limited narrative scope available to the Jurassic films. Those elements more-or-less define the franchise, and jettisoning them risks losing much of what we identify with the brand. This is probably why the original Jurassic sequels were just the first film without the theme park-backdrop, and why Jurassic World was basically a ‘reimagined’ version of the original. All three follow-ups are extremely conservative from a creative perspective, mostly trading on nostalgia for the first film. It might be argued that this inability to move out of the shadow of the original might indicate Jurassic Park was better left as a contained, single story. I think there's some truth to that, but, whatever, the sequels are happening. It’s clear that avoiding/escaping (chose your own words there) sequel mediocrity is reliant on creativity being shot into the franchise in the form of a new direction or focus, or maybe even a genre transition. I'd wager that the success of the franchise relies on the next film pulling this off.

The right plot, and right level of complexity, is also important for the next film, because the last three movies have each had real issues with these. The first two sequels were seemingly bored and uninterested in their own story (The Lost World) or so underwritten that they seemed to just run out of ideas (Jurassic Park III). Jurassic World, by contrast, had enough going on to fill two or three films. The result was the same as being underwritten: poor characterisation, a loss of atmosphere and tension, and plot devices straining to get the story running. As an example, look at how brief and daft the release of hyper-dangerous Indominus was: folks who’ve watched this animal grow up are shocked they can no longer see her (so she waited years to do her camouflage tricks?); trained experts don’t check for basic equipment faults before waltzing into her pen without any concern or protection; trained experts get scared; trained experts open her cage door, allowing her to escape. Compare that to the original, where the very threat dangerous animals escaping is a key issue, built up over a long period of time. There's discussion from characters, establishment of the level of security across the island, introduction of important location, the animals are teased, and their escape is revealed via tense, iconic scenes. Jurassic World raced through this important, potentially dramatic story point so quickly and nonsensically that it had no weight or impact, as it did for virtually all other potentially interesting scenes, because there was so much else to cram in. Jurassic sequel plots are either too simple, or too crowded. 

There is evidence that the Jurassic series recognises that it has issues with repetition, Jurassic World effectively rebooting the series to take the story off elsewhere. I must admit to not liking the direction being hinted at now - militarised dinosaurs, weaponised hybrids and so on – and hope they abandon them for the next film. To me, this is the least interesting direction this franchise can take, it being both a recognised story cliché as well as promising little more than extended CGI dinosaur battle sequences no more interesting than watching someone play a video game. 

And we already have lots of palaeoart which does that for us.

We're already at saturation point for movies like that, and despite their box office success, their appeal is not universal. I find it odd that we were all laughing at those abandoned human-dinosaur hybrid concepts for the fourth Jurassic film – but what Jurassic World hinted at isn’t a million miles off that. I'm sure there are lots of interesting ideas that could be explored without turning this franchise into live action Dino Riders.

All that said, if that's where I think we stand with this franchise, where do we go next?

Introduce a genuinely new fossil species: our own ancestors

Movie algebra dictates that primitive humans + dinosaurs + modern day setting = vehicular mayhem. 

The last two Jurassic movies have tried to add novelty by introducing new dinosaurs. The problem with this is that dinosaurs, as antagonists, only offer slight variations on a theme. So how about introducing something really different: put fossil human species into the films. I’m thinking specifically of early Homo species here: things with obvious anatomical differences to modern humans, but also similar enough that they could be played equally for eeriness or sympathy. This seems like such ripe ground for storytelling, and could be framed as a publicity seeking exercise in a park setting (museum exhibitions of our own fossil history are pretty popular after all, and apes are often 'star animals' of zoos) or as a nefarious means to have human-like subjects for commercial or scientific exploitation.

The social and ethical issues of creating, caging and exploiting very human-like species make for numerous interesting points of discussion and impetus for plot developments. Where is the line between caging an animal and a person? What rights do stem-humans have? What rights do artificially-created stem humans have? How would people react to seeing their own recent ancestry behind glass and fences? Is it right to use our close relatives for entertainment, and if not, where is the line between them and other animals? What I like about this concept is that strong messages can be implied with subtlety – even the design of human enclosures would be meaningful - allowing for an adventure story to play out with layers of subtext beneath. Our ancestors would also add a whole new dynamic to the franchise as antagonists, being resourceful, tool-using, intelligent and emotional adversaries. It’s easy to imagine how an escaped ‘movieised’ stem-human could really put a spanner in the works any smoothly running facility. From a filmmaking perspective, we could see this as bringing classic components of classic dinosaur b-movies (cavemen) to modern audiences, and minus the cheesiness associated with those characters: fur bikinis, grunting language and so forth. 

Do the ‘hybrid species’ thing properly

It was almost a given that the lacklustre design of the Jurassic World hybrid species will be brought up here, but for good reason: it was a huge missed opportunity. I know Indominus has defenders, but the design is just so uninspired and the potential wasted. For anyone familiar with palaeoart, Indominus is just an animated version of John Sibbick’s 1985 Allosaurus restoration, whitened and with spikes. For movie goers, the hyped abilities of the animal were pointless outside of two scenes, and pretty redundant even there. As is well known by now, artist Brian Engh launched the #BuildaBetterFakeTheropod Twitter campaign as a response to the dull design of Indominus, encouraging artists to upload more interesting concepts for a genetically modified dinosaur. What a treasure trove of ideas that turned out to be! There’s several images there which could be key drawings to launch whole movies. If you've not checked it out yet, go and take a look now. I can wait.

A 25 m long, pseudotoothed beastie with prehensile feet. It kills SUVs for sport.

What is readily apparent from these works is that there's real horror potential in the Jurassic films: it’s actually pretty easy to make a creepy, scary dinosaur antagonist, even if you just blend elements of modern and fossil theropods. Keep those guys off camera for as long as possible, shoot them in the dark and shadows, and we could have a movie full of scares akin to tenser scenes from the first Jurassic movie. If we’re after a genre shift, a Jurassic film akin to Aliens (which the last film already nods to) might be neat: a siege movie where the hybrid creatures are scary, rarely glimpsed, powerful and barely understood by the film’s characters. Or a film where human characters, lost in some wilderness, simply have to survive being followed and hunted by weird, dinosaur-like creatures while they search for rescue. There’s potential for some interesting character-led films there, the protagonists stewing in an increasingly tense, hopeless situation as strange-looking animals close in. Push that 12A/PG-13 rating to its limit!

"Say, did you remember to flick the gene for determinate growth?" "...whoops."

If not horror, then why not use the hybrids is to enter ‘classic’ monster movie territory? Make the creatures really outlandish and huge, ala those of 50s B-movies, and more like unleashing a natural disaster than a rouge animal. This was the idea behind the #BuildaBetterFakeTheropod entry above, which is a play on hyperbole already associated with dinosaurs as the 'biggest animals ever'. Well, this hybrid is quite literally the biggest animal ever: it makes blue whales look as impressive as tinned sardines. There’s enough movies out there about giant creatures aggressively attacking cities and towns however, so my suggestion would be to make such a creature sympathetic, more King Kong than Pacific Rim. Make it a freak loner, very much an animal in behaviour and attitudes, and persecuted for causing problems by simply existing: eating other dinosaurs to sustain itself (sauropods seem like ideal snacks for this thing) and causing masses of damage whenever it travels across built up areas. In doing so, there’s fun to be had with other species escaping just because this thing trod on an enclosure fence. A tragic ending is, of course, a must for this creature. 

I like the potential for exploring accountability from the Jurassic scientists with this one, real old-school ‘man has gone too far’ stuff, especially given the commercial drive underlying hybrid production in the last film. Some of this was alluded to in Jurassic World when the keeping of Indominus in isolation was discussed: the undercurrent was that scientists made an animal, then made a monster by treating it terribly. This theme was rapidly forgotten (and, indeed, contradicted later on: for an animal supposedly brought up in isolation and with no idea of its own identity, it could identify and communicate with Velociraptor pretty instantaneously…) but, as a seed of an idea, it’s a good one, and may warrant exploration in another film. Needless to say, there's plenty of scope here for spectacle as a giant theropod smashes its way around, as well as for exploration of themes about exploitation of science and nature in pursuit of profit.

Give some dinosaurs actual character, other than roary videogame protagonists

It's a bit like Born Free, but with more Awesomebro potential.

Another new element of Jurassic World was that some dinosaurs were actual characters, with names, motives and everything. Well, I say ‘motives’: like all characters in Jurassic World, their actions were dictated more by plot contrivances than personality. Still, though I expected to dislike all the Velociraptor wrangling stuff, the first few scenes of it showed more potential than I anticipated. I disliked the stuff later on because it just got silly – the motorcycle thing, the Velociraptor/Tyrannosaurus tag team – but a movie which explored that relationship in more depth, and then tested it in a way other than just fighting other dinosaurs, could be interesting. 

Such a story would need to spend more time establishing the dynamics of human/dinosaur interactions than the latest movie, but that needn’t be done in a boring way: Rise of the Planet of the Apes showed how summer blockbusters can work cross-species sci-fi dramas into fast moving stories with big climaxes. We’d need to show Velociraptor as more than just a perpetually roaring, biting machine, and see evidence of intelligence other than that pertaining to finding and killing. We’d also need to feel that it was vulnerable, and thus unlike the other Jurassic films where there’s no consistency to animal mortality (i.e. we see the same injuries happening to different animals, but only some are hurt because of plot demands). I can’t see this forming the focus of a whole movie, but as a concept, I think more could be done with it. Bonus points to the filmmakers if they make a sympathetic, believable dinosaur character, and then have it die at the end, perhaps when rescuing a small boy from a well or barn fire. We could call it Velassieraptors.

Finally, Hollywood knows de-extinction is a real thing, right?

Jurassic World 2: sauropods vs. ecological destabilisation. "The race is ON."

One of the questions commonly asked of palaeontologists is whether cloning extinct animals is ever going to happen. Since the original film, the answer to that has gone from a straight ‘no’ to a ‘well, actually people are genuinely trying to resurrect some recently extinct species’. The core sci-fi concept of the Jurassic films is now reality in the form of de-extinction, and the related idea of rewilding (recreating extinct ecosystems using extant animals, or clones of extinct animals, typically for the purpose of stabilising dynamics of ecosystem or certain habitats). Both are genuine areas of research and discussion, as well as no small amount of controversy. 

A lot of discussions around de-extinction involve the nitty-gritty of reconstructing genetic material (it seems to be extremely difficult to do, even with recently-extinct species), which probably wouldn't transfer that well to film. But both de-extinction and rewilding have pragmatic and ethical issues which are relevant to the Jurassic films. What do you actually do with a resurrected species, other than keep it in a zoo? Let it roam wild somewhere? How many individuals should you make? Who, or what, raises them to adulthood and teaches them how to be whatever they’re meant to be? Who is accountable for the wellbeing of an ‘artificial’ animal? Shouldn’t we be putting these efforts into saving extant species more than resurrected ones? What impact will releasing cloned animals have on existing ecosystems? How precisely do we control and manage these artificial ecosystems?

Bringing some of these to the fore might make for an interesting movie. What do you do with islands overrun with long extinct species? Odds are, most of them will die in the absence of artificially-supplied food sources, so who’s going to step in to sort that out? Should some animals be moved elsewhere to balance out their populations? Could animals be grown and engineered to rewild parts of the world in need of ecologically-stabilising, long-extinct large animals? (That's not hypothetical: such schemes are being proposed and trialled, for real, in many places across the Northern Hemisphere.) Again, there seems to be a wealth of scenarios and stories in those questions, and lots of scope for adventure: rounding up and figuring out what to do with free-roaming dinosaurs, the creation of a ‘Jurassic nature reserve’, moving and introducing dinosaurs into new places and habitats, protecting them from evil poaching types, keeping fledging ecosystems in balance… Lots of cool stuff.

Most importantly, it's not lost on me that this concept lends itself well to another touchstone of dinosaur fiction and film - freakin' dinosaur-wrangling cowboys. A film which gets to introduce the complexity of cutting edge, controversial conservation issues and features people rounding up dinosaurs on horseback? There’s not a single part of my brain that doesn’t like the sound of that. It could be like Valley of Gwangi but, you know… good when the dinosaurs aren’t on screen. 

OK, that’s my lot. Hollywood, I’m waiting by the phone. Any Jurassic movie ideas of your own? The comment field is below...

The Mysterious Mysteries of Feather Resistance

Three feathered dinosaurs: the famous dromaeosaurid Velociraptor mongoliensis chases a juvenile oviraptorosaur, Citipati osmolskae. The parent of the latter tries to intervene. Prints of this image are available.

So, the Jurassic Park 4 'No Feathers' controversy has continued to roll across the Internet, spilling out from the palaeo blogosphere (notable articles here and here) into mainstream media such as New Scientist, The Telegraph and the New Zealand Herald. As might be expected from such wide coverage, there are a lot of differing opinions about the decision to keep JP4's dinosaurs entirely scaly. As we all know, this decision is at odds with overwhelming evidence that all manner of coelurosaurian theropods, and possibly many other dinosaur species, were feathered. Although much about the film itself remains mysterious, it's director, Colin Trevorrow, has allegedly confirmed his tweet with another tidbit of info about the lack of feathers in the movie. The source for this confirmation has yet to be verified, but if he has, my hopes that the producers may be looking to the Internet to gauge reaction to the idea of feathery dinosaurs were in vain.

But I don't want to talk about that
To me, the most surprising aspect of the discussions over JP4's 'No Feathers' has been the commonality of argument from some contributors. Specifically, there is a body of people who seem to strongly dislike the idea of feathery dinosaurs. We're not talking about people ignorant of fossil evidence indicating that feathered Mesozoic dinosaurs were as real as blue sky and gravity, but those people who personally prefer their dinosaurs scaly, irrespective of fossil evidence. Interestingly, these individuals almost always bring up the same reasoning.

1. Feathered dinosaurs look stupid
2. [linking to some awful tarred-and-feathered reconstruction] "Do we want dinosaurs to look like this?"
3. Feathered dinosaurs aren't scary
4. Feathered dinosaurs look like giant turkeys/chickens/parrots!
5. Feathers equate to bright colours and lurid display structures

I've been wondering if the similarity of these comments suggests a common cause. If there is, it's clearly not informed by modern depictions of feathered dinosaurs. The feathered dinosaurs depicted at the top of this post are pretty typical of modern reconstructions: whether they look stupid or scary is a matter of opinion, but we can at certainly agree that neither is brightly coloured, chaotically feathered, or resembles a parrot. If this is a typical modern representation of feathered Mesozoic dinosaurs, where are the animals suggested by the 'Feather Resistance' resistance coming from? What is the source of these common comments, and, more broadly, why are a number of people still so adverse to the notion of feathered dinosaurs?

Soft touch
Let's start with a possible root cause for Feather Resistance, from deep within the popular characterisation of dinosaurs. Moreso than any other extinct species, dinosaurs are depicted as hardcore 'superanimals'. Ancient, real-world dragons that lived in a turbulent and violent world of volcanoes, sparse, sharp-leaved vegetation and perpetually-hungry predators. We get the impression that our modern fauna wouldn't last two minutes in this time of voracious killer reptiles. If popular depictions of dinosaurs are anything to go by, they were only vulnerable to two things: other dinosaurs, and giant rocks from space. Modern animals, by contrast, struggle when someone redirects a river or we build a new supermarket. Dinosaurs could not only take that, and they'd eat your mother just for suggesting otherwise.

With this in mind, it makes total sense for dinosaurs to have scaly hides. Scales provide tough armour plating. They wrap every dinosaur, big or small, in biker leathers and reinforce their status as the hardcore mofos we expect them to be. This is why we're secretly glad that some dinosaurs are extinct: their enormous power and resilience would be a terrifying force if unleashed in our modern, tranquil world.

Fossil of the feathered therizinosaur Beipiaosaurus, borrowed from here. Note that, like Sinornithosaurus, below, this fossil shows very avian-like feather contours around the neck.

The suggestion from stupid-old scientific evidence that we need to swap the armour and scales of some dinosaurs for soft, strokeable feathers just doesn't sit right with this interpretation. In fact, it undermines the popular concept of Dinosaur Awesomeness, big time. Feathered hides aren't about protection from teeth and claws, but instead lame things like keeping warm, camouflage, display and perhaps locomotion. The sort of things that real animals are concerned with, but that make-believe fantasy animals aren't. Feathers make dinosaurs seem more vulnerable, which makes them harder to idolise and fear. The fantastic interpretation of dinosaurs is alluring to many, while the reality is, by necessity, somewhat less fantastic.

Compounding this perceived loss of awesomeness is the removal of mystery surrounding dinosaurs: their feathered hides make them a lot more familiar to our eyes. Scaly, bipedal theropods are unusual to us: "they look a bit like birds, but they're kind of reptilian". By contrast, feathery theropods, and large fuzzy animals generally, are well known to all, and many modern birds probably look very similar to their extinct, non-avian ancestors. More convincing reconstructions of feathered maniraptorans converge with animals like roadrunners, emus and corvids so much so that they could be mistaken for these modern species at casual glances. Suddenly, most of their mystery is gone. A lot of the appeal with dinosaurs concerns the many unanswered questions we have about their lives and appearance, but if these can be answered - even if only roughly - by pointing at a modern animal, then we'll have satisfied the curiosity of many casual interests in extinct life. Adding feathers doesn't just replace mythical dinosaur badassery with boring-old reality then, but also makes dinosaurs more familiar, and thus more 'boring' to some eyes.

But don't we make all of this up, anyway?
Moving away from imaginary concepts of  dinosaurs towards efforts to reconstruct them in art, we may encounter our second factor in Feather Resistance: a lack of awareness about the fossil evidence used to constrain reconstructions of extinct species. A lot of folks seem to think that palaeontologists and palaeoartists make up dinosaur appearance as they go along, perhaps with a few scraps of evidence to point them in the right direction, but otherwise work within almost limitless possibilities. In such a scenario, personal choice about attributes like integument would play a large role. Of course, this could not be further from the truth. A good palaeoartist reconstructs extinct animals as rigorously as possible, with as much information as possible, using increasingly good fossil data and phylogenetic analyses to inform animal proportions, musculature, integuments, environments and behaviour. A lot of folks would be very surprised at how much data can be obtained from one fossil nowadays, and how much of that can be used to inform a reconstruction. It doesn't seem unfair to say that our dinosaur knowledge is advanced enough now that we can make some inferences about the integument possibilities for most major groups, so there's normally good reason behind the choice for scales, quills and feathers on different dinosaur reconstructions. Much of this work is probably unknown to much of the public, however, who may think that feathers are just fashionable possibilities in a sea of poorly-constrained, speculative artworks.

The learning curve
The points made above may not matter so much, however, if dinosaur PR had convinced us that feathered dinosaurs were still cool, even in their new threads. The need for reconstructing extensive feathering on at least some non-avian theropods became inescapable in the mid-nineties thanks to discoveries of Chinese dinosaur fossils surrounded by fuzzy halos of feathers. As such, feathered dinosaurs have been a mainstay of palaeoart for around 15 years at least. With hindsight, I think we can say that it has taken a little practise to produce convincing-looking reconstructions of these animals. I'll go so far to say that many of the first reconstructions of feathered non-avian theropods were pretty awful, and certainly not reflective of the integument details preserved in the then-new Chinese fossils. Clinging to the once-fashionable concept of shrink-wrapping, many depictions of dromaeosaurs sported lank, greasy-looking feathers draped over painfully skinny bodies, while others wore veritable explosions of fibres and fluff; big, shaggy masses of feathers that drowned the contours of the animals beneath them. Something of a halfway house between these extremes was struck when patches or rows of feathers were set across a primarily scaly body. Interestingly, whichever of these three approaches was used, dinosaur heads were frequently left scaly, despite good evidence that they shouldn't be (check out the feathers on the face of the fossil below, for instance).

Sinornithosaurus, one of the first dromaeosaur fossils known to show extensive feathering across its entire body. Note the very avian-like feather contours around the neck and the feathers adorning the snout. Image borrowed from here.

Irrespective of the technical skill involved, many of these illustrations produced pretty goofy-looking, almost cartoony animals. It doesn't help, of course, that many palaeoartists insisted - and still do - on portraying Mesozoic reptiles in perspective-heavy, hyperferocious postures, leaping or running towards the viewer with mouths agape, teeth exposed and arms outstretched. The garish colour schemes of many reconstructions didn't help, either. The result was an Internet awash with downright weird and freakish feathered theropods, many of which still float about today or are being perpetually copied by illustrators under the impression that they represent plausible models of dinosaur appearance.

With this in mind, it's not surprising that many laymen think that feathered theropods look silly. Many of the more memorable and longest-lived reconstructions of them are, and perhaps these are what most folks think of when the words 'feathered dinosaur' come to mind. Scaly theropods undeniably looked more intuitively plausible, not to mention more aesthetically pleasing, than a lot of the weird imagery once thrown about by palaeoartists. A definitive move away from this craziness can be seen in more recent works, resulting in much more convincing depictions of feathered Mesozoic theropods (check out those by Emily Willoughby, John Conway and Julius Csotonyi for examples). These chaps have clearly gone back to the fossil data, looked at the mechanics and proportions of feathers in modern birds and abandoned overly-dynamic poses to recreate feathered dinosaurs which look like genuine, real animals. Unfortunately, displacing the prevalence of earlier, zanier reconstructions of feathered theropods with more plausible models may not be easy, even with these new artworks. By necessity, the newer, more realistic restorations of feathered dinosaurs are more subdued and muted than the crazier reconstructions that preceded them, so may not make comparable impressions in public minds. Even if these new styles of feathered theropod reconstruction become the norm, we may find it hard to step out of the oddly-shaped shadow set by earlier restorations of feathered theropods.

Playing chicken
The freakishness of some feathered theropod reconstructions may explain why some folks immediately imagine giant, outlandishly dressed birds - parrots, turkeys and the like - when feathered dinosaurs are mentioned. A lot of those brightly coloured reconstructions do resemble these birds more than any others, and their overly dynamic, unusual postures only strengthen these comparisons to birds considered to be a little dim (poultry) or capable of silly behaviours (parrots). I wonder if we could go as far to say that, when used with tight shrink wrapping, the sparse feathering of some reconstructions are also reminiscent of  plucked bird carcasses seen in supermarkets? Either way, although palaeontologists may argue that raptors, ratites and shoebills are ideal kindling for imagining Mesozoic animals, these animals may not have been invoked enough in widely-seen reconstructions to have shaped public imagination. And of course, imagining giant chickens instead of giant birds of prey contributes further to the undermining of dinosaurs as creatures to be idolised and feared.

Real dinosaurs vs. celebrity dinosaurs
Much of what we've covered here could be summed up as a bit of a PR fumble for feathered theropods, and it may seem that a concerted effort by artists and scientists could sway public opinion in coming years. This could be the case, but it will be a bit of an uphill struggle. A century of popular dinosaur books, movies and documentaries have cemented the appearance of some species so solidly that, for some, they have become definitive, final versions. This contrasts markedly with the way that palaeoart traditionally works. Our reconstructions vary with developments in scientific thinking, palaeoartistic fashions and with the individual flourishes of different artists, so it's hard to crystallise definitive concepts of given species. But a popular film, TV programme or book can set the appearance and behaviour of its creatures by making them cool, memorable and iconic, and then spawn a host of imitators which solidify the mould further.

The quill knobs on the ulna of Velociraptor, betraying the presence of large, vaned feathers along its forearms. Image borrowed from here.

Of course, the catalyst for this post, the Jurassic Park franchise, is particularly liable here. The JP Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor have become well-known movie characters, with expected behaviours and appearances for not just Jurassic Park but any mention of them in other media. Tyrannosaurus is typeset as an unstoppable tank of a dinosaur with an armour-piercing bite. Velociraptor is forever a man sized, cunning hunter. Both have transcended their status as actual animals to share ranks with Pinhead, Dracula and Freddy Kruger. We know how to recognise them and what they're going to do in a given scenario. As with any iconic character, suggested changes to their well-loved formulas are not welcomed. Fans are instinctively wary of change to these animals as they are with alterations to any characters of a major franchise. The fickleness of some fans is mind blowing: remember the ridiculous backlash to Daniel Craig taking over the James Bond mantle because, among other reasons, he has blonde hair?

The upshot of these attitudes is that palaeontologists hoping to make feathery theropods popular have to win over fans of recognisable and marketable characters. This includes convincing television and movie producers that feathery reconstructions are not only more credible, but also as marketable as scaly variants. We have to remember that fans of dinosaur franchises constitute a much greater revenue source than those with interests in credible portrayal of palaeontological science, and they therefore hold a lot more sway with media production companies than scientists ever will. This is where the points made above combine to a critical mass: the push for wider depiction of feathered dinosaurs is being perceived through shonky reconstructions, with a public largely naive to recent palaeontological discoveries, and argues for the removal of perceived awesomeness from well known and loved 'characters'. Palaeontologists singing the praises of feathers are being greeted with the same warmth as someone suggesting that we swap the head of Geiger's Alien creature with that of Alf, or that the next Terminator assassin would look better in a turtle neck and slacks instead of biker leathers.

So, where does this leave us?
The irony of so much Feather Resistance being exposed in the light of Jurassic Park 4 is that a major movie featuring well-rendered, plausible reconstructions of feathered dinosaurs could silence a lot of feather critics. This needs to happen eventually. Feathered Mesozoic dinosaurs are fact. Feathered coelurosaurs, the dinosaurs people are interested beyond all others, are fact. Products and people that do not embrace this are at least 20 years out of date, and, so far as I can see, there is no good reason for staying so far behind the times. Naive concepts of dinosaurs and their world, ignorance of palaeoartistic methods, a dislike of change and the fumbling of early attempts to bring feathered dinosaurs to life are poor reasons to keep popular depictions of dinosaurs decades out of date. How long will it take for people to relinquish the idea that their favourite dinosaurs were scaly, fantastic dragons and accept them, and their feathers, for what they actually were?

The 'no feathers' Jurassic Park tweet: statement of intent, or simply ruffling feathers?

No surprise about what this post will cover: the announcement by Jurassic Park IV director Colin Trevorrow that his new JP instalment will not feature feathered dinosaurs (unlike the new image, above, which features a fully feathered Dromaeosaurus raiding a giant azhdarchid nest). Like many folks in the palaeoblogsphere, my reaction to this hasn't been particularly positive. It seems like an overlooked opportunity to bring the dinosaur-bird themes of the first movie full circle, jars with overwhelming evidence that some JP dinosaur stars were feathered, and misses a terrific chance to affirm modern concepts of dinosaur palaeobiology with a wide audience. The JP franchise would also probably benefit more from featuring feathery species than it will from maintaining its flimsy creature design continuity (see Laelaps for more on this) as the series clearly needs some fresh ideas and content. It hasn't really delivered much else than people being chased by dinosaurs since the one hour mark of the first film, and a certain amount of repetition has set in ("Oh, look, they're running away from a large predatory dinosaur. Oh, look, they're running away from smaller predatory dinosaurs. Oh, look, one dinosaur is fighting another dinosaur. Oh, look, it's a sweeping shot of peaceful dinosaurs", etc.). The introduction of feathers could provide some nuances to the JP story and provide a new edge for its overly familiar creatures. Beyond this, as someone with an interest in science education, I find broader concepts to be upset about as well here. Feathering dinosaurs in JP IV would demonstrate the incremental processes through which science works, highlighting the way in which the dromaeosaurs of the series became progressively more feathered as the dinosaur bird link was cemented by mounting evidence*. There's obvious utility with this movie being a basis for teaching concepts of evolution, too. And yes yes yes, I know this movie isn't being made to educate people, but I genuinely think featuring feathered designs would be of advantage to many.

*Before anyone mentions it, I know the JP franchise didn't leap on the feather bandwagon quick enough, but it's one of the few major areas of common knowledge of dinosaurs, and provides a good focal point for educating laymen or children about these topics.


There's a truckload of things we could talk about concerning the lack of feathers in JP IV, but I don't want to focus on that here. Instead, I want to highlight one point that troubles me with all this discussion and outrage. This whole episode was started by Colin Trevorrow tweeting only two words: "no feathers" (well, three, if you include the '#JP4' bit). As others have noted, that doesn't really tell us much about the plot, the species under discussion or anything else. This has got me wondering how much of the film has actually been set into place yet. To my knowledge, Trevorrow has only been at the helm of JP IV for a couple of weeks, and the movie is still in pre-production. No casting details have been announced, no shooting schedule, no sneak-peaks of the plot. So are Universal Studios, the JP franchise wranglers, playing their cards close to their chest, or is much about the movie may still up in the air? If the latter is true (and it may not be: I'm not claiming any insider knowledge, just that I pay attention to movie news), I'm wondering if the glib 'no feathers' tweet was simply put out there to test the waters. See what the reaction was from JP fanboys and other demographics to see if they should keep their dinosaurs canonical or give them a much needed update. The movie isn't destined for release until June 2014 - perhaps that's enough time to design and implement feathery integuments to their dinosaurs? Note that I don't know much about VFX in movies, so I could be talking out of my bottom on this. That said, movie release dates change all the time, so the projected release may not mean much at this early stage.

If the feathers comment is a cheeky PR exercise for this franchise, it's in good company. Universal Studios have made repeated attempts to reignite interest in the JP franchise over the last few years. We had the core of the franchise, the first movie, back in cinemas in 2011 to coincide with the JP Blu-ray launch. The same film is returning to the big screen again this year, this time in 3D. We saw the first licensed Jurassic Park video game for 8 years in 2011. Concept art for the aborted JP IV dinosaur-man movie was revealed late last year. That in itself seems pretty unusual to me. There must be piles of discarded movie concept art in Hollywood which never sees public eyes, and creature design imagery is typically owned by movie studios. Heck of a coincidence if that just happened to slip onto the internet as rumours of a new JP film are circulating. Even if the latter was coincidental, we've had a lot of JP events in a short space of time, and only one of them coincides with a sensible franchise anniversary (this year's 3D Jurassic Park release, for the 20th anniversary of the original movie). Seems to me that Universal really, really want to remind us that Jurassic Park exists, perhaps because well over a decade has passed since the last chapter of the story. Generating discussion about whether the next instalment should feature feathered dinosaurs is an excellent way to get some free PR for the upcoming movie as well as, possibly, testing reaction to realistically feathered dinosaur species.

Of course, this may all be the wailing, cynical conspiracy theory of a madman. Time will tell, I suppose. In the mean time, I'd best get back to other things.

The Joy of Rex

There is enough text, imagery and pop culture references to Tyrannosaurus rex that, if laid end to end, they would give the Martian rover Curiosity a bridge back home. (Image above: my painting of Tyrannosaurus, which extends that bridge far enough to give Curiosity something to wipe its feet on when it gets back). Tyrannosaurus has invaded the consciousness of palaeontologists and the public like no other extinct species. Far older than the dodo, more spectacular than mammoths and more frightening than the gigantic sauropods, Tyrannosaurus is the ultimate symbol of prehistoric life. Its rise to fame was helped by being discovered in plenty of time for dinosaur movie makers to become acquainted with its size and awesomeness, by being the largest predatory dinosaur for the best part of a century, and having a PR-perfect name. You don't have to be a scholar of ancient languages to know that something called Tyrannosaurus rex is going to be a whole heap of badassery, and unlike many Greek names, it's pronounceable on your first try. The truncated binomial, T. rex, is a piece of cake to remember and sounds cool, like the name of a sports car, a swish computer processer, or an assassinatobot from the Terminator franchise. The latter is entirely fitting for an animal of gigantic size, bone crushing bite and ability to swallow eight year old children-sized prey whole.

Like most child dinofanciers, I drew buttloads of Tyrannosaurus when I was growing up, a hobby spurned on by the 1993 release of Jurassic Park. Looking back on that movie, Tyrannosaurus was clearly its star and the creature that most effectively demonstrated the transition from the lumbering, lizard-like dinosaurs of Hollywood's Golden Age to the fast, cunning monsters we recognise them as today. The brachiosaur may have evoked awe, but it didn't behave in a dissimilar fashion to other movie sauropods. Velociraptor revealed an unfamiliar and sinister side to the dinosaur cannon, but mot people had no concept of Velociraptor or other dromaeosaurs before then. Tyrannosaurus, though, was already familiar through its out-of-shape, tail-dragging variants being featured in the 1925 The Lost World, the 1933 King Kong and 1964 Valley of Gwangi*. When the toned, fast and ferocious Jurassic Park version started overturning cars, smashing a small building to matchwood, and almost outrunning a jeep, it was clear that the perception of dinosaurs had received a complete makeover, and that their interpretation as lizard-like creatures had been banished.

*Yes, yes: I know. Gwangi wasn't a straight Tyrannosaurus, but he was half. Harryhausen made Gwangi, as he did his other prehistoric creatures, by compositing his favourite bits of different animals into one model. Gwangi was a mix of Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus, which Harryhausen termed 'Allo-rex'.

Since 2005, I've drawn considerably fewer Tyrannosaurus, and certainly never painted one. In coming back to Tyrannosaurus after all this time, I made a wholehearted effort to do it justice. All too often, Tyrannosaurus is rendered as a generic theropod with short, two-fingered arms, a large head and massive teeth, but such portrayals miss a lot of remarkable anatomy (above, lateral view of the restored skull and mandible of FMNH PR2081, better known as the Tyrannosaurus called 'Sue', showing the characteristic shapes common to Tyrannosaurus skulls. Image by me, 2008). Tyrannosaurus is the acme of tyrant dinosaur evolution, knocking 'standard' tyrannosaurid anatomy up to 11 to become on the most 'extreme' dinosaurs known. Anatomical quirks include the very wide temporal region of the skull, the abrupt, vertical termination to the muzzle, and the cool shades over the eyes. Their necks probably heavily muscled, judging by the space for neck muscle attachment on the Tyrannosaurus skull, cervical vertebrae and anterior trunk skeleton. The torso shape is unusual too, with their gently arcing ribs forming a thoroughly barrel-chested torso, which would partially obscure the big thigh muscles when viewed from anterior aspect. As with depiction of a coelurosaur nowadays, a decision had to be made about whether to apply a covering of feathers, as is increasingly plausible for theropods of all sizes. I followed the data offered by several scrappy Tyrannosaurus skin impressions showing pebbly scales for much of the body, but also figured that a few large, thickened scales across the face, neck and back wouldn't look out of place. These were animals that habitually tried to bite each others faces off after all, so few bits of toughened hide would not have gone amiss. Oh, and a few feathers can be seen at the end of the tail, because even tough animals have their sensitive sides.

Some time was spent pondering what to have my Tyrannosaurus doing, too. Tyrannosaurus is a seriously busy animal in palaeoartistic renditions. It's always doing something, be it roaring, chasing a hadrosaur, eating a dead Triceratops, roaring, running for no obvious reason, roaring, stalking unseen animals, roaring, making or nurturing babies, roaring, battling other theropods or perhaps roaring (if our depictions of Tyrannosaurus are accurate, the Maastrichtian fauna of North America must've been deafened by the incessant screaming of the local tyrannosaurs, because they always seem to be making noise in our pictures of them!). To avoid these clichés, the Tyrannosaurus here is doing, well, not very much, really. He's just standing around, looking like he's trying to remember why he walked over to that point in the first place, or perhaps wondering where he left his car keys. Point is, it's doing nothing in particular, which seems to be a relative rarity among tyrannosaur palaeoart, but perhaps allows for a little more appreciation of its shape and form. Plus, this is clearly a Tyrannosaurus from the northern extreme of its range, where forests of conifer and deciduous trees were common. I think I may have spent more time on the plants in this image than any other I've drawn, which requires a hat tip towards palaeoart man of the moment John Conway. John's attention to vegetation in his palaeoart has shown up other palaeoartists for all too often using plants as a generic, green backdrop to their work, which I'm entirely guilty of, and need to stop. There does seem to have been a bit of a push against purely green, tropical worlds in Mesozoic palaeoart recently , which joins the 'anti-shrink wrap' palaeoart movement mentioned in the previous post in marking a new age in our depictions of ancient worlds.

Anyway, I've gone on enough for the time being. I think the above painting is one of the more successful bits of artwork I've done, which may be why I'm still going on about it. Still, so much for a word-light approach to blogging.