Why Jurassic World Dominion Doesn't Have Any Hybrid Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs running amok has been the bread and butter of the "Jurassic Park" series from the beginning. However, the first three "Jurassic Park" movies keep things firmly within the realm of reality, focusing on well-known, already-established beasts, such as the T-Rex and Spinosaurus. When the franchise was revived with "Jurassic World," a new wrinkle was added. Now, scientists in this world were engineering hybrid dinosaurs to keep the audience's interest.

"Jurassic World" brought viewers the Indominus Rex, while "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" introduced the Indoraptor. The idea of engineered dinosaurs played into the franchise's larger themes of humans messing too much with nature, but "Jurassic World Dominion" decided to go a different route. When the characters aren't dealing with oversized locusts, they're contending with the ferocious Giganotosaurus, which was an actual dinosaur. 

Director Colin Trevorrow explained the change to SFX Magazine, later republished by MovieWeb, "The idea of hybrids had narratively run its course after the second film. It didn't fit into the reality of the environment we threw our characters in. It's so devoted to the real science that their number one priority would be to make the most paleontological correct dinosaurs as possible." Stories should be all about growth, so it makes sense the characters would be over hybrids at a certain point, especially when such experiments failed spectacularly twice before.

Dinosaurs are plenty scary on their own, so making hybrids is a bit excessive. However, there's little doubt the Indominus Rex and Indoraptor were thrilling antagonistic forces that likely sold plenty of action figures to boot. However, the idea of going back to realism permeates "Jurassic World Dominion." It's a big reason why the film is the first in the franchise to have dinosaurs that actually have feathers. The scientists in the film are committed to bringing back dinosaurs as they were millions of years ago. 

Trevorrow found this to be an intriguing development, as he went on to say, "I actually like being able to give the characters in the films different perspectives and points of view about dinosaurs and how they should be treated in this new reality. The ones in this film, the good guys and the bad guys, one thing they do agree on is that dinosaurs are real, and they should be recreating them as accurately as they can."

Still, creative liberties were clearly taken, especially when Trevorrow compared the Giganotosaurus to the Joker. An animal would have no instinct to "watch the world burn," but it still made for a thrilling climax to see it duke it out with the T-Rex, something that could've never happened as the two creatures lived during different time periods on Earth.