Jurassic World: So, Apparently, It's Good

[Peelee]

Well,

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I saw it that they weren't the made characters so screw them. The main guys lived happy ending.
Kind of dark as an afterthought but it fits.

And where was it shown carnivores go straight for highest concentration? I. Rex did that because it was hunting for sport. The P-saurus did it because it was angry that its nest was disturbed(by both I. Rex and that helicopter) so took it out on people.
No other carnivores were shown so what leads you to this idea?

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Yeah, when character actions are done for the specific reason of "we have to save these people!" and then those same people are forgotten and probably died, I'ma call shenanigans.

The I-Rex going there was understandable, as they explained that it went for the heat signatures. The pteranodons, though? Its nest was disturbed, yeah. So clearly they should all go in a specific direction, not knowing if anything's there? Things made a beeline towards the park center for no reason. The raptors also went straight for the humans - the ones with the known location first, and after the trail was lost, well, they may as well head to where they all gathered, because reasons. That accounts for all the carnivorous dinos that got loose except the T-Rex, which was already housed in the park center.

[The Troubadour]

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We're talking about the same woman who refused to use appropriate measures to contain the Indominus at the initial outbreak, refused to attempt an alternate method of location immediately upon a failed one (maybe the infrared sensors glitched), and drove away from the heavily reinforced building when she was under the belief that the Indominus had recently escaped.

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She wasn't attacked, so it's not as if her driving away made her less useful to anyone. In fact, considering Owen was the one who led people inside to investigate how the Indominus got away only to find out it was still there, only hidden, he was partly responsible for it actually getting away.

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Also, the T-Rex failed as well as the raptors. They only prevailed together, so no, I would not say that she was more useful.

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The raptors didn't just fail to kill the Indominus, they also killed lots of people, including the idiots who were supposedly security professionals, and nearly killed Claire, her nephews and Owen's friend. I think that's an important distinction to make when judging which was more useful, the T-Rex or the raptors.
Besides, even with the T-Rex and Blue teaming up, they still needed the aquatic dinosaur to actually take out the Indominus.

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Oh, and when it was pointed out that high heels, while by no means a poor decision when it was made, were highly impractical to run away from vicious dinosaurs in, she pulled up her sleeves and left the shoes on. Yeah. That was stupid.

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And yet, she manages to do everything in the movie while still wearing those. Heck, the movie even takes the time to point out how those shoes didn't hinder her at all when she was leading the T-Rex to the Indominus.
Completely unrealistic, yes, but that just goes to show how the whole thing was completely unnecessary to the movie.

[Foeofthelance]

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I still have a problem with the Indominus becoming the raptors' new Alpha. It's been shown that Owen had to have the raptors imprint on him first, followed by developing a relationship with them for years, in order to have them barely respect him. Which makes sense.

And then some strange animal that the raptors have never encountered before, which itself is a sociopath raised in complete isolation, somehow manages to bond with them in a matter of minutes and dominate them completely? That's really difficult to swallow. The justification that "it's part raptor" doesn't make sense either, as modern predators do not automatically respect their own kind. On the contrary, most tend to see unfamiliar members of their species as rivals threatening their territory and react aggressively.

Also, if the Indominus was enough of a sociopath to actually kill its own sibling, it doesn't make sense for it to try bonding with the raptors instead of killing them.

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My read of the scene was a little less complex. The Indominus was bred from partial raptor DNA, so from what I could tell was that it basically looked, smelled, and sounded like a big raptor. That was enough confusion for both sides to pause and re-evaluate. Note that the raptors all looked back at Owen, as if to say, "Ok, we found this...now what?"

At that point the troops began shooting, Indominus attacked, and the raptors scattered away from the guns. Then the humans start running around in the woods, trying not to become Indominus chow. The raptors basically see the human acting like prey, and respond accordingly. Remember, at that point all the humans with the exception of Owen and Barry are complete strangers to the raptors. When the pack does encounter one of their handlers, they paused again to re-evaluate the situation. Because, and this is important, the raptors are neither tame nor well trained.Hoskins wanted to treat them like bred circus animals, when the only way Owen could really keep control of them was by being in front of the pack during the chase. Hoskins was expecting them to just automatically attack like good little soldiers, but really, why would they? The task was to search, they searched. The thing they found wasn't prey, but was actually a threat to the pack.

Then what happens? They head back to the raptor pen, their home base, which is also where Owen headed. Except the humans are still running around like prey, so ooh! Fast food! The Indominus actually vanishes from the film at this point.

Owen heads for the visitor center, and once again the raptors follow. Delta eats Hoskins, but pretty much ignored Owen, Claire, and the boys until they started running. They finally corner the group, at which point Owen stops acting like prey and starts acting like a member of the pack again. Then the Indominus shows up, and the raptors immediately attack it as a threat to the pack, responding to Owen's cues.

[Peelee]

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She wasn't attacked, so it's not as if her driving away made her less useful to anyone. In fact, considering Owen was the one who led people inside to investigate how the Indominus got away only to find out it was still there, only hidden, he was partly responsible for it actually getting away.

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So you're saying that if you were in a sealed room in a zoo, and as far as you know, the tiger in the very next room escaped, you would leave the room and walk over to the administration building? Because that's basically what she did.

Also, I completely agree that Owen was partly responsible for letting the I. Rex out. There's plenty of stupid to go around. The two main factors in its escape were that the phone call to track it by other means wasn't made immediately in the building, and that the door was opened so the team could get in/try to get out. Both equally mind-bogglingly stupid, both equally at fault.

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The raptors didn't just fail to kill the Indominus, they also killed lots of people, including the idiots who were supposedly security professionals, and nearly killed Claire, her nephews and Owen's friend. I think that's an important distinction to make when judging which was more useful, the T-Rex or the raptors.
Besides, even with the T-Rex and Blue teaming up, they still needed the aquatic dinosaur to actually take out the Indominus.

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If the T. Rex could only bring down the I. Rex with the raptors help, then no, they are equally useful. Collateral damage was worse, yeah, and they should have tried pretty much any other means available, but but neither Owen nor Claire were in charge of that; InGen released the raptors, and it was happening with or without Owen. Dude simply tried to help minimize. It didn't help much until a good amount of people were eaten, but that wasn't on Owen. It was clear from the start the raptors weren't ready for deployment.
Oh, and the mosasaur was not needed to kill the I. Rex. They brought the thing down. The fight was over, except for finishing it off. The mosasaur was just used to make it look cool. It would have died without that intervention.

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And yet, she manages to do everything in the movie while still wearing those. Heck, the movie even takes the time to point out how those shoes didn't hinder her at all when she was leading the T-Rex to the Indominus.
Completely unrealistic, yes, but that just goes to show how the whole thing was completely unnecessary to the movie.

[/QUOTE]

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Yeah, it's the completely unrealistic bit that gets me. She SHOULDN'T have been able to do that. It's ridiculous. That's my complaint. If it was completely unnecessary to the movie, then why was she in heels to start with? All that does is point out how ridiculous it is that she survives. She could have been in flats, one line of dialogue would be different, and the movie would have been the exact same. How is that not preferable to the way it actually went down?

[The Troubadour]

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So you're saying that if you were in a sealed room in a zoo, and as far as you know, the tiger in the very next room escaped, you would leave the room and walk over to the administration building? Because that's basically what she did.

No, I'm saying that since there were no negative outcomes to that decision, it's irrelevant for the purpose of deciding whether Claire was useful or not.

If it was completely unnecessary to the movie, then why was she in heels to start with?

Because the writers thought all good action-adventure movies need a scene where the "sensible" male lead dresses down his "silly" female companion, apparently.

[Foeofthelance]

Because the writers thought all good action-adventure movies need a scene where the "sensible" male lead dresses down his "silly" female companion, apparently.

Actually, that's flipped around. The director wanted to lose the shoes, but Bryce Dallas Howard insisted on keeping them after seeing the ground.

[Peelee]

No, I'm saying that since there were no negative outcomes to that decision, it's irrelevant for the purpose of deciding whether Claire was useful or not.



Because the writers thought all good action-adventure movies need a scene where the "sensible" male lead dresses down his "silly" female companion, apparently.

Ah. That's where we differ. When determining usefulness, i don't account for dumb luck.

As for the shoes bit, it seems to me as if we're both offended in different ways. You dislike that Hollywood was doing a "silly woman, when will you learn?" moment (and don't get me wrong, thats definitely an attitude what needs changing) and I dislike that that scene existed solely to point out a needless bit of ridiculousness that would persist the rest of the movie. Seriously, a single cut line of dialogue and a miniscule wardrobe change would mean we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

[Callos_DeTerran]

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I still have a problem with the Indominus becoming the raptors' new Alpha. It's been shown that Owen had to have the raptors imprint on him first, followed by developing a relationship with them for years, in order to have them barely respect him. Which makes sense.

And then some strange animal that the raptors have never encountered before, which itself is a sociopath raised in complete isolation, somehow manages to bond with them in a matter of minutes and dominate them completely? That's really difficult to swallow. The justification that "it's part raptor" doesn't make sense either, as modern predators do not automatically respect their own kind. On the contrary, most tend to see unfamiliar members of their species as rivals threatening their territory and react aggressively.

Also, if the Indominus was enough of a sociopath to actually kill its own sibling, it doesn't make sense for it to try bonding with the raptors instead of killing them.

Yeah, the read I got on the situation was basically...

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My read of the scene was a little less complex. The Indominus was bred from partial raptor DNA, so from what I could tell was that it basically looked, smelled, and sounded like a big raptor. That was enough confusion for both sides to pause and re-evaluate. Note that the raptors all looked back at Owen, as if to say, "Ok, we found this...now what?"

At that point the troops began shooting, Indominus attacked, and the raptors scattered away from the guns. Then the humans start running around in the woods, trying not to become Indominus chow. The raptors basically see the human acting like prey, and respond accordingly. Remember, at that point all the humans with the exception of Owen and Barry are complete strangers to the raptors. When the pack does encounter one of their handlers, they paused again to re-evaluate the situation. Because, and this is important, the raptors are neither tame nor well trained.Hoskins wanted to treat them like bred circus animals, when the only way Owen could really keep control of them was by being in front of the pack during the chase. Hoskins was expecting them to just automatically attack like good little soldiers, but really, why would they? The task was to search, they searched. The thing they found wasn't prey, but was actually a threat to the pack.

Then what happens? They head back to the raptor pen, their home base, which is also where Owen headed. Except the humans are still running around like prey, so ooh! Fast food! The Indominus actually vanishes from the film at this point.

Owen heads for the visitor center, and once again the raptors follow. Delta eats Hoskins, but pretty much ignored Owen, Claire, and the boys until they started running. They finally corner the group, at which point Owen stops acting like prey and starts acting like a member of the pack again. Then the Indominus shows up, and the raptors immediately attack it as a threat to the pack, responding to Owen's cues.

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...er...very similar to this. The raptors didn't attack after the conversation but looked back at Owen as if they wanted to know what exactly they were supposed to do. He was their Alpha after all and there was a clear challenger to be dealt with, the feeling I got was they were waiting for a cue from Owen about how they should handle the problem. Then someone opened fire and the raptors decide to start killing people for probably a bunch of good animal reasons. They smelled like food, they were getting shot at, the new alpha wanted them to do it, etc. etc. Cause again, worth noting, once Blue realized she was attacking Barry she paused and didn't seem to know how to respond.

As opposed to Delta and Hoskins who didn't so much as hesitate as look offended that Hoskins was giving her the 'feeding time' signal while calling her a 'good boy' before eating her. After that, when actually confronted with the I. Rex and their old alpha in a situation where no one is shooting at them (worth noting is that Owens never shot at his raptors, only ever the I. Rex) that they decide to side with the human that imprinted on them and raised them from eggs.

No, I'm saying that since there were no negative outcomes to that decision, it's irrelevant for the purpose of deciding whether Claire was useful or not.



Because the writers thought all good action-adventure movies need a scene where the "sensible" male lead dresses down his "silly" female companion, apparently.

...Uhhh...no, it was incredibly relevant with obvious negative repercussions because Claire wasn't there to actually tell Owen and company that the pen still had its lethal occupant inside. Her decision to leave actually delayed the obtaining of that vital information that let Owen make the decision to go into the pen to try and figure out anything about the I. Rex that he could.

Nor was it a scene about sensible vs Silly, it was a scene about Owen addressing how out of place she is in the jungle as well as to clue the audience in to how little she knew about her 'assets' (plus, in the meta-sense, poking fun at the mom in JP 3 that constantly ran around screaming yet never got killed). She actually thought standing in the jungle when there is a super-predator lurking around and screaming was a good idea. It was born out of worry but still!

I really don't see Owen as sexist so much as worried Claire can't cut it in this situation on her own (he's not wrong) and her proving that she's not as incapable as Owens believes her to be (and she isn't, just out of her comfort zone).

[Dienekes]

Alright, just saw the movie. Some thoughts.

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Not nearly as good as the first one. But damn it, when that music starts I turn into a 10 year old again.

More specific thoughts:

Holy crap, do I not care about the relationship between Starlord and Redhead McBusinesslady. Some of the dialogue between them is downright groan worthy. Their relationship could have been entirely cut from the movie and it would have been improved for it. I mean "We should probably stick together, for survival." That's the line you're ending the movie on? That was so cheesy a Wisconsinite would try to turn it into a hat. God that sucked.

Speaking of groans, the iNGen or however they wrote it, faux military guys. How ****ing stupid can you be? "What I just saw was a bond, they follow your orders." He said that 10 seconds after the raptors tried to attack Andy Dwyer the second he turned his back on them. And that's after they went to hunt the first none Andy person they interacted with. And you want to release these terrors on a park, full of people. What is wrong with you? Maybe, if you showed Starlord had total control over them I could buy it, but they set it up to show he didn't. Fat faux military guy, you deserved to be eaten. Seriously, the villain from the first movie? The lawyer, he was at least realistic. He wasn't a bad dude, just greedy and a coward. This guy was just made to be cartoonishly unlikeable to the point it bored on humor.

And on that note, Andy just say back and watched a raptor eat him. He had a shotgun, he could have saved his life. That's cold.

Then the high heels. Ok, honestly, I probably wouldn't have even noticed if they didn't keep bring it up. But, that is so stupid. I've trekked in a jungle before. You need boots. Really. You actually are a liability if you try to do that in heels. It's idiotic. Bringing that up, I don't see it as sexist so much as basic knowledge for anyone who knows what they're talking about. But then, to top it off her "I'm ready to do this" action was to expose more skin. No. That's still idiotic. Look at the flora that has grown there in 20 years, that implies your in a very humid, wet environment, which will have a lot of insects. You want to cover your skin, especially if you're not used to moving about out there. The whole thing is just painfully dumb. As though they're trying to make her seem like some strong independent woman, but all they're showing is she has no clue what she's doing. And then, when I've almost forgotten about her stupid dressing choices, the T-Rex thing happens. In the first movie the heroes needed a car to get away from that dino. In this movie, Redhead, who seems to have no grasp on basic survival skills or any displays of athleticism up to that point, outruns the T-Rex, in heels. And they have a close up on her shoes? Why? It would take like 30 seconds for her to get more appropriate wear while they're in the jeep ride over. But they keep on focusing on her doing things obviously wrong. Just, why? Put in 1 minute of research and no screentime (seriously we don't even need to see her change, anyone with half a brain would know to put on appropriate footwear before heading into the wild) she just needs to show up in the next scene dressed appropriately. No one would have objected to that. Or, if you're too lazy for that, at least stop focusing on it.

Then just, everybody is useless. At least Starlord has enough sense to keep saying using the raptors is stupid. He goes along with it, only after he was told it would happen without him anyway, and he does have the best control over them. But there was never a doubt that using the raptors would go horrible. Because, again, they tried to eat him when he turned his back on them in his first scene. But then, for no reason they're friends again at the end. Hurray, I guess. Go power of friendship. Magic. Ponies. You know the drill. And then there's that friendship between Big T and Blue at the end. Again, hurray.

Remember when these creatures acted like terrifying wild animals, and not going through the motions of your generic "enemy of my enemy, leaves with a grudging respect" plot that you've seen done a hundred times? I do. It was awesome.

I mean Starlord's plan to use a mounted turret on a helicopter is a good one. Pity they only did it after evil fat army/corporation guy told them they had to get their asses moving. If they did that before then there would be a lot less deaths, no escaped pterrasaurs. It'd be all good. But whatever, I'm willing to see why that didn't work, the obviously workable plan needed to fail to get the story going, and the birdcage, or whatever they called it is really just placed arbitrarily to where it needed to be for the sake of plot. Fine. But why was the the guys personal pilot not there? We already know that helicopters can be used to fly to and from the island. Personal pilot is caught in the evac? How? His evac should just be to stand next to the helicopter for when his boss wants to leave. It just felt so arbitrary. But that's nitpickery, I suppose.

So, yeah, there was a lot I didn't like, or thought was downright bad in this movie. And I haven't even talked about how annoying I found the mother and the kids. I don't know why, but every line that lady delivered just seemed annoying to me. The only good interaction was when she and her husband took a few seconds to make fun of Son 1's girlfriend situation.

So, the humans, the way the dinos interacted, some just lazy writing. But at the end, I still enjoyed it. I just love watching dinosaurs do their dinosaur thing. I laughed out load when fat evil army/corporation guy and British useless nanny (who apparently wouldn't let her fiance have a bachelor party, how's that for a minor unimportant throwaway detail to make you not like her? It's ok fictional fiance man, if she was that controlling you're better off without her) were eaten. Not nearly as terrifying and suspenseful about it as the first one, but still enjoyable.

[Jayngfet]

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She saved his life from one of the pterodactyls (or whatever their species was), kept her nephews safe while his own raptors (and let's remember he went along with the plan to use them willingly) were trying to chow down on everyone, and she was the one who had the idea to sic the T-Rex on the Indominus. So no, I do not believe I'm being hasty in saying she was more useful on the whole than him. ;-)
Also, how exactly are her age and choice of footwear relevant to determining whether she was useful or not, as opposed to her actions in the plot?

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She didn't save him from anything. You'll notice he was actually carrying a hold out weapon on his belt the entire time. In another second he'd have gotten himself out.

The T-Rex also wasn't exactly the game changer it was made out to be. She made it clear early on that Indominus was bigger and stronger and it was actually losing soundly without a raptor to back it up and even then it would have gotten up and probably killed at least one of them if it hadn't fallen near the aquatic tank on pure luck.

[hamishspence]

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even with the T-Rex and Blue teaming up, they still needed the aquatic dinosaur to actually take out the Indominus.

Mosasaurus is about as much an "aquatic dinosaur" as Pteranodon is "a flying dinosaur" - less so, even, since Pteranodon is at least an archosaur, whereas Mosasaurus is in the lizard-type group -lepidosaurs.

[Drascin]

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She didn't save him from anything. You'll notice he was actually carrying a hold out weapon on his belt the entire time. In another second he'd have gotten himself out.

The T-Rex also wasn't exactly the game changer it was made out to be. She made it clear early on that Indominus was bigger and stronger and it was actually losing soundly without a raptor to back it up and even then it would have gotten up and probably killed at least one of them if it hadn't fallen near the aquatic tank on pure luck.

He was visibly NOT getting himself out, though. It took her entirely too long to come over, move it, and shoot it, and in all that time Owen hadn't made even slight progress towards removing the thing from himself.

Which is kind of silly because pterosaurs, and more particularly pterosaurs as small as the Dimorphodons that were assaulting people, were really kind of fragile and probably weighed little for their size, so the visitors should have been able to punch the **** out of them enough to make them realize there's plenty of easier targets.

But this was not working by logic rules, but by horror rules. Owen wasn't getting out without outside help.

[Foeofthelance]

Which is kind of silly because pterosaurs, and more particularly pterosaurs as small as the Dimorphodons that were assaulting people, were really kind of fragile and probably weighed little for their size, so the visitors should have been able to punch the **** out of them enough to make them realize there's plenty of easier targets.

But this was not working by logic rules, but by horror rules. Owen wasn't getting out without outside help.

While I agree on Claire rescuing Owen (having a gun is not the same as using the gun) I disagree on the topic of the people being able to fight back. You're talking about being attacked by something the size of a small child, only it has claws and teeth and you don't. In a boxing ring, with both participants standing on the ground, it looks lopsided in the humans favor. In the wild, you're talking about being struck by a 15-20 pound animal moving at speeds of upwards of 50 miles per hour in a dive, already slashing and biting. A big stick would be enough if you knew it was coming, but if you're unarmed its going to do some serious damage before the fight is over. Add in the fact that the majority of the crowd is not expecting to have to defend themselves, and you get the panic you saw.

[Bulldog Psion]

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Just as a side note, my personal, rather tongue-in-cheek explanation for how Claire outran the Tyrannosaurus in high heels is that the poor old beast has arthritis, kidney stones, lumbago, and hemorrhoids, and just isn't up to the 45-mph thing any more.

[Peelee]

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Just as a side note, my personal, rather tongue-in-cheek explanation for how Claire outran the Tyrannosaurus in high heels is that the poor old beast has arthritis, kidney stones, lumbago, and hemorrhoids, and just isn't up to the 45-mph thing any more.

I fully approve of this explanation.

[The Troubadour]

Mosasaurus is about as much an "aquatic dinosaur" as Pteranodon is "a flying dinosaur" - less so, even, since Pteranodon is at least an archosaur, whereas Mosasaurus is in the lizard-type group -lepidosaurs.

...Sorry, my knowledge of dinosaurs is limited to "they're awesome". :-P So the mosasaurus isn't actually a dinosaur?

Seriously, a single cut line of dialogue and a miniscule wardrobe change would mean we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

Indeed! It's not only sexist, it's also bad writing - why bring to attention something you actually won't address, not even as a subversion?

Actually, that's flipped around. The director wanted to lose the shoes, but Bryce Dallas Howard insisted on keeping them after seeing the ground.

Did he want to lose the shoes before or after they had written the scene?

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She didn't save him from anything. You'll notice he was actually carrying a hold out weapon on his belt the entire time. In another second he'd have gotten himself out.

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...Uhhh...no, it was incredibly relevant with obvious negative repercussions because Claire wasn't there to actually tell Owen and company that the pen still had its lethal occupant inside.

It's amazing how much you two are actually re-writing the movie to reflect your personal views.

[Foeofthelance]

Did he want to lose the shoes before or after they had written the scene?

That I cannot answer, since they never elaborated beyond, "We hadn't written Claire to be running around in heels the entire time, but BDH insisted on keeping her shoes after seeing the condition of the grounds."

[Drascin]

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Just as a side note, my personal, rather tongue-in-cheek explanation for how Claire outran the Tyrannosaurus in high heels is that the poor old beast has arthritis, kidney stones, lumbago, and hemorrhoids, and just isn't up to the 45-mph thing any more.

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I prefer to think she was more curious than anything. In the books, tyrannosaurs do a couple times not immediately eat someone mostly because they find them interesting, and in Jurassic World she probably was well-fed enough that she wasn't in a particular hurry to eat this little thing. The blinky thing probably was of more interest to her than the woman.

[Avilan the Grey]

...Sorry, my knowledge of dinosaurs is limited to "they're awesome". :-P So the mosasaurus isn't actually a dinosaur?

Yeah exactly. The flying ones, the swimming ones and the walking ones are three different groups, The confusing part is because back in the day they thought all was the same. Hence the "saur" bit that means "lizard" basically.

[Peelee]

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I prefer to think she was more curious than anything. In the books, tyrannosaurs do a couple times not immediately eat someone mostly because they find them interesting, and in Jurassic World she probably was well-fed enough that she wasn't in a particular hurry to eat this little thing. The blinky thing probably was of more interest to her than the woman.

Yeah, but the books and movies can be inconsistent with each other. For instance, in both, Hammond's motto is "spare no expense," and in the movie he follows that to a T, while in the book, his dealings with Nedry show that he's willing to abandon that policy whenever he can (I actually felt like Nedry got the shaft in the movie; even in the book, he's still a jerk, but he at least had a pretty good reason to betray Hammond).

The movies really only show the Rex as a vicious apex predator. In Jurassic Park, she's just looking to eat the peoples whenever she can, and in Lost World, the attacks are based on maternal protection and then territorial issues.

Man, I should go read that book again.

[BannedInSchool]

Now someone selling dinosaurs as pets I could really see happening.

(I think I heard there are more tigers in captivity than in the wild now, and many owned by private individuals.)

[Peelee]

Now someone selling dinosaurs as pets I could really see happening.

You're a BioSyn man, aren't you?

[Dire Moose]

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Just as a side note, my personal, rather tongue-in-cheek explanation for how Claire outran the Tyrannosaurus in high heels is that the poor old beast has arthritis, kidney stones, lumbago, and hemorrhoids, and just isn't up to the 45-mph thing any more.

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That actually does make sense. Bone growth studies show that T. rex took 17 years to attain its full adult size, and the oldest specimen was 28 at death, with a lot of really bad injuries. This one was definitely a full-sized adult in the first movie, and adding 22 years would put her at 39, 11 years older than the oldest T. rex specimen. Her not having died yet can probably be attributed to animals generally living longer in captivity than in the wild.

On the other hand, that brings up another problem; namely, how could such an aged dinosaur hold out against the Indominus for as long as it did?

[Dienekes]

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That actually does make sense. Bone growth studies show that T. rex took 17 years to attain its full adult size, and the oldest specimen was 28 at death, with a lot of really bad injuries. This one was definitely a full-sized adult in the first movie, and adding 22 years would put her at 39, 11 years older than the oldest T. rex specimen. Her not having died yet can probably be attributed to animals generally living longer in captivity than in the wild.

On the other hand, that brings up another problem; namely, how could such an aged dinosaur hold out against the Indominus for as long as it did?

It really wasn't. It got one good bite in before the Indominus started kicking it's ass. Then Blue showed up and through the power of teamwork! (and a mosasaur) they beat the thing.

[Foeofthelance]

It really wasn't. It got one good bite in before the Indominus started kicking it's ass. Then Blue showed up and through the power of teamwork! (and a mosasaur) they beat the thing.

The other thing to add is that while Rexy is older, she's also much more experienced. Indominus had only been loose for less than a day; Rexy had more than ten years of experience hunting for food and fighting the other survivors of Jurassic Park before they locked her back up. While I don't believe there was anything else on the island in her weight class, Rexy at least would have more experience on her own limits, how to guard her flank, etc. Indominus, by contrast, was a complete rookie who only understood attack, attack, attack. She'd figured out her camouflage abilities, but there's no evidence that she'd ever really been in a fight before that. The sauropods she slaughtered don't seem to have done her any harm, and while the anklyosaur got got in a few thwacks, once she had flipped it it was over.

EDIT: Or, if you really want a scary theory, maybe some of her DNA gaps got filled in with tortoise DNA for some reason. Particularly the bits that lets them live so long. From InGen's point of view, it would be perfect. You get a dinosaur that can live for 50-100 years, keeping down those replacement costs...

[Dire Moose]

Or, if you really want a scary theory, maybe some of her DNA gaps got filled in with tortoise DNA for some reason. Particularly the bits that lets them live so long. From InGen's point of view, it would be perfect. You get a dinosaur that can live for 50-100 years, keeping down those replacement costs...

I believe that tortoises and other large reptiles live for over 100 years because they have a slow, cold-blooded metabolism. Everything is basically slowed down compared to more active warm-blooded animals and there's less strain on the body. That wouldn't work for a fast and active warm-blooded tyrannosaur.

[Dienekes]

The other thing to add is that while Rexy is older, she's also much more experienced. Indominus had only been loose for less than a day; Rexy had more than ten years of experience hunting for food and fighting the other survivors of Jurassic Park before they locked her back up. While I don't believe there was anything else on the island in her weight class, Rexy at least would have more experience on her own limits, how to guard her flank, etc. Indominus, by contrast, was a complete rookie who only understood attack, attack, attack. She'd figured out her camouflage abilities, but there's no evidence that she'd ever really been in a fight before that. The sauropods she slaughtered don't seem to have done her any harm, and while the anklyosaur got got in a few thwacks, once she had flipped it it was over.

EDIT: Or, if you really want a scary theory, maybe some of her DNA gaps got filled in with tortoise DNA for some reason. Particularly the bits that lets them live so long. From InGen's point of view, it would be perfect. You get a dinosaur that can live for 50-100 years, keeping down those replacement costs...

Well if we're assuming it's the same Rex from the first movie, who was full grown in that one and this is specifically said to be 20 years later, we're looking at a 40 year old creature with a life expectancy of only 30ish.

As to the scene itself, the experience wasn't working out for her at all. She barges in, the two sort of nip at each other for a few seconds. T gets a good bite on the I's neck (which honestly, probably should have ended the fight if these animals were in any way realistic, but whatever), but the I gets loose and starts going beast mode on T. She got grappled, dropped to the ground, bitten, and thrashed. T was going to die until Blue came to her rescue. Then the two of them brought the fight outside, and by shear luck the mosasaur showed up.

[Callos_DeTerran]

It's amazing how much you two are actually re-writing the movie to reflect your personal views.

What personal views?

What I said is pretty straight forward...

Spoiler: Claire

Show

..the Indominus was thought to have escaped its pen (good reasoning for why they were all certain it had left, it was white and what are the odds that EVERY thermal sensor had spontenously failed?). Owen goes in to investigate the pen and see what he can figure out about the I. Rex while Claire leaves the pen right away despite the very possible (as far as they knew) presence of a super predator in the nearby jungle.

Its only then that she bothers to call the control room and activate the tracking beacon, revealing the fact it hadn't actually escaped yet. Memory is admittedly a bit fuzzy about if she tried to contact Owen or not at that point but if she did, the attempt failed. Meanwhile, Owen snd poor saps in tow discover the pen is NOT empty and begin the running. Rather than escape through the person-sized entramce they had come in through though, the fat guard opens the paddock doors to escape because...well the I. Rex had to escape somehow.

If Claire hadn't left the paddock though, she might have told the people inside the pen that they weren't alone faster if for no other reason than she could have hammered on the glass and yelled. Even if Owen hadn't been able to understand what she said, considering the context of the situation, most people would very reasonably decide it was probably a good idea to leave the pen as quickly as possible. Hell, the viewing area was within sight of the claw marks Owen had been looking at! Heck, she could have checked the tracking beacon before anyone had any time to go into the pen.

Would the I. Rex have still escaped? Probably, because its neither Owens fault or Claire's...its the fat guy in the hard hat's fault. All I'm pointing out is that Claire's decision to leave the paddock before calling was not the right call for multiple reasons. Because it wasn't.

[Dienekes]

What personal views?

What I said is pretty straight forward...

Spoiler: Claire

Show

..the Indominus was thought to have escaped its pen (good reasoning for why they were all certain it had left, it was white and what are the odds that EVERY thermal sensor had spontenously failed?). Owen goes in to investigate the pen and see what he can figure out about the I. Rex while Claire leaves the pen right away despite the very possible (as far as they knew) presence of a super predator in the nearby jungle.

Its only then that she bothers to call the control room and activate the tracking beacon, revealing the fact it hadn't actually escaped yet. Memory is admittedly a bit fuzzy about if she tried to contact Owen or not at that point but if she did, the attempt failed. Meanwhile, Owen snd poor saps in tow discover the pen is NOT empty and begin the running. Rather than escape through the person-sized entramce they had come in through though, the fat guard opens the paddock doors to escape because...well the I. Rex had to escape somehow.

If Claire hadn't left the paddock though, she might have told the people inside the pen that they weren't alone faster if for no other reason than she could have hammered on the glass and yelled. Even if Owen hadn't been able to understand what she said, considering the context of the situation, most people would very reasonably decide it was probably a good idea to leave the pen as quickly as possible. Hell, the viewing area was within sight of the claw marks Owen had been looking at! Heck, she could have checked the tracking beacon before anyone had any time to go into the pen.

Would the I. Rex have still escaped? Probably, because its neither Owens fault or Claire's...its the fat guy in the hard hat's fault. All I'm pointing out is that Claire's decision to leave the paddock before calling was not the right call for multiple reasons. Because it wasn't.

Some quibbles

Spoiler

Show

Redhead calls back to the pen right away, and the pen informs those inside. Starlord, hard hat, and token red shirt run for their original entrance, only to have token get eaten, revealing that the dino is between them and the exit. Which is when hard hat opens the main entrance in an attempt to get out.

Everyone was dumb in that scenario, Redhead was dumb to leave the safety of the pen to get to her car, Starlord was dumb to get into the pen. Though, personally, I'd say he's slightly less dumb of the two, as there was no reason to expect the Indominus would have an ability to turn off it's heat. Which is just strange.

Mostly I blame whoever thought it was a good idea to cook up a super dino, give the scientists free reign to do what they wanted with it, and not have a list of all potential possible abilities it could have. That's just stupidity on a level all it's own. So, yeah, it's Quirky Indian Boss Man's fault. I put the blame on him.

[hamishspence]

Yeah exactly. The flying ones, the swimming ones and the walking ones are three different groups, The confusing part is because back in the day they thought all was the same. Hence the "saur" bit that means "lizard" basically.

And while pterosaurs and dinosaurs are both monophyletic (each can be grouped into one family that includes all of them and excludes everything else) mosasaurs and other large swimming reptiles (ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, etc) are not closely related.

Mosasaurs are "true lizards" - the others aren't.