Velociraptor

The Velociraptor has appeared in all Jurassic Park and Jurassic World films.

Description

A Velociraptor appeared in the Late Cretaceous period and lived 75 to 71 million years ago in what is now known as Mongolia. In reality, the creature was no bigger than a wolf, measuring up to 6.8 feet in length, 1.6 feet high and weighing up to 15kg. It was covered in feathers and was more similar to a bird.

It had a long claw on the second toe of both feet that was 8cm long. It was first discovered by palaeontologists in 1923 during an American Museum of Natural History expedition to the Outer Mongolian Gobi Desert. Peter Kaisen recovered the first Velociraptor fossil. In 1924, museum president Henry Fairfield Osborn classified the fossils of his new genus, Velociraptor.

Movies

Jurassic Park

Throughout all the Jurassic Park films, Velociraptors frequently appear on the islands. The creatures here differ greatly from their real-life counterparts. They are much bigger, have different hands and have no feathers. They are much more reptilian in nature. They are extremely intelligent and hunt in packs. The creatures seen in the movies could well have been based on Deinonychus, which has similar traits.

A Velociraptor appears in the very first scene in Jurassic Park when Muldoon and his team try to bring a female into the park. It attacks one of the team members and they are forced to shoot it. They don’t appear then until far later in the film when Ellie and Muldoon have to restore the park’s power systems. Muldoon realises they’re being hunted by them and tells Ellie to run to the power shed as he tracks a Velociraptor with his gun. She restores the power and finds what’s left of Ray and she narrowly escapes from a Velociraptor. Muldoon is still tracking a raptor when the female ambushes him, killing him. The raptors appear again in the visitor center when Lex and Tim are eating.

They hide in the kitchen and avoid being detected. They manage to trap one of them and escape. The raptors catch up with the group in the control room, so Ellie, Dr. Grant, Tim and Lex escape through the vents and into the main lobby area of the visitor center. They fall to the ground and are about to be attacked by two Velociraptors when the Tyrannosaur appears, killing both of them. The survivors use this opportunity to escape the island.

The Lost World

The Velociraptors appear once again towards the end of The Lost World. When Roland’s team escape the Tyrannosaurus at their camp, they wander into the tall grass. The raptors close in on them and start picking the team off one by one. Dr. Malcolm, Kelly and Sarah make it to the compound in the middle of the island. One of the raptors jumps on Sarah’s backpack and Sarah and Kelly flee into a nearby building with two raptors in pursuit.

Malcolm tries to evade the other one by hiding in a nearby building and then inside a car. The other two Velociraptors make it inside the building and Sarah and Kelly climb to the top. Kelly uses her acrobatic skills to impale a raptor on a metal pole. They escape through the top of the building with the other one right behind them. It falls off the roof and onto the other raptor on the ground. They start fighting each other, which gives Sarah and Kelly the opportunity to escape.

Jurassic Park III

Given the recent palaeontology discoveries and theories about Velociraptors since Jurassic Park and The Lost World were made, the raptor designs in Jurassic Park 3 had some noticeable changes. The male Velociraptors had quill-like feathers on the backs of their heads, though they weren’t applied to their entire bodies, as this is very difficult to animate. In the third movie, we also learn much more about their intelligence and how protective they are over their eggs.

The film starts off with Dr. Grant and his colleague Billy discussing a Velociraptor’s communicative intelligence. Billy uses a 3D printer to replicate the larynx of a Velociraptor. When Dr. Grant and the group get stranded on the island, his colleague Billy steals two Velociraptor eggs, unknown to the others. When the survivors reach the abandoned laboratory, a raptor sneaks in there and attacks Amanda Kirby. The group runs to the cages and traps one of them. We see its communicative abilities when it actually calls the other Velociraptors for help.

The survivors run through a group of Corythosaurus and Parasaurolophus and into the forest. Amanda, Paul and Billy hide in the trees while Dr. Grant is still on the ground. The raptors injure Udesky and set a trap to lure the others down from the tree. Amanda Kirby almost falls from the tree but is saved and Dr. Grant is confronted by a Velociraptor. Eric Kirby comes to his rescue and sprays a gas can and the raptors flee.

We then see the raptors at the climax of the movie when the survivors are making their way back to the beach. The Velociraptors surround the group and the female raptor challenges Amanda Kirby for the eggs that Billy stole earlier. She hands over the eggs and Dr. Grant uses the imitation raptor larynx to fool the raptors into running off. The survivors then escape the island.

 

Jurassic World

During the Indominus rex breakout, InGen security head Vic Hoskins forces the IBRIS Project trainers to deploy their captive Velociraptor pack to hunt down the escaped hybrid. However, the plan backfires. Upon encountering the Indominus, the raptors discover that the creature possesses Velociraptor DNA. The Indominus becomes their alpha and turns them against the humans. In the firefight, Charlie is killed by a rocket launcher, while Delta and Echo attack Claire Dearing and her nephews, Gray and Zach, as they escape in a van.

Delta finds Owen, Claire, Hoskins, and the boys at the Hammond Creation Lab. Hoskins attempts to pacify the raptor by mimicking Owen’s hand gesture, but is killed. Delta continues her pursuit of Owen and Claire’s group.

Outside, Blue encounters Owen and the group. Owen steps forward and removes the restrictive video camera strapped to Blue’s head and re-establishing his bond with her. Blue, Delta and Echo attack the Indominus to protect Owen. During the fight, Blue is knocked unconscious while Delta and Echo are overpowered.

Just as the Tyrannosaurus rex joins the fight and is pushed to the ground by the Indominus, Blue regains consciousness. She attacks the hybrid, giving the T. rex the chance to get back on her feet. Together, Blue and the T. rex attack the Indominus until the Mosasaurus erupts from the lagoon and drags the hybrid underwater. The T. rex decides to spare Blue. Blue turns to Owen before disappearing into the night.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Three years after the Jurassic World incident, Blue is revealed to be alive and the last of her kind. However, she and the remaining dinosaurs on Isla Nublar face an extinction-level threat in the form of an active, erupting volcano.

Early in the film, Owen Grady watches old training logs of Blue and her pack as infants. The footage highlights Blue’s extraordinary capacity for compassion. This unique behavioural trait makes her highly valuable to mercenaries and geneticists who want to exploit her for military purposes.

During a rescue expedition to the island, Blue reunites with Owen in the jungle. She appears atop a ruined Ford Explorer from the original Jurassic Park. As she approaches, she presses her snout against Owen’s palm and remembers her former alpha. Ken Wheatley and his team ambush them. Blue attacks a soldier and is shot in the hip. She collapses and Owen is tranquillised by Wheatley.

Zia Rodriguez warns the mercenaries that she is the only one who can keep the injured raptor alive. Blue is loaded onto a transport ship and begins haemorrhaging. Zia realises the raptor needs a cross-species blood transfusion from a theropod with a similar genetic makeup. Owen and Claire Dearing manage to extract blood from a sedated Tyrannosaurus rex, which Zia uses to save Blue’s life.

At the Lockwood Manor on the mainland, geneticist Henry Wu requires blood samples from Blue. He intends to use her DNA to create a new batch of Indoraptors. Zia reveals Blue’s blood is contaminated with T. rex DNA. Zia releases Blue from her cage and the Velociraptor mauls Wu’s armed guards. During the chaos, a bullet strikes a flammable gas tank, destroying the laboratory, though Blue manages to escape the flames.

Blue reaches Maisie Lockwood’s bedroom just in time to save Owen and the young girl from the prototype Indoraptor. Blue launches herself at the hybrid and the battle spills out of a window. The fight continues onto the mansion’s roof. Blue pounces onto the Indoraptor’s back, which shatters a glass skylight, sending them into the museum below. The Indoraptor is fatally impaled on the horns of an Agujaceratops skull, while Blue survives the fall.

After the surviving dinosaurs are released from the manor’s toxic lower levels into the open forest, Owen approaches Blue one last time. He tells her he can take her to a safe sanctuary, but the raptor refuses to be caged again. She pauses, looking back at Owen to give a gentle noise, before running off into the woods. The film concludes with a sweeping shot of Blue, now fully liberated in the modern world, standing on a ridge and calling out over a suburban California neighbourhood.

Jurassic World: Dominion

Velociraptors have spread across the world. The Department of Prehistoric Wildlife (DPW) recorded a pack of raptors thriving in a nature preserve in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The genetics corporation Biosyn reportedly acquired several surviving Isla Sorna raptors, including both the lowland and highland variants, for their sanctuary in the Dolomite Mountains.

Blue has settled in the snowy wilderness of the Sierra Nevadas, which is also near the cabin of Owen Grady, Claire Dearing, and Maisie Lockwood. Thanks to the monitor lizard DNA used in her creation, Blue has managed to reproduce asexually, giving birth to a genetically identical daughter named Beta. Blue teaches her offspring how to survive. During a winter hunting trip, the pair stalks a snowshoe hare, only to be interrupted by a wolf. The juvenile Beta viciously attacks and kills the wolf.

Beta wanders onto Owen’s property, where Maisie attempts to befriend her by offering her toast. Blue interrupts the encounter and the two return to the woods. Poachers, led by Rainn Delacourt, ambush the raptors as they feed on a fox. Delacourt’s crew knocks Blue down a steep embankment and captures Beta and Maisie. Blue tracks Owen back to his cabin. Owen manages to calm her down and makes her a promise: he will bring Beta home.

Beta is smuggled through Malta by black-market dealer Soyona Santos and transported to Biosyn’s headquarters in Italy. She is kept in Dr. Henry Wu’s laboratories under the orders of CEO Lewis Dodgson. Wu reveals he needs to study the DNA of both Maisie and Beta, who share unique genetic traits, to engineer a pathogen capable of destroying Biosyn’s rogue, genetically modified giant locusts. Maisie frees Beta and she immediately causes chaos, trashing the lab equipment before vanishing into the facility’s server rooms.

Beta remains hidden as Biosyn descends into chaos. When Dodgson attempts to incinerate the mutant locusts, he inadvertently triggers a massive forest fire, forcing an evacuation of the sanctuary. Owen, Maisie, and Dr. Alan Grant finally track Beta down. Maisie and Alan successfully utilise Owen’s raptor-handling hand gestures to hold the juvenile’s attention. Owen tranquillises her and straps her to his back. He carries her out to a rescue helicopter while the sanctuary’s Giganotosaurus, Therizinosaurus, and veteran T. rex battle.

Dr. Wu safely extracts the genetic samples from Beta and Maisie, successfully developing the pathogen to stop the locust plague. Owen returns Beta to the Sierra Nevada woods. Blue emerges from the trees, reuniting with her daughter. Blue shares a final, silent exchange of mutual respect with Owen. Both Blue and Beta disappear into the wild.

Jurassic World: Rebirth

During its operations on Ile Saint-Hubert, InGen engineered a new variant of Velociraptor, visually and genetically similar to the highland breed once found on Isla Sorna. When the Distortus rex breached containment and forced a rapid evacuation of the facility, these experimental raptors broke free from their enclosures, claiming the island as their new territory.

By the year 2027, this pack fully adapted to the island’s ecosystem. In one encounter, a pair of raptors stalks an oblivious Xavier Dobbs after he wanders off alone for a bathroom break. Just as they prepare to strike, they are ambushed by a Mutadon. The larger creature overpowers and kills one of the raptors, forcing the other to abandon the hunt.

(Note: In a deleted scene, a pair of raptors was going to ambush the main human group inside an abandoned InGen facility. They would have retreated into the shadows after being spooked by a pair of approaching Mutadons).

It’s unknown whether the raptors outside of the isolated Ile Saint-Hubert incidents, including Blue and Beta, are still alive.