[Spoilers for the Jurassic Park novel, and JP1-3, JW, and JWFK movies - none for Dominion because I still haven't watched it, and if any of this post contradicts its events, please don't tell me in too much detail]
The last I checked the JP fandom wiki refers to the T. rex family from TLW as "buck" (the adult male), "doe" (the adult female), and "fawn" (the juvenile) on the animals' pages. Things written on fan-maintained wikis aren't automatically canon, of course, and it is also mentioned on the wiki itself that this isn't necessarily official terminology, but I find interesting where this terminology came from, and what the things some of the characters in-universe call the animals says about how they see them.
Using "doe" and "fawn" for the rexes is derived from the adult male being called a "buck" in the movie. As is also mentioned on the adult female's wiki page, these are the terms for adult male, adult female, and juvenile deer. Why deer? Doesn't seem like the most obvious modern animal parallel to a T. rex.
Roland Tembo: Second condition, my fee. You can keep it. All I want in exchange for my services is the right to hunt one of the Tyrannosaurus. A male. A buck only. How and why are my business.
Ajay Sidhu: Make your blind here, wait for the buck to return.
The characters who dub the male rex a buck are Roland Tembo and Ajay Sidhu, and Roland's first use of the term is right after declaring he wants to shoot the animal. Roland and Ajay are big game hunters, who in a deleted scene discuss how they've already caught every animal there is to catch and collected enough hunting trophies that Roland's ranch is full of them, and hunting is getting boring and kind of unfair because of how good they are at it. What convinced them to join Peter Ludlow's team on this trip to Isla Sorna was finally having something new and exciting to hunt again. Deer is a popular animal to hunt, and a skull or taxidermied head of a buck with big antlers is a popular hunting trophy. Which is exactly what Roland and Ajay think of the male T. rex as.
There's also a generous helping of Manly Bullshit™ involved, I'm sure, since Roland has decided he wants to shoot the male in particular before even knowing whether male rexes are in any way more impressive than females in terms of appearance or the challenge of hunting them. Or if he's trying to be responsible and leave the infant rex with a parent to look after it and only kill the one less likely to be closely involved in raising it, how well does he know T. rex parenting behavior? For all he knows at the time of deciding which adult to hunt, maybe T. rex chicks are actually raised by single fathers, like some modern birds are.
There's also a generous helping of Manly Bullshit™ involved, I'm sure, since Roland has decided he wants to shoot the male in particular before even knowing whether male rexes are in any way more impressive than females in terms of appearance or the challenge of hunting them. Or if he's trying to be responsible and leave the infant rex with a parent to look after it and only kill the one less likely to be closely involved in raising it, how well does he know T. rex parenting behavior? For all he knows at the time of deciding which adult to hunt, maybe T. rex chicks are actually raised by single fathers, like some modern birds are.
Dr. Sarah Harding: Robert Burke said the T. rex was a rogue who would abandon its young at the earliest opportunity.
(Okay, fair enough, Dr. Burke is part of Ludlow's team as a scientific advisor. But Roland and Ajay don't seem to have taken his word as fact much, considering how sure they are that the rex parents, including the male, will go to the trouble of retrieving their kidnapped young, and I don't recall Dr. Burke ever specifying, in lines that made it to the movie at least, whether he thinks there's any difference in parenting behavior or lack thereof between male and female T. rexes.)
Also interesting is Roland's line, again from the deleted scene, about how much fuss there is these days about what you're allowed to hunt, paired with Peter Ludlow later saying the extinct animals InGen has brought back to life "have no rights". Trophy hunting is not an inherently evil practice and can even have a place in conservation work, but bringing in funds to help population restoration and culling individuals that are causing problems of some kind is obviously not what's going on here. I'm not as sure about Ajay because he isn't given as much screentime to develop his character, but for Roland at least, this hunting trip seems like an attempt to relive Old Glory Days and prove to his midlife crisis that he's still got it.
Which is a perfectly fine character motivation. But with this context, I'm not sure the character calling these animals by certain terminology on its own makes a very strong case for the terminology being more widely adopted as applying to them.
...Although I can definitely see why "buck" might be preferable to bird terminology for the T. rex male, even if "hen" and "chick" seem fine for the female and infant. Or I guess there's "rooster" as an alternative.
Another character whose choice of dinosaur terminology is interesting to me is Robert Muldoon, specifically what he calls the Velociraptors' social group.
Also interesting is Roland's line, again from the deleted scene, about how much fuss there is these days about what you're allowed to hunt, paired with Peter Ludlow later saying the extinct animals InGen has brought back to life "have no rights". Trophy hunting is not an inherently evil practice and can even have a place in conservation work, but bringing in funds to help population restoration and culling individuals that are causing problems of some kind is obviously not what's going on here. I'm not as sure about Ajay because he isn't given as much screentime to develop his character, but for Roland at least, this hunting trip seems like an attempt to relive Old Glory Days and prove to his midlife crisis that he's still got it.
Which is a perfectly fine character motivation. But with this context, I'm not sure the character calling these animals by certain terminology on its own makes a very strong case for the terminology being more widely adopted as applying to them.
...Although I can definitely see why "buck" might be preferable to bird terminology for the T. rex male, even if "hen" and "chick" seem fine for the female and infant. Or I guess there's "rooster" as an alternative.
Another character whose choice of dinosaur terminology is interesting to me is Robert Muldoon, specifically what he calls the Velociraptors' social group.
Robert Muldoon: When she came in, she took over the pride and killed all but two of the others.
Before working at Jurassic Park, Muldoon was game warden at John Hammond's safari park in Kenya. "Pride" is, as all my fellow 90's kids have probably learned from a certain animated animal adaptation of Hamlet, what the social group of lions is called, and considering his background, lion is probably also the social predator Muldoon is the most familiar with and what he has experience in managing. This is probably reflected in his treatment of the Velociraptors.
Though this is in the first movie, it's not the first time we hear the raptors' social group described, as Dr. Grant refers to them as "pack hunters" when scaring the kid who dared to call them turkeys (meant as an insult and taken as such by Dr. Grant, though instead of considering it necessary to defend the dinosaurs' reputation as scary, he could have taken that conversation in another direction, too). "Pack" can be used of several different animals' social groups, but it probably most famously is that of wolves, another carnivorous mammal that hunts cooperatively.
Since I've now brought up felines and canines, well, I can't help but be reminded of one of the most common reasons that some people hate cats, which is that they misapply their knowledge on dog behavior to expecting cats, too, to behave like the animal they're familiar with, and are then disappointed and offended when cats, who are not dogs, fail to live up to the standards of being a dog. Maybe part of why Muldoon hates the Velociraptors so much is that instead of trying to understand them as they are, he expects them to be like lions, and their failure to adhere to what reference he has for social predator behavior makes them seem all the more alien and malicious to him. Certainly they are extremely dangerous, and should probably have never been made, but they're also just animals trying to survive and have their basic needs met, and treating them as something that, if you can't outright get rid of it, must be locked away like they're nuclear waste - putting them in that tiny pen instead of figuring out how their paddock could be made more pleasant for them - probably doesn't make them plot escaping and eating their captors any less.
Comparing Velociraptors to wolves gets more prominent in Jurassic World, with both Hoskins and Owen projecting onto them some form of leading-a-wolf-pack fantasy, with bonus Manly Bullshit™, also for both of them.
Though this is in the first movie, it's not the first time we hear the raptors' social group described, as Dr. Grant refers to them as "pack hunters" when scaring the kid who dared to call them turkeys (meant as an insult and taken as such by Dr. Grant, though instead of considering it necessary to defend the dinosaurs' reputation as scary, he could have taken that conversation in another direction, too). "Pack" can be used of several different animals' social groups, but it probably most famously is that of wolves, another carnivorous mammal that hunts cooperatively.
Since I've now brought up felines and canines, well, I can't help but be reminded of one of the most common reasons that some people hate cats, which is that they misapply their knowledge on dog behavior to expecting cats, too, to behave like the animal they're familiar with, and are then disappointed and offended when cats, who are not dogs, fail to live up to the standards of being a dog. Maybe part of why Muldoon hates the Velociraptors so much is that instead of trying to understand them as they are, he expects them to be like lions, and their failure to adhere to what reference he has for social predator behavior makes them seem all the more alien and malicious to him. Certainly they are extremely dangerous, and should probably have never been made, but they're also just animals trying to survive and have their basic needs met, and treating them as something that, if you can't outright get rid of it, must be locked away like they're nuclear waste - putting them in that tiny pen instead of figuring out how their paddock could be made more pleasant for them - probably doesn't make them plot escaping and eating their captors any less.
Comparing Velociraptors to wolves gets more prominent in Jurassic World, with both Hoskins and Owen projecting onto them some form of leading-a-wolf-pack fantasy, with bonus Manly Bullshit™, also for both of them.
Hoskins also just keeps forgetting that the I.B.R.I.S. raptors are female, which shouldn't be news to him this far into the project. But hey, I see male JP/W fans do the same all the time, so validation for them, I guess.
Vic Hoskins: What's his name?
Barry Sembène: Delta. And she's a girl.
Barry Sembène: Delta. And she's a girl.
Hoskins at Delta: Easy, boy.
What can I say, men having trouble getting it to their heads that something cool could be for girls, too, or could even be girls, too, is pretty funny sometimes, when it manifests as something like insistently misgendering an animal.
But there are examples of that earlier in the series, too.
But there are examples of that earlier in the series, too.
Dr. Alan Grant: T. rex doesn't want to be fed. He wants to hunt.
Dr. Henry Wu in the Jurassic Park novel: So our animals are all female. We tend to refer to some of them as male - such as the Tyrannosaurus rex; we all call it a 'him' - but in fact, they're all female.
Also referring to the T. rex in the Jurassic Park novel:
Dr. Alan Grant: He's here.
Dr. Ian Malcolm: She.
Dr. Alan Grant: He's here.
Dr. Ian Malcolm: She.
Speaking of Dr. Grant, despite the many references he makes to similarities between present-day birds and Mesozoic dinosaurs in the first movie, by his return in JP3 those seem to have disappeared from his vocabulary. He even says dinosaurs are all extinct when dismissing the InGen clones as not real enough dinosaurs, implying as collateral damage that birds aren't dinosaurs, either. Instead, when talking about the Velociraptors' notable intelligence, he compares them to more mammals.
JP3 is a frustrating movie with a lot of flaws, but I seem to keep finding a lot of interesting little details about it, so maybe I'll reconsider it being my least favorite on my next rewatch, and today's detail is that this could be seen as one of the ways Dr. Grant's traumatic experience at Jurassic Park has tainted for him things he used to love about his profession. He's still studying Velociraptors, but at least some of his admiration of them seems to be almost begrudging now that living specimens have tried to kill him, and as fascinated as he was with the clones at the start of his visit to the park, already knowing they're genetically engineered theme-park monster versions of the originals, now he's retreated back to only the long-extinct raptors being good raptors to him. Whether or not he's aware of it, maybe championing the idea of birds as living dinosaurs is part of what the trauma ruined for him. And over the course of his new traumatic experiences on Isla Sorna and observing the even birdier JP3 Velociraptors, some of that spark of interest and respect for them seems to return, however that works from a psychological point of view, lol.
JP3 is a frustrating movie with a lot of flaws, but I seem to keep finding a lot of interesting little details about it, so maybe I'll reconsider it being my least favorite on my next rewatch, and today's detail is that this could be seen as one of the ways Dr. Grant's traumatic experience at Jurassic Park has tainted for him things he used to love about his profession. He's still studying Velociraptors, but at least some of his admiration of them seems to be almost begrudging now that living specimens have tried to kill him, and as fascinated as he was with the clones at the start of his visit to the park, already knowing they're genetically engineered theme-park monster versions of the originals, now he's retreated back to only the long-extinct raptors being good raptors to him. Whether or not he's aware of it, maybe championing the idea of birds as living dinosaurs is part of what the trauma ruined for him. And over the course of his new traumatic experiences on Isla Sorna and observing the even birdier JP3 Velociraptors, some of that spark of interest and respect for them seems to return, however that works from a psychological point of view, lol.
Dr. Alan Grant: Jack, say my name. Is my name Alan? ...Is my name Alan?
He used to know me.
He used to know me.
So with that in mind, his inability to get the response he wants from the parrot that, I assume, he and Dr. Sattler had as a pet when they were dating and which lives with her now, is kind of symbolic of a bunch of things he's lost. The conversation about the sophistication of Velociraptor communication is had with a talking dinosaur whose intelligence is comparable to dolphins, whales, and
non-human primates sitting ignored right there in the same room.
Alan seems pretty okay to me with his romantic relationship with Ellie being over (and either way, she's moved on and is happy, good for her), and they're even still friends; that isn't the bridge he needs to repair. It's the breakup with birbs that's a problem.
Alan seems pretty okay to me with his romantic relationship with Ellie being over (and either way, she's moved on and is happy, good for her), and they're even still friends; that isn't the bridge he needs to repair. It's the breakup with birbs that's a problem.
Claire Dearing: Our shareholders have been patient, but let's be honest... no one is impressed by a dinosaur anymore. Twenty years ago, de-extinction was right up there with magic. These days, kids look at a Stegosaurus like an elephant from the city zoo.
Also Claire Dearing: Your kids, an entire generation, has grown up in a world where dinosaurs are living and breathing. But soon they're gonna have to watch them go extinct... or not, if people like you make a difference.
When it comes to characters' views of dinosaurs changing between movies, I can understand how Claire's seeming 180 between Jurassic World and Fallen Kingdom can be jarring, but it never seemed to me like it came out of nowhere or made no sense. I mean first of all the writing of FK just respects Claire as a character more to begin with, and some differences inevitably result from her not being constantly judged by the narrative for being a woman with a career, but in addition to the moments she already gets in JW of starting to see the dinosaurs more as living beings than as a factor in park attendance stats, I think some of the intensity of her change of approach is because of what came before those moments.
Claire wasn't just ignorant of how marvelous creatures the dinosaurs are, she was running the park, and as also gets pointed out in Fallen Kingdom, she authorized some of its most unethical practices. The Indominus rex's creation got a green light from her, and even if she didn't know everything about what the animal was really for, on its own making a living creature no one knows exactly how to care for just to boost ticket sales is not right. This is probably not a facet of her past she feels very good about. So she's working her hardest to do differently, which should be the same thing as doing better. Right?
Claire wasn't just ignorant of how marvelous creatures the dinosaurs are, she was running the park, and as also gets pointed out in Fallen Kingdom, she authorized some of its most unethical practices. The Indominus rex's creation got a green light from her, and even if she didn't know everything about what the animal was really for, on its own making a living creature no one knows exactly how to care for just to boost ticket sales is not right. This is probably not a facet of her past she feels very good about. So she's working her hardest to do differently, which should be the same thing as doing better. Right?
After all, another character in this movie series already "went from capitalist to naturalist" as an attempt to atone for his mistakes with Jurassic Park, while still not quite admitting to all of those mistakes (and making all new ones). Though it's made less apparent by her more active role in the events of the movie (because she's young and able-bodied, and could personally get involved instead of only sending others), Claire is Hammond's spiritual successor in the JW movies more than the other park owner or the other old guy with an amber cane is.
The language she has picked up to refer to the animals is to treat them as endangered species, needing to be preserved. But non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and mosasaurs have been absent from the ecosystem for so long that it's moved on without them, and any niches those creatures used to fill are occupied by other animals that evolved alongside that ecosystem, and are important components of keeping it in balance. To present-day nature the InGen clones are at best irrelevant and at worst invasive species. It's not their fault of course, they're just trying to live like any other beings, but that doesn't make them a conservation priority when there are also present-day dinosaurs on the verge of extinction to direct resources into saving.
The clones - now that they exist, never mind whether they should have been made to exist - are still of scientific value, though, as even while modified from their Mesozoic counterparts they can offer breakthrough insight into what those Mesozoic animals were like that doesn't get preserved in fossils. That Claire chooses more emotionally-appealing rhetoric when talking to potential donors than focusing on how much could still be learned from studying them is understandable, but that she keeps the tone even when no longer trying to recruit people to her cause shows this isn't an act. She feels she personally owes it to these animals to save them. And she did, to be fair, have a plan more responsible than setting them loose just anywhere outside Isla Nublar, but the sanctuary island would surely have nature of its own, too, that would be disturbed by the introduction of so many new species.
Anyway I guess I'll have to get around to watching Dominion already to see how well all of that works out.
The language she has picked up to refer to the animals is to treat them as endangered species, needing to be preserved. But non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and mosasaurs have been absent from the ecosystem for so long that it's moved on without them, and any niches those creatures used to fill are occupied by other animals that evolved alongside that ecosystem, and are important components of keeping it in balance. To present-day nature the InGen clones are at best irrelevant and at worst invasive species. It's not their fault of course, they're just trying to live like any other beings, but that doesn't make them a conservation priority when there are also present-day dinosaurs on the verge of extinction to direct resources into saving.
The clones - now that they exist, never mind whether they should have been made to exist - are still of scientific value, though, as even while modified from their Mesozoic counterparts they can offer breakthrough insight into what those Mesozoic animals were like that doesn't get preserved in fossils. That Claire chooses more emotionally-appealing rhetoric when talking to potential donors than focusing on how much could still be learned from studying them is understandable, but that she keeps the tone even when no longer trying to recruit people to her cause shows this isn't an act. She feels she personally owes it to these animals to save them. And she did, to be fair, have a plan more responsible than setting them loose just anywhere outside Isla Nublar, but the sanctuary island would surely have nature of its own, too, that would be disturbed by the introduction of so many new species.
Anyway I guess I'll have to get around to watching Dominion already to see how well all of that works out.
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