The "Raptor" Dinosaurs: A Complete Cinematic History (Part One)

Dinosaurs in Film: The Raptor

 

Velociraptor. If you said that name one hundred years ago, no one would know what in the world you were talking about. This “Swift Thief” (English translation of its Latin name) was described by paleontologists as a predator, and one of the most incredible fossils ever discovered proved this: a Velociraptor and Protoceratops were fossilized while they were still in combat, with the raptor thrusting its sickle claw into the stomach of its prey. Though this particular fossil was found in 1971 and the species was first described many years before that, the Velociraptor wouldn’t be made famous around the world until the 1990’s—and when everyone finally knew that name, the dinosaur itself would become one of the most misunderstood species for many years to come.

It’s a pretty complicated history as to why Velociraptor—and, by extension, all members of the dromaeosaurid family—became so misrepresented in Hollywood, but their history doesn’t date as far back as some of the other most famous meat-eaters like T. rex and Allosaurus. It wouldn’t be until the 1980’s that small, fast, predatory dinosaurs would start to turn up in motion pictures, and Velociraptor itself wasn’t even the first of these. So, this is going to be a history of the “raptor” dinosaurs, which includes other dromaeosaurs, as well.

 

Dawn of Deinonychus (1980’s)

The dromaeosaurids include all raptor-like dinosaurs, and these Cretaceous-era predators came in many shapes and sizes. Actually, that’s not entirely accurate. Yes, many of them were of different sizes, but they all had common features that set them apart from other predatory dinosaurs. Raptors had a sickle-shaped claw on their inner toes, much larger than their other toe claws, and this trait is common among all dromaeosaurs. Other commonalities include hollow, light-weight bones, narrow muzzles, bipedal posture, and, as would later be discovered, feathers. Even before the realization that these creatures bore primitive feathers, their body plans told paleontologists that they were warm-blooded, fast, and bird-like, not slow reptiles with scales, cold blood, and dragging tails. This understanding would lead to the realization that no dinosaur was truly like a reptile. In science as in pop culture, it was known as the “Dinosaur Renaissance.”

In the 1960s, new views on dinosaurs gained recognition and acceptance. They were not slow, dumb, plodding beasts. They were active, social, and some, like the raptors, were intelligent. I’ve often levelled criticism at Hollywood for being behind the times in terms of science when it comes to cinematic dinosaurs, but actually, I have to give them a little bit of credit here for being ahead of the curve in making dinosaurs so active. Before paleontologists started characterizing the terrible lizards as fast-moving animals, many of the early dinosaur films showed them as mobile monsters. Paintings and pictures were one thing, but moving pictures brought them to life in a way other artists and even scientists couldn’t. The filmmakers imagined very inaccurate versions of the creatures, yes, but they were dynamic, fast-moving, and would lead the way to ever more realistic examples.

The big dinosaurs were always the most appealing, especially on a big screen, and dinosaur enthusiast Phil Tippett featured two of the last great giants in his short film Prehistoric Beast (1984). Using his animation technique called “Go Motion” which has stop motion mixed with motion blurs to create the smoothest stop motion possible, he recreated a battle between a Tyrannosaurus rex and a Monoclonius, which was a horned dinosaur and is now known as Centrosaurus. The film was about ten minutes in length, and depicted dinosaurs in a far more realistic way than anything before. Even though it only features the two species, it led to one of the earliest on-screen depictions of a raptor, though the creature would ultimately be shown for the first time on television, which means this isn’t technically the first cinematic raptor. But, it’s worth talking about, because if you think of the additional scenes included in the documentary Dinosaur! (1985) as the extended cut of Prehistoric Beast, then the Deinonychus makes its debut here, and it matches the Rex in fierceness and terror.

Deinonychus was a ten-foot-long carnivore with all the hallmarks of a dromaeosaur. It was intelligent, hunted in packs, ran fast, and was bird-like, but the depiction in the doc is missing feathers. To be fair, it wasn’t as widely believed yet that all dromaeosaurs were feathered, so Tippett did the best that he could to make an accurate model for the time, and I think he did a pretty great job. His Deinonychus is truly scary, with large red eyes and a vicious roar. A pair of them ambush a Struthiomimus (ostrich-like dinosaur) and chase it down in a forest, killing it with bites and slashes from their deadly claws.

The first true cinematic raptor was a Deinonychus, though, in the cheaply-produced horror film Carnosaur (1993) which was made to cash in on the anticipated success of Jurassic Park. Today, we get rip-off movies made by The Asylum that try to trick viewers into watching bad movies released close to similar-looking big blockbusters. Examples include Transmorphers coming out at the same time as Transformers, King of the Lost World coming out at the same time as Peter Jackson’s King Kong, and more recently Ape vs. Monster coming out at the same time as Godzilla vs. Kong. It’s not a new tactic: Roger Corman produced Carnosaur and had it in theaters mere weeks before Jurassic Park came out. The dinosaurs in his film would be quickly forgotten in the wake of Spielberg’s movie, even though they brought about bloodier deaths for their victims. Today, Carnosaur is remembered as being the gorier, cheaper version of Jurassic Park.    

The Deinonychus of Carnosaur was created by John Carl Buechler, and his design was more reminiscent of something from the B-movie era than Phil Tippett’s sleek sprinters. When we see the raptor in full for the first time, it lumbers onto the screen in a hunched over position, its arms sticking straight out from its chest. The anatomy is completely wrong, but I don’t really blame Buechler. He had only a few weeks to create the raptor, as well as a full-sized Tyrannosaurus rex, and the close-up puppet for the Deinonychus head is actually not bad. It doesn’t move or perform in a very believable manner (in fact it looks like an actual Muppet in some shots), but it does rip its victims apart, so they got that part right at least.  

This is where things get complicated. The name Deinonychus would not be the one picked up by the general public. Its likeness would become one of the most famous dinosaurs, but all that fame would belong to the name of a totally different beast.

 

Vengeance of Velociraptor (1990’s)

 

A few weeks after Carnosaur debuted in theaters with a low gross and poor reviews, Jurassic Park (1993) opened at #1 and went on to rake in nearly a billion dollars (eventually earning more than that with re-releases) plus pick up an Academy Award for best special effects—effects that would change cinema forever. Computer generated imagery was used to bring the full-sized dinosaurs to life, but this new technology was also utilized in conjunction with animatronics created by Stan Winston, who had made some ambitious creatures before (such as the Queen in Aliens and the Predator in Predator) but never before had he made something as large and articulate as a Tyrannosaurus rex. Jurassic Park had multiple species of herbivores and carnivores. While T. rex was the main attraction as far as the carnivores went, another carnivore subtlety became the main antagonist of the movie, and would give moviegoers just as many nightmares as the T. rex, if not more.

Let’s back up a few years. Michael Crichton, an author and filmmaker and former doctor, had an idea for a dinosaur tale that involved state-of-the-art cloning technology bringing the creatures back to life to be featured in a theme park on a remote tropical island. His concept used old ideas like the island setting and a theme park that goes on the fritz (the latter being the premise for his 1973 film Westworld) and wove them together with cutting-edge scientific research. In 1990 his book Jurassic Park was published, and readers were introduced to a resurrected species by the name of Velociraptor. This little hunter had a flickering tongue like a lizard and exhibited problem-solving intelligence, but Crichton did a simple little trick in his book that led to a world-wide state of confusion. Was Velociraptor really as he had described? No, it was not.

When Crichton was writing the book, he went to museums, looked at textbooks, and talked to paleontologists. If you’ve read a Crichton novel, you know he does his research, and Jurassic was no exception. At the end of the day, of course the story is science fiction, but Crichton based his description of Velociraptor on Deinonychus. He wanted the ten-foot long raptor that could look Dr. Grant in the eye, but used the name Velociraptor instead because it sounded “more dramatic.” The paleontologists in the book and the movie uncover Velociraptor bones in North America, but in reality, this was the place Deinonychus lived. Velociraptor remains have only ever been found in Asia, and that raptor was only about the size of a turkey. So, even though Velociraptor was a real species of raptor, Crichton thought he would use the name and apply it to a near-exact description of Deinonychus.

The movie adaptation did not correct the problem. Spielberg also liked the name Velociraptor, but he also liked the size and look of Deinonychus. Stan Winston Studios made the raptor match the novel’s description, with one detail missing. Paleontologist Jack Horner, who supervised the creation of the dinos for the film, said the raptors were bird-like, and therefore should not have flickering tongues like lizards. An early pre-visualization of the classic kitchen scene with two raptors stalking the kids showed them flicking their long tongues, and one moment of this was kept in the final movie: a shot where a raptor licks a spoon, but its tongue is normal in length.

Not only did the movie fail to call Deinonychus by the right name, it compounded the misunderstandings of raptor dinosaurs. The word “raptor” is Latin for thief or plunderer or seizer. While it is also the name for the family of predatory birds that includes falcons, Dr. Grant incorrectly says the word raptor means bird of prey in reference to Velociraptor. There is evidence for them being intelligent, but their IQ probably wasn’t quite as high as the movie led viewers to believe. Later research and testing also concluded their sickle claws were unable to tear open the bellies of their prey, though could still pierce vital organs. Sorry, Dr. Grant. It made for a great story to scare that kid, but it wasn’t all true.

The raptor in Jurassic Park was one of the only dinosaurs created with practical effects from head to toe to tail. The digital effects were used whenever the raptors leapt or ran beyond the capabilities of the in-camera effects, but when the raptors were moving through the kitchen, many shots used a full-sized suit with an actor inside. The actor’s legs operated the raptor’s legs, and the raptor neck and head was full of electronics moving its eyes and jaws, while the actor’s head and arms were located in the chest region. It’s a truly impressive means of making a raptor, but it also meant the anatomy was still flawed. Their arms and hands didn’t hang that way in real life, and their lower legs weren’t that bulky.

The movie version of Velociraptor was a nightmarish creature that captured the imagination of moviegoers. It was the smartest, meanest, nastiest dinosaur anyone had ever seen, bold enough to try taking on the Tyrant Lizard King herself. Even though the film was such a hit and the raptors were instantly huge stars, it would be a few more years before audiences saw any raptors that looked half as good as the ones from Jurassic. The same Deinonychus puppet from the first Carnosaur was used in Dinosaur Island (1994), and a new type of raptor was featured in Carnosaur 2 (1995). Is this species a Velociraptor or Deinonychus? It’s said to be Velociraptor, which checks out, because they were very clearly copying the look and methods used by Stan Winston Studios to make the Jurassic raptors. Carnosaur 2’s raptors have longer snouts and make higher-pitched squeals compared to the Deinonychus of the first movie, and unlike the Stan Winston creations, it’s pretty obvious these are just guys in suits.

The Land Before Time III: The Time of the Great Giving (1995) introduced kids in the 90’s who were too young to see the PG-13 Jurassic Park to what all this growing raptor hype was about. The raptors that attack the residents of the Great Valley are called “fast biters” and are no match for the large adults. But, as enemies to the smaller, more vulnerable young protagonists, they’re even more frightening than the large sharp tooth of previous movies in a way, because they’re faster and hunt in a pack (however they are not nearly as smart). As far as the way they’re drawn and coloured, the immediate visual influence of Jurassic Park is already evident. Carnosaur 3: Primal Species (1996) brought back the same Velociraptors from the previous movie, and The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) brought back the most famous of raptors for the sequel, but surprisingly, they only show up in the later part of the film for a few scenes.

The raptors in The Lost World look a little different from the ones in Jurassic Park, but the changes are subtle enough most viewers wouldn’t have caught it. These ones have greenish-yellow eyes and brown stripes, and they are just as frightening as in the first movie, using those big brains to counteract the humans’ attempts to evade them. The one moment that always stands out as being a bit silly is when the young girl Kelly uses her gymnastic skills to kick a raptor out a window, but I think it’s unfair this is the moment everyone remembers and not other great ones like when the raptors dig under the door to get into the shed, or before that when they’re stalking the men in the field. The raptors are only in the movie for about 7 minutes, and even though they don’t have a frightening presence from beginning to end like in the first movie, this sequel still helped cement their status as the most frightening dinosaur in the franchise. So influential were they that Tri-Star’s Godzilla (1998) featured baby Zilla’s that were about the size of raptors, and they behaved in a similar way.

By this point, raptors were a well-known type of dinosaur, and in part two we’ll see how they continued their reign as one of the most popular new prehistoric celebrities.