The Velociraptors are some of the biggest dinosaur stars of the Jurassic Park movies, and they’ve nabbed some of the best moments in the franchise as well. Velociraptors were among the first dinosaurs featured in Michael Crichton’s 1990 novel Jurassic Park and its 1993 big-screen adaptation. Like many of the dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park universe, the Velociraptors aren’t exactly scientifically accurate, but their big-screen incarnations certainly get the job done as scary dinosaurs. Indeed, not only are Raptors noted for being extremely strong and fast hunters, they’re also among the most intelligent dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park movies.
Videos by ComicBook.com
With Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) even making the discovering that Raptors can vocalize to each other in Jurassic Park III, it’s no wonder the Raptors have been such long-running star of the Jurassic Park franchise with so many great moments to their name. Here are the seven best Velociraptor scenes in the Jurassic Park franchise.
The Raptors Attack In The Long Grass – The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
The InGen workers of 1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park fail to heed Ajay’s warning that they “Don’t go into the long grass!” and it ends up costing them their lives when the group encounters the pack of Velociraptors that lurk inside. The Lost World‘s long grass set piece is a master work in dinosaur suspense, with the Raptors largely kept out of sight and taking their human prey down from beneath the grass.
The sequences overhead shot of the Raptors marching toward their prey really captures the intelligent dinos as the most strategic hunters of the dinosaur kingdom. Despite keeping the Raptors in the shadows for the bulk of it, The Lost World‘s long grass hunting sequence is one of the best set pieces of Raptors stalking their prey dialed up to maximum tension. Even better, it concludes on a splendid Raptor aerial attack to compound the agility, strength, and intelligence of the Jurassic Park franchise’s smartest and most nimble predator.
The Raptors Attack At The InGen Compound – The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
Following on the heels of the Raptors long grass hunt in The Lost World, another outstanding Raptor set piece sees the dinos pursuing human survivors Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), Dr. Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore), and Malcolm’s daughter Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester) at an abandoned InGen compound. The trio of determined Raptors really put the humans in a tight spot, with Malcolm finding himself locked in an old car as a Raptor tries to get in while Sarah and Kelly are trapped in an old building with Raptors furiously pounding to get inside.
The Raptor’s attack on the human trio at the InGen compound keeps the action moving as fast the Raptors themselves. Steven Spielberg also packs it with taut moments of visual suspense, such as one Raptor aggressively pushing its snout through the glass of a car window and a race against the clock for Sarah and Kelly to dig a way out the building as two Raptors furiously try to dig in. The Velociraptors admittedly have a relatively minor role in The Lost World, but they more than make their time memorable in this scene.
The Raptor Family Comes For Their Stolen Eggs – Jurassic Park III (2001)
One rule of the dinosaur kingdom that the Jurassic Park franchise makes clear – never mess with a dinosaur family’s offspring. In Jurassic Park III, Billy Brennan (Alessandro Nivola) makes that mistake when he steals a pair of Raptor eggs to fund the financially strapped Raptor studies of Dr. Alan Grant, putting the human survivors in great peril with the Raptor family chasing after them. Jurassic Park III ends on a true nail biter of a final confrontation when the Raptors finally catch up to the humans.
For as swift and aggressive as Velociraptors are, Jurassic Park III really adds a new side of them to the mix when they simply arrive to reclaim their eggs from the human group. The Raptors getting right up in the face of Paul (William H. Macy) and Amanda (Tea Leoni) really makes the sequence nerve-wracking while emphasizing the Raptors as a devoted family unit. In the end, the Raptors get what they came for without any human bloodshed, but the sequence is as tense as it gets for Velociraptor scenes.
Blue & The T-Rex Battle The Indominus Rex – Jurassic World (2015)
RELATED: Jurassic Park Fans Are Still Confused by This Line Over 30 Years Later
2015’s Jurassic World not only brought the Jurassic Park franchise back to life, it also gave the world its new favorite Velociraptor in the trained dino, Blue. With the threat of the rampaging Indominus Rex terrorizing Jurassic World, its up the the unleashed Tyrannosaurus Rex to stop it, but the towering hybrid dino seems to be to great a foe for the T-Rex to take down alone. Enter the one and only Blue to save the day as only a trained Velociraptor can.
The original Jurassic Park gave a small glimpse of a Raptor battling a T-Rex in the finale, so the climactic battle of Jurassic World plays as a kind of full circle moment with Blue battling a much larger dinosaur. Additionally, Blue and the T-Rex’s shared victory ends on a look of mutual dinosaur respect between the two, adding the full circle quality of the showdown. The Indominus Rex was a tough opponent to take down, and in the end, Blue was an essential player in doing so along with making the finale of Jurassic World another great Velociraptor sequence.
Robert Muldoon Meets The “Clever Girl” – Jurassic Park (1993)
Jurassic Park keeps the Velociraptors mostly hidden from view until the third act while they are spoken about with hushed, legendary reverence by Dr. Alan Grant. Jurassic Park’s game warden Robert Muldoon (Bob Peck) discovers firsthand just how effective the Raptor’s hunting tactics are later on. Trying to shoot one Raptor from a distance, Muldoon is suddenly confronted by another from the side. Acknowledging the Raptor as a “clever girl,” Muldoon ultimately isn’t able to turn his weapon to his new dino attacker in time.
The sequence is the first real hunt the Raptors embark upon in the Jurassic Park franchise, and it actively builds upon Dr. Grant’s monologue early in the movie about Raptors planning their hunting strategy, with an attack that “comes not from the front, but from the side,” with a Raptor that Muldoon didn’t even know was there. The intelligence and coordination of Velociraptors is truly a scary combination, and Jurassic Park showcases both well with one particularly clever girl.
The Malta Motorcycle Chase – Jurassic World: Dominion (2022)
Remember in Jurassic Park when Robert Muldoon revealed that Raptors can sprint at up to “50, 60 miles per hour”? It really wasn’t until the Jurassic World movies arrived that the franchise began truly showcasing just how fast Raptors are, and the Malta chase sequence in the somewhat divisive Jurassic World: Dominion more than takes the crown of the best Raptor chase scene. Pursuing Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and other humans on motorcycle and car through the streets of Malta, the Raptors really show just what speed demons there are in the dinosaur world in the exhilarating sequence.
Even better, the ancient architecture of Malta requires the Raptors to maneuver their surroundings with just as much care as the humans they’re chasing after. That makes the chase even more impressive, with the Raptors maintaining their extreme velocity while slipping through streets, alleys, and other openings like swift, bipedal snakes. Not only is the Raptor Malta chase in Jurassic World: Dominion one of the best Velociraptor sequences, it’s also simply one of the greatest Jurassic Park action sequences, period.
The Raptors Stalk The Kids In The Kitchen – Jurassic Park (1993)
Like the T-Rex’s unforgettable escape from its paddock, the Velociraptor’s finest moment still resides in the original Jurassic Park with a duo of Raptors pursuing Lex (Ariana Richards) and Tim (Joseph Mazzello) into the Vistor’s Center kitchen. Even though the Raptors had already been seen on-screen by this point in Jurassic Park, the pair’s entry into the kitchen feels like the dino’s proper big-screen intro, with the intelligent Raptors figuring out how to use a door handle and entering the kitchen with their spine-tingling raspy snarls in pursuit of their next meal.
What makes the kitchen sequence really effective is just how much Spielberg holds back on the Raptor’s strength and speed, instead carrying the sequence out over an extended period with the Raptors knowing their prey is in the kitchen and casually strolling in to find them, clicking their razor-sharp claws on the tile floor as they do. Lex and Tim’s multiple close calls with the two Raptors before the two kids thankfully escape also makes the kitchen sequence genuinely claustrophobic and frightening, with moments like one of the Raptors sniffing a dropped ladle mere inches from the hiding Tim. As one of the staple dinosaurs of the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies, the Velociraptors have had no shortage of great moments throughout the franchise, but the hair-raising, tense, and thoroughly suspenseful kitchen hunting sequence of Jurassic Park is still the greatest Velociraptor scene to date.
The Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies are available to stream on Prime Video and Hulu.
