Jurassic World: Dominion Director Reveals Why Original T-Rex Has Feathers in Prologue

Scientists have uncovered a lot of unexpected discoveries about prehistoric creatures since the first Jurassic Park landed in theaters, with Jurassic World: Dominion attempting to honor those reveals in the recently released Prologue for Dominion, which includes depicting the iconic Tyrannosaurus rex as having feathers 65 million years ago. Trevorrow explained to IGN that, while the T-Rex seen in the Prologue is meant to be the beast from the original film, the one in the film franchise has been modified with frog DNA, resulting in the loss of the feathers it is sporting in this Prologue, explaining the genetic differences and physical changes to the beast. Jurassic World: Dominion hits theaters on June 10, 2022.

“I think we have a really good logical explanation for why these are dinosaurs that look different than the other Jurassic dinosaurs have looked in the past,” Trevorrow shared with the oulet. “In this case, it’s that we’re showing them in their original habitat. There was no frog DNA used to bridge the gaps in the genomes, so it gave us an opportunity to show dinosaurs with feathers.”

He added, “It’s an origin story, in the way we might get to do in a superhero film. The T-Rex is a superhero for me. It really allows us to take this brilliant concept that [Jurassic Park author] Michael Crichton conceived, that is the foundation that all of this has been built on, and show it in its absolutely purest form.”

While this Prologue was directed by Trevorrow, it won’t be featured in the theatrically released Dominion, yet still marks a first for the franchise, in that it includes our first flashbacks to prehistoric times as opposed to how all previous films have unraveled in the present.

“As you’ll see in this prologue, our T-Rex — and it’s the exact same one — looks a little bit different now whatever gaps existed in her genome had to be bridged,” Trevorrow admitted. “We didn’t want it to be unrecognizable, this is a heroic character we love and care about very much, but it allowed us to give context to what those 65 million years really represent in world history.”

Jurassic World: Dominion lands in theaters on June 10, 2022.

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