How accurate is Jurassic World Rebirth? The palaeontologist's verdict

Times

13 hours ago

This is a fun, nostalgic adventure. The palaeontologist Dr Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) encapsulates what many of us are like. There is love, passion, genuine awe and, yes, a little nerdiness. I like how emotional he becomes when he touches a dinosaur for the first time — I'd feel the same.
There are a few things that aggravate. For instance, mosasaurs and pterosaurs are not dinosaurs, although they're discussed as such. They are prehistoric reptiles, which swim and fly respectively. But I did like the design of the mosasaur. Although far larger than any fossil yet found, the anatomy was more accurate than in the previous films. The quetzalcoatlus (a type of giant pterosaur) was covered in fuzzy, hairlike structures that match the fossil record.
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A lot of thought has gone into drawing on the science and developing the behaviour of some of these creatures. The co-operative hunting behaviours between the mosasaur and the spinosaur was a neat idea taken from modern animals.
I was initially sceptical of another mutant storyline. The film-makers could have used other amazing prehistoric species — such as the giant ichthyosaur, Ichthyotitan, which I named in 2024 and which was as big as the on-screen mosasaur — rather than creating new mutants, but it does echo the original novel and movie. After all, these creatures were genetically engineered, with missing DNA filled in from other animals such as frogs. Inevitably you're going to get oddballs.
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Their accuracy is often criticised, but the Jurassic Park films have done so much for palaeontology and brought dinosaur science to new audiences. I'm always going to want it to evolve rather than become extinct.
The Secret Lives of Dinosaurs by Dr Dean Lomax (Columbia University £32 pp312) is published in September