Velociraptor (movie canon)

WARNING: This article covers the "Velociraptor" as it appears in the films "Ellie, these creatures were smart. They were smarter than dolphins and whales...they were smarter than primates."

- Alan Grant

Velociraptor is the 3 to 4 meter (10–13 foot) long, 1.8 meter (6 foot) high dromaeosaurid theropod carnivore that appears in all Jurassic Park films and film-based media. The Raptors are the main antagonists of the first film and are the secondary antagonists of the second and third films.

Velociraptors are highly intelligent pack hunters. They could run 60-70 mph at full sprint, so they could outrun most dinosaurs. They have a primitive level of vocalization which enables them to direct attacks and call for help. They are also able to set traps.

Raptors did not always get along, and were sometimes very anti-social towards each other. However, they show a high devotion in protecting or retrieving their eggs.

In reality, there is no real paleontologist that recognizes this animal. Although it is called Velociraptor, it also shows characteristics of other, like Deinonychus and Utahraptor.

Size and classification
At the time that Michael Crichton wrote the first novel (late 1980's), Deinonychus was included in the Velociraptor genus by famed palaeoartist. The type-species Deinonychus antirrhopus was relabeled Velociraptor antirrhopus. This reclassification is mentioned by Alan Grant in the first novel: "Although Deinonychus is now considered one of the Velociraptors. This is caused by Gregory Paul's habit as a cladistical "lumper", grouping many species into the same genera such as labeling Tarbosaurus bataar as Tyrannosaurus bataar, something he has no evidence for other than his disbelief in them being different.

Because Deinonychus was classified as Velociraptor, the so-called "Raptors" from the three films were based more on Deinonychus than Velociraptor, probably because Deinonychus was much larger and thus more dangerous. Because the film makers haven't reclassified these creatures and still call them Velociraptors, many Jurassic Park fans refer to them as "Velociraptor" antirrhopus.

Hunting
Many Raptors may have hunted in packs, often ranging in large numberings. The most well known evidence of this are the fossilized remains of a group of Deinonychus eating an adult Tenontosaurus. Dr. Alan Grant's theory is that if you were to stand still in front of a Raptor, the Raptor would just look back, as if in a standoff. Then the attack would come, not from the front, but from the flanks by other Raptors you wouldn't even know were there. The Raptors would typically pounce on their prey and slash at the stomach with the retractable claw on the middle toe. The average distance an adult Raptor could jump was around 10–12 ft high and about the same in length. They could run 60-70 mph at full sprint, so they could outrun most dinosaurs. In the real world, they could run at no more than 45-50 mph.

Raptors did not always get along, and were sometimes very anti-social towards each other. We see this in Jurassic Park when the Raptors snap at each other when they enter the kitchen, and then again in The Lost World when Sarah makes her escape. Given that they are pack animals, this could just be their way of reinforcing the group pecking order.

Raptors play on human emotion and set traps, using a human as bait as shown when they used Udesky as bait to kill Amanda Kirby. Another reference of an advanced attack method was employed from a lone male Velociraptor included: trailing the humans without them knowing and entering another way into the lab and remaining perfectly still, playing on an illusion, while waiting for one of the humans to get to close and using their curiosity of the tanks to get the better of them. It's also possible that Raptors employed eye contact to distract human prey.

Intelligence
In, Alan Grant queries the Velociraptors' intelligence, mentioning the size of the brain cavity in their skulls. Robert Muldoon  responds that, in his assessment, a Velociraptors‘ intelligence is the equivalent of modern primates and they are capable of creating advanced strategies and problem-solving. Other things they're capable of are opening doors, digging, etc. They are the only species of dinosaur shown adapting their behaviour to counter the capabilities of the tool-using humans.

Communication
Similar to modern-day birds, Velociraptors communicate with one another through vocal calls, although the Raptors of the first two movies are not shown to communicate with one another a lot, as opposed to the Raptors in Jurassic Park III.

In Jurassic Park, there is a small amouny of verbal communication, while stalking Muldoon in the form of squawking, and a Raptor calls for her hunting partner upon entering the kitchen and later in Jurassic Park: The Game another Raptor calls for backup while facing Oscar in a single fight. There is no verbal communication heard in The Lost World while stalking the hunters in the long grass or attacking Malcolm, Sarah, and Kelly in the workers village (suggesting they must have used eye contact like chimpanzees). However, there is a lot of verbal communication in Jurassic Park III when the Raptors on Isla Sorna are seen "talking" to each other in what could be depicted as Velociraptor "language". This seems to suggest that the Raptor subspecies in Jurassic Park III is more vocally social than the subspecies seen in the previous films.

Jurassic Park film
"They should all be destroyed."

- Robert Muldoon



Alan Grant discovers a pack of "Velociraptors" at his dig site in Montana. In reality, Velociraptor lived in Asia, not America. But from the size of the skeletons (3 meters long, 2 meters high) and the size of their claws (6 inches), it is clear that these skeletons are remains of Deinonychus. A kid called it a "6-foot Turkey".

The Velociraptors were genetically recreated by InGen using DNA trapped in fossilized mosquitoes. They were bred on Isla Sorna before being transported to Jurassic Park on Isla Nublar.

Initially, all the Raptors were engineered as female to prevent unauthorized breeding. Apparently, only one known shipment to the island came, with the Raptors being carried inside a large, maximum-security steel cage, and the loading process was a disaster. A large group of engineers and security, headed by Robert Muldoon, watched as the Raptors were being loaded into the pen, only for the creatures start an uprising in an attempt to escape. The animals were eventually quelled and loaded into their pen, but a worker died in the process when a prominent female attempted to drag him into the cage and mauls him.

In the park, the Raptors were kept in a large pen with an electric fence, their food consisting of live cows lifted down into the pen via. a crane. Nonetheless, Muldoon remained cautious around the creatures, with InGen considering them a security hazard, considering their high intelligence and nasty disposition. Originally, eight Raptors were breed; one of them being the prominent female, that Muldoon named the Big One. Within days, the female took over the pack and had the other Raptors attack the fence to test it for weaknesses. When this failed, she killed five of the eight Raptors, but spared the lives of only two, solidifying her role as leader of the pack.

During Nedry's insurrection, the Raptor pen was, initially, left unharmed, but the power to the fence inevitably gave out when the mainframe was reset by Arnold. The Raptors then managed to bite their way out and patrolled the area to the electric bunker. Arnold eventually came through to turn the power back on, only to be killed and eaten inside the bunker by one of the Raptors, leaving only one of his arm. Ellie Sattler and Muldoon eventually came through the same way in an attempt to finish Arnold's work, walking into a trap set by two of the Raptors. Fortunately, Muldoon saw through the Raptor's ruse and held a gun on one of them while Ellie ran ahead into the bunker. Muldoon then attempted to hunt the Raptor in the bush, but he underestimated the creature's intelligence, and was ambushed by the alpha female, who had been using the other Raptor as bait. Muldoon was killed. Meanwhile, Ellie managed to turn the power back on to the park, only to be attacked from behind by the third Raptor. Fortunately, she managed to escape with only a hurt foot.

Some time after, the three Raptors migrated to the visitor's center, where the alpha female and one other followed the scent of the kids, Lex and Tim, into the kitchen. After a brief hunt around kitchen, the alpha managed to find Lex, only to attack a metal cabinet that showed her reflection and hit the cabinet. The second raptor then chased Tim into the freezer, but slipped on the ice, as Tim escaped and locked the door behind him. The alpha, however, managed to regain consciousness and followed the children, along with Alan and Ellie to the computer room. After a brief struggle, Lex managed to fix the locks and shut the door on the Raptor. However, it broke through the glass and, when they climb into the vents.

The third Raptor broke free from the electric bunker and chased them to the front of the visitor's center, where it jumped on the sauropod skeleton, causing it to collapse as they climbed onto it. The humans attempted to escape, but are cornered by the alpha Raptor. The third Raptor then took its opportunity and lunged for the humans, but is then seized out of the air by a Tyrannosaurus rex. While the others escaped, the Big One jumped on the rex's neck, only to slide into its jaws and be tossed violently into a decorative Tyrannosaurus rex model skeleton, presumably being killed by the impact.

Jurassic Park: The Game
thumb|300px|right Velociraptors appeared in Jurassic Park: The Game. Their models for the game are based off their appearance in the first Jurassic Park. They first appear is in the last scenario of Episode 2, and serve as the main enemy throughout Episode 3.

InGen shipped a new pack of five Raptors, lead by the Scarred Raptor Leader, from Isla Sorna to replace the deceased ones, but had to be transferred to the quarantine pens as they were too dangerous to be kept in the standard holding pens. They, along with the Troodon, were kept under close watch by Laura Sorkin and her assistant David Banks.

They later escaped and stalked the personnel left behind on the island and a mercenary team hired by InGen. One of the Raptors was killed by the T. Rex. The new leader killed Oscar Morales, a member of the mercenary team who scarred her and killed another Raptor in a face-to-face encounter earlier. The remaining subordinates then chased the remaining survivors until they caught the scent of a Troodon nest in the room the survivors took refuge in and then fled. It is unknown if any of the Raptors survived the Napalm bombing of Isla Nublar, but very unlikely since ALL the animals on the island were to be eliminated.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park
"Velociraptor. Carnivore. Pack hunter. About two meters tall. Long snout. Binocular vision. Strong dexterous forearms and killing claws on both feet."

- Dr. Robert Burke

The second film takes place on Isla Sorna, where the Raptors (called by Peter Ludlow and Robert Burke), with the other dinosaurs, were initially bred. However, some incident has allowed the creatures to roam free, and a glitch in their genetic code has allowed some of them to be born males, allowing the animals to breed. The Raptors appeared with orange skin and tiger-like stripes and orange eyes. On the island, the freed Raptors are seen as having focused their feeding grounds closer to the center of the island, with at least one pack claiming the area near the InGen Village, and even the facility itself, as their territory. This makes it especially dangerous for anyone attempting to contact the outside world, as the facility is, supposedly, the only site on the island with the necessary equipment. Due to the fact that the raptors weren't taught by older raptors how to behave in an early age, they have no real social structure and seem to prefer to hunt by themselves. Even in the tall grass scene they really don't attack in a group. This could be reference to the lost world novel since the velocirapters there have little to no social structure at all.

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Four years after the Incident at Jurassic Park, two groups of people; a small research team hired by John Hammond, and an enormous strike force hired by Peter Ludlow become stranded on the island when attacks by the local animals destroy most of their equipment. Despite Ludlow's warnings, the team embarks towards the central facility. However, after an attack by a pair of local Tyrannosaurus, the team becomes unorganized and separated, and, upon nearing the facility, come across a field of tall grass that happens to be home to a pack of Velociraptors, who promptly ambush the team, killing a fairly large number of men, including Ajay Sidhu. Whether it is because they had eaten their fill or simply did not catch them in time, the Raptors do not attack Hammond's team when they come through the grass, and Nick manages to make it into the facility and call for help. But when Malcolm, Sarah, and Kelly enter the facility to find him, they are set upon by three Raptors. While Ian distracts one the other two chase Sarah and Kelly inside the facility. Eventually, Ian evades the Raptor and runs into the facility and is cornered by one of the animals, but Kelly uses her gymnastic abilities to knock the Raptor out of the window, where it is impaled and dies. As the Malcolms escape, Sarah tries to get out through the window, but is followed by the second Raptor and cornered by the third below. However, she manages to knock the Raptor off the roof, causing it to fall on the third, provoking a violent fight between the two. She then joins up with the Malcolms and Nick and together they escape the island on a chopper.

Jurassic Park III
In the third film, the Raptors were much more birdlike, with males having feather quills on the back of their heads, barring the alpha female. They were also brightly colored and the males had small, red eyes, whereas the females have yellow eyes. In the film, the Velociraptors work together as a highly-communicable pack as there is no brutality in their social structure. At the start of the film, before Grant attends to the island, Billy creates a model Velociraptor "resonation chamber", a bony structure that enables complex communication.

The reasons for these changes in the look and behaviour of these Raptors is explained by Jack Horner in the bonus feature The Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park III:

"Science continues to progress and every year we discover new things. And now we have pretty good skulls of Velociraptor and we know that it looks different. So the skull has actually been changed to fit what we know about the animal. And we also recently have found evidence that Velociraptors had feathers. So we incorporated that in the new look of the Velociraptor. I really have been working through the whole process to get as many accurate things into the movie as possible. I've done a lot of CAT scan work on dinosaur skulls so we know that some dinosaurs actually could vocalize. So we've gotten some of that research into this movie."

- Jack Horner



Because this sudden chance of appearance of the Raptors violates the continuality of the series, many Jurassic Park fans have tried to create an explanation of this change. In most of these theories, the Raptors from the first two movies and the Raptors in the third movies are treated as two different genetic versions. These are also considered the most vocally social Velociraptors in the whole series.

In the genetics admissions lab, a male is seen hiding its head behind one of the incubator machines. As Amanda Kirby takes a closer look, it's eye moves and it lunges out from behind the glass. It tries to bite Amanda, but is too big to fit through the machines. In itself, this implies that JPIII-raptors are very understanding of human emotions of "curiosity". The Raptor finds another way and chases the survivors, eventually trapping them in a maze of dinosaur cages. Billy Brennan and Amanda trap the raptor in one of the cages and it lets out a screeching, birdlike call. Dr. Alan Grant is amazed by it calling for help. Eventually, the raptor gets out and calls to its packmates. In the jungle, other Raptors hear the one from the building and answer back. During the stampede of Parasaurolophus and Corythosaurus, two males are seen running at speeds up to 50-60 mph. In the jungle, a female stabs its retractable claw in Udesky's back and the pack uses him as bait to lure Billy, Amanda, and Paul Kirby. The Raptors again make another play on human emotions when it comes to compassion. When the trap fails, a male Raptors kills Udesky by snapping his neck.

Meanwhile, after being split from the others, Dr. Grant sees the alpha female and male "talking" to each other. He wonders what they are saying, or what they are looking for. Then he is cornered by three males and the alpha female. As the pack was closing in on him, Eric Kirby throws gas grenades, which drive the Raptors away.

Most of them (many of the males and the lead female) reappear near the end of the film, wanting their eggs that Billy took earlier, which is the explanation for their earlier attack and new behavior. They surround the survivors as they get down on their knees. The alpha female walks slowly up to Amanda and sniffs around her, thinking she stole the eggs. Dr. Grant opens Billy's bag and hands both eggs to Amanda who places them in the sand gently. Grant then takes out the resonating chamber Billy gave him and blows through it to confuse the Raptors. He then imitates their cry for help. One of the males attempts to attack him, but is stopped and reminded by the alpha female to get back into rank. She then hears helicopters coming and caws each male a command. While they take off into the jungle, the alpha male stays with her. The female picks up the first egg and the male picks up the second. They then catch up with the pack. It is thought that the Velociraptors in the first and second films were not good parents, but Jurassic Park III proves that the Raptors follow the group to get their eggs back.

Games
The velociraptor has appeared in numerous Jurassic Park games

Videos




Trivia

 * In Jurassic Park: The Game, one of the Velociraptors has an unusual scar on her face. The scar comes from Oscar while using his knife in an attempt to kill the Velociraptor.
 * When Gerry and Jess Harding enter the Visitor Center, a Velociraptor foot was shown on the floor. It was possibly from the Big One since it was near the T. rex model skeleton.
 * Out of all the dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park franchise, the Velociraptors have caused the most human deaths, even more than T-Rex.
 * No human character in the Jurassic Park franchise has been injured by a Velociraptor; only killed if you just count the movies.
 * Velociraptor has killed the most humans in the Jurassic Park franchise.
 * Kelly and Oscar are the only characters in the Jurassic Park franchise who managed to successfully kill a Velociraptor.
 * In Jurassic Park III, the raptors running away from the gas grenades Eric threw around Dr. Grant marks the first time the raptors were actually scared of something.
 * Oscar is the only character in the Jurassic Park fanchise that a Velociraptor ran away from. This is the second time the raptors were scared and ran away, though these were the Nublar subspecies and the Sorna subspecies was the first to be scared of something. However, the fact that the Raptors later returned for vengeance contradicts that they were actually afraid of him and implys that they somehow caught a scent of the Troodon in a distance which the humans (minus Oscar) didn't until they took refuge in the room where they discovered the nest. This would later be the third time they were scared of something.
 * In the video game Jurassic Park lll: Island Attack, Velociraptors appear to not resemble the male ones from the movie, but instead bear the looks of the females. They appear in three different colors - brown, blue, and red. (Brown are normal enemies, red are rarely seen, and blue are harder enemies)
 * The leader of the Raptor pack in the first film is The Big One, and later on in the game, The Scarred Raptor Leader.
 * In the Telltale game, the journal says that the velociraptors were imported from Isla Sorna.