Jurassic Park Wiki
Don't have an account?
Register
Register
Jurassic Park Wiki
Jurassic Park Wiki
5,992
pages
in: Blog posts

Species lists and why they're so darn difficult to make accurate!

KamikazePyro
KamikazePyro • 8 days ago • User blog:KamikazePyro

InGen Era[]

"I don't remember that on InGen's List."
—Billy Brennan on the Spinosaurus(src)


It all started with that line in Jurassic Park III, didn't it? "InGen's list" was finally officially released in 2018 from the DPG website, showing every species that was on Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna. Based on that list, the dinosaurs present on Nublar in 1993 were:

That's a simple, easy number of 9 total species. Yes, there were additional species in embryo form in the cold storage room (such as Proceratosaurus), but they weren't present in the flesh, so I'm not counting them as inhabiting the island. Then we get to Isla Sorna, where we had:

16 species. We can go home now.

But the unfortunate thing is, that still wasn't the definitive end to this discussion. Included on the list was a section for Inactive Dinosaurs / DNA Samples, which added another layer of complexity to this.

Herrerasaurus was active on Nublar, but died out by the 1994 clean-up operation, despite its genome being listed at 60% completion. Corythosaurus was also present on Sorna at some point prior to 1997, despite its genome being listed at 97% completion (it was in the packet of dinosaur profiles given to the InGen hunters). From this, we can conclude that an incomplete genome did not indicate the animal hadn't been cloned. This leaves the door open for other species, like Apatosaurus or Suchomimus, to have been on Sorna in the 1990s. Future writers could exploit that. They could also just say InGen lied about the contents of the list, but hopefully they won't be that lazy.

To complicate matters further, we circle back to the third film. Combined with the DPG report regarding the Gene Guard Act, we know InGen went back to Isla Sorna in 1999 and illegally cloned more species: Ankylosaurus, Ceratosaurus, Corythosaurus, Spinosaurus. While the herbivores were on InGen's list with incomplete genomes, the two carnivores were not. The part that makes this more complicated is that these were the only named species, as the report left it open as to whether there were more species cloned during Project Regenesis that simply weren't mentioned.

Then we get to the Masrani era with Jurassic World, throwing everything into chaos. We haven't even gotten into the "canon" aspect of this whole thing.

Masrani Era[]

The Masrani era of the franchise introduced a multitude of new species. Between the first film in the trilogy and the interactive website accompanying it, the species at Jurassic World were:

I'm not counting the Indominus rex because it was a brand new addition to the park, it was a one-and-done animal, and it wasn't a true prehistoric creature anyway. Yes, Velociraptor wasn't actually on display in the park, but it was indisputably on Nublar, so it's counted.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom took that and said "hold my beer," adding several species to the island's pre-existing fauna list. The Nublar species list now expanded to this:

Moving into the Fallen Kingdom aftermath, things get more complex because the dinosaurs became open-source, meaning anybody with the means could clone their own. The dinosaurs became widespread across the globe, and not only was the population of Nublar part of this, but Sorna was involved. Sorna had technically been involved since the late 90s, as the DPG website and The Evolution of Claire explained that pillaging was a big issue for the island. Dinotracker corroborated this plight by showing the Velociraptors from the third film in Canada. More species were introduced through Battle at Big Rock and Jurassic World: Dominion, including:

The problem with anything after Fallen Kingdom is that the origin of the species, unless directly stated, is ambiguous due to the fact that anyone could clone dinosaurs post-2018, and we know more companies did. Biosyn explicitly cloned Atrociraptor, Dreadnoughtus, Giganotosaurus, Moros, Oviraptor, Pyroraptor, and Quetzlcoatlus, but what about others? Where did Nasutoceratops come from? Was it another animal from Nublar we didn't know about? There's no way to confirm right now, but we do know InGen had its DNA because it was going to be used for the hybrid Stegoceratops. That is another little caveat to this: InGen had the largest genetic library on the planet. However, having the genetic material and having cloned the species is not the same, as we saw with the makeup of the Indominus—Deinosuchus, Rugops, and Giganotosaurus were used for it, but were not cloned at the time. Additionally, as seen at the end of Fallen Kingdom, InGen also had genetic material for Dreadnoughtus, but never cloned it.

The Canon Factor[]

Canon is sometimes a slippery slope, especially with properties whose owner doesn't define a strict and clear implementation of it; i.e. Universal plays loosely with canon for this franchise. Before the Jurassic World era, "canon" was barely a thing in Jurassic. You had the live-action films, Jurassic Park: The Game, and tons of video games and tie-in books. It's actually not much different from what happens nowadays, but the thing with the old days was that there wasn't anybody giving clarification on canon. We reasonably assumed the live-action films were canon, and Jurassic Park: The Game was definitely intended to be canon at the time, but what about the multitude of books and games? Could Jurassic Park III: The DNA Factor be canon? How about Jurassic Park Adventures: Survivor, or Site B: The Junior Novelization, or Jurassic Park: Trespasser? "Soft-canon" didn't really exist prior to Colin Trevorrow's contributions to the franchise, so it was basically the Wild West back then. If you could make a reasonable argument that Trespasser was canon, or the junior novels were canon, or one of the million video games, you got it. But then Colin came in and an actual canon was established, being spoken of literally in interviews.

However, with that came "soft-canon," a term that still divides fans on its meaning. This came about because of Jurassic World: Live Tour, where it was originally reported as being fully canon. When it debuted, Colin then said it was "soft-canon": "which is that it happens, but it also exists within its own space." That is Colin's direct quote. Colin also confirmed the new games (like Jurassic World Evolution) were in this category.[1] "Games are their own medium and their own world." This has confused many fans, wondering if that means we simply ignore any contradictions and assume the rest happens as told, or do we separate the entire thing and believe it could feasibly happen in the film canon even though it technically didn't? To complicate (or ease) matters further, members of the Chaos Theorem team, as well as those who have worked with Universal on projects, have chimed in on this term, essentially saying that it functions the same as "non-canon." If Universal wants to use something from the games or Live Tour, they can, but it's otherwise more or less forgotten/ignored. Universal's own style guide, which is a guide given to business partners that contains basic dino/character profiles, a timeline, and rules/policies, also dictates canon with its inclusion of several items and its exclusion of just about everything else.

It doesn't help that, like with the Live Tour, things are said to be canon at the start and then change later on. Jurassic World: Aftermath was canon at first, and then it wasn't? Was it a miscommunication between Universal and the developer, Coatsink? Or did Universal lead them to believe it was canon and change their mind after?

All of that is to say, that is what I'm using in this post as the rules for canon. If it is not included in Universal's style guide, or confirmed canon by Colin, Chaos Theorem, or an associate who worked with Universal, it isn't canon here. Hot items that folks often consider canon/soft-canon but aren't include:

--TO BE CONTINUED--

Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.
More Fandoms