This is probably the question that all Paleontologists get asked at some point. Who would win in a fight between Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spinosaurus.
T. rex and Spinosaurus were among the two most ferocious predators ever to live on the planet. Both were the undisputed kings of the world’s they lived in, but both lived many millions of years and several continents apart from each other.
Still in this article I will be taking a look at all of the monsters strengths and weaknesses to try and decide who would win in a death match between these two kings of the Dinosaur world.
This article will try and look at things in a fair and balanced way. I freely admit I am more of a T. rex fan than a Spinosaurus fan, but this will be looking at cold hard facts.
The Tyrant
VS
The Pharoh
First up lets take a look at both beasts.
Tyrannosaurus Rex is by far and away the most famous Dinosaur. It was also among the last Dinosaurs to have ever existed, living at the tail end of the Cretaceous period 66 million years ago.
For over 90 years Tyrannosaurus was believed to be the largest land based predator of all time, but we now know that there were three larger meat eating Dinosaurs. Giganotosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, and finally Spinosaurus itself now thought to be the largest.
Still Tyrannosaurus Rex was the largest predator in its environment. It was over 40 feet long, 18 feet tall at the hips and could weigh anywhere between 9 long tons and 21 short tons. Tyrannosaurus would have preyed upon Hadrosaurs, Ceratopsians and sauropods such as Edmontosaurus, Triceratops and Alamosaurus.
Whilst T. rex may no longer be considered the largest land based predator, in terms of raw power it is still utterly unrivalled. For instance. Tyrannosaurus is believed to have had the strongest bite force of possibly any animal ever to live on the planet.
In 2005 the BBC documentary the Truth About Killer Dinosaurs built a reconstruction of a T. rex head called Steely Dan. Steely Dan revealed a number of interesting things about the power of a Tyrannosaurus.
First of all its bite was believed to have been a little over 4 tons. This would have given T- Rex a stronger bite than any animal alive today and a stronger bite than any other meat eating dinosaur (including Spinosaurus). With a bite of 4 tons Tyrannosaurus could have easily crushed a small car in its mouth no problem. It also would have been able to rip off more than 500 pounds of flesh in one bite.
T. rex could fit a whole lion in its mouth easy!
Furthermore due to having such a powerful bite. Tyrannosaurus Rex’s entire skeleton would have been stronger than reinforced steel and that’s just its skeleton. Think of how powerful the animal overall would have been when you add the muscles and thick skin over that!
Whilst this documentary was ground breaking at the time in the ten plus years since further studies have been conducted. In 2009 a study by Gregory Erickson suggested that Tyrannosaurus Rex would have had a bite force of over 9 tons. Over twice that of Steely Dan’s!
Other studies by Gregory M Erikson in 2012 have placed the Tyrannosaurs bite at over 6 tons instead and this is generally the most accepted estimate. Finally an earlier study by Mason B Meers stated that Tyrannosaurus could have had a bite force exceeding 23 tons.
If this estimate were true then it would mean Tyrannosaurus would have had the strongest bite force of any animal ever to live on the earth.
The Megalodon shark has a bite force of just over 20 tons. Deinosuchus a prehistoric crocodile had a bite force of just over 11 tons. Spinosaurus’s bite force was over three tons. A Great White Shark’s is 1 ton, and a Tiger which has the largest bite of any land mammalian carnivore has a bite force of just over half a ton.
T. rex therefore based on Meers estimated, could bite over twice as hard as Deinosuchus, 8 times as hard as Spinosaurus and close to 50 times as hard as a tiger.
As if that wasn’t enough Tyrannosaurus’ teeth were also designed with little meat hooks on the inside of every tooth that would pull more and more meat from its victims into its throat, the more they tried to struggle free.
T. rex’s were also incredibly durable animals overall, with Tyrannosaurus skeletons having been shown to have healed from gruesome injuries that would have killed other animals such as a broken neck, bite marks from other Tyrannosaurus in the brain case, scratches from Triceratops horns. Even whacks from Anklyosaur clubs (which could swing with a force of over 4 tons.)
Finally as if that wasn’t enough Tyrannosaurus Rex also was a highly intelligent animal, at least by Dinosaur standards. It was in fact believed to be the most intelligent giant Dinosaur. At the very least it was most likely smarter than Alligators and Crocodiles, who are in turn more intelligent than some species of cats and dogs. If you were brave enough you could even teach a T. rex tricks!
Some experts believe that Tyrannosaurus Rex’s intelligence may very well have been greater than that of a Lion’s however.
A T. rex couldn’t have hugged you as its arms were too small, but it could have loved you just as much.
T. rex’s larger brain would also have allowed its senses to be much more refined and advanced too. Its sense of vision was particularly strong and its sense of smell was according to Bob Bakker one of the worlds leading experts on Dinosaurs, comparable to 100 blood hounds.
Spinosaurus meanwhile was a relatively obscure Dinosaur for decades until it shot to fame when it starred in Jurassic Park 3 in 2001.
Spinosaurus was the largest land based predator ever to live on the planet. This was not conformed until 2006 however. Spinosaurus could reach a length of 59 feet long and weigh anywhere between 7 and 23 tons. It was also roughly about 20 feet tall at the hips. Spinosaurus lived during the early to middle Cretaceous period 112 to 93 million years ago.
It was the apex predator in its environment, though there is some evidence that it came into conflict with another giant meat eating dinosaur named Carcharodontosaurus which was larger than T. rex. One Spinosaurus specimen possessed the bite mark of a Carcharodontosaurus on its sail.
Spinosaurus would have preyed on other large Dinosaurs, but there is evidence that its diet consisted of mostly marine life. It was a semi aquatic animal that spent a good deal of its time in the water. Don’t think this makes it any less impressive a hunter however. The marine life it preyed on would have included massive predators far larger and stronger than the Great White Shark or the Giant Squid!
Spinosaurus’s teeth were better designed for gripping long slippery prey which is why they were thinner than the robust teeth of Tyrannosaurus Rex. Spinosaurus also had a considerably smaller bite than Tyrannosaurus at just 3 tons. Though that is still far greater than any animal alive today and would have been powerful enough to bite through a car door, or bite a human being in half. Its still quite small for an animal of that size however. Spinosaurus was also not as intelligent as Tyrannosaurus or as fast.
Where it did have an advantage over Tyrannosaurus however aside from its greater size was in the huge claws on its arms.
Now we all know about Tyrannosaurus Rex’s little arms. They’ve been the punch line of many jokes and meme’s over the years. In reality those little arms were still surprisingly strong, and as we have seen Tyrannosaurus really wouldn’t have needed them due to its powerful bite.
Still just as T. rex didn’t need big arms Spinosaurus, it can be argued didn’t need a colossal bite either.
The claws on its fingers were as massive as the meat hooks you’d find in a slaughter house and could have very easily pierced the hide of a Tyrannosaurus Rex no problem. (We know they could at least be useful weapon in fighting off a Charcharodontosaurus, which is of a similar size to a Tyrannosaurus.)
With this in mind both animals are at least clearly capable of killing the other, but in terms of who would be more likely to get that chance? There are many factors to take into consideration.
Chief among them is the environment. If the two beasts are out in the wild well then it really could go either way, as there are so many things that could tip it in the other animals favour out in the wild. To start with one of the animals may be sick or old, or one may be alone going against a family unit, one may be fighting to kill, whilst the other is simply fighting to defend its territory. Also it depends on where they are fighting.
If its in the jungle Tyrannosaurus is going to have the advantage. Not only will it be more familiar with the environment, but it will also be more manoeuvrable too. It’s also faster on the land and it’s not hindered by that big sail. Down by the water however Spino obviously has the clear advantage. In the water it is now faster, it can strike like lightening, and it could easily leap out and grab a Tyrannosaurus and pull it into the water.
Trying to say who would win in a fight between Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus in the wild is like saying who would win in a fight between a Crocodile and a Lion.
Sometimes the Croc will win, sometimes the Lion will kill the Croc for various reasons. You can never say who will win for sure based solely on speed and bite force, both of which are mismatched in the case of a Croc vs Lion.
If Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus did get brought back from extinction, either through cloning or time travel and were forced to live on the same island. They most likely would never bother each other. Large carnivores like Crocodiles and Lions generally give each other a wide berth.
A fight with another large predator could end very badly even for the victor. A Lion might kill a Crocodile, but the Croc could still break its leg in the fight preventing the Lion from being able to hunt, fight off other Lions or defend its territory.
Unless they are desperate, most large predators will instead hunt herbivore’s who aren’t as big a threat to them and Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus would most likely be the same.
I’d give Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus a 50/50 chance of killing each other in the wild due to the fact that both can kill each other, and the many outside factors that would have to be taken into consideration.
What about in more controlled circumstances however?
Lets imagine its an alternate universe where the Dinosaurs were never driven to extinction and small intelligent meat eating Dinosaurs evolved into intelligent humanoids, Dinosauroids.
Believe it or not Richard Dawkins has said that this could have happened.
The Dinosauroids develop an advanced society and just as we used to capture Lions and Tigers and pit them against each other in death matches to see who was the king of the Jungle. Lets imagine the Dinosauroids start capturing Spinosaurus and Tyrannosaurus and pit them against each other in order to see who is the king of the beasts.
This is a fair fight. Two young, healthy males, in an arena that is a completely neutral environment. No jungle, no water. Both are land animals (even if Spinosaurus spent a lot of time in the water.) Both are hungry and have no way of escape. Who wins this fight?
Well once again we have to take certain factors into account.
How big are the Tyrannosaurus and the Spinosaurus for instance?
If its a twenty three ton Spinosaurus against a 9 ton Tyrannosaurus then forget it. It’s a curb stomp in favour of Spinosaurus. The size difference between the animals in that scenario is too big. Yes a 9 ton Tyrannosaurus would still have a bigger bite than a Spinosaurus, but sadly that wouldn’t do it any good.
Plenty of predators with massive bites are still killed by predators larger than they are.
Take a look at Lions vs Hyena’s or Killer Whales vs Great White Sharks. The White Shark and the Hyena have bigger bites than the Lion and the Killer Whale, but they still always lose in one on one fights because the other predator is just too big to mess with.
The size difference between a 23 ton Spinosaurus and a 9 ton Tyrannosaurus is not quite the same as that between a Shark and a Whale, but the Spino is still close to 3 times heavier than the Rex.
Still this is not exactly a fair fight. Taking the highest estimate for Spinosaurus and pitting it against the lowest for Tyrannosaurus. Remember that Tyrannosaurus was said to have reached possibly 21 short tons in which case there is only a two ton difference between them.
Also remember that whilst most experts agree that Spinosaurus was longer than Tyrannosaurus, many believe that it was not as heavy as it had a considerably lighter build and frame.
So with this in mind if we did have a Tyrannosaurus that was heaver even just by a ton against a Spinosaurus. I think it would be a curb stomp in favour of the Tyrannosaurus. Spino’s biggest advantage is its superior weight, and without that then Tyrannosaurus is its superior in every way. Faster, smarter, stronger. Spino is sadly outclassed and an angry bull Rex could rip it limb from limb. The same applies for two specimens the same size.
In order for this to be a fair fight for both lets have a 21 ton Tyrannosaurus go up against a 23 ton Spinosaurus or a 7 ton Tyrannosaurus go up against 9 ton Spinosaurus.
Lets also say that this is a two legged Spinosaurus. Some experts believe that Spinosaurus was a four legged animal, though there is not conclusive evidence for this. A four legged Spinosaurus would be at a real height disadvantage against a Tyrannosaurus. Its neck would be right open to a more fleet footed in comparison Tyrannosaurus. Whilst the Spino could still perhaps rear up to use its claws, overall it would be too awkward to use them against a Tyrannosaurus. Those who believe Spinosaurus was a four legged animal believe that on land the creature would have been clumsy as its legs were small. Really I think this would be another fight that would be overwhelmingly in favour of Tyrannosaurus.
So lets make this fight between a two legged 59 foot long Spinosaurus that weighs 23 tons and a 42 foot long Tyrannosaurus that weighs about 21 tons.
Who wins this fight?
Well again I’d give this to Tyrannosaurus Rex. It wouldn’t be a curb stomp. I’d say Tyrannosaurus would win 60 percent of the time.
Fact is as ferocious as Spinosaurus is, it’s simply outclassed in too many ways by old Rexy.
To start with T. rex is faster which is very important in a fight. Also T. rex is smarter. Now you might not think that matters with two animals but it does. For instance in fights between Lions and Tigers, the Tigers greater intelligence is a huge advantage as the Tiger is smart enough to rear on its back legs, unlike the Lion who only strikes with one paw. The Tiger can strike the Lion in the face with both paws and overwhelm it. Likewise killer whales when fighting Great Whites will often flip them on their belly and hold the Shark upside down until it passes out.
Whose to say in a similar confrontation, Tyrannosaurus wouldn’t be able to figure out any weaknesses Spinosaurus had? It certainly would be more likely to than Spinosaurus.
Also in terms of weapons Tyrannosaurus has the advantage. To start with its jaws are much more deadly than Spinosaurus claws and it can use them a lot more easily.
When the two animals faced one another Tyrannosaurus could reach out and bite Spinosaurus on the neck much more easily than Spino could use its claws.
When the two predators faced the weapons they would both be more likely to use would be their jaws. Spinosaurus’s arms would have been too short to reach out and grab the Tyrannosaurus. It’s not like King Kong, whose arms can reach out and hold the Tyrannosaur at bay before it can bite him.
See how Kongs arms are useful weapons because they are long. Spino’s though bigger than Tyrannosaurus’s could not reach out past its face.
If Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus faced each other then they would rely on their jaws, as in order to use its claws then Spinosaurus would have to get too near to Tyrannosaurus and leave itself open to a bite.
In a biting match it’s obvious who’s going to win. Tyrannosaurus Rex’s were known to bite each other in the face regularly and since their bites were possibly almost 8 times that of a Spinosaurus, then its safe to say T. rex could take a bite from a Spinosaurus to the face. Spinosaurus meanwhile would most certainly not be able to take a bite from a Tyrannosaurus.
All Tyrannosaurus would need would be one bite and the Spinosaurus would be finished. If it bit it on the neck it would crush the bones in its neck effortlessly. Even the lowest estimates of a Tyrannosaurus bite which are now thought to be inaccurate could crush an entire car and rip off over 500 pounds of flesh. A Spinosaurus’ neck would be no problem whatsoever.
Even if Tyrannosaurus bit Spinosaurus on the arm it would have been strong enough to rip the animals entire arm off. Even if it just bit Spinosaurus on the side then it would have ripped off 500 pounds of flesh and crush whatever bones it bit into.
The fact that Tyrannosaurus Rex was faster and had better vision would have given it a much better chance of striking a deadly blow against the Spinosaurus too.
Spinosaurus’s claws though deadly weapons could not have killed Tyrannosaurus instantly. I think it would need a few slashes to bring it down. Remember Tyrannosaurus’s are animals that could withstand injuries like a bite to the brain case or a broken neck. It would take a while for Spinosaurus’s claws, which would be very difficult for it to use anyway.
Spinosaurus also could not use its claws to twist Tyrannosaurus’s neck like in Jurassic Park 3 as Spinosaurus’s hands could only face each other as though they were clapping. If they tried to bend round and face down then they would have broken. The same is also true of all other meat eating dinosaurs including Tyrannosaurus itself.
All Spinosaurus could use its claws for therefore, would be to slash Tyrannosaurus from side to side across the face.
I could see Spinosaurus kill Tyrannosaurus two different ways in this scenario. It could quickly ram Tyrannosaurus and knock the monster off its feet which its superior weight would allow it to do. When Tyrannosaurus was on the floor it would be easier for Spinosaurus to slash at Tyrannosaurus with its claws. Provided it went for the Rex’s throat it could get a quick kill if it cut its jugular.
Another scenario where Spinosaurus could win against the Rex would be if it bit it on the neck and pulled the T. rex towards its arms which its superior body mass might allow it to do. It would then uses its claws to repeatedly slash at Tyrannosaurus’ face and its eyes over and over again until the pain and blood loss weakened Tyrannosaurus to the point where it couldn’t fight back.
Whilst it most certainly would be possible for the Spinosaurus to kill the Tyrannosaurus these ways, at the same time Spinosaurus would be putting itself in danger. When Tyrannosaurus fell on the ground and Spinosaurus tried to slash it Tyrannosaurus could reach up and bite its arm, crushing it. Or similarly when Spinosaurus got Tyrannosaurus by the neck, T. rex could reach up and bite the Spino on the neck in which case once again it would be over for the Spinosaurus, or the Rex could bite at its arms too.
Tyrannosaurus on the other hand I can see winning more easily. The two would face each other and charge at each other instinctively using their jaws, Tyrannosaurus who is a lot faster would be able to dodge its opponent a lot more easily and then strike at the Spino’s neck. One bite would either kill it or disable the Spino so much that it would be too weak to fight and then a few more bites from T. rex would be enough to finish the Spinosaurus.
Whilst the Spino could certainly kill T. rex, I simply see T. rex being able to kill the Spino much more easily and therefore I am going to have say that Tyrannosaurus would be the more likely winner.
So then in conclusion as to who would win in a fight with Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus, I see it like this
In the wild Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus would have a 50/50 chance of killing each other.
In a Dinosauroid arena match however
23 ton Spinosaurus vs 9 ton Tyrannosaurus, 100 percent in favour of the Spinosaurus.
Tyrannosaurus that is slightly heavier or the same size in weight as Spinosaurus, 80 percent in favour of the Tyrannosaurus.
4 legged 23 ton Spinosaurus against a 21 ton Tyrannosaurus, 70 percent in favour of the Tyrannosaurus.
21 ton Tyrannosaurus against a 23 ton Spinosaurus, 60 percent in favour of the Tyrannosaurus.
The Tyrannosaurus wins in more scenario’s, but Spinosaurus is a worthy foe at least and it would most certainly be capable of killing a T. rex.
Also bare in mind the only time that I feel there would ever be an absolute 100 percent chance of one animal killing the other would be in Spinosaurus’s favour.
Ultimately however Tyrannosaurus I simply feel at the end of the day was a superior predator and in most scenario’s would kill its rival.
Tyrannosaurus Rex has appeared in many comic books over the years. Though it is often portrayed as a villain like in most other forms of media. A few comic books have nevertheless given it a more starring, even sometimes heroic role.
Devil Dinosaur
This marvel comic book series was created by Jack “King” Kirby in the late 1970’s. Though it only ran for 9 issues it has developed a considerable cult following. In fact when Jack Kirby passed away the character of his that most artists wanted to draw was Devil.
The series was originally set in earth’s past. Kirby stated that just when the last of the Dinosaurs died out and when the first humans emerged is still shrouded in mystery. Later writers however retcon it so that Devil’s adventures take place on a parallel earth where the Dinosaurs did not die out, but human beings and mammals still evolved.
Devil Dinosaur revolves around a bright red Tyrannosaurus Rex named Devil, who is attacked as a child by a group of savage ape men who also murder his mother and siblings. Devil himself is burned, but he nevertheless is rescued by an ape man named Moon Boy. Sadly Moon Boy is rejected by the rest of his tribe for befriending a T. rex (which are referred to as Devil beasts).
Devil whose skin was turned bright red by being burned and Moon boy travel the world together helping people.
Over the course of the 9 issues Devil would battle the savage ape men who killed his family and their evil Spider god, Giant’s, huge killer Ants and even aliens from another planet! The final issue see’s Devil battle a witch who sends him through time to modern day where he goes on the rampage.
After the end of Devil Dinosaur the character would go on to appear in numerous other Marvel series in guest roles, though he has sadly never had his own ongoing series since. Later comics would see Devil and Moon Boy eventually be transported to our earth where they would become trapped.
One notable guest appearance from Devil saw him team up with Godzilla when the latter was transported by accident to Devil’s earth where he would help him battle an army of Dinosaurs and killer ape men.
All 9 issues of Devil Dinosaur would later be collected in an omnibus edition. I would definitely recommend you pick up it up. The artwork is obviously fantastic. It is Jack Kirby after all, but I think its the fact that it has such a wild premise that of an Ape boy and his T.rex best friend fighting aliens, and time travelling witches that really makes it stand out as something of an overlooked gem.
Other Marvel and DC Comics
Tyrannosaurus Rex has at some point battled most of DC and Marvel’s most famous heroes.
Batman encountered a gigantic robotic T. rex in Batman 35. It was part of a giant amusement park that featured giant mechanical Dinosaurs that were taken control of by one of Batman’s enemies. After defeating the villain Batman decides to keep the Tyrannosaurus as a trophy. The T. rex has gone on to become one of the most iconic trophies in the Bat cave alongside a giant penny and a giant Joker playing cared taken from an adventure with…. well does it really need saying?
In one issue Batman was actually able to bring the Tyrannosaurus Rex to life and use it to defeat someone who had infiltrated the cave. Apparently the T. rex’s name is Fido!
The T. rex has appeared in numerous animated adaptations of Batman too such as in the DC animated universe. I would like to see it appear in at least one live action version of Batman however. Hopefully it will appear in the upcoming Batman vs Superman movie.
T. rex’s are also shown to live on the Savage Land in Marvel Comics a tropical lost world that exists within Antarctica. The Savage land has been featured prominently in many story arcs of the Uncanny X-Men series which has lead to a few encounters between the mutants and the Tyrant Lizard king.
T. rex’s are also shown to live on DC Comics lost world simply titled Dinosaur Land. Dinosaur Land was often featured in Star Spangled War stories which were later collected in an omnibus edition as The War That Time Forgot.
Tyrannosaurus was once again obviously featured prominently in this series too and even appeared on the cover of The War That Time Forgot.
Judge Dredd
One of Judge Dredd’s archenemies is a cloned Tyrannosaurus Rex named Satanus. Satanus’s most prominent appearances are in the Blood of Satanus trilogy and Satanus unchained!. Satanus was cloned for the Dinosaur national park, but after the atomic wars he managed to escape.
Later issues would introduce both his mother Old One Eye and his son Golgotha.
Its interesting to note that the idea of Dinosaur National Park pre-dated Jurassic Park by about 12 years.
Angel After the Fall
A gigantic Demonic Tyrannosaurus Rex named Kenny appears in this comic book series which is based on and is apparently canon to Angel, the spin off from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The T. rex is chosen by the Demon lords of Los Angeles as one of their champions to battle Angel. In a humorous moment Angel asks the Tyrannosaur if it much like his pet Dragon is a good guy duped into working for an evil Demon, only for the T. rex to ask him if he is high.
Super Dinosaur
This family friendly comic book series created by the Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman features a Tyrannosaurus as the main character. The premise revolves around two Scientists discovering another world under the ground where Dinosaurs still roam.
One of the scientists Maximus genetically alters a Tyrannosaurus Rex to serve as the prototype to a new super army of Dinosaurs with which he can use to conquer the earth. Unfortunately for him the Tyrannosaurus soon turns on him and helps his archenemy Derek Dynamo and his son to thwart his various evil schemes.
The comic has proven very popular, so much so that Kirkman has even talked about adapting into either film or television.
Tyrannosaurus Rex is really the perfect video game villain when you think about it. It’s big, ugly, kills lots of things, it’s relentless, it’s recognised all over the world as the ultimate killer. It’s really the perfect challenge for any hero to face.
Just as with film and television, any Dinosaur video game has to have an appearance by a T. rex at some point. In non Dinosaur video games meanwhile again just like with non Dinosaur films and television series Tyrannosaurus is often the lone Dinosaur that will be used.
Below is a list of arguably the most prominent appearances by Tyrannosaurus in the video game medium.
Dino Crisis Series
Tyrannosaurus appears in every entry of the survival horror video game series Dino Crisis , except for Dino Crisis 3. The Dino Crisis games revolved around Dinosaurs being brought into the present and causing havoc through experiments with time travel technology that went wrong. Dino Crisis 3 which is set in the far future and in space meanwhile features fictional Dinosaurs instead. Though these Dinosaurs are actually created from the DNA of real Dinosaurs including Tyrannosaurus Rex. The Dinosaur that is created from T-Rex’s DNA is called Australis.
Australis a mutant space T. rex!
Still since it doesn’t really properly appear in Dino Crisis 3 I will not be looking at it here.
Dino Crisis
Tyrannosaurus is encountered fleetingly throughout the first entry in the series. Whenever it does appear however it is completely unkillable except for during the final battle. It can also swallow the main protagonist Regina whole with a single bite. Often the best thing to do whenever you see it is just to get the fuck out of there. It can however in some encounters be driven off with grenades such as when you first encounter it crashing through the window of an office.
The T. rex will often just pop up completely at random and without warning. I always loved that as it made the game much more tense for me that at any moment this large unstoppable behemoth could suddenly just come crashing out of nowhere. Maybe you’d be out in the open and suddenly you’d hear a rumbling and then it would be there, or maybe just its head would come smashing through a window without warning. It definitely kept the player on edge in a good way.
The T. rex is ultimately the final boss in the game, but depending on how you play it can be defeated in a number of different ways. In one possible ending the Tyrannosaurus is actually shown to swim after Regina it is so determined. The Tyrannosaurus is fixated on hunting Regina throughout the entire game. You could compare it to Sharptooth in the first Land Before Time Movie in that in both cases the T. rex really has no reason to chase the main heroes, as they’d be nothing more than one bite to it and there are dozens of larger Dinosaurs it could attack and kill.
The for want of a better word relationship between the T. rex and Regina is like a reverse Ahab/Moby Dick. Here it is the big bloody awful animal with huge teeth is obsessed with killing the human and is ultimately destroyed by its quest.
Opening scene where the T. rex makes its first appearance killing Cooper.
Regina’s many encounters with her most fervent admirer.
What happens if the player isn’t careful.
Dino Crisis 2
In Dino Crisis 2 Tyrannosaurus only appears in two sequences. It battles the character of Dylan both times. I guess Regina had had her fill of T. rex attacks in the first game. The T. rex in this game is given an actual motivation for wanting our heroes dead. In the opening cutscene its eye is blown out by David a friend of Regina and Dylan.
Unlike the Rex in the first game this one wasn’t just mean for the sake of it.
My favourite moment is when the T. rex fights Dylan in a Tank. Believe it or not this scene isn’t so far fetched as a real Tyrannosaurus Rex’s bite force would have easily been strong enough to bite through the armour of a tank no problem.
Just like in the first game the T. rex cannot be killed whenever you face it, it can barely be slowed down. You have to flee both times you encounter it. However it can not swallow you whole in this game, instead it just rips you apart.
Ultimately the T. rex is not the main villain of the game. When it shows up in the last level it is replaced by a Giganotosaurus.
Though Giganotosaurus was larger than Tyrannosaurus in real life this game obviously exaggerates the size and power of Giganotosaurus. Not that it matters of course as its still an awesome scene. What I love about it is that it feels almost comical the way the T. rex has been chasing you the whole game and then all of a sudden completely out of nowhere, a larger Dinosaur just shows up and steals the limelight.
Dino Crisis 2 is easily one of my favourite video games. In fact I’d say that it is possibly the greatest Dinosaur game ever made. My only problem with it however is that I feel the T. rex is used perhaps a bit too sparingly. You never get the feeling that it could be around every corner like the first game, because it only pops up twice. I think they should have maybe stuck in one more T. rex fight scene.
Dino Stalker
Black Tyannosaurus
This sequel to Dino Crisis 2 featured Tyrannosaurus once again as the main villain. Tyrannosaurus first appears where it kills two Carnotaurus, who much like the Rex normally does in the other games had been chasing you throughout the whole game. The Rex also appears in the final battle where you kill it by knocking the Dinosaur into lava.
Overall this game is not as strong as the previous two. Its a decent shoot em up and the graphics for the time are pretty good. It’s also great seeing Tyrannosaurus restored to its position as the main villain, but still it’s sad that the Dino Crisis franchise had to bow out on this fairly average game.
Jurassic Park
Naturally being the logo of the franchise Tyrannosaurus has appeared in every game based upon the Jurassic Park film series.
It is the main villain in the Jurassic Park Arcade, Snes, and Sega games, it also pops up as a main villain in Jurassic Park 2 the Chaos Continues, Jurassic Park Chaos Island, and Jurassic Park Trespasser. It is a playable character meanwhile in Jurassic Park Warpath, and the Sony Playstation adaptation of The Lost World Jurassic Park.
T-Rex, Spinosaurus fight before Jurassic Park 3
In Jurassic Park Operation Genesis the Tyrannosaurus is shown to battle the Spinosaurus in an obvious tribute to their fight in Jurassic Park 3.
I think that probably my favourite appearance by Tyrannosaurus in a Jurassic Park video game is in tell tale’s Jurassic Park the game. This game was actually intended to be a sequel to the first film. It would later be contradicted by Jurassic World as the end of this game states that Isla Nublar, the setting of the first movie was bombed, killing all of the Dinosaurs there. However in Jurassic World the T. rex is said to be the same one from the first film.
The best thing about the T. rex in this game is the way it kills you. The Deaths are always so elaborate. It crushes your skull between two huge crates, crushes you under cars. At times its more fun letting your character die just to see what happens.
And you thought Regina got it bad!
Primal Carnage
Tyrannosaurus appears in this game. It is the most powerful Dinosaur in the game. Considerably more so than the Spinosaurus which it kills in the trailer effortlessly. It is both a playable character and an enemy. It has the ability to swallow human beings completely which will regain your health if you are playing as the Tyrannosaurus.
Turok Franchise
Tyrannosaurus has appeared a few times in this long running franchise though only ever as a supporting character.
Turok Dinosaur Hunter
A Tyrannosaurus named Thunder appears as the penultimate boss that Turok battles. It is the pet of the main villain of the game. What makes this a particularly cool T-Rex fight is that it as you can see it part robot. It has a robot laser eye and can breath fire!
Only thing better than a T. rex? A T. rex with laser beams attached to its fricking head.
Turok Evolution
Tyrannosaurus appeared in a few cameos in this entry of the series. In one level you will encounter a Tyrannosaurus that is feasting on a sauropod it just killed. The Rex will notice you and chase you. Though it may also kill some villains that are chasing you, it’s best to take care of this Rex as quickly as possible.
The main villain of the game Bruckner rides a Tyrannosaurus at the end. Unfortunately Bruckner is widely regarded as one of the worst video game villains of all time.
There were even the Tobais Bruckner awards in Electronic Gaming Monthly which awarded the very worst in video games, characters, levels, etc named after the character.
Turok (2008)
A large female Tyrannosaurus named Mama Scarface appears in the latest entry of the series. She is far larger than any real life Tyrannosaurus or indeed any real life theropod. She is the most powerful Dinosaur in the game and will chase the player through multiple levels. Sadly other than her size there is not much notable about this Tyrannosaurus.
Yeah that’s cool, but does it have a laser eye?
King Kong (2005)
In this video game adaptation of Jacksons movie, the V-Rex which is a descendant of the Tyrannosaurus Rex appears as a frequent antagonist. When you play as Kong you can fight it, but as Jack it is completely and utterly unkillable and will kill you in a single bite.
I think my favourite T or V-Rex level is when it knocks Kong off of a cliff and you have to as Jack rescue Ann armed only with a spear or an old Raptor bone from the V-Rex. I wish this scene had been in the film
Turns out Adrien Brody isn’t as good at fighting T-Rex’s as as a 25 foot gorilla is.
Join me tomorrow when I look at T.rex’s appearances in comic books
Tyrannosaurus Rex has appeared in many television series over the years ranging from classic science fiction series to award winning documentaries.
Despite the limitations of the tv medium in terms of effects compared to film. It’s fair to say that T. rex has had just about as varied a tv career as film career.
Doctor Who
Tyrannosaurus Rex has made many appearances in the worlds longest running science fiction series.
Its first possible appearance is in the story Doctor Who and The Silurians In this story the main villains, The Silurians who are ancient reptiles that existed from before the dawn of man have a pet Dinosaur.
The Dinosaur is never identified however and in other media it has been referred to as an Allosaurus rather than a Tyrannosaurus.
However in the novelisation of the story it is referred to as a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Since the novelisation was written by the same man who wrote the actual story on television Malcolm Hulke, this seems to suggest to me at least that it was meant to be a Tyrannosaurus in the episode.
However its worth noting that Malcolm Hulke whilst being an excellent writer seemed to know very little about prehistory. For instance the main villains of the story could not possibly be from the Silurian era, as it came long before any reptiles had evolved. Perhaps he like many people simply got T. rex and Allosaurus mixed up.
Regardless of whether or not the Silurians pet was a T. rex, the king of the Dinosaurs would go on to make an appearance in the story The Invasion of the Dinosaurs. In this adventure several mad scientists bring many Dinosaur species including Tyrannosaurus Rex through time to modern day London.
The T. rex is badass. It smashes its way through buildings, kills other giant Dinosaurs, fights off UNIT, an organisation that has taken on the worst monsters in the entire Universe and is only scared away by grenades which still don’t manage to kill it!
No greater an authority on monsters than the Doctor himself even says that the Tyrannosaurus Rex was the most vicious and powerful predator ever to live on the earth.
It would be an awesome appearance by T. rex if it wasn’t for the fact that the effects used to bring it to life are so fucking shit.
These are without doubt the worst Dinosaur effects I have ever seen. They are so bad the Dinosaurs can’t do anything. They literally just wobble from side to side. They cant even die properly. They just collapse into themselve!.
The worst scene however is the “fight” between the Tyrannosaurus and the Brontosaurus which actually reminds me of when as a five year old I’d to make my dinosaur toys fight with one another. Even by the standards of the special effects in classic who these are bad and sadly they drag the quality of the story down terribly.
40 years on and the makers of the story are still ashamed of it.
Tyrannosaurus next appeared in the 1984 story The Mark of the Rani. Here the nefarious timelady villain the Rani has captured several Tyrannosaurus embryo’s and keeps them in storage. Unfortunately at the end of the story when the Doctor sends the Rani and the Master hurling through the time vortex in the Rani’s TARDIS one of the jars containing the Rex is broken and time spillage causes it to grow to full size where it promptly devours the two villains, though despite this they would both appear again with no explanation.
A better T.. rex than the one in the Pertwee story, but that’s not saying much.
Tyrannosaurus would also go on to appear in the revival on two occasions as well. In the story Dinosaurs on a Spaceship a sleeping child T. rex makes a small cameo, whilst in the recent series 8 premier Deep Breath a Tyrannosaurus is accidentally brought forward through time by the Doctor. The T. rex is portrayed more sympathetically here. It doesn’t attack anyone or even cause any damage during its time in modern day, and in a strangely poignant scene the 12th Doctor translates its roars to reveal that it is scared in this strange new environment and feels alone.
A much better T. rex than the one in The Invasion of the Dinosaurs. Even if it is far too big.
The Doctor promises to bring the Dinosaur back to its own time, only for it to be killed instantly by the main villain of the story. A half android, half human monster called the Half face man, who kills his victims so that he can collect pieces of their bodies and attach them to himself. It is revealed that he killed the Dinosaur just for a small piece of its optic nerve. The Doctor actually feels immense guilt for the Dinosaurs death.
As I already mentioned the T. rex in Deep Breath is much, much bigger than a real life Tyrannosaur. This is actually acknowledged by several people that its much bigger than it should be, but Vastra who is a Silurian, and whose species thus lived at the same time as T. rex’s says that apparently they were all this big.
Here is the size of the Deep Breath T. rex compared to a real one.
Now Spinosaurus, King Kong and Jack Horner lets see you call the Moffat T. rex a cocksucker.
As to why the T. rex’s were all this size in Vastra’s lifetime but not on other occasions such as during the invasion of London, I have my own explanation.
I think that the Silurians genetically modified them and presumably other Dinosaur species to be larger. Perhaps they did so in order to fend off an alien invasion. This could explain why the earth was never invaded during the time of the Dinosaurs but always keeps getting invaded in the modern age. Its hard to imagine any race of aliens being willing to take on the Silurians when they have an army of T. rex’s that size to defend them. I would love to see a story where the Doctor travels back to the time of the Silurians and helps them defeat an army of aliens that want to invade the earth and we get to see an army of T. rex’s that big slaughter their way through the aliens.
I also think the Silurians modified the Tyrannosaurus’s to be more intelligent too. That would explain why the giant T. rex in Deep Breath was not shown to attack anyone when it wandered through London and how it was intelligent enough to have its own language. When you think about it if the Silurians did modify a T. rex to be that big they’d have to make sure it was more placid or else they’d be in trouble. I think that they modified its brain to the point where it was as intelligent as a human being and wouldn’t attack other sentient creatures such as human beings and Silurians, only other animals.
Tyrannosaurus has gone on to appear in numerous pieces of spin off material related to Doctor Who as well such as comic books and audio stories. In the Audio story “The Five Companions” several T. rex’s appear in the death zone on Gallifrey where they manage to kill several Daleks, saving the Doctor and his companions in the process. It’s basically like the ending of Jurassic Park but with Daleks instead of Raptors.
In the novel Made of Steel, a Tyrannosaurus serves as the main hero when the Tenth Doctor uses it to destroy the evil Cybermen. I suppose considering that in the Doctor Who universe it was the Cybermen who wiped out the Dinosaurs this can be seen as a payback. .
T. rex would also clash with the Daleks again in a short Doctor Who tidbit comic book story, though the Tyrannosaurus in this story was in fact an alien from the planet Raxas. Raxas it is established is a planet where the life forms have evolved to look exactly like the Dinosaurs on earth. There are not only T. rex’s but also raptor’s, Pteranodon’s, Apatosaurus’s and Triceratops’s on Raxas.
I actually quite like that idea as it kind of makes sense. In Doctor Who and pretty much all of science fiction we see hundreds of aliens that look like human beings such as as obviously the Doctor himself, with the explanation being that they have simply evolved to look like humans as that is a very successful form to take.
So with this in mind why wouldn’t some aliens evolve into Dinosaurs on other planets too? The Dinosaur form is clearly very successful. They ruled the earth for 150 million years. If you want to be able to kill lots and lots of things what better form to take than a T. rex?
The idea of life on other planets evolving in exactly the same way as on earth is not such a far fetched idea believe it or not. In fact there are many leading scientists who believe that many planets may be actual duplicates of the earth, rather than just having similar life forms.
So with this in mind maybe somewhere out there in the infinite recesses of space there is a planet where Dinosaurs still roam.
The Daleks try to conquer Raxas only for the Dinosaurs to slaughter them. The T. rex’s in particular crush several of the Daleks in their Jaws and under their feet. Though the Daleks are later able to build a base on the planet they never manage to conquer it.
It is established in other Doctor Who stories that Dinosaurs have evolved on billions of other planets around the universe.
On Skaro the home planet of the Doctors enemies the dreaded Daleks, Dinosaurs ruled the planet before the Daleks humanoid ancestors the Kaleds emerged. Even after the Kaleds became the Daleks dinosaurs still roamed certain area’s of Skaro and the Doctor later used several of them to destroy a Dalek squad that had captured them.
Skarosian Dinosaur thrashes a Dalek squad.
Sadly we didn’t get to see any T. rex’s on Skaro, but it is established that there were T. rex’s on plenty of other planets.
On the Doctors home planet of Gallifrey there were gigantic creatures called Gargantosaurs that lived long before the Doctors humanoid people the Time Lords evolved. The only Gargantosaurs we saw looked like T. rex’s and were extremely dangerous.
T. rex’s on Gallifrey
It is established that the Gargantosaurs died out before the Time Lords emerged however.
Dinosaurs also existed on the planet Mondas where the Doctors other main enemies the Cybermen came from. The Cybermen much like the Daleks originally began as humanoids, before transforming themselves into cybernetic creatures. The Dinosaurs on Mondas unlike on Gallifrey were shown to live alongside the human race. After the humans transformed themselves into the Cybermen they also began to cyberconvert the Dinosaurs as well.
A T. rex on Mondas that has been cyber converted. Cyber T. rex!
By far and away the best appearance by T. rex in the Doctor Who franchise however is in the 11th Doctor comic books where we are introduced to Kevin a gigantic robotic T. rex who becomes the Doctors companion.
Kevin the Doctors pet robot T. rex. Technically he should have 2 fingers instead of 3, but I’ll let that go, as the idea of a gigantic robot T. rex that travels through time saving the universe is just too awesome.
Kevin would help the Doctor battle Sontarans and also a gigantic evil squid that takes control of people’s minds. Why this was never an episode of the tv show I’ll never know.
Personally I am rooting for Kevin to be the next companion alongside the lovely Osgood after Clara leaves.
Who wouldn’t want to see that on the small screen? It would have to be with Capaldi now, but again who wouldn’t want to see Malcom Tucker riding on the back of a T-Rex fighting alien monsters?
Of course Kevin would have to look like this
and not like this
cause that’s just shit.
Tyrannosaurus also appeared in a special feature for the story Earthshock. In this story the Doctor’s companion Adric is killed when he is trapped on the freighter by the Cybermen that crashes into the earth. Adric was disliked by large sections of the fandom, who viewed him as an irritating boy genius who thought he was smarter than the Doctor himself. However the people that made this special feature I guess hated him so much that they decided his previous death was too good for him, so they had him survive the crash only to be killed seconds later by a T. rex.
Red Dwarf
Red Dwarf was doing the whole Dinosaurs on a Spaceship thing first.
In the Red Dwarf episode “Pete” the crew discover a time machine of sorts that has the ability to age or de-age someone, to the point where it can even bring the dead back to life. When a crew member simply named Birdman’s pet bird called Pete passes away, Kryten tries to use the time machine to bring him back to life. Unfortunately he turns Pete into what he was several million years ago. A Tyrannosaurus Rex. Birds are descendants of meat eating Dinosaurs remember, though they did not evolve from T. rex itself.
Still anyway Pete now a T. rex goes on a rampage across the shop killing his former owner birdman. The T. rex however seems to cause more of a rampage through vomiting, burping and having a diarrhea attack which very nearly kills the captain who is part of a group who try to ambush the creature from behind when it has its attack.
At the end of the episode the T. rex is turned back into a bird and Bird man is even brought back to life using the time machine. He is even reunited with his beloved Pete too so its seemingly a happy ending for once. “Pete ate me! He must be really out of sorts he’s never eaten me before. Never.” Unfortunately it soon turns out the Pete was in fact pregnant. His or rather her new offspring who is still a Tyrannosaurus escapes and goes on to lick the captains back whilst he is in the middle of a massage which leads to him having a complete mental breakdown. It doesn’t matter in the long run as the captains a bit of a dick anyway. This actually marked one of the few times he got his just desserts, so I suppose you could consider this another heroic appearance of Tyrannosaurus.
The Land of the Lost 1974 tv series
This somewhat overlooked campy 70’s classic featured a Tyrannosaurus Rex named Grumpy as the main villain. Grumpy was the undisputed king of the land of the lost who pursued our heroes across nearly every episode.
The only creature that he never attacks is a large female Allosaurus named Big Alice. It is hinted that the reason he never attacks her is because she is in fact his mate and thus her children are Tyrannosaurus/Allosaurus hybrids like Gwangi.
The Land of the Lost 1991 tv series
New intro with new and improved Dinosaurs
This 90’s remake of the 70’s series once again featured a Tyrannosaurus named Scarface as the main villain. Just like Grumpy Scarface constantly pursued the main characters and was at the top of the food chain in the Land of the Lost.
There is one episode however which sees it battle a gigantic alien cyborg. This fight was modelled on the Kong vs T. rex fight from the original King Kong.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World
Tyrannosaurus appeared frequently in this 90’s television adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel. It doesn’t play that big a role however. The Lost World often unlike the book and other adaptations went far beyond just Dinosaurs. This Lost World had everything from alien monsters to portals to other dimensions to supernatural creatures. One episode even featured John Roxton turning into a Vampire like creature and drinking the blood of a Velociraptor!
Still T. rex made quite a few appearances in the series, with one episode involving a mother T. rex chasing the main characters after Challenger and Malone steal one of its eggs. It also plays a large role in the pilot episode too and appeared in the opening credits as well for all 3 seasons.
This series was quite overlooked. It was somewhat comparable to Xena the Warrior Princess in terms of its tone and style, in that it never really took itself too seriously. and was really good fun. It’s definitely worth a look if you are a fan of Conan Doyle’s novel or are a Dinosaur enthusiast in general.
Dinosaur!
This one off documentary was hosted by Christopher Reeve. One of my earliest memories was watching this documentary over and over again.
It still holds up as great entertainment even though so much of it is dated in terms of Dinosaur knowledge. To start with Christopher Reeve is the perfect host. Not only is it great having Superman himself host a documentary about Dinosaurs, but I think Reeve was a good host for this documentary in particular as he loved Dinosaurs in real life. Unlike some of the other hosts for Dinosaur documentaries he is really passionate about the subject. Also the stop motion sequences featuring the Dinosaurs which were animated by Phil Tippet are spectacular.
They are at places genuinely frightening such as when the Deinonychus rip apart the Strothiumimus or the scene where the T.rex corners the Monoclonius. It builds up almost like a horror movie as the hapless Monoclonius wanders into a jungle munching on leaves only to notice the rotting and mutilated corpses of several Hadrosaurs around it. At the same time we also the Tyrannosaurus slowly creep up behind it with the blood of its previous victims still smeared all over its mouth.
I have never felt so sorry for a Dinosaur as I do for the Monoclonius. At first you think it might have a chance against the Tyrannosaurus when it wounds it in the leg, but when the Rex shrugs it off and corners the Monoclonius you realise all it has done is anger the Rex and the poor Monoclonius has absolutely no way of defending itself from the Tyrannosaurus.
The Simpsons
That’s actually quite sad.
Tyrannosaurus has appeared a few times in this classic animated comedy.
In Treehouse of Horror 6 Tyrannosaurus appears in the second segment Time and Punishment. Here it attacks Homer Simpsons when he travels backwards in time using a toaster causing several comical changes to the future in the process.
This segment is obviously a parody of the classic Ray Bradbury story A Sound of Thunder which revolved around people travelling back to the time of the Dinosaurs and causing a change in history simply by crushing a seemingly insignificant butterfly without even realizing it.
Tyrannosaurus also appeared in the episodes Bart Sells His Soul where Bart imagines Lisa being devoured by a Tyrannosaur and in the more recent Days of Future Future where it is shown to be a part of Cretaceous Park, an obvious parody of Jurassic Park, and also an allusion to the fact that the most famous Dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park franchise; T. rex and Velociraptor both come from the Cretaceous era.
Futurama
Tyrannosaurus has also appeared in Matt Groening’s other memorable animated series Futurama a number of times.
In the episode “I Dated A Robot” Philip J Fry who is from the 20th century fulfils one of his life long dreams which is to ride a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Unfortunately by this point not only have Dinosaurs been brought back, but they have now been domesticated so much that children ride them and thus Fry looks rather odd getting so excited at taking part in Jurassic Kiddie Park. Despite this though the T. rex does still end up biting his hands off.
A robot Tyrannosaurus also appeared in the later episode A Clockwork Origin where it very nearly devours Fry and fights with several other robo dinosaurs
However its most notable appearance in the series is when it appears in the series that Fry and Bender watch called The Scary Door. Here the Tyrannosaurus is shown to fight off an alien invasion by itself in a parody of War of the Worlds where the Martian invaders where destroyed by the smallest, most harmless bacteria which they had no immunity too after all of our most powerful weapons had failed.
Family Guy
Its always his little arms they go for
Tyrannosaurus has appeared in Family Guy a few times. My favourite cutaway gag is in Stewie Griffin The Untold Story where Peter Griffin was once show to have had a pet Tyrannosaurus Rex
The thing is you probably could teach a Tyrannosaurus tricks as they were more intelligent than cats and dogs. According to some experts they were more intelligent than even Lions. You would obviously have to be pretty brave to try and teach it tricks and make sure it was not in a populated area.
Mr Bean
In a classic scene from the Christmas special Mr Bean recreates the birth of the baby Jesus and adds in tanks, a T-Rex and a Dalek! Of course its not the first time T. rex has fought a Dalek but still it’s brilliant. I think Rowan Atkinson must like Dinosaurs since he has had a T. rex in both of his most famous creations, Blackadder and Mr Bean
This should be the plot for the next Christmas Doctor Who story. Steven Moffat please try and make this work as a story!
Primeval
Tyrannosaurus appears in this ITV series about anomalies, portals to the past opening up in modern times allowing prehistoric creatures to emerge in modern times.
In this sequence below you see a Tyrannosaurus rampage its way across a huge city killing people. Its a brilliant sequence. The later episodes of Primeval were sadly in my opinion not quite as strong as its earlier series. I think it was the loss of Douglas Henshall’s Nick Cutter that really affected the series. He was simply a more interesting character than either of his successors. Still the Rex rampage here is one of the last big hurrah’s for me.
Personally I would have left her. Some people like those who run around when a ravenous Tyrannosaurus is running about are just too stupid to live.
Walking with Dinosaurs
A female Tyrannosaurus appeared as the main protagonist in the final episode of this ground breaking BBC series. It’s a testament to the popularity of the T. rex that it is the only meat eating Dinosaur who is given the role of the main protagonist in the series. All the other leading dinosaurs are herbivores or at the very least small inoffensive fish eaters or omnivores like the cynodonts.
Its hard to make a large super predator into a sympathetic character, but as T. rex is the most famous Dinosaur there is no way they could have made the focus on any other Dinosaur.
In this story the Tyrannosaurus is shown to care for her young and even dies defending them. Despite this however they still thankfully don’t play down the Dinosaurs vicious nature as we see it tear a helpless Hadrosaur to pieces. The young T. rex’s even turn on and kill their younger sibling.
This episode is definitely my favourite episode of the series. I’ll never forget the image of the young Tyrannosaurs standing around their mother wanting her to wake up as the asteroid that would eradicate the Dinosaurs from the face of the earth forever comes hurtling towards the earth. It’s like a reverse of the Land Before Time, but just as sad.
The only thing I dislike about the Walking with T. rex is the way it looks. It just doesn’t have as pleasing a shape as other versions of the Tyrant Lizard King. Perhaps its its colour scheme, but it just looks duller than other Tyrannosaurs.
T-Rex A Dinosaur in Hollywood
This documentary produced by the Walking with Dinosaurs team charts T-Rex’s history on the big screen. It is a spoof documentary featuring interviews with some of T-Rex’s co-stars including King Kong.
At the end of the docu Robert Vaughn is eaten by a Tyrannosaurus. Bob Vaughan is probably the most famous person to ever be eaten by a Tyrannosaurus. He is also probably the first person to be eaten by a feathered T. rex.
Barney the Dinosaur
Sorry I have to mention this. This is without doubt the low point of Tyrannosaurus’s long career on television even if it is one of its most famous representations. In my opinion Barney is an evil creation. How could anyone reduce such a fearsome and powerful creature to something like this? A purple cuddly annoying kids entertainer. Even if you are not a Dinosaur fan at least show some respect to the king of the Dinosaurs. Jack Horner couldn’t have done a better job of smearing T. rex’s image.
Dino Riders
Tyrannosaurus appeared in this animated series frequently. The shows premise revolved around a race of aliens known as the Valorians who have been conquered by the evil reptile like Rulons. One group of Valorians however manages to escape backwards in time to the age of the dinosaurs. Unfortunately however one group of Rulons becomes trapped back in the past with them. Both the Valorians and the Rulons decide to fight each other by riding on the backs of Dinosaurs and strapping laser beams to them.
Its exactly as stupid and amazing as it sounds.
T. rex appears in many episodes of the series and the main villain of the series the leader of the Rulons, Krulos naturally rides on the back of a Tyrannosaurus.
Sliders
Tyrannosaurus appeared in an episode of this classic sci fi series called Dinoslide. The premise of Sliders revolved around a group of people being lost in the multiverse and having to travel through multiple realities to try and reach their own reality. In this episode as you can see they arrive in a reality where the Dinosaurs never died out and naturally a Tyrannosaurus is waiting for them. This wasn’t the only episode to feature an earth where Dinosaurs still ruled however and the previous time, it was an Allosaurus that was the main meat eater that pursued the main characters.
Extreme Dinosaurs
Tyrannosaurus was the main hero in this classic 90’s cartoon series. The premise for this series saw an interdimensional criminal named Argor Zadrok increase the intelligence of several Dinosaurs to carry out his evil plans. The T. rex, the Stegosaurus, the Pteranodon and the Triceratops all rebel against him as do the Raptors. However the Raptors remain evil nonetheless and try and wipe out humanity in order to allow reptiles to rule the earth once more. The T-Rex was named T-Bone.
Originally these characters appeared on the series Street Sharks as the Dino Vengers, though in that series their origins were different in that they were aliens from another world.
In many ways Extreme Dinosaurs was just Street Sharks with Dinosaurs.
The Truth About Killer Dinosaurs
This 2005 documentary hosted by Bill Oddie attempted to show us how powerful Tyrannosaurus really was. The documentary revealed that T. rex had a bite force of over four tons which would have enabled it to crush a car easily. In the ten years since the documentary was released it is now believed that Tyrannosaurus may have had a bite of over 23 tons almost six times what this documentary claimed.
Much like Christopher Reeve, Bill Oddie proves to be the perfect host. Like Reeve he was a Dinosaur fan himself in real life and brings a similar passion and enthusiasm to the documentary.
Dinosaucers
This series followed a similar premise to the much later Extreme Dinosaurs, revolving anthropomorphic Dinosaurs saving the world. Here however Tyrannosaurus Rex was the main villain. The T. rex was named Genghis Rex and his archenemy was Allo a heroic Allosaurus. He commanded the ruthless Tyranno’s.
Not the best series in the world but still insane enough to be a minor classic nonetheless.
The Land Before Time series
A Tyrannosaurus named Red Claw appeared as the main villain in this television adaptation of the famous film franchise.
Red Claw is accompanied by two Utahraptors named Screech and Thud. However they are more tolerated by the Tyrannosaur instead of being his actual companions.
It is speculated that this is the same T. rex as the Sharptooth from the first film, though this has never been conformed it is possible considering he has a damaged eye like the Tyrannosaur from the first film.
Thanks for reading. Next up a look at T. rex’s appearances in video games.
Tyrannosaurus Rex is by far and away the most famous Dinosaur. Over the years it has had a career few actors could dare dream of, having played every role from the leading man, to the tough grizzled anti hero, to the villain, to the plucky comic relief. He has starred in horror movies, sci fi classics, comedies, and even bizarre rom coms! He has worked with such big names as Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg, Ray Harryhausen and faced everyone from Batman, to King Kong, to Doctor Who, to The Ghostbusters, to Angel, to Homer Simpson. He has even had an iconic band named after him!
Yes old Rexy is a superstar there is no doubt about that and in this article I am going to be looking at some of the Tyrant Lizard King’s most iconic moments in cinema history. It’s doubtless that this article won’t even begin to represent half of T. rex’s total appearances on the big screen, but still I hope at the very least to capture his most memorable moments in films nonetheless.
So join me as I explore how one Dinosaur has managed to remain in the public’s consciousness as a symbol of sheer terror like no other as we take a look at Tyrannosaurus Rex on the big screen.
Film Appearances
Picture for the upcoming sequel from the cult hit Dark Sky which will involve Nazi’s and T-Rex’s.
Tyrannosaurus has had quite the film career. He has had a part in pretty much every iconic Dinosaur film you can think of, usually as the main villain or sometimes hero. He has however appeared in other non Dinosaurs films too such as Night at the Museum. Often whenever a movie needs to have a Dinosaur of some kind, whether for comedy or tension, then the cruel king of the Dinosaurs is the one they go for as it is the arguably the one Dinosaur that absolutely everybody would recognize.
The Willis O’Brien Years
Willis O’Brien is sadly a name that is unfamiliar to most people. He was one of the most influential people in cinema history and his legacy can still be seen today in some of the worlds most acclaimed directors such as Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg.
O’Brien contrary to popular belief did not invent stop motion animation, a process where a model is animated frame by frame. He nevertheless was the one who pioneered and brought it to mainstream attention. It was his movies, such as King Kong in particular that would inspire the next generation of special effects guru’s such as the late great Ray Harryhausen who later became O’Brien’s close friend.
O’Brien was fascinated by Dinosaurs and indeed his earliest short films all featured Dinosaurs in them. However it would be his short 1919 film The Ghost of Slumber Mountain that would mark the Tyrant Lizard King’s debut on the big screen.
The Ghost of Slumber Mountain
This film originally ran for 30 minutes but sadly was cut down to just 11 minutes. Its plot (which was written by O’Brien himself) was somewhat surreal.
It involved a man named Holmes telling his nephews about his time on Slumber Mountain where he found a cabin belonging to a late hermit called Mad Dick. Mad Dick apparently had a magic telescope which Holmes later uses to look at Slumber mountain with. There he see’s the mountain as it was 65 million years ago. He sees a Brontosaurus, a Triceratops and a Tyrannosaurus Rex, which fights and kills the Triceratops.
Unfortunately Holmes looks at the Dinosaurs for too long and creates a rip in the very fabric of time itself which allows the Tyrannosaurus to emerge into modern day where it attacks him. The movie not only marks T. rex’s first appearance on the big screen, but also the first time T. rex was shown in battle with its archnemesis Triceratops.
The Lost World (1925)
The first full length Dinosaur movie based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel of the same name. O’Brien was hired to do the special effects for this film based on the massive success of The Ghost of Slumber Mountain. Though considered crude by today’s standards this silent movie was nevertheless a record breaking success when it was first released and is still regarded as a classic of the genre 90 years later.
Now Tyrannosaurus Rex did not appear in the original novel. At the time Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was writing Tyrannosaur fossils were not that well known, so Allosaurus was made the main meat eating Dinosaur of Doyle’s adventure. Though it should be noted that the large meat eating Dinosaur that appears in the novel of the Lost World is never identified. It is merely speculated by Challenger that it could be either an Allosaurus or a Megalosaurus, but he also admits that it could be any one of the great meat eating beasts.
Still the Dinosaur in The Lost World is often regarded as an Allosaurus and therefore Allosaurus is still the main meat eating Dinosaur that appears in O’Briens Lost World. Fortunately however remembering how great he was in Slumber Mountain. O’Brien would make sure to give his old pal Tyrannosaurus a role in the film.
T. rex only appears in a single scene, but it is still arguably the most famous from the film and also establishes the T. rex as the most powerful Dinosaur on the plateau.
The Tyrannosaur attacks a large Ceratopsian Dinosaur called an Agathaumas. Earlier an Allosaurus had attempted to attack this type of Dinosaur and had been hopelessly overpowered and gored to death by it. The T. rex however is able to dispatch the Agathaumas in a matter of seconds, first by leaping on the Ceratopsids back and then using its mighty jaws pulls the herbivore on its side after which the Tyrannosaur then rips the Agathaumas’s guts out with its teeth. Not long after killing the Agathaumas the Tyrannosaur literally leaps through the air and grabs a passing Pteranodon with its tiny arms, which it then rips apart in its jaws before throwing to the ground and stepping on it, bringing a whole new meaning to the term overkill.
Again though the sequence is brief it is still very memorable and for decades afterwards would often be used to illustrate how Tyrannosaurus may have battled Triceratops in countless Dinosaur documentary’s, even though the animal is not a Triceratops but an Agathuamas.
King Kong
T. rex with his new best friend
T. rex and Willis O’Brien would reunite one last time for what would ultimately be O’Brien’s most successful project King Kong.
Originally after The Lost World, O’Brien had hoped to make another Dinosaur film called Creation about another lost land of Dinosaurs discovered in modern day. Tyrannosaurus was among the Dinosaurs slated to appear in the film and it would have battled and killed a Stegosaurus. Ultimately however Creation was shelved by King Kong creator Merian C Cooper who felt that its story was boring. Cooper had nevertheless been impressed with the special effects used to bring the Dinosaurs to life in the test footage shot for Creation and subsequently hired O’Brien to work on his own project about a giant ape falling in love with a human woman.
O’Brien would not only bring the ape to life with his stop motion effects, but he would also insert Dinosaurs into the film as well, including a Stegosaurus, a Brontosaurus, a Pteranodon an Elasmosaurus and of course a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
The T. rex once again appears in only a single scene, but O’Brien makes sure it is memorable. The Tyrannosaurus is shown to battle Kong when it attempts to devour the object of his affections, Anne Darrow played by the late Fay Wray.
The fight between Kong and the Tyrannosaurus is arguably the first real Kaiju battle in the history of cinema. It would serve as an inspiration on many subsequent Dinosaur and monster battles over the years such as the infamous battle between the Tyrannosaurus and the Spinosaurus in Jurassic Park 3. There are even shots lifted from the Kong/Tyrannosaur battle for the T. rex/Spinosaur duel such as the shot of Anne cowering under a tree as the two titans clash, that we see replicated when Grant cowers under a fallen tree as the T. rex and Spinosaurus size each other up.
Shots taken from this fight can also be seen in Kong’s battle with Godzilla in King Kong vs Godzilla, his fight with Gorosaurus in King Kong Escapes and finally in Peter Jacksons 2005 remake where Kong wrestles with 3 Vastatosaurus Rex’s (descendants of the T. rex)
In many ways Tyrannosaurus Rex has gone on to become seen as Kong’s archenemy in popular culture. Though the much maligned 70’s remake replaced the T. rex with a snake, most other versions will have Kong battle a Tyrannosaur including both the 60’s animated series called The King Kong Show and the 00’s animated series Kong the Animated series. A robotic T. rex is also set to appear in the upcoming Kong-King of the Apes animated series on Netflix. Even the King Homer parody from The Simpsons featured King Homer tangling with a T. rex.
I think this is probably why the 70’s movie is often seen as the black sheep of the Kong movies. Over time though its reputation has improved ultimately the lack of Dinosaurs, and lack of T. rex in particular will always make it less enjoyable than the other Kong movies.
I mean really not that Kong isn’t a fairly impressive character, but the makers of the 70’s movie should have known everything is better with Dinosaurs.
Fantasia
Tyrannosaurus Rex would be featured in this iconic Disney movie in the classic The Rite of Spring sequence. Despite the films iconic status however. The T. rex is inaccurate for many reasons.
To start with it is shown to live alongside creatures like Dimetrodon and Stegosaurus. Stegosaurus lived during the Jurassic era whilst Tyrannosaurus lived in the Cretaceous period. There is a bigger gap between Tyrannosaurus and Stegosaurus than there is between us and Tyrannosaurus. Dimetrodon meanwhile lived millions of years before the Dinosaurs. It is also by the way not a Dinosaur. It is from the Synapsid family a group of reptiles that Mammals originated from. Dimetrodon is actually more closely related to you and I than it is to any Dinosaur.
Also finally the Tyrannosaurus has three fingers. At the time it was not known to be fair exactly how many fingers it had and many other depictions from the early 20th century including King Kong gave it three fingers too. There is a long standing rumour however that Walt Disney insisted to the animators that it be given three fingers as he felt it looked better that way.
Inaccuracies aside this remains one of Tyrannosaurus’s most iconic film appearances. The scene where it kills the Stegosaurus is truly a classic Dinosaur battle and actually manages to I think give the Dinosaurs a certain depth for the first time. Unlike in Kong you don’t just look at them as monsters in this scene, but rather actual animals as we are actually meant to sympathise with Stegosaurus as it it is hopelessly outmatched and killed by the T. rex, rather than being another monster that can’t wait to fight it.
This is also the film that began the whole T. rex/Stegosaurus feud in popular culture.
T. rex not surprisingly has many mortal enemies in popular culture, Triceratops, Spinosaurus, Anklyosaurus, and Brontosaurus, though actually only a few of these Dinosaurs would have met Tyrannosaurus in real life.
The famous T. rex/Stegosaurus fight from this film has since been recreated in the Disneyland Primeval Diorama and Walt Disney World’s Epcot’s Ellen’s Energy Adventure.
One Million BC
This fantasy film that features Cavemen living alongside Dinosaurs briefly features a Tyrannosaurus Rex. It is played by a man in a suit for its fleeting cameo where it tries to devour some small children before being slain by the main protagonist Tumak.
The scene isn’t exactly T. rex’s best showing despite the iconic status of the film. The costume is so crummy that the monster has to spend most of its time hidden behind a bush to conceal himself. Surprisingly though this film was the one that won an Oscar for its special effects instead of King Kong!
The movie is still enjoyable don’t get me wrong, but certainly not one of the highlights of T. rex’s long and luxurious film career. It only gets a mention here as it was one of the first ever instances of Dinosaurs fighting cavemen in a film, and certainly the most influential.
This movie would later be remade in the 60’s where it was retitled One Million Years BC. The effects for this remake were supplied by Willis O’Brien’s protege Ray Harryhausen. This scene itself was even remade.
The effects were a definite improvement of course, but sadly the attacking Dinosaur in the remake is an Allosaurus not a Tyrannosaurus as Harryhausen felt a Tyrannosaurus would have been too powerful and would have destroyed the Cavemen and their village in no time. Though as it was even an Allosaurus would have been too powerful and would have destroyed the village in no time as well. The attacking Dinosaur is in fact a sub adult Allosaurus.
Dinosaurus
This overlooked 60’s Dinosaur film features a Tyrannosaurus Rex as the main antagonist. The movies plot sees two Dinosaurs, a Tyrannosaurus and a Brontosaurus as well a caveman that were all frozen in ice awaken on a small island.
Whilst the Brontosaurus and Cavemen naturally are very nice and even both befriend a young boy, the T. rex goes on the rampage and destroys a bus full of people. The T. rex however does manage to cause the death of the films main human villain who it crushes under several rocks. Sadly however it also causes the death of the caveman too. It is ultimately defeated at the very end of the film when it is knocked into the ocean by a bulldozer where it apparently dies.
The ending hints that it may have survived however, as a set up for a sequel that ultimately never happened.
The Tyrannosaurus is brought to life through both stop motion animation and animatronics. Though this film is often overlooked it was nevertheless a huge influence on Michael Crichton the author of Jurassic Park and he himself cited it as one of his influences on Jurassic Park.
The Lost World (1960)
Tyrannosaurus was the main villain in this somewhat sub par version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic directed by Lost in Space creator Irwin Allen.
Now I enjoy this film and it actually has one of the best casts of any version of The Lost World it must be said. Professor George Challenger is played by horror icon Claude Rains and Lord John Roxton is played by The Day The Earth Stood Still star Michael Rennie.
Still where the film is let down is through its Dinosaur effects. This movie uses what has become known as the Slurpasaur technique. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, the Slurpasaur technique is where you basically take a lizard and superimpose it to look big and stick horns on its head. This effect was also used to bring the Dinosaurs in One Million BC to life except for the Tyrannosaurus.
It’s actually not the worst visually as long as you don’t use the technique for actual Dinosaurs. If it’s just supposed to be just a giant monster then okay I’ll buy it, but when you have someone going on about this being a Brontosaurus like in the movie and we just see a big Lizard then it becomes too much for me.
The Slurpasaur technique was later parodied in “The Lost World Jurassic Park” when Vince Vaughn’s character mentions that he was expecting big iquanas.
The Tyrannosaurus in this movie is represented by a crocodile with fins stuck to its back and horns glued to its head, making it look more like a badly done Spinosaurus than a Tyrannosaurus.
It appears in two sequences. First it wrestles with a Brontosaurus which is represented by a lizard with a frill around its head and fins glued to its back. Once again it actually looks more like a badly done Dilophosaurus than the animal its supposed to be. Or at least the Dilophosaurus from Jurassic Park as the real animal most likely did not have a frill.
This fight sequence is actually a pretty good Dino battle. My only problem with it is that it makes me a bit uncomfortable as we are actually watching real animals fighting with each other.
This was actually one of the reasons that the Slurpasaur technique went out of fashion because many people saw it as a form of animal cruelty. It wasn’t just because of its all around general crappiness.
The Tyrannosaurus shows up again in the final showdown where it is revealed to be the natives of the plateau’s fire god whom they make sacrifices to (similar to Kong).
The T. rex manages to kill one of the movies more unsympathetic characters who had earlier in what was a very shocking, out of place scene tried to rape the friendly native girl.
I’m not saying you can never show scenes of explicit violence. Obviously if the story warrants then fine, but in this instance it just seemed totally out of place with the rest of the film. The movie seemed like an episode of Lost in Space, just silly, camp fun and then suddenly there looked like what was going to become a scene from a movie like A Clockwork Orange in it.
Still I suppose if anyone had to get killed horribly by a Tyrannosaurus then its good that it was this guy. You’d be hard pushed to find a more unsympathetic T. rex victim in any film, including even the cowardly lawyer who famously abandons the two children to die in Jurassic Park.
Really if someone had to die in this film then it just had to be him.
The T. rex is ultimately killed by Gomez who in an effort to redeem himself (after he tried to murder the whole team earlier due to Roxton abandoning his brother to die on an earlier expedition.) Manages to slay the beast by causing it to become buried under an avalanche, though he himself also dies in the process.
The avalanche Gomez kicks off destroys the entire plateau, but one of the Tyrannosaurs eggs is saved by Challenger who plans to bring it back to London as proof of their adventures. This sadly is arguably the most laughable scene in the whole film as Challenger sits there holding a small gecko with horns on its head claiming that its a baby Tyrannosaurus Rex. One wonders what his colleagues would have thought when he returned home and presented this as his proof of The Lost World.
The sad thing about this film is that originally Willis O’Brien had been hired to do the effects. This movie was for all intents and purposes supposed to be an updated, colourized, talkie version of his 1925 adaptation of The Lost World. Think of how amazing it would have been to have seen the T. rex/Brontosaurus fight with O’Brien’s Dinosaurs, or the T. rex fire god as an O’Brien T. rex rather than a silly lizard with a fin on its back. Sadly Irwin Allen decided to use the Slurpasaur technique as it was cheaper and took less time.
Allen was notorious for never wasting a penny, hence why he often reused shots and costumes and sets all the time. In his iconic series Lost in Space for instance he used the exact same shot for a space ship taking off every single time a space ship was shown to fly away, even if the ship in question looked nothing like the ship taking off from the original footage. He also reused footage from The Lost World itself in many of his subsequent series such as Lost in Space and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
O’Brien whose career was in ruins at this point was apparently very disappointed with Allen’s decision and the finished film overall.
Such a shame really when you think that The Lost World with its fabulous cast and gorgeous sets and beautiful colour could have been O’Brien’s last hurrah, and a fitting epilogue to his career as the 1925 Lost World had been his first feature length film. Sadly however Allen’s limited budget meant that O’Brien’s talents weren’t utilized and the film was compromised overall. It was turned from a potential classic which it would have been with O’Brien’s effects and its stellar cast to really a third rate B-movie with iguana’s with fins stuck to their backs standing in for Dinosaurs.
The Last Dinosaur
Tyrannosaurus appears as the main villain in this Japanese Dinosaur movie which is like an odd mix of Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Moby Dick. The films plot sees a company called Thrust Inc discover a valley of prehistoric creatures in a valley underneath the polar ice caps.
As the team who investigate it are picked off one by one by the relentless Tyrannosaurus, one member of the expedition Maston Thrust played by Western star Richard Boone eventually becomes obsessed with destroying it and gets more of his team members killed in the process.
Though the Tyrannosaurus is referred to as the last Dinosaur, there are in fact several Dinosaurs shown to live in the valley alongside it, including a Triceratops that the Rex kills.
The Tyrannosaurus is brought to life by a man in a suit similar to other classic Japanese monster movies. Overall the film isn’t a classic like Kong or Jurassic Park by any means. The effects are a bit ropey to say the least and the Tyrannosaurus’s size changes frequently throughout the film.
Still it’s a decent monster mash and if you are a fan of old Japanese Kaiju movies it’s definitely worth a look.
Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen was really Willis O’Brien’s successor. He perfected the stop motion animation process and inspired dozens of film makers over the course of his decades long career. He has had arguably a much greater impact on the industry than many major directors.
Now Harryhausen’s most famous films are arguably those to do with ancient mythology such as Jason and The Argonauts which features the famous skeleton duel, and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad which memorably features a giant Cyclops.
Still he did do quite a few memorable Dinosaur films such as The Beast From 20000 Fathoms, One Million Years BC, The Animal World and The Valley of the Gwangi.
Though not as famous as say Jason and the Argonauts many of his Dinosaur films were quite influential and ground breaking. The Beast From 20000 Fathoms in many ways kicked off the atomic monster craze of the 1950’s and set the template for so many movies that came after from The Giant Behemoth to Gorgo to even Godzilla itself. The Animal World meanwhile can be seen as The Walking With Dinosaurs of the 1950’s as it attempted to present Dinosaurs in a more realistic way and show them frolicking in their natural habitat like a wildlife documentary.
Naturally of course Tyrannosaurus Rex being the most famous Dinosaur popped up in a few of Harryhausen’s projects.
Harrhausen’s earliest experiments with Stop Motion involved Dinosaurs, as he had been fascinated with Dinosaurs since before he even learned about stop motion.
His first ever project was called Evolution and he made it when he was 13 years old. It attempted to tell the story of life on earth making it like a 1930’s version of the Walking with series.
Harryhausen shot several sequences including a Brontosaurus emerging from the ocean, several cavemen frolicking and a fight sequence of between a Tyrannosaurus Rex and a Triceratops. The T-Rex is also shown to kill a small Hadrosaur too. Though some of these shots are inaccurate by today’s standards, at the same time some of Harryhausen’s work for Evolution is actually ahead of its time.
For instance the Tyrannosaurus sequence portrays the creature as a more active, warm blooded, bird like creature jumping out at the Triceratops and leaping on its back. At that time Dinosaurs by and large were depicted as slow moving, sluggish and obviously more reptilian.
The sequences are very impressive technically, even without taking into consideration the fact that they were made by a teenager!
Sadly the film was never completed. Harryhausen apparently became disheartened when he saw Fantasia as he realised that it had taken Disney with a whole team of animators years to do what he a teenager was trying to do on his own.
Thankfully however Harryhausen still kept the footage which would later be released on DVD. He also would later show the footage to Willis O’Brien when he first met him many years later.
Tyrannosaurus would later go on to appear in The Animal World which was essentially the same idea as Haryhausen’s own Evolution project, though sadly only the Dinosaur footage remains of the finished film.
Both Harryhausen and Willis O’Brien worked on this project. According to Harryhausen he did virtually all of the animation on the film with O’Brien merely helping to build the Dinosaur models.
Sadly T. rex does not appear for long. The Dinosaur that gets the most attention surprisingly is the little known theropod Ceratosaurus who would also later get a starring role in Harryhausen’s version of One Million Years BC.
Tyrannosaurus only appears in a small sequence where it once again battles a Triceratops before the Dinosaurs are wiped out by an asteroid.
This marks possibly the first time the death of the Dinosaurs was ever depicted on screen in live action.
Tyrannosaurus would go on to appear in Harryhausen’s most famous Dinosaur film The Valley of the Gwangi.
Now Gwangi as it is more commonly known was actually the idea of Willis O’Brien. It involved Cowboys fighting Dinosaurs. Sadly O’Brien was never able to get the project made, though he did near the end of his life produce another Dinosaur western called The Beast From Hollow Mountain which featured an Allosaurus fighting cowboys before dying in a swamp.
Harryhausen wished to film Gwangi as a tribute to O’Brien who had by this point passed on.
Gwangi’s plot sees a group of Cowboys discover a lost valley of Dinosaurs where they encounter a Pteranodon, a Styracosaurus and a large theropod called Gwangi. The Theropod after killing the Styracosaurus as well as several of the cowboys is brought back to civilisation to star in a circus. Ultimately it escapes before going on the rampage throughout the town. Killing an elephant as well as several people before being burned to death in the church.
Now there is some debate over whether or not Gwangi is a Tyrannosaurus or an Allosaurus. O’Brien had intended for him to be an Allosaurus in his version, and on the DVD box he is referred to as an Allosaurus too.
However Harryhausen does say in his biography that he decided to make Gwangi more of a Tyrannosaurus. He also refers to the beast in his synopsis for his version as a Tyrannosaurus, whilst also referring to it as an Allosaurus in the synopsis for O’Brien’s version in his biography.
He also says he based Gwangi’s design on Charles R Knight’s painting of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
So Gwangi is a Tyrannosaurus right?
Well again not exactly. Harryhausen also states in his biography that he decided to make Gwangi a hybrid of Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus which he dubbed a Tyrannosaurus Al “Odd Lizard King”.
Now you might ask what is the difference between a Tyrannosaurus and an Allosaurus? Well there are many.
Though superficially they may seem very similar, two giant theropods with big heads and small arms, the two actually have very little in common with each other.
Tyrannosaurus was bigger and far stronger. Its jaws where also tremendously powerful too. It had a bite force of over 23 tons. Allosaurus on the other hand had in comparison a minascule bite force. Its bite force was in fact weaker than modern predators such as Lions, Tigers and even Leopards. Tyrannosaurus also had much greater intelligence than Allosaurus too and its senses were far more advanced.
At the same time however Allosaurus was far faster than Tyrannosaurus. It could run at 35 miles per hour. Allosaurus could run faster than an Olympic level athlete, a Lion, Tiger, Rhino and over three times as fast as an Elephant. Tyrannosaurus could only run at 18 miles per hour meanwhile.
Allosaurus was also more agile and lighter on its feet than Tyrannosaurus too and had far larger arms, equipped with three razor sharp claws.
Some experts believe that Allosaurus used its claws to grab hold of its victims. In Walking With Dinosaurs it is shown to leap though the air and latch onto the side of a Diplodocus.
Allosaurus also though having a weak bite still nevertheless had a devastating way of using its jaws against its prey.
It could open its mouth very wide and would swing its head like a hatchet which would allow it cleave massive pieces of flesh from its victims bodies. Its skull was incredibly strong in order to withstand the stresses of doing this.
As you can see T. rex and Allosaurus whilst effective predators were clearly designed for very different purposes. Tyrannosaurus Rex clearly relies on sheer power to bite through the skin of heavily armoured Dinosaurs and finish them before they can fight back such as Triceratops and Anklyosaurus. It was also smarter too as it had to be able to devise strategies to avoid the weaponry of these Dinosaurs.
Allosaurus meanwhile was designed to take on creatures like the giant sauropods who were many times its size. It needed to be fast as the sauropods could easily swat it like a fly. It also needed to be able to leap through the air and rather than have a strong bite it had to be able to tear massive pieces of flesh from its victims bodies.
One thing that they did have in common was that they were both the kings of their world, at the top of the prehistoric food chain.
Gwangi, the Tyrannosaurus Al therefore combines the strengths of both Dinosaurs. He has the physical strength, superior size, massive bite force, greater intelligence and advanced senses of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, but the superior speed, agility and larger arms of an Allosaurus.
This can be seen in the film when he manages to tackle a Styracosaurus a creature that a strong Tyrannosaurus would have a better chance of taking down. He also manages to break down a massive steel cage which again is something a T. rex would have a better chance of breaking through. At the same Gwangi is also shown to be fast enough to catch a horse. A Tyrannosaurus would not be fast enough to keep up with a horse.
Gwangi when it was first released was sadly not that big a success though over time it has become seen as a cult classic.
Definitely the highlight is the scene where the cowboys rope Gwangi. I must say though that a rope would never be enough to restrain either an Allosaurus or a Tyrannosaurus but it’s still good fun none the less.
Planet of The Dinosaurs
This 70’s B-Movie features Tyrannosaurus as the main villain.
Its plot sees a group of astronauts marooned on an alien planet that is populated by creatures who are identical to Dinosaurs, with the explanation being that this planet is just at that point in its history.
Tyrannosaurus first shows up part way through the film where it kills an Allosaurus. It later emerges and begins killing the main characters one by one. Its almost like the villain in a slasher movie not only the way it picks people off one by one, but also the way it also seems to collect their bodies as trophies as it takes back every one of its victims, Allosaurus or human being back to its cave.
Though this film was panned when it was first released its stop motion Dinosaur effects supplied by Jim Danforth were rightfully praised and I’d say that the whole movie is worth it because of its impressive Dinosaur sequences.
One notable scene in this film involves the Tyrannosaurus killing a young Rhedosaurus. Now Rhedosaurus is not a real species of Dinosaur. It is in fact a totally fictional species invented for the Ray Harryhausen film The Beast From 20000 Fathoms. Danforth was a close friend of Harryhausens, in fact Harryhausen was a mentor to Danforth in much the same way that O’Brien had been a mentor to Harryhausen himself. This scene was thrown in as a tribute to Harryhausen.
Rumour has it that the model used for the Rhedosaurus was in fact the same one used for The Beast From 20000 Fathoms, but this is contradicted by other sources that state that Harryhausen destroyed the model shortly after use in order to use parts of it for other Dinosaur models in later films.
The Land Before Time
Tyrannosaurus Rex is the main villain in the first (and best in this bloggers opinion) entry in the Land Before Time film series.
The villainous T. rex is named Sharptooth is evil even by Tyrannosaur standards. He is shown to pursue the main protagonists seemingly for no reason other than just because. Its not like they are even a source of food to him. Together they probably wouldn’t even make one bite for him!
Sharptooth is also responsible for one of the worst tearjerkers in the history of cinema when he kills the main protagonist Littlefoot’s mother.
I’m not going to lie this scene still makes me tear up even today. I defy anyone to watch the scene of Littlefoot thinking his mom is still alive when he sees his shadow huge in the distance and runs towards it, only for it to get smaller and smaller the nearer he gets and not cry. Writing about it now is enough to make me tear up.
Sharptooth’s death with this in mind is not only extremely satisfying, but also fittingly spectacular too with the main heroes pushing a giant boulder on his head, which sends him plummeting into a lake where he drowns. (Though if you watch closely you can see the boulder actually hits the Tyrannosaur in the crotch, which almost makes me feel sorry for him!)
Sharptooth has to rank as one of cinema’s greatest villains due to how terrifying he is and the grief he puts the main characters through.
The Land Before Time 2
The T. rex’s returned as the main villains in The Land Before Time 2. In this film however they were given a more sympathetic role than Sharptooth in the first movie, though to be fair that wouldn’t be difficult.
The films plot revolves around our main characters discovering a Dinosaur egg which turns out to be a cute baby T-Rex named Chomper.
Chomper is probably in all fairness the most adorable Theropod of all time.
Unfortunately his parents who come looking for him are the usual big, bloody, awful, scary kind of Tyrannosaurus’s.
At the end of the movie Chomper decided to leave his friends in order to save them and their families from his parents. Whilst none of The Land Before Time sequels in my opinion where a patch on the first film this is definitely the best of the sequels. I liked the way that it portrayed the Tyrannosaurus’s in a more sympathetic light. It helped this movie stand out from the first one more, rather than just being the same T. rex versus the good guy herbivores. Also I like Chomper and Littlefoot’s friendship too. The final scene where Littlefoot has to say goodbye to Chomper is surprisingly moving.
The Land Before Time 5
Chomper and his mother and father from the previous film returned for this sequel. This time they are presented in an entirely sympathetic role with the true main villain being a Giganotosaurus that is eventually killed by Chompers father near the end.
In real life Giganotosaurus was larger than Tyrannosaurus and was in fact the first meat eating Dinosaur conformed to be larger than T. rex. This film marked the first time the two behemoths were shown to share the screen together.
Overall this film is not the best entry in The Land Before Time series, but as a T. rex fan I always enjoy watching T. rex thrash one of the contenders to the throne at the end of the film.
The Land Before Time 7
Tyrannosaurus returns for a small role in this entry in The Land Before Time series. It is shown first of all in a flashback where we see the Lone Dinosaur defeat the most fearsome Tyrannosaurus Rex of all time. Some fans have argued that this is meant to be the T. rex from the first film, but there is nothing to conform this in the film itself.
Another Tyrannosaurus also appears at the end of the film to menace the main characters briefly, but the main villain of this film is really the much smaller Allosaurus.
Jurassic Park
Possibly Tyrannosaurus’s most famous appearance in cinema history if not popular culture itself. Just about every scene involving the T. rex in this film is an iconic moment from the water shaking as it approaches, to it devouring the cowardly Lawyer on the toilet, to it chasing the jeep.
By far and away its greatest moment however is its final fight with the Velociraptors at the end of the film, which manages to make the Tyrannosaurus seem heroic, but without turning it into a super hero like later films in the series would.
The funny thing is this scene was a last minute addition. Originally the movies ending was more low key involving the Raptors simply being crushed by falling bones. However during the making of the movie Spielberg felt the T-Rex was the real star of the film and that the audience would be upset if they didn’t get to see it one last time. He changed the ending to give Rexy one last heroic moment.
Spielberg pulls out all of the stops to really make the Rex into something special, yet at the same time I liked the way he also makes it seem like a real animal. We see it chomping down on humans of course like any movie monster but at the same time its not like say the Spinosaurus from Jurassic Park 3 that just chases the humans for no reason all over the island. We see the Rex frolicking in its natural habitat, hunting other Dinosaurs, defending its territory, and abandoning its prey when it escapes.
This more realistic portrayal of Tyrannosaurus would help change how we viewed the beast in popular culture. Prior to this Tyrannosaurus was generally seen in the more upright, tripod shape, but after Jurassic Park it would always be depicted in a more bird like stance.
This movie also I think changed the Dinosaur Tyrannosaurus was most often depicted with from Triceratops to Velociraptor.
Though T. rex vs Triceratops is still a very popular set up, in most pieces of more recent Dinosaur fiction the classic Dino set up is now one unstoppable T. rex and several Raptors like Jurassic Park.
The Lost World Jurassic Park
Tyrannosaurus Rex appears as the main dinosaur in this sequel to Jurassic Park.
Here we are introduced to a family of Tyrannosaurs who again much like the T. rex from the first film are portrayed more as real animals caring for their young than movie monsters.
They still get to cause lots of death and mayhem though such as most notably at the end of the film when the male Tyrannosaurus is brought to the city and destroys a bus, kills a small family (and their dog) and devours some random guy who is simply credited as unlucky bastard.
One again this grand finale with a T. rex was added at the very last moment. Originally the ending of The Lost World was going to involve Pteranodons attacking our heroes as they attempted to escape Isla Sorna.
Ultimately Spielberg decided once again to give the viewers more of the T. rex and changed the ending adding the San Diego sequence.
Some have criticized the Rex’s rampage throughout the city, but I liked it. I felt it was quite a nice homage to old monster movies from The Lost World 1925, to the Dinosaur smashing its way through a modern city. To King Kong (with the boat being named the Venture after the boat in Kong.) To finally Godzilla through the Japanese tourists fleeing the Tyrannosaur.
Jurassic Park 3
The black sheep of the Jurassic Park franchise. Tyrannosaurus Rex is only in one scene where it fights the Spinosaurus.
Now this scene split the JP fandom right down the middle. As anyone with even a passing interest in Dinosaurs knows Tyrannosaurus Rex had the strongest bite of any Dinosaur. It had a bite force of over 23 tons. If it bit down on the Spinosaurus’s neck it would have killed it instantly.
Above is a reconstruction of a T. rex head for the 2005 BBC Documentary The Truth About Killer Dinosaurs, nicknamed steely Dan. It was given a bite force of 4 tons which is still greater than any other large meat eating Dinosaur or any other land animal ever to live on the planet. With a bite force of only 4 tons this T. rex was powerful enough to crush a car with its jaws with minimal effort and due to having a bite force of 4 tons it would have needed to have had a skeleton stronger than reinforced steel. Other estimates by Mason B Meers have shown that a real Tyrannosaurus could have had a bite of 23 tons, almost 6 times Steely Dan’s bite force. With this in mind imagine the damage a T. rex could do to a Spinosaurus’s neck, especially considering that Spinosaurus had a relatively slender neck too.
Of course the real reason that Tyrannosaurus’s bite didn’t kill the Spinosaurus was because of Jack Horner, the films scientific advisor. Now Horner has famously made it clear that he despises Tyrannosaurus. How one can have a hatred of an animal that has been extinct for 65 million years I have no idea. I think it stems from the fact that Horner studies Hadrosaurs, which were T. rex’s favourite prey. Unlike Triceratops and Anklyosaurs who were armoured and there could put up a fight, the hapless, Hadrosaurs are often depicted, unfairly as lowly idiotic Dinosaurs that would have been easy meals for the ravenous T. rex’s.
Naturally Horner a man who LOVES Hadrosaurs isn’t going to be too keen on the T. rex and decided to take him down a peg or two and replaced him as the main villain for the third Jurassic Park film.
Horner claims that Spinosaurus had a head that was 8 feet long and a body that was 60 feet long on the making of documentary for Jurassic Park 3. Horner is talking complete nonsense. He is right that Spinosaurus was the biggest meat eating Dinosaur ever to have lived on the earth. It was also a vicious and powerful predator in its own right. However he is grossly exaggerating its size and power. It did not have an 8 foot head, nor was its body 60 foot long. He shouldn’t have spread such misinformation as one of the worlds most renowned experts on Dinosaurs.
Horner did serve as the adviser on the first two films, but he was given complete free reign on the third and even allowed to decide which Dinosaurs would appear. Hence why there was even a chase scene involving Hadrosaurs.
The reason Horner was given such complete control over the third film is because it was directed by Joe Johnston who knew nothing about Dinosaurs and took Horner at his word. Steven Spielberg who directed the first two was a Dinosaur enthusiast himself and knew not to believe Horner’s biased lies against T. rex.
To be fair to Horner thought he does seem to have given up on his hatred of the T. rex to some extent, as he recently admitted that T. rex would have a good chance against I-Rex.
Having said that though I don’t know why Spielberg who loves the T. rex so much hired Horner in the first place? Why didn’t he hire Phil Currie or Bob Bakker who both love T. rex as much as he does?
Whatever the case whilst Jurassic Park 3 was the least successful of the Jurassic Park movies among both fans and the general public, though the T. rex/Spinosaurus feud entered into popular culture and there have been several reconstructions of the fight over the years. The T. rex always kills the Spinosaurus in them.
Jurassic World
Tyrannosaurus Rex returned for a heroic role in Jurassic World. Rumour has it that Spielberg insisted on this to make up for the negative fan reaction to the Rex’s small role in Jurassic Park 3. There is one scene certainly that was intended as a take that to Jurassic Park 3 when the T. rex smashes its way through a Spinosaurus skeleton on its way to battle the films main villain the I-Rex.
The Tyrannosaurus from this film is meant to be the same one from the first film “Rexy” hence why it is shown have scars down its throat from its battle with the Raptors.
I very much liked the Rex’s appearance in this film. It did make up a little bit for the third movie. T-Rex and I-Rex’s fight is brilliant and seeing the Rex play a heroic role is a wonderful little call back to the ending of the first movie.
My favourite shot is at the end of the movie when the T. rex after having killed the I-Rex roars out in triumph. Once again having triumphed over its Dinosaurian and human enemies. Its yet another wonderful little callback to the first film.
It was also great seeing the Rex restored to its rightful position as the logo of the franchise.
Carnosaur Film Series
Tyrannosaurus Rex appeared in all of the entries in this Dinosaur film series that was released at round about the same time as Jurassic Park.
Carnosaur dealt with a similar premise to Jurassic Park of Dinosaurs being brought back to life through cloning. It was based on a novel of the same name by John Brosnan.
The films plot differs to the novel in some ways. It sees a mad scientist create a virus that causes women to give birth to Dinosaurs including several Deinonychus and a T. rex.
The T. rex is naturally the main villain of the piece and gets a climactic showdown with the main hero who uses a skid steer loader to battle it.
Now this movie is obviously not high class entertainment, but its still good for a few laughs. Sadly it has along with its sequels been discontinued on DVD for now, so its virtually impossible to get a hold of.
Tyrannosaurus returned in all of its sequels Carnosaur 2, Carnosaur 3 Primal Species and two unoffical sequels Raptor and The Eden Formula where it is the only Dinosaur that appears.
The Lost World 1998
This overlooked version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s book is I feel the best adaptation after the original 1925 version.
It makes many huge deviations from the novel, but I think that works in its favour as unlike other versions a lot of the twists like Roxton being the villain and the deaths like Summerlee and Djena, Edward Malone’s main love interest are quite shocking and unexpected the first time round.
Tyrannosaurus is the main Dinosaur of the film that murders both Djena and Sumerlee.
Sumerlee’s death is a lot more gory than you’d expect. Normally being killed by a T. rex is the preferred way of being killed by a Dinosaur if you’re a human in films. Just one bite and its over, but poor old Sumerlee gets ripped limb from limb and tossed about by the Rex, and his mutilated body is later found by his team mates.
Overall this is an excellent appearance by T. rex. You really get the impression that he is the king of the Lost World. Nothing stands up to him, not the vicious, psychopathic natives, not the Raptors, they all flee the second he shows up.
Overall this is a great film and definitely one of the better depictions of the Tyrant Lizard King in popular culture.
King Kong (2005)
I wasn’t sure about whether to include this as technically its not a T. rex that battles Kong in this version. It is in fact a Vastatosaurus Rex “Ravager King Lizard” which is meant to be the direct descendant of Tyrannosaurus Rex. It makes sense in a way as when you think about it if Dinosaurs were still alive somewhere in the world today, then they would have continued to evolve.
Still I have decided to list this here anyway.
Here Kong battles three V-Rex’s. According to spin off material the V-Rex’s are meant to have wiped out Kong’s entire species except for Kong who is now the last of is kind. This helps to explain Kongs intense hatred of them. Think about it would he really fight three of them at once and risk Ann’s life rather than just get out of there if he didn’t really hate them? Jackson has stated that he believes Kong’s own family were killed by the V-Rex’s.
The Kong V-Rex fight is definitely one of the best kaiju battles in the history of cinema. I am not sure whether or not its better than the original. Obviously from a technical point of view its better, but I think its perhaps a bit too elaborate at times. I think this is a problem with a lot of the Dinosaur sequences in Jackson’s remake. They are enjoyable, but it feels like Jackson tries too hard to make them more over the top/ He has to have everyone get caught up between the Brontosaurus’s, buried under them etc, he has to have Kong and the V-Rex’s and Kong all get caught up in vines etc.
Sometimes less is more. A Brontosaurus chasing a guy up a tree and a T. rex fighting Kong in a forest are enough.
We’re Back A Dinosaurs Story
This animated movie which is based on the Hudson Talbott’s children book of the same name, features a Tyrannosaurus voiced by John Goodman as the main protagonist. The T. rex named simply Rex is experimented on by aliens and gains human intelligence alongside several other Dinosaurs as well as Pterodactly named Elsa voiced by Felicty Kendall who eventually falls in love with Rex.
I always loved this film so much growing up and its still a favourite of mine even today. It’s refreshing to see a heroic T. rex and the film has a wonderfully surreal story involving the Dinosaurs battling an evil Circus man. I always got creeped out at the end when after he is defeated he is eaten alive by his own crows.
Not T. rex’s most ferocious appearance in popular culture of course, but still a fun movie nonetheless.
Tammy and the T-Rex
By far and away the low point of T. rex’s career on the big screen. This dreadful film sees a woman implant her boyfriend’s brain in the body of a gigantic robotic Tyrannosaurus Rex. Seriously! Granted its meant to be a comedy, but still I’d rank this as probably T. eex’s worst film appearance. I suppose all big stars have that one film they are ashamed of, that they only did for the money.
Ice Age 3 Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Tyrannosaurus Rex appears in this film. It also makes a fleeting cameo in the original Ice Age frozen in ice.
Originally the large female T. rex named Momma is set up to be the main villain of the film, but gradually we see that it is more of a loving mother and the true main villain is Rudy, a gigantic Baryonx.
Baryonx was a medium sized fish eating Dinosaur, but in this film it is depicted as being the largest meat eating Dinosaur of all time. This was at the behest of the films producer who felt Baryonx looked scarier than the T-Rex.
However despite this at the end the T. rex is still shown to be superior when it thrashes Rudy and pushes him over the edge of a cliff, saving the main characters in the process. It’s always a crowning moment of awesome watching the king of the Dinosaurs thrash some new punk who thinks that he can take his place.
Blackadder Back And Forth
Tyrannosaurus appears briefly in this film adaptation of the classic BBC comedy. It appears when Blackadder and Baldrick travel back to the age of the Dinosaurs. It attacks them through the door of their time machine before being killed by Baldricks dirty underwear which also apparently causes the extinction of the Dinosaurs too.
Go to 6 minutes 56 seconds for the T. rex or just watch the whole film, as it’s hilarious.
Night At The Museum
Tyrannosaurus appears in this classic comedy about exhibits in a museum that are brought to life at night by magic. In quite a nice twist the T. rex (which is a living skeleton!) is shown to be very affectionate towards the main character and really becomes his pet. It also helps save the day at the end of the first film too. Though it appears in both of the sequels, sadly its role is more limited.
T-Rex Back to the Cretaceous
This somewhat odd educational film sees a teenage girl named Ally travel backwards in time to the age of the Dinosaurs where she helps protect a group of T. rex eggs for all the good it does as the Dinosaurs are wiped out soon after.
This movie also explores the discovery of Tyrannosaurus Rex too.
Overall its a pretty decent film that helps to show a new side to Tyrannosaurus Rex by depicting it as caring for its young. It manages to both be very educational and a fun romp at the same time.
The Land of The Lost
A Tyrannosaurus named Grumpy appears in this 2009 adaptation of the classic 70’s television series of the same name. The T. rex originally just tries to hunt the main characters, but soon gives up when they manage to escape. Ultimately things become personal when Will Ferrell’s character Dr Rick Marshall insults it by inferring that its brain was the size of a walnut. It spends the rest of the movie trying to kill him as a result. At the end of the movie however it becomes Rick’s friend and even helps to defeat the actual main villains of the film, the Sleestaks.
This film was panned by the critics and a box office failure. Personally I don’t know why. I thoroughly enjoyed it overall, but the highlight for me is definitely Grumpy’s confrontation with Rick where Rick bravely stands his ground and charges against Grumpy only to get swallowed whole in about 2 seconds.
Throughout its many appearances in film and television over the decades, Tyrannosaurus Rex has been portrayed as the ultimate killer. A towering image of savagery, brutality and raw animal power. It has no equal, no creature can possibly hope to match its devastating strength.
However was this what Tyrannosaurus Rex was actually like? Was it really as bad as the films would have you believe.
Well in actual fact the real life Tyrannosaurus was far worse.
The real Tyrannosaurus was far more terrifying than any creature Hollywood could ever spring on us and in this article I will show you just how powerful and deadly the real tyrant lizard king was.
Jaws
We will start with the primary weapon of the Tyrannosaurus. Its massive mouth. Tyrannosaurus’ jaws were arguably among the most devastating natural weapons ever to exist.
Its teeth were over 9 inches long and very thick and robust. Paleontologist Bob Bakker has said that the teeth of Tyrannosaurus when compared with other meat eating Dinosaurs were like armour piercing bullets. According to Bakke, the teeth of predatory Dinosaurs such as Giganotosaurs were like steak knives, ideal for slicing their way through flesh, but if they hit a bone then they would just snap, where as Tyrannosaurus’ teeth in comparison could crush their way through bone.
The teeth of Tyrannosaurus also curved backwards which made them ideal for holding onto struggling live prey. According to Phil Currie a leading expert on meat eating Dinosaurs, the teeth also had tiny little meat hooks which would have helped to pull more and more meat from its victims, the more they struggled deeper into its throat.
It also agreed that Tyrannosaurus had the strongest bite of any land animal ever to live on the planet, though over the years there have been many different estimate’s given for the full force of a Tyrannosaurus bite.
In 2005 the BBC documentary “The Truth About Killer Dinosaurs” built a complete reconstruction of a Tyrannosaurus head. The reconstruction revealed a number of interesting things. To start with the bite force of a Tyrannosaurus was over 4 tons. This is stronger than any animal alive today. A bite force of 4 tons is also far higher than any other large meat eating Dinosaur including even that of Spinosaurus.
The test also showed that in order to generate such a strong bite, Tyrannosaurus would have needed to have had a skeleton stronger than reinforced steel. The reconstructed Tyrannosaurus head was actually made from steel and powered by hydraulics. It was even nicknamed “Steely Dan”.
If Tyrannosaurus’ skeleton alone was stronger than steel just imagine how powerfully the whole animal would be, when you add the thick muscles that would have anchored those strong bones.
These tests also showed that Tyrannosaurus could have easily crushed a small car in its jaws no problem and it also could have ripped off over 500 pounds of flesh in a single bite too. 500 pounds is about the weight of your average Lion, that’s how much Tyrannosaurus could fit in its mouth in a single bite!
Whilst this documentary was very ground breaking at the time ultimately science marches on and it has since be proven that the tests carried out in this docu were wrong. Tyrannosaurus was in fact far more powerful that this documentary suggested.
Further tests conducted in 2012 revealed that Tyrannosaurus would have had a bite closer to 6 tons, whilst a further test by Gregory M Erickson an expert on meat eating Dinosaurs conducted for the documentary Dino’s vs Mammals revealed that Tyrannosaurus could have had a bite force of 9 tons, over twice that of Steely Dan.
Finally an earlier study by Mason B Meers in 2003 meanwhile also came to this conclusion that Tyrannosaurus had a bite force of over 23 tons.
If so this would give Tyrannosaurus the strongest bite force of any animal ever to have lived on the planet, far greater than even the Megalodon Shark which has a bite of 20 tons and over twice that of Deinosuchus a prehistoric crocodile that had a bite force of 11 tons.
Dinosaur George meanwhile famous for his youtube series has said that he believes its bite was even greater than any previous estimate. Whatever the case Tyrannosaurus, even if the lowest estimates were true had a stronger bite than any other large meat eating Dinosaur.
Whilst some may mock Tyrannosaurus’ puny arms, ultimately as you can see with jaws like these Tyrannosaurus really didn’t need them. Even then though Tyrannosaurus actually still had very powerful arms anyway. Each arm could lift about 400 pounds. Still obviously Tyrannosaurus’s main weapon was its huge mouth.
Senses
Tyrannosaurus’ senses were highly advanced compared to other Dinosaurs.
Its eyes were positioned at the front of its head with its snout dropping down in front of them. This would have given it steroscopic vision a trait found mostly predatory animals as it allows them to judge long distances. Tyrannosaurus’ eyes were apparently positioned slightly better than those of modern day hawks which meant it would have had even keener vision than they do.
Its eyes were also larger than any other land animal with only the giant Squid and a few species of whales having slightly larger eyes, whilst its sense of smell was just as advanced. Bob Bakker has said that Tyrannosaurus’ sense of smell was comparable to 100 bloodhounds.
Finally in addition to this, its sense of hearing was according to Phil Currie much more refined and could allow the animal to detect lower noises in the ground.
Speed
The debate about how fast Tyrannosaurus could run is an old one. It has been depicted as everything from a lumbering behemoth to a fleet footed 9 ton Road Runner from hell!
At one point it was proposed that Tyrannosaurus Rex could have run as fast as 40 miles per hour. In order to do this it would have needed to have had over 80 percent of its body mass in its legs which is completely impossible.
Tyrannosaurus according to the most recent estimates could have only run at a maximum of 18 miles per hour. Though slower than other large carnivores such as lions and even other Dinosaurs like Allosaurus, this is still for an animal of this size very fast. It’s almost twice as fast as an elephant and about as fast as Rhino. It’s even faster than most human beings and most importantly than the majority of its intended prey species. Furthermore Tyrannosaurus’ stamina and huge body would have allowed it to maintain this speed over a very long period of time, meaning that even if you kept ahead of it at first, in the long run you could not outrun it.
Durability
Tyrannosaurus Rex was a very tough animal. It had an incredible pain threshold and great healing capabilities. We know this because many Tyrannosaurus skeletons have been found with gruesome injuries which have healed.
These include broken legs, broken ribs, (even in one case a broken neck!) Bones that have been whacked by Anklyosaur clubs (which could swing with a force of over 4 tones) scratches made by Triceratops horns such as the famous specimen Sue whose leg was punctured by a Triceratops, and even bite marks made by other Tyrannosaurus Rexes.
All of these injuries however have healed. One Tyrannosaurus skeleton even had a bite mark made by another Tyrannosaurus in its brain case that had still healed!
Tyrannosaurus were more than capable of withstanding injuries that would have killed other animals
Intelligence
Tyrannosaurus by Dinosaur standards was a very intelligent animal. Its brain was over twice the size of Spinosaurus or Giganotosaurus. It was in fact the most intelligent giant Dinosaur, with the only Dinosaurs in general that were more intelligent than it being the small meat eaters like Stenychosaurus.
It was also more intelligent than modern day Crocodiles and Alligators too which is no mean feat as Crocs and Alligators are more intelligent than certain mammal species. They can even be taught tricks provided you are brave enough to teach an animal that can kill you tricks!
Instances of Tyrannosaurus in the Movies not being as powerful as a real Tyrannosaurus
King Kong (2005)
In this excellent remake of the 1933 film directed by Peter Jackson, the titular ape takes on 3 Tyrannosaurus Rex’s (actually V-Rex’s, descendants of the Tyrannosaurus.) Now its silly getting worked up over King Kong being inaccurate considering Kong is a complete work of fiction. Still its worth noting that there is one moment where a T. rex or V. rex bites down on Kong’s arm and Kong not only is unaffected but tosses the Tyrannosaurus aside. If that were a real Tyrannosaurus, Kong would have had it. The force of a real Tyrannosaur bite would have crushed his arm, if not taken it clean off. Even if it didn’t then the infection from the bite as well as the blood loss from losing over 500 pounds of flesh from his arm would have been enough to take care of Kong.
Jurassic Park 3 (2001)
The scene that every Tyrannosaurus fan hates, the fight between the Tyrannosaurus and the Spinosaurus. Much of this scene is inaccurate, but the bit that stands out the most is when the Tyrannosaurus bites down on the Spinosaurus’s neck. If that were a real Tyrannosaurus, the Spinosaurus would have been killed outright. Either the force would have snapped its neck or possibly taken its head off if the Rex bit down hard enough. Of course much like Kong this film was meant to purely entertain rather than educate, but I think it was the fact that Jack Horner, the films adviser said that this scene was 100 percent accurate that pissed off most Tyrannosaurus fans so much even to this day.
Jurassic Park (1993)
The famous Tyrannosaur, Raptor fight whilst one of, if not the most iconic Dinosaur moment in cinema history still doesn’t do the king of the dinosaurs justice. To start with the Raptors are shown to struggle in the Rex’s jaws for a bit before dying. If it were a real Rex they would be killed instantly, not only due to the force of the Rex’s bite, but also due to the fact that Raptors much like birds had hollow bones. However a bigger inaccuracy is the way the Raptors are able to scar the Rex’s throat. In real life Velociraptors claws were not designed for disembowling and reconstructions have shown that they were not strong enough to pierce even the hide of a crocodile. There is no way they could have scarred a Tyrannosaurus Rex’s skin.
Conclusion
As you can see Tyrannosaurus was by far and away one of the most dangerous creatures ever to live on the planet. It was the perfect combination of strength, speed, and intelligence (by Dinosaur standards). Though it may no longer be the largest meat eating Dinosaur, it is still in terms of strength, intelligence and killing power utterly unrivalled.
All Spinosaurus could use its claws for therefore, would be to slash Tyrannosaurus from side to side across the face.
![[IMG]](https://i0.wp.com/40.media.tumblr.com/60c775d90e46875164d54758a9a1a5d3/tumblr_nhxsg2Zg9O1stod31o1_1280.png)
![[IMG]](https://i0.wp.com/daneesaur.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/dinos.jpg)
burrunjorsramblesandbabbles 