Giganotosaurus (Jurassic World: Dominion)

### Goals

* Become the king of dinosaurs in order to kill Rexy, Therizinosaurus and the protagonists for his power (failed).

### Crimes

Attempted Murder (Inc. Child Murder)
Attempted Destruction

### Type of Villain

Aggressive Predator

**Giganotosaurus** is the largest terrestrial carnivore of the Jurassic Park Franchise and the main dinosaur antagonist of the blockbuster film, Jurassic World Dominion. The Giganotosaurus is also Rexy’s archenemy.

***Giganotosaurus*** is a genus of carcharodontosaurid dinosaur in the *Jurassic World Evolution* series. One of the largest species of carnivorous dinosaur, *Giganotosaurus* originated in Late Cretaceous South America.

In *Evolution*, *Giganotosaurus* is unlocked in Campaign Mode upon completion of the Security Division mission on Isla Pena. In *Evolution 2*, the *Dominion Biosyn Expansion* DLC pack released the 2022 skin variant.

*"What is that?""Giganotosaurus. Biggest carnivore the world has ever seen."*
—Ellie Sattler and Dr. Alan Grant's reaction as the Giganotosaurus made its appearance(src)
*This section is taken from the Dinosaur Field Guide*.

***Giganotosaurus*** (meaning "giant southern lizard") or “Giga” for short, is a genus of theropod that lived in Argentina during the Late Cretaceous period. It is currently one of the largest known meat-eating dinosaurs and the largest species of allosauroid to ever exist. For many years *Tyrannosaurus* held that record, although bits and pieces of *Carcharodontosaurus* and *Spinosaurus* showed that they possibly could rival the giant coelurosaur in size. Then, in the late 1980s into the early 1990s, Argentine paleontologists Rodolfo Coria and Leonardo Salgado discovered and revealed the existence of a new meat-eater bigger than any known tyrant lizard. They named the giant dinosaur *Giganotosaurus carolini*.

While determining exactly which theropod genera was the largest, metrics for *Giganotosaurus* have consistently placed it as larger than an average *Tyrannosaurus rex* and comparable to the largest known specimens of the Tyrant Reptile King. More specimens of the Giant Southern Reptile are required to give a clearer picture of size, as all species will exist within a spectrum of sizes. For now it is safest to consider the likes of *Giganotosaurus*, *Spinosaurus*, and *Tyrannosaurus* as comparable to one another in terms of size (though *Spinosaurus* is technically the longer animal, it is comparable in weight to *Tyrannosaurus* and *Giganotosaurus* due to its more slender build in real life).

When *Giganotosaurus* was alive, the most common herbivores found in South America were the titanosaur sauropods such as *Argentinosaurus*, *Dreadnoughtus*, and *Andesaurus*, respectively. While a single *Giganotosaurus* was capable of killing a young titanosaur or a large ornithopod, it would take many *Giganotosaurus* to bring down a giant adult sauropod. Originally, there was no evidence that *Giganotosaurus* hunted in groups, but recent findings from slightly younger rocks shows that their sister taxon (closest relative) *Mapusaurus* may have formed coalitions similar to crocodiles or perhaps even family groups given the high size variation and age differences between individuals. While not known if this was true pack living behavior, these coalitions of 6 or more individuals would probably have been capable of coordinating attacks on targets of opportunity such as a large sauropod.

## Characteristics

Unlike its fore-bearer, the *Giganotosaurus* clone had large crests running from the top of its brow and down half of the skull, making its head look very similar to that of the *Indominus rex*. On its back was a row of spines, beginning at the neck and running down the back until its hip region, where a hump-like collection of spines abruptly rises and then lowers back into the low spines and continues to the end of its tail. The teeth of the animal are quite similar to those of a modern crocodilian, and unevenly jut out of its lip-less mouth. The skin of *Giganotosaurus* is a dark brownish/grayish green, with black markings on its head and turning into rough stripes down its back. The cloned individual was 15.5 meters (50.9 feet) long, 5.5 meters (18 feet) tall, and weighed 9 tons (8,165 kilograms). Additionally, the cloned specimen is said to run as fast as 30 miles (48 kilometers) per hour.

## History

### In the Past

During the Cretaceous period, a *Giganotosaurus* rested a while a *Moros* scavenged morsels of meat stuck between the teeth of *Giganotosaurus* until a *Tyrannosaurus* approached the pair, causing the *Giganotosaurus* to confront the intruder and forcing the *Moros* as well as a nearby *Iguanodon* and some birds to leave the area. The carnivores circled and roared at each other until a fight broke out, with the *Giganotosaurus* quickly managing to bite the neck of its opponent and sliced it. After slicing the throat of the corpse and dumping it off a small cliff, the *Giganotosaurus* left the area.

### Jurassic World

Genetic material of *Giganotosaurus* was in possession of InGen by the year 2014 and was used in the creation of the genetic hybrid *Indominus rex*.

### *Jurassic World: Dominion*

*"Don't move."*
—Alan Grant and Owen Grady.(src)
The *Giganotosaurus* was among the dinosaurs cloned by Biosyn sometime after 2018 and kept within their valley. At some point, the *Giganotosaurus* had a chip inserted into its brain, allowing it to be controlled when needed.

While Ellie Sattler, Alan Grant, and Ramsay Cole were heading towards Biosyn Valley, the *Giganotosaurus* slept peacefully as it was approached by a *Moros*. Later that day, Owen Grady and Kayla Watts witnessed the Giganotosaurus encounter the clone of its old rival that was killed 65 million years ago, Rexy, the elderly *Tyrannosaurus rex* who was recently transported to the Biosyn Valley, scavenging a carcass of a deer that met its end at the claws of a *Therizinosaurus*. The pair had a brief tussle over the carcass until the *Tyrannosaurus* backed off, allowing the *Giganotosaurus* to feed on the carcass.

That night, a swarm of giant locusts that was set on fire by Lewis Dodgson in an attempt to erase his criminal activity escaped their containment and started a forest fire within the valley, during which the *Giganotosaurus* encountered Owen, Claire Dearing, Alan, Ian Malcolm, Ellie, Maisie Lockwood, and Kayla at an observation tower near its habitat and attacked them. At first the predator only followed them slowly until Maisie attempted to climb a ladder into the observation tower, at which point it bit down on the railing around the ladder and tore it off. Before it could turn back to its quarry, Malcolm got its attention by waving a flaming locust on a bar of metal, which he threw into the predator's mouth as he attempted to lunge at him, stunning the dinosaur and briefly setting its mouth on fire.

As the theropod briefly writhed in pain, flames from the burning locust shot out of its mouth. The large predator quickly turned back to the group however, who had all made it to a platform that looped around the tower, and proceeded to bite the platform and attempt to pull it down with Owen and Ellie, but all of the humans made it inside, prompting the Giganotosaurus to smash the glass of the tower and attempt to reach the group. Owen began stabbing the dinosaur with metal knives and broken pipes and Claire electrocuted its eye with a taser after Kayla shot it in the face with a tranquilizer dart, which forced the carnivore to retreat.

As the fire worsened, Biosyn used the chips they implanted in their animals to call them into the center of the Biosyn Research Facility. As he moved through the area, the *Giganotosaurus* was challenged by the old *T. rex* once more, and the two began battling. The *Giganotosaurus* managed to knock Rexy unconscious after a ferocious melee that nearly crushed the humans, but her limp body, held underfoot by the larger animal, had pinned a sheet of metal on top of Owen, Claire, Maisie, and Ramsay and was about to crush them. Ellie saw this and attempted to help them, but the dinosaur roared at her when she attempted to approach and prepared to attack.

Kayla then shot a flare to distract the large theropod, which landed beside a newcomer; the *Therizinosaurus*. The two dinosaurs fought each other, with the aggressive herbivore landing nasty slashing blows on the larger theropod until Rexy regained consciousness. Now finding itself cornered, the *Giganotosaurus* was unable to determine quickly enough which enemy was the greater threat, which allowed the *Tyrannosaurus* to bite its neck and ram it into the claws of the *Therizinosaurus*, impaling the predator in the neck and body before it eventually died seconds after he dropped to the ground.

Since this *Giganotosaurus* was the only known specimen of its kind to have been cloned, it is possible that the species fell back into extinction when it died at the claws of the *Therizinosaurus*. However, it is possible that unknown specimens and/or genetic material is still available somewhere else in the world.

## Powers and Abilities

* **Superhuman Strength:** *Unlike it's original scientifically accurate counterpart, the cloned* Giganotosaurus has shown to be extremely strong, being able to trade blows with a overpowered Tyrannosaurus, Rexy, and even defeat the lattershown to be extremely durable, as shown in his fight with Rexy, he managed to survive her lethal bites and kept up with her 'till she gave up.
* **Immense Bite Force:***Giganotosaurus'* bite has 4.3 tons of force plus it has serrated teeth to cause a deadly hemorrhage enough to kill a *T. rex.*
* **Predatory Instincts:** Being a heavily built and fearsome predator, the *Giganotosaurus* hunting skills is unquestionable, it managed to easily track down its prey wheather its *Iguanodon* or *Tyrannosaurus*.

## Vocalization

To create an appropriate voice for the Giganotosaurus, Sound Designer Al Nelson and his colleagues recorded a variety of animals. The ones that were selected were mules, stallions and an elderly lioness called Daisy, who he discovered at the Conservators Center in North California. Alligator bellows were used for the deep growling sounds.

## Behind the scenes

According to Industrial Light and Magic's Sr. Visual Effects Supervisor David Vickery, the *Giganotosaurus* was designed in a way to evoke hatred from the audience, with its facial markings designed to give it an evil appearance, with Colin specifying at one point to paint them like the Joker's melted face paint.

* Concept art for this design was finalized in early 2020, as concept artist Kevin Jenkins handed over the final concept art a few weeks into the Covid-19 lockdown.

An animatronic of the *Giganotosaurus* was created by John Nolan Studios, which required a practical rig that was 15-20 meters long, weighed 9-25 tons, and took six hours to move from one set to another. A smaller version was made specifically for production meetings. According to John, the animatronic was "22 feet high, with a head the size of a transit van, a tongue the size of a surfboard, and eyes a record 12 inches wide." In the same article on AWN.com, he described the head as weighing two tons with the 10-centimeter-thick skin itself weighing a ton. In *Jurassic World: The Ultimate Visual History*, the animatronic was described as standing "approximately twenty-eight feet tall and would fully interact with the cast [ ] in cat-and-mouse-style stalking."

## Trivia

* In real life giganotosaurus and tyrannosaurus could not have battled as they lived in south and north america respectively.
* Giganotosaurus is the only non hybrid and modified main antagonist in a jurassic world movie, the other two the indominus rex and indoraptor being hybrids who didn't actualy live on planet earth.
* Giganotosaurus is the largest terrestrial carnivore in the Jurassic world, being 5.5 meters tall and 15.5 meters long and weighing 9 tons, being stronger and much bigger than even the Indominus Rex and the Spinosaurus.
* Giganotosaurus had an unfair death.

* An artistic render of *Giganotosaurus*, created by the Natural History Museum, is seen on a wall of one of the stores inside Jurassic World's Main Street.
* Despite being grouped with abelisaurs (*Carnotaurus*, *Majungasaurus*, and *Rugops*) and being called an abelisaur on the website, it is actually classified as a carcharodontosaurid; a type of allosauroid (also referred to as carnosaurs) more closely related to *Metriacanthosaurus*, *Acrocanthosaurus*, and *Allosaurus*.
* In real life, *Giganotosaurus* could have never fought *Tyrannosaurus rex*, as the latter lived in North America while the former lived in South America and 30 million years before *T. rex*, and the two continents were not connected by a land bridge until 15-12 million years ago.
* In 2020, while speaking about *Jurassic World: Dominion*, Sam Neill stated in an interview that the *Giganotosaurus* was the "biggest dinosaur ever discovered." In 2021, Colin Trevorrow also described the animal as the "largest carnivore known to humankind" in an interview. The second trailer for *Jurassic World: Dominion* and the film itself featured Alan Grant stating the animal was the "biggest carnivore the world has ever seen." Dinotracker.com's profile for the animal, as well as Kayla Watts, states it to be the "largest known terrestrial carnivore." A June 2022 article on *Variety.com* quoted the film's creature FX Supervisor John Nolan as saying, "It’s the biggest dinosaur that has been in films. His head is as big as a car and is absolutely huge." *Empire* magazine published an article on the third *Jurassic World* film, including details on the animatronic *Giganotosaurus*, describing it as "an 11-ton, 22-foot-tall dinosaur." But scientifically speaking, this is incorrect, as *Tyrannosaurus* now owns the title of the biggest carnivore, surpassing both *Giganotosaurus* and *Spinosaurus* in terms of mass; however, *Spinosaurus* may still hold the distinction of being the longest carnivore.
* *Giganotosaurus* was rumored to be the dinosaur antagonist of *Jurassic World*, then called by its preliminary name "*Jurassic Park IV*", before *Indominus rex* was revealed to be the antagonist. (Although, it did appear in the film in a sense as its genetic material was used in *Indominus rex's* creation). However, *Giganotosaurus* has appeared as a final antagonist in *Jurassic World: Dominion*.
* *Giganotosaurus* was featured in some concept art for *Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom*. However, Colin Trevorrow confirmed there were no plans for it to be added to the final cut.
* At first glance, the real *Giganotosaurus* would be easily mistaken for a *Tyrannosaurus* by some people, so the design of this *Giga* has many distinguishing features that differentiate it from how it looked in life, some of which were intentionally added to help fans tell the two carnivores apart from one another.
	+ There is a noticeable hump on the *Giga’s* back, (similar to the one seen on *Acrocanthosaurus*), accompanied by a set of spikes, which may be some form of armor.
	+ It also has a thick tail, which could be the result of a larger body.
	+ *Giganotosaurus* is the generally larger and taller predator, similar to the *Indominus* and *Spinosaurus*.
	+ Though the Giganotosaurus seen in the movie was killed its possible that there might be one or several others somewhere in the valley.
* The *Giganotosaurus* is the only *Jurassic World* main antagonist who never met Blue.
* The way this dinosaur's name is pronounced behind the scenes and in the film is one of multiple ways it can be pronounced. The palaeontologists who originally discovered it, pronounced it as “JYE-ga-NOE-to-SAW-rus”, with a soft G, like in “Gigantic,” or “Gyrosphere,” whereas the characters and producers pronounce it “GIG-a-NOT-o-SORE-us” with a hard G, as in “Gigabytes,” or “Great.”
* Despite being cast as the main dinosaur antagonist of the film and given a somewhat villainous look, the *Giganotosaurus* acted more out of natural predatory instinct and curiosity rather than evil malice, which is likely the explanation as to why unlike its two predecessors, the *Indominus rex* and *Indoraptor*, it never went on a merciless killing spree for sport, or was created/trained specifically to be a weapon. The only instance where villainous behaviour was shown was during the final battle, when it roared triumphantly after knocking Rexy down to the ground.
* Like the prologue version of the *Tyrannosaurus rex* was shown as being partially feathered, the Giganotosaurus also had some differences that separated it from its clone. In the prologue, the Giga had mottled white skin with various stripes and splotches that faded at the dorsal hump and spikes, whereas the cloned individual is dark brownish-green with black stripes going down its body, and the second spike at the top of its neck is slightly tilted to the right.
* During the confrontation scene at the research outpost in *Dominion*, the locust sample that Ellie originally obtained from the Biosyn lab would have fallen into *Giga's* mouth during their confrontation at the outpost's balcony. After the confrontation is over, Alan finds a smoking locust on the balcony. He puts it on a table, and Ellie snaps off a leg which she uses as her new DNA sample. This is included in the film's junior novelization. It's briefly seen in the second official trailer, but it wasn't included in the extended version, although Trevorrow has stated it's the final cut of the movie.
* The scene where the flaming torch is thrown into the Giga's mouth and the Giga breathes fire is a heavy reference to Godzilla's atomic breath from the kaiju Monsterverse movies.
* The gender of this *Giganotosaurus* is never mentioned or spoken of in the film. But at the promotion event in London, the staff there presented the Giga as being named "Zeb" due to its zebra-like stripes, and identified it as a male. However, that was the only time it was listed that this predator is male, and the rest of the information promoting the movie referred to the theropod as "It". And some information used to promote the movie addressed the Giga with feminine pronouns as well. As such, the actual gender of the Giganotosaurus in the film remains unknown.
* Colin Trevorrow had stated that he wanted the Giganotosaurus to feel like The Joker. In the sense that it “just wants to watch the world burn.” There is one scene in the film that alludes to this statement. The scene with the flaming locusts, two of which hit the carnivore in the face and it did not flinch, but only bellowed loudly as the fire worsened.