39,327
edits
Tyrannosaurus Rex: Difference between revisions
m
Mass update links
m (fix broken external links) |
m (Mass update links) |
||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:rexfamily1024.jpg|link=Jurassic Park|
Line 9:
In fiction, ''T. rex'', like all dinosaurs, seems to [[Kill All Humans|really like the taste of humans]], despite the fact that we're fricking tiny compared to it (imagine passing on a turkey dinner to run a mile for Chicken McNuggets and you have the idea, and we might [[It Tastes Like Feet|not]] even taste as good as Chicken McNuggets). Expect to see ''T. rex'' [[Roar Before Beating|roaring constantly]] and [[Bad Vibrations|shaking the earth with every step]]. [[Rule of Cool]] always wins, but in [[Real Life]] predators will tread softly and shut up while hunting; otherwise [[Fridge Logic|how would they ambush their prey with success]]? It is also usually implied to be male, perhaps because ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' means "[[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Tyrant Lizard King]]". Some scientists have suggested the females were larger; though this is plausible, solid scientific evidence for this hypothesis is not as strong as it used to be.
In earlier fiction especially, ''all'' carnivorous dinosaurs on the bigger-than-a-human side tend to be confused with ''T. rex'', and ''T. rex'' itself will sometimes be depicted with non-tyrannosaur features, such as three fingered hands (tyrannosaurs only have two). Sometimes the authors will dismiss ''T. rex'' as "cliché" and use another large theropod as their [[Designated Villain]]. The attempt to be anti-cliché will usually be self-defeating, as the other theropod will tend to be used in such an inaccurate, Pseudo-Rex fashion that they might as well have just used the obligatory ''T. rex'' anyway. This tends to happen to poor ''[[Stock Dinosaurs|Allosaurus]]'' most often, despite that fact that they really don't look that much like ''T. rex'', aren't that closely related, and aren't nearly as large. Fortunately, as new fossil evidence helps us straighten out how the various Theropods are related, this is becoming a lost subtrope. (See [
In older fiction, tyrannosaurs and many other bipedal dinosaurs were typically portrayed in an upright "tripod stance" like a kangaroo (pretty much the only bipedal animal with a long tail early paleoartists could use as a model; see [[Godzilla]]). [[Science Marches On]], however, and by the '70s, it was generally agreed by the paleontological community that dinosaurs did not drag their tails. However, it wasn't until ''[[Jurassic Park]]'' came along in 1992 that this view managed to filter into pop culture: just the scene of a group of humans in a jeep being chased by a ''T. rex'' with that proper anatomic structure, and looking like she had a real chance of catching them, was enough to lock it in the public imagination. Even then, newer works still sneak in the tripod stance every so often, usually by showing ''T. rex'' in a "triumphant" pose that resembles the stance.
Line 17:
'''Note''' -- While we're here, a word about spelling, punctuation, and [[Taxonomic Term Confusion]]: the correct way to refer to the species is ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' or ''T. rex'' -- upper-case T, lower-case r, period after the T in the abbreviated version. And italicized. Not "T Rex", "T-Rex", "t-rex" and so on.
Also, there was far more than one kind of "tyrannosaur". The word "tyrannosaur" can be used to describe various relatives of ''T. rex'' belonging to the superfamily [
Another important note: ''T. rex'' lived only in what is now central North America (ranging from about Alberta to Texas), so don't expect your time traveler to [[You Fail Geography Forever|bump into them]] if they take off from anywhere else in the world ([[Time and Relative Dimensions In Space|unless it's one of those time machines that can go to a different location]]). This is partly due to [[Science Marches On]] - specifically, the Asian ''Tarbosaurus'' was long suggested to be a species of ''Tyrannosaurus''.
In addition, ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' should never be confused for [
{{examples}}
== Advertising ==
* [[Youtube Poop|Tyrannosaurus Alan]].
* What better animal to [
Line 52:
* [[Batman (Comic Book)|Batman]] has a giant animatronic ''T. rex'' in the Batcave, a souvenir from one of his earliest adventures.
* The Old Man Logan arc of ''[[Wolverine]]'' features a ''Tyrannosaurus''. [[It Got Worse|Which was infected by]] [[Spider Man|Venom]].
* The humorous [[The DCU]] character [
* ''[[Two Thousand AD (Comic Book)|2000 AD]]'' has rich people riding "tame" (and anatomically inaccurate) ''T. rex''es across Mars hunting poor people. Said ''T. rex''es were sourced by time travellers who went back to hunt dinosaurs for their "flesh".
* ''[[Monica's Gang]]'': Horacio, a '''vegetarian''' ''T. rex'' created by Brazilian artist Maurício de Sousa (who is basically his [[Author Avatar]], being the only of Mauricio's characters that continues to be only written by him).
Line 79:
** The first movie has a ''T. rex'' chasing the heroes all over the place -- though it's somewhat of a subversion, as the real threat is the Velociraptors. Additionally, in the original film, she ''is'' seen hunting actual dinosaurs, and at one point gives up on chasing the protagonists when they outrun her in a jeep. And finally, she comes back at the climax of the film to [[Big Damn Villains|save the protagonists from the raptors]].
** The sequel upped this by having ''three'', including a baby, and the [[Papa Wolf|Papa Rex]] goes on a rampage in southern California.
** [[Contested Sequel|The third one]] has the ''T. rex'' killed by the larger ''Spinosaurus'', which is more likely a [[Somewhere a Palaeontologist Is Crying|fish eater]] or [
* In ''[[Black Adder]] Back and Forth'', Blackadder and Baldrick briefly end up in the late Cretaceous period. Guess what's waiting for them.
* ''[[King Kong]]''
Line 117:
** Also featured in ''[[Mirai Sentai Timeranger]]'' / ''[[Power Rangers Time Force]]'', with the V-Rex/Quantasaurus Rex (Q-Rex) mecha. And sure enough, when [[The Hero|Wes]] and [[Sixth Ranger|Er]][[Jerk With a Heart of Gold|ic]] visit [[Prehistoria]] in ''Time Force'', they encounter the real thing.
** There's also the GouJyuJin (mainly GouJyuRex mode) from ''[[Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger (TV)|Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger]]'' which, fittingly enough, is intended as a [[Internal Homage]] to the above three series.
* In ''[[Mr. Bean]]'' our hero sees a Nativity set in a department store and stages a special drama. Guess what menaces the Holy Family before being driven off by tanks and [[Doctor Who
* In ''[[Sliders]]'', the heroes sometimes slide into Earths where dinosaurs have survived (alongside humans or not). Initially averted, as the first big predator to chase them is an ''Allosaurus'' (and described as such). In a later episode, of course, they meet the obligatory ''Tyrannosaurus rex''.
* The last episode of ''[[Walking With Dinosaurs]]'' focused on a mother ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' trying to raise her three babies in the unforgiving Late Cretaceous. [[Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies|A meteorite fell]], [[Downer Ending|and everyone died.]]
* The first episode of ''Prehistoric Park'' centers on Nigel's attempts to obtain a ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' for the park. {{spoiler|He does -- two juveniles who grow up over the course of the series.}}
* Speaking of Impossible Pictures and dinosaurs... it was refreshingly [[Averted]] in ''[[Primeval]]''... except for [
* Referenced, but not seen, in an episode of ''[[Stargate Atlantis (TV)|Stargate Atlantis]]''. One particular member of the expedition have begun to suspect [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Teyla]] of leading the Wraith to her team because of how often they seem to show up. When Sheppard's team is yet ''again'' running for their lives back to the gate, he immediately assumes this is the case again... when Sheppard and Ford inform him the Wraith had nothing to do with it, and they were just chased by something very much like a ''T. rex''.
* ''[[
* The final episode of ''[[Dinosaur Revolution (TV)|Dinosaur Revolution]]'' focussed on a family of ''T.rexes'' and an antagonistic ''T.rex''. {{spoiler|They all die.}}
Line 129:
== Music ==
* "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfHzJU-Rlo4 Your two-penny prince, he'll give you hot love, oh-ho-ho...]"
* [["Weird Al" Yankovic (Music)|Weird Al Yankovic]]
** The [[Filk Song]] "Jurassic Park": ''"Someone let ''T. rex'' out of his pen I'm afraid those things'll harm me 'Cause they sure don't act like [[Barney and Friends (TV)|Barney]]...''"
** A better example is the line ''"a huge Tyrannosaurus ate our lawyer, which only goes to show, they're really not all bad"''.
Line 178:
* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', beware of the [[Boss in Mook Clothing|Devilsaurs]] in [[Lost World|Un'goro Crater]]. Unless of course you're a hunter who has learned the "Tame Exotic Beasts" skill.
* ''[[Turok (Video Game)|Turok]]: Dinosaur Hunter''. The second-to-last boss is a [[Hollywood Cyborg]] ''T. rex'' with armed [[Frickin' Laser Beams]].
* Burn Dinorex/[[Shout
** Another robot one shows up as a [[Mid Boss]] in ''[[Mega Man (Video Game)|Mega Man]] 7'' in Slashman's stage. And the fossils (again, robotic?) appear in Freezeman's stage in the same game.
* Both ''[[Dino Crisis]]'' 1 and 2 (think ''[[Resident Evil]]'' meets ''[[Jurassic Park]]'') have the protagonists being pursued by [[Super
* Both ''[[Freedom Force]]'' games feature ''T. rex''es.
* In the end of the Soviet campaign in ''Red Alert: Yuri's Revenge'', the defeated villain Yuri highjacks a time machine and attempts to escape. Soviets manage to override the controls of the machine and overload its core and send Yuri one-way straight to prehistoric times. Gues who's waiting for him there. Note that in this case the ''T. rex'' is actually a [[Chekhov's Gunman]], as in the first Soviet mission if you move really quickly when you're accidentally sent back there you can capture one and return it to the present -- where you can send it on a rampage in present-day San Francisco. It seems to have gained much tougher skin in the time travel tripe than the dozens you have no choice but to slaughter before you make the return trip -- you can take out most of the enemy base with "Rexy" alone.
Line 214:
* "Me Grimlock most famous [[Transformers|Transformer]] to have ''T. rex'' alt mode!"
** A number of others have had ''T. rex'' modes (or at least [[Broad Strokes|ones that to a layman resemble a]] ''[[Broad Strokes|T. rex]]'') such as Trypticon, and ''[[Beast Wars (Animation)|Beast Wars]]'' [[Big Bad|Megatron]], ''[[Verbal Tic|yeeeessss]]''.
* There was a cartoon called ''[
* Naturally, there is a ''T. rex'' in ''[[Cadillacs and Dinosaurs]]''.
* In ''[[Dino Riders|Dino-Riders]]'', [[Big Bad]] Krulos rides a ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' into battle. In one episode, the Rulons plopped a young ''T. rex'' in the middle of the Valorians' camp and let its parents wreak havoc.
Line 238:
== Real Life ==
* Recently, the science of paleontology has [[Science Marches On|begun to march on]], and has discovered many new predators who were either bigger or more [[Badass]] than ''T. rex''. Among these the most likely contenders for next top Badass are the allosauroids (yes [[Poor Man's Substitute|those]] [[Butt Monkey|allosauroids]]). These include ''Allosaurus'' (duh), who could reach sizes larger that the average tyrannosaur, probably hunted in packs, used its head as a hatchet to take chunks of flesh from a living prey, and [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|could take on sauropods (at least weaker ones) many times their size]]. Their carcharodontosaurid relatives, like ''Giganotosaurus'' and ''Mapusaurus'', matched in size or even surpassed the largest tyrannosaurs, had 2-meter long skulls that worked like giant serrated scissors, and were specialized on taking down giant sauropods. In packs. Then, we have spinosaurs like the eponymous ''Spinosaurus'', which, despite being often taken lightly due to their fish-catching lifestyle, were able to outcompete [
** Ultimately, it's an exercise in futility to argue which dinosaur was truly the most [[Badass]]; paleontologists only ever get into the question when doing shows like ''[[Jurassic Fight Club (TV)|Jurassic Fight Club]]'', and we should probably remember that all these theropods were probably pretty successful at what they had evolved to do. That being said, ''T. rex'' was a very sophisticated predator very well suited to taking out prey animals quickly and efficiently. Tyrannosaurs as a group were also pretty Badass, outcompeting all other predators wherever they went; by the time the meteor was just about to hit, the allosaurs were virtually extinct in North America and Asia, and even the dromaeosaurs were mostly reduced to being coyote-analogues, the bigger raptors having been outcompeted in the big game niche by the tyrannosaurs and carcharodontosaurs. We may make fun of ''T. rex'' and tyrannosaurs as being old news, but they were the ultimate upstarts of their time, starting out as lowly [
*** Largest carnivore from the Hell Creek formation: Elephant-sized ''Tyrannosaurus''. Second largest (dinosaurian<ref>The pterosaur ''[[Giant Flyer|Quetzalcoatlus]]'' was larger than ''Saurornitholestes'' ''[[Up to Eleven|and had a wingspan as long as ''T.rex'''s entire body]]'', but no one cares because it's not a [[Everything's Better With Dinosaurs|dinosaur]]. Nonetheless, there was a lack of medium-sized predatory dinosaurs at the end of the Late Cretaceous wherever tyrannosaurids roamed.</ref>) carnivore from said formation: Beaver-sized ''Saurornitholestes''. Draw your own conclusion.
** There is evidence that ''T. rex'' and other tyrannosaurs hunted in packs as well. Specifically, two relatives of ''T. rex'', ''Albertosaurus'' and ''Daspletosaurus'', have a few bonebeds consisting of multiple individuals fossilized together, and the most famous ''Tyrannosaurus'' specimen, Sue, was found with the fragmentary remains of another ''T. rex''. Also the largest known ''Mapusaurus'' skeleton has a frame quite lighter that that of ''Tyrannosaurus''.
Line 256:
[[Category:Tropesaurus Index]]
[[Category:Tyrannosaurus Rex]]
| |||