The Most Impressive Scene In Jurassic World Dominion According To Fans
Warning: contains spoilers for "Jurassic World Dominion"
It's the end of the theatrical opening weekend for "Jurassic World Dominion," and people seem torn over it. Film critics, who have cumulatively given it a 30% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, are channeling their inner Goldblum and basically accusing Hollywood of milking the franchise beyond the rational limit. Audiences are on the other side of that fence, giving the feature a 79% approval rating as of this writing. Box Office Mojo has reported a $143 million domestic gross so far, with worldwide ticket sales at $389 million. Clearly, the numbers show that there's an appeal even if the critics can't see it.
Social media paints an even clearer picture. In the official "Jurassic World Dominion" discussion thread on Reddit, there are over 3,000 comments praising both the human actors and the dinos alike. Jeff Goldblum fan u/futurespacecadet was entertained by how, "Goldblum is getting a little too self-aware of his goldblumness and its showing."
u/Sure-Mistake couldn't stop laughing at the socially awkward Therizinosaurus for yeeting innocent deer and having claws that looked like Edward Scissorhands shared a wild night of passion with a big, fuzzy lizard.
u/jagfanjosh3252, on the other hand, is the ultimate T-Rex stan, pointing out that "Rexy is like Ash's Pikachu. Doest [sic] matter if it takes on a legendary, it will win."
The praise is all over the map, but one special scene stands out as universally popular.
It's the scene where Claire escapes the therizinosaurus
When Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) parachutes into the forest and has to escape a large, scary, feathered dinosaur who seems to be feeling a bit peckish, the tension is palpable. The creature stalking her — with its soulless, cloudy eyes and predatory hyperfixation — comes off as a real threat. Claire has to control her fear and compose herself enough to stay quiet and still — even with the predator screeching mere inches from her face. Not many can watch that scene for the first time without squirming in their chair at least a little, and it might very well be the kind of physically challenging scene that actor and director had to prepare for. u/BlogDog123 brought up the scene explicitly in the official Reddit thread, and received over 800 upvotes (and counting) for their efforts. If you skim through the comments, it all seems to come down to tension and pacing.
u/deadandmessedup also pointed out that the scene shows proper reverence to the dinosaur, and relies on the emotional impact of the confrontation — the taut relationship between predator and prey — rather than any fancy VFX display. u/_froley also praised the scene for selecting a theropod that actually existed once upon a time in the Cretaceous (though not in the Jurassic, sadly). Most fans seem to prefer the real deal to the unrealistic genetic hybrids that have been featured heavily in recent installments.
All-in-all, the confrontation scene between Claire and the therizinosaurus illustrates everything that's actually worked for the "Jurassic" franchise over the last three decades. If "Dominion" contained more of that, maybe the critics would have been kinder.