As noted in
Somewhere A Palaeontologist Is Crying,
T. rex is by far the most common dinosaur that appears in fiction. While it may not have been the biggest carnivorous dinosaur ever, it was probably the most powerful and dangerous.
In fiction,
T. rex like all dinosaurs seems to really like the taste of humans, despite the fact that they're fricking tiny compared to it. They are also usually implied to be male, despite evidence that females may have been even bigger. Furthermore, and especially in earlier fiction,
all carnivorous dinosaurs on the bigger-than-a-human side will probably be confused with
T. rex (meanwhile, most of the smaller ones will be confused with Velociraptor.)
If a work of fiction involves
Time Travel, the probability of a
T. rex appearing is directly proportional to the number of episodes.
Examples:
Film
- Jurassic Park had a T. rex chasing the heroes all over the place.
- In Blackadder Back and Forth, Blackadder and Baldrick briefly end up in the late Cretaceous period. Guess what's waiting for them.
- One pops up in Meet The Robinsons. It's actually not so bad.
- Fantasia features a fight between a T. rex and a stegosaurus. Guess who wins?
- The original King Kong battles a T. rex. The 2005 version ups the ante with three.
- The 2005 version's various merchandise actually averted this trope; there, the T. Rex like dinos were called V. Rex, a distant relative, which is actually good paleontology, avoiding the explanation for what a North American species was doing on a lost island in the wrong hemisphere.
- Other merchandise identified it as a relative of Giganotosaurus, which is a little more likely as it's relatives were a bit more widespread. Though it might also have been because bigger = more awesome.
- Rex from Toy Story. Inversion of the usual depictions, as he is very timid and insecure. He tries to be fearsome, though, but he fears it might be coming across as annoying instead.
Literature
- There's a T. rex in The Dresden Files book "Dead Beat". Spoilery to go into detail why it's important, though.
- T. Rexes are featured in the Dinotopia books, obviously- the spinoff novel Dinotopia Lost explores the full implications of T. Rex parents going Mama Bear!
Live Action TV
- Although many are loath to acknowledge it, Barney is a T. rex.
- The Big Bad as dinosaurs go was a T. Rex in Land Of The Lost.
- In Dinosaurs, Earl's best friend is a bachelor T. Tex named Roy. Not ferocious at all, and a bit on the dumb side.
Anime
- The villains in Dinosaur King mainly use a T. rex for fighting.
- A large number of Dinosaur-type monsters in the Yu-Gi-Oh card game are based on T. rex; this is particularly true of the most powerful of the type.
Western Animation
- A number of Transformers have had T. rex modes, such as Grimlock, Trypticon, and Beast Wars Megatron.
- There was an old cartoon called The Adventures of T. Rex, about a group of anthropomorphic T. rexes that fight crime.
- Tyrannosaurs are the main carnivores in The Land Before Time, but Chomper (who appeared in two movies) joins the cast in the TV adaptation.
- There was a T. rex in Cadillacs And Dinosaurs.
Newspaper Comics
Video Games
- Dead Or Alive 4 has a stage filled with dinosaurs, including a T-rex, despite taking place in the modern day. A story mode cutscene that takes place in the stage has the dino terrorize Hitomi before Jann Lee kicks it in the face and knocks it out with one punch.
- The RedEye tribe in Starfox Adventures is a tribe of T. rexes; the SharpClaw tribe is also based on T. rex.
Tabletop Games
Web Comics
- And, finally, the main character of Dinosaur Comics is a T.Rex named T-Rex.
