YMMV / Jurassic World Dominion

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Is the Therizinosaurus naturally that territorial and aggressive, or is the one in the film simply being extremely defensive because its eyesight is poor?
  • In the extended edition, did Rexy somehow remember her ancestor's death during the fight with Giganotosaurus? Also, did she actually die for a moment, with this memory triggering her to wake up?
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • After squaring up against both opponents individually, the Giganotosaurus is killed after Rexy rams it onto the claws of the Therizinosaurus. Some were expecting a more drawn-out melee akin to the fourth film's climax, although to be fair, Rexy's fight with the Indominus was also pretty one-sided without Blue or the Mosasaurus.
  • Despite being the only returning antagonist of the franchise, Lewis Dodgson ends up being underwhelming. While the Biosyn locusts are indeed a threat, Dodgson himself comes across as a bumbling, idiotic character who is unable to command respect in others, doesn’t even have the means to force others into obeying him (while Hoskins and Mills had trained men and mercenaries to pose a menace, Dodgson’s biggest threat is firing Malcolm, and when Ramsay reveals he betrayed him, Dodgson can only sheepishly stare in disbelief, realizing he was indeed betrayed), and his plans get foiled surprisingly quickly due to a combination of the main characters' actions and his own idiocy. He at least gets an extra scene in the extended edition that sheds more light on his status as a reluctant villain, making his general lack of intimidation a little more justified.
• Ass Pull:
  • A number of viewers were turned off by this sequel's sudden un-foreshadowed swerve into Biosyn's plot to cause a worldwide famine via genetically modified super locusts as part of a villainous plot to secure a global monopoly on food crops because it comes absolutely out of nowhere, in part due to Biosyn being a complete non-presence in the last four films, the sudden shift from dinosaurs to locusts as the main threat of all things, the story's total irrelevance to the set up of the prior two Jurassic World about weaponizing dinosaurs and dinosaurs becoming invasive species, and the giant prehistoric locusts being a completely fictional, made-up animal.
  • Maisie's origins are blatantly retconned in order to shoehorn her continued presence into the story. Fallen Kingdom established she was a clone of Lockwood's late daughter Charlotte, and that was the reason Hammond and Lockwood fell out before the construction of Jurassic Park, but Dominion changes it to Charlotte herself cloning a daughter from her own DNA long after Hammond had died without bothering to explain the inconsistencies, especially because Fallen Kingdom establishes Charlotte died in a car crash, but Dominion changes it to say she died of a fatal genetic disorder and she used her own clone child to test for a cure.
• Broken Base: Fans have had mixed reactions regarding the design of the Giganotosaurus. Some people are not fond of its Rule of Scary characteristics and think it looks too different from its real life counterpart, especially considering Jurassic World: Evolution had a more accurate design for its Giganotosaurus before Dominion even came out. Other fans appreciate its design for looking very distinct from the Tyrannosaurus and like how it has some visual similarities to the Indominus (supplementally material states Giganotosaurus DNA was used in the hybrid’s conception).
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Delacourt getting eaten at the blackmarket site is a pretty cool karmic moment.
  • While she's only apprehended and doesn't get what would be a karmic death, Santos getting shocked by Claire with the taser is pretty funny and cool.
  • Given both the long-running Joker Immunity along his status as Greater-Scope Villain, Dodgson being pelted with venom and then eaten like Nedry was is something fans were happy to finally see come to fruition after all these years.
• Complete Monster: Dr. Lewis Dodgson, debuting in the very first film, proves to be much more destructive than any of the dinosaurs. Having been a member of InGen's competitor Biosyn for decades, Dodgson's attempt to sabotage the rival company involves him having Dennis Nedry mess with the controls of the park so Nedry can make off with embryos while everyone else is put in mortal jeopardy—even Nedry himself. Years after the fact, Dodgson eventually becomes the CEO of Biosyn, and not only does he have an involvement in the Black Market dinosaur trade, he also has Dr. Henry Wu genetically mutate locusts designed to attack and eat the crops of all his competitors to force humanity to either buy his own food sources or suffer extinction by malnourishment. Even when all that goes wrong, Dodgson tries to wipe out those who opposed him and flee with the embryos he has left, intending to continue his immoral desire for scientific superiority over everything and everyone. Though a scene in the extended version does heavily imply he once had noble intentions that were broken down over time, he still chose to become part of the problem rather than trying to fix it.
• Contested Sequel: A passable movie heightened by bringing back beloved actors, or the apex of the series' Sequelitis that even pushes the dinosaurs out of the forefront? The majority of critical reactions lean towards the latter opinion, but opinions of longtime franchise fans and general audiences are all over the place.
• Critical Dissonance: Critics savaged the film, giving it by far the worst reviews out of any film in the Jurassic franchise.^note 29% Rotten Tomatoes score and 38/100 Metacritic average versus Fallen Kingdom's 47% and 51/100. But audience reception was more positive, with an A- CinemaScore and a 77% positive audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, although it has a relatively low 49/100 audience score on Metacritic and 5.7 on IMDb.
• Critic-Proof: Despite receiving the worst reviews of any entry in the series upon release, the film still went on to gross more than $500 million in its first week. While it took nearly four months to get there, the film is only the second movie to gross a billion worldwide in 2022 after Top Gun: Maverick, thus making it the third to gross a billion during the pandemic after both Maverick and Spider-Man: No Way Home as well.
• Designated Villain: The Giganotosaurus is built up as being the new villain dinosaur of the film in the vein of the Indominus and Indoraptor of the previous Jurassic World films, and the Spinosaurus from Jurassic Park III, with the director even comparing it to the Joker in an interview. However, in the film it doesn't act particularly aggressive compared to any of the other animals, averting the usual Kill All Humans and Super-Persistent Predator attitude usually present in antagonist dinosaurs, first being shown peacefully sleeping, bullying the Tyrannosaurus away from a meal without a drawn-out fight, and deciding a group of humans aren't worthwhile prey after meeting sufficient retaliation. Nonetheless, it gets the obligatory climactic fight at the end and a brutally violent death befitting a villain. Aside from the one that kills the T. rex in the prologue (which isn't in the final film), and eating two flaming locusts, it has absolutely no kills in the film.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The new animals certainly made a great first impression.
    • Out of the animals in the prologue, the Quetzalcoatlus received the most praise by being the only creature in the films so far to be mostly accurate (or at least it was until a new paper studying the genus was released after the prologue, showing its neck to have been much longer). Many fans were very happy to see that cloned specimens would show up in the present, with the only inaccuracy being size, and it's referred to by name to boot. It is hoped that the movie will make it a star like Velociraptor and Mosasaurus.
    • The Pyroraptor gained many followers and fans, as this raptor is the first to be feathered in the franchise, eschewing both the Raptor Attack and Goofy Feathered Dinosaur tropes, and becoming more of a Feathered Fiend. This dromaeosaur has scientifically correct feathers and a rather striking and sleek design for a feathered raptor.
    • It has less screentime than the above, but the Moros has also gained some fans, many of whom find it Ugly Cute. During the end of the movie, a Moros is seen playing with a young girl, the little dinosaur showing no signs of aggression or hostility, which just adds to the cute appeal.
    • The Lystrosaurus also gained some popularity for being the first Triassic animal and basal synapsid to appear in the films, and having a design that many found to be Ugly Cute. Further helped by being a Killer Rabbit contributing to the death of Delacourt.
  • Among the human cast, Soyona Santos left quite an impression on audiences with her suave, stoic, yet very validly threatening presence, especially in being able to successfully train raptors as Attack Animals.
• Evil Is Cool: Soyona Santos is stoic and unperturbed by any obstacles thrown her way, simply walking away from a firefight, confidently siccing her raptors on her enemies, and never once losing her composure. She's also intelligent and highly pragmatic without devolving into cowardice.
• Fandom Rivalry: With Prehistoric Planet, due to Dominion's less-than-accurate portrayal of their animals, especially with the latter hyping up the Prehistoric Monster vibe to extreme levels (despite the directors claims to the contrary). The fact that Prehistoric Planet features accurate depictions of both animals making their franchise debuts in Dominion (such as Quetzalcoatlus, Therizinosaurus, Dreadnoughtus, and Atrociraptor) and iconic mainstays of the Jurassic Park franchise (Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptor and Mosasaurus) has only furthered the comparisons and clashes. And, amusingly, the documentary is narrated by David Attenborough, the brother of Richard, John Hammond's actor.
• Fanfic Fuel: With the revelation that some of the creatures from Isla Sorna were indeed rescued and brought to the mainland, including at least a couple of Velociraptors from Jurassic Park III and the Buck and Doe T. rexes from The Lost World: Jurassic Park, there is room for ideas about how they will interact with the other dinosaurs from Isla Nublar. Specifically, the ending shows Rexy joining Buck and Doe at the Biosyn Dinosaur Sanctuary, and according to the Dinosaur Tracker website, the Isla Sorna raptors settled somewhere around Ontario, Canada, meaning that there is a possibility that Blue and her offspring Beta might run into them as well.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: A number of viewers were disappointed that the advertised "prologue" showing the dinosaurs in their natural habitat and Rexy attacking a drive-in movie theatre is not in the actual film. This was somewhat softened up when these scenes were included in the extended cut of the movie when it was released on Blu-Ray.
• Friendly Fandoms: A strange case with Godzilla fans: aside from the overlapping element of both series being about science accomplishment unleashing one or more Prehistoric Monster on mankind as punishment, many took a shine to the Giganotosaurus and watched the film for it as many both memetically and sincerely found the design to be the closest thing to a modern update of beloved Ensemble Dark Horse Badass Normal rouges gallery member Gorosaurus.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The monumentally awful Troubled Production of Jurassic World Dominion was inspiration for The Bubble (2022), which takes cheap pot-shots at it. While it is an underwhelming parody, it was still written, filmed and eventually released one month before the premiere of Dominion.
• Just Here for Godzilla: It's likely a large number of viewers watched the film less because they thought the plot with the bugs or Maisie's kidnapping were particularly enrapturing, but more because it shows new prehistoric animal species like Therizinosaurus, Giganotosaurus, and Quetzalcoatlus in a Jurassic Park film, or that it has Ian, Ellie, and Alan together again in starring roles.
• Karmic Overkill: A number of viewers found that the Giganotosaurus was treated way too harshly as the obligatory villain dinosaur despite having hardly any villainous qualities, unlike previous antagonist dinosaurs which at least had hyper-aggressive and unnaturally homicidal tendencies to justify this status. It's one of the only predators in the entire franchise to not kill a single human. It gets an absolutely brutal death that is treated as a triumph, despite, at worst, being a rival predator to the Tyrannosaurus, and the story and director condemn it just for that.
• Magnificent Bitch: Soyona Santos is a Black Market trader specializing in selling dinosaurs, particularly Atrociraptors for numerous things, including as weapons or for dogfights. Hired by Biosyn's CEO Dr. Lewis Dodgson, Santos makes the arrangements for both Maisie Lockwood and the young raptor Beta to be captured and then brought to Malta before then being sent from there to Dodgson at Biosyn shortly after. Upon a deal being busted up by a sting, Santos shows no signs of panic and uses a laser-pointer so that specially-trained raptors will attack the agents surrounding her and targets Claire Dearing and Barry Sembène to prevent them from pursuing her too. While giving up info after being interrogated with a taser, Santos, while in the process of being arrested, stealthily sics the raptors on Owen Grady as he's escaping.
• Memetic Bystander: The guy on a scooter^note played by the winner of the competition to play a dinosaur victim for this movie in Malta who somehow didn't notice he was heading in between two predatory dinosaurs until mere seconds before his death has become popular online, with people either feeling sympathy for him, or mocking his sheer idiocy.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Giganotosaurus is the Joker.^ExplanationIn an interview to Empire magazine, Colin Trevorrow compared the Giganotosaurus to the Joker, and saying that it "wants to see the world burn", a statement which resulted in widespread online derision for just how ridiculous it sounded to declare a normal, non-sapient, non-anthropomorphic dinosaur was like the Joker. Glaringly, absolutely nothing in the movie suggests anything Joker-esque about the Giganotosaurus.
  • "We live in an ecosystem."^ExplanationA parody of the Joker's "We live in a society" quote.
  • Therizinosaurus is the real Joker!^ExplanationAfter watching the film, many fans conclude that the Therizinosaurus is more like the Joker than Giganotosaurus, citing the fact it has a colorful and rather creepy appearance, kills other animals for no apparent reason, and is legitimately scary despite being a herbivore.
  • "Attack of the Giant Bugs (Guest Starring Dinosaurs)"^ExplanationMany fans are displeased with the fact that the main plot revolves around the locusts with the dinosaurs relegated as more of an afterthought. As such, jokes abound about how the dinosaurs weren't even relevant in a Jurassic Park film.
  • Jokes about Chris Pratt being CGI spawned many jokes of photoshopped "behind the scenes" footage of "real" dinosaurs interacting with a blue screen and a tennis ball where Chris Pratt would supposedly be digitally added.
  • Rexinald.^ExplanationA trend before the trailer which mocked the amount of background information revealed by the Viral Marketing by insisting Rexy had died off-screen and the Tyrannosaurus in the film was a young male dubbed Rexinald.
  • The Pyroraptor swimming in icy water has been memed, with fanart showing the Surprisingly Realistic Outcome of him just freezing to death, poking fun at his half-feathered design, or joking that he is the dinosaur Avatar due to mastering water while being named and themed after fire.
  • They're on a date/what a cute couple!^ExplanationFrom the first trailer continuing to the film's release, a common joke was the Allosaurus and Carnotaurus that escape in Malta (who despite being apex predators, simply wander around attacking people and never each other, even unintentionally working together on a kill) were actually a couple having a scenic Malta date.
  • Quilliam^ExplanationAfter the Dino Tracker site confirmed the Ensemble Dark Horse Velociraptor variants seen in Jurassic Park 3 had not gone extinct as previous Viral Marketing had suggested, it set off a fervor of excitement and hype about them possibly reappearing, using the fan nickname of Quilliam. This reached its apex when, during the promotion of the Blu Ray and extended cut, Colin Trevorrow answered one fan's question if a tail prop in Malta was Quilliam with a Shrug of God that many jokingly took as the name being canon
  • "What? They never come this far north!" ^Explanation A minor joke started by some due to the scene in the prologue of an Iguanodon witnessing a Giganotosaurus, a South American theropod, inexplicably present in North America just like the Carnotaurus from the Disney film.
  • There have been a slew of edits featuring the Atrociraptor hitting its neck and flipping over with a different sound effect added in.
• Memetic Badass: The Lystrosaurus became one due to the deleted scene of it decapitating an Oviraptor in a pit fight.^noteLystrosaurus had previously gained such a memetic reputation in the paleontology community, because it survived the Great Dying that wiped out nearly 70% of all species, then proceeded to dominate the planet to the point where 95% of all land vertebrates was Lystrosaurus, leading to many jokes that it took over the world.
• Memetic Psychopath: Therizinosaurus is commonly depicted by fans as an outright psychopathic dinosaur who kills everything it sees For the Evulz. This is mainly because Therizinosaurus is a rare herbivorous dinosaur in the film that averts the Herbivores Are Friendly trope, being extremely aggressive, powerful, and outright scary. While the Giganotosaurus was described as being a psychopathic killer-beast in promotional material, even being likened to the Joker, many fans believe the Therizinosaurus deserves the distinction better.
  • Part of this also comes from the Therizinosaurus role in the game ARK: Survival Evolved being a highly aggressive Disc-One Final Boss.
• Moe: Beta, Blue's offspring, is quite adorable to the bone.
• Moral Event Horizon: Dodgson downright threatened the world's food supply for greedy reasons by developing "super locusts" with prehistoric genes that devour all crops not grown from his company Biosyn's own transgenic seeds.
• Narm:
  • The Pyroraptor swimming is supposed to be threatening, but it just comes off as rather hilarious due to the sheer ridiculousness of a parrot-colored dinosaur somehow plunging into icy water like a penguin with no ill effects whatsoever. At some points, especially when charging at Owen, it even wriggles and swims like some kind of shark.
  • Owen extending his palm now contains every dinosaur rather than just the raptors he trained. The Carnotaurus pulling back is particularly laughable.
  • The extended cut features a momentary flashback as Rexy is laying prone, after being thrashed by the Giganotosaurus in the climax, to her prehistoric ancestor being killed by the Giganotosaurus in the prologue. It seems to imply Rexy remembered how she died once to a Giganotosaurus to gain her Heroic Second Wind, but in practice it's just really silly for a dinosaur to somehow remember how it died in a past life to invoke a personal reason for her to want to kill the Giganotosaurus, as if being a competing predator wasn't reason enough.
  • When Lewis Dodgson realizes his plans are falling apart during the climax, he throws a temper tantrum and starts beating up a chair. Many people have found this tantrum to be rather silly looking thanks to his frantic arm movements making him look like he is trying to dance.
  • When Beta is returned to Blue in the end of the film, Blue stares longingly at Owen and appears as if she’s smiling at him. It brings back some memories of the smiling Indoraptor.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Early concept art for the Tyrannosaurus for the first movie featured a small amount of feathers across its back. This design, which would have been ahead of its time by a decade prior to skin impressions of feathered tyrannosauroids, resembles the look used for the feathered prehistoric T.rex seen in the prologue.
  • Dimetrodon has appeared in previous Jurassic Park toylines, despite not having actually appeared in previous films prior to Dominion.
• One True Pairing: The movie's reception is polarizing by saying the least, but if there's one thing most fans agree this movie did was right was having Alan and Ellie getting a Relationship Upgrade at long last. Especially after Jurassic Park III seemed to have Ship Sinked them for good.
• Padding:
  • The Pyroraptor that menaces Kayla and Owen after the plane crash ultimately just seems to be added in for fanservice (of finally having a decently feathered raptor), because there's no buildup, it's completely irrelevant to the overall plot, and the Pyroraptor doesn't appear in any other scene. It’s not even referred to by name.
  • To a lesser extent, many of the other dinosaur scenes feel rather superfluous to the story, which doesn't utilize dinosaurs as the focus, nor do they drive the plot at any point, and they appear more out of obligation. Alan, Ellie, and Maisie are randomly menaced by the cave-dwelling Dimetrodon that didn't appear before or afterwards, Owen and Claire being chased by the Atrociraptor that also only appear in that one scene before being dropped completely, and the Giganotosaurus only appears randomly to menace the humans near the end, seemingly just because the film was required to have some new villain dinosaur and include more crowd-pleasing dinosaur action scenes.
• Salvaged Story:
  • A growing number of fans have expressed discontent with the series for having scaly dinosaurs (particularly raptors) due to the Grandfather Clause, despite the fact that there is now copious amounts of evidence that many dinosaur species had feathers. Here, Pyroraptor, Moros, and Therizinosaurus all have feathers, and their varying extents of covering are plausible considering what they're like in real life (Pyroraptor has a full covering on its back alongside wings, even if it is a bit nude compared to reality, Therizinosaurus has a coat on its back but is otherwise unfeathered due to its size, while Moros has fuzz all over its body).
  • The hybrids of the previous two films received a lukewarm reception from die-hard fans, because they were glorified movie monsters and not real dinosaurs. In Dominion, hybrids are ignored in favour of the Giganotosaurus, who despite marketing clearly does act much more within the bounds of the other dinosaurs. The distaste towards hybrids even gets a nod in the film as it's stated that customers of Biosyn prefer "thoroughbreds" rather than mixed-and-matched animals.
  • After complaints that Blue was getting far too much focus in the previous two films of the trilogy, this film dials her way back, making her more of a cameo so that other dinos can shine.
  • The Stegosaurus in the previous Jurassic World installments received some flack due to having an outdated low-hanging tail and lacking a beak. This film does away with these inaccuracies, making it resemble more like the real animal and the ones in The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
  • Alan and Ellie get back together at the end of the film, satisfying those who weren't happy with Ellie being revealed to have married someone else prior to the events of Jurassic Park III.
  • Ian and Ellie get a much bigger role after being Demoted to Extra in their respective last appearances.
  • The film brings back Omar Sy as Barry and briefly references what happened to Lowery and Vivian, after their noticeable absence from the last film.
  • After being the only dinosaurs from the original to not appear in the flesh since, the Dilophosaurus finally make a return. They even get to kill off the Big Bad much like how they killed Nedry in the first movie.
  • Maisie Lockwood gets a lot of criticism from fans due to her decision to release the dinosaurs into the wild in the climax of the previous movie. This movie at least alleviates the issue by explaining that there are various other dinosaurs already loose on the mainland even before Maisie released the ones under Lockwood Manor, with underworld smugglers working for criminals or Biosyn smuggling dinosaurs from Isla Sorna for years, and the implication that some geneticists have been creating new dinosaurs for their shady customers. Maisie’s action, while still controversial, is only a part of an already present issue: that various morally-questionable factions can already get their hands on dinosaurs or create their own, meaning that it was only a matter of time before they all got loose on the mainland and integrated into the modern society and ecosystem regardless of what Maisie did.
• The Scrappy:
  • Lewis Dodgson received a lot of hate, because he played role of Greater-Scope Villain in only one movie, yet he suddenly hijacked the plot out of nowhere, and even his grand plan doesn’t include dinosaurs. He’s also hated for being an incompetent and obnoxious antagonist with no entertaining traits, in contrast to his cunning and intelligent novel counterpart.
  • The Biosyn locusts have very few fans due to hijacking the plot with Dodgson and stealing the spotlight away from the dinosaurs. There also isn't any evidence that such gigantic insects existed in the prehistoric past, much less the Cretaceous period.
• Sequelitis: Is the lowest-rated film in the entire franchise on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB.
• Shocking Moments:
  • The Reveal at the end of the prologue — the feathered tyrannosaur from the Cretaceous is the genetic ancestor of Rexy!
  • From the official trailer, the long awaited return of Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler. And Dilophosaurus!
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • The music used in the second trailer (starting at the 30 second mark) sounds similar to Praxis by Totem, used in the official trailer for Zack Snyder's Justice League.
  • The track "Da Plane and Da Motorcycle" sounds suspiciously similar to "Monday Hunt" from Carpenter Brut's Leather Teeth Album.
• Special Effect Failure: Some CGI shots, especially of Blue, look fairly unconvincing. This pales in comparison to the animatronics though, which suffer from moving too stiffly and obviously robotic to looking as if they're made out of rubber, with the Giganotosaurus being the only animatronic to come anywhere close to convincing. The series used to thrive on mixing the two mediums near seamlessly. Part of the issue stems form them trying to be too ambitious with the animatronics compared to the earlier films where closeups were usually the only things done with practical effects.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: A major criticism of the film is that while there are more dinosaurs featured in this film, they're all competing for limited screentime, leaving many to feel underrepresented despite being heavily marketed in trailers.
  • The Pyroraptor only shows up for one scene in the frozen dam and then never appears again in any capacity. It isn't even named within the movie itself.
  • Similarly, although it does get namedropped, the main scene for the Quetzalcoatlus lasts less than half a minute, and outside of this and the prologue is left to a couple of few second scenes within montages. In particular its real life terrestrial stalking behavior, which has been seen as Nightmare Fuel by dinosaur nerds for years, is not depicted at all.
  • The Giganotosaurus can be this for some. Despite its role as the apex predator of the Biosyn’s Dolomites dinosaur sanctuary, it does very little other than chase the main characters briefly and then having a rather short final battle against Rexy and the Therizinosaurus. Compared with previous antagonistic theropods (the Nublar raptors, the Spinosaurus and the Indominus felt like a constant threat through their movies, and the Indoraptor offers a rather chilling climatic battle), the Giga overall feels lacking. In fact, unlike the others, it doesn’t even kill anything (human or animal), except for a locust on fire.
  • Rexy’s role is surprisingly short despite her and her species being one of the most iconic animals of the franchise (and popular culture in general). Her arc of competing against the Giganotosaurus for the title of apex predator of the Dolomites only amounts to two scenes, those being one where the Giga bullies her into dropping a deer carcass she was picking and a rather short final battle, and... that’s all she does for the entire movie. It feels like she was included because she’s so emblematic that they just couldn’t not include her in the climax of the saga despite her scarce role.
  • Those expecting the Mosasaurus to play a role in the movie are in for a big disappointment, as the huge marine reptile only appears in two brief shots at the beginning (where she appears snatching some spider crabs from fishermen) and the end (where she appears swimming alongside two humpback whales), having even less screentime than in Fallen Kingdom.
  • Blue's role is very small here, unlike the previous installments, where Blue had major roles. Here she is Demoted to Extra, after Beta is kidnapped, Blue disappears from the plot, she does not return until the end of Dominion, when she meets Beta again. Blue does not play a major role in this movie and she does not meet Alan Grant and the Atrociraptors at any time.
  • The Atrociraptors were built up in advertising as the Psycho Rangers to the Raptor Squad from Jurassic World, and were even given individual names in promotional material. Their role in the movie, however, amounts to an extended chase scene. Once Owen and Claire escape from them, they disappear from the story. They don't even encounter Blue or Beta, despite clearly being promoted as Blue's Evil Counterpart (to the point that one of them is even named Red) and their names are not mentioned. Some suggested they should have been the raptor variants they visually Call-Back to both due to their Ensemble Dark Horse nature and more directly connect this film with the original trilogy. Other suggested combining it's role with the Pyroraptor, arguing it would be easier to differentiate it between our raptors, giving a much more substantial role to the long awaited accurate raptor and, after the film came out, make it more then a One-Scene Wonder.
  • For all the hype its return to the franchise got, the Dilophosaurus barely does anything other than scaring Claire. It does, however, have a much more important scene at the end where it kills Dodgson, evoking his associate Nedry’s demise in the first film.
  • Many fans were disappointed that the Oviraptor did not appear in the movie. The Oviraptor only appears in the prologue of Dominion, there was a scene in the dinosaur black market where there would be a fight between an Oviraptor and Kayla's Lystrosaurus named "Leonard" and Leonard would end up winning. But the scene was cut from the theatrical release and only appears in the Dominion novelization and extended cut.
  • T. rex Buck and Doe from The Lost World: Jurassic Park are confirmed to appear in this movie, too bad they only appear in a single and borderline Blink-and-You-Miss-It scene at the end. It would be interesting to see them having more scenes and interactions with Rexy, especially after their more than two decades of absence.
  • Fans were excited to see the male variant of the Jurassic World Pteranodon when one makes a background cameo in one video from the Dinotracker site and hoped to see a proper appearance in the film. But alas, only one male Pteranodon appears in a Blink-and-You-Miss-It scene where a Dreadnoughtus gathers at the Biosyn Research Facility.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Despite it setting up Rexy's origins and her ancestor's rivalry with Giganotosaurus, the Prologue isn't actually in the film. Many were disappointed, as they felt it was actually better than the final film itself, in addition to providing more context for Rexy and the Giganotosaurus's relationship by establishing them as natural rivals.
  • The premise left by the ending of Fallen Kingdom regarding dinosaurs being set loose upon the mainland is rendered to just a background plotline in this film, whereas the main storyline is instead focused on Biosyn's attempt to monopolize the global food supplies by using genetically-engineered prehistoric locusts to destroy their competitors' crops. Meanwhile, the dinosaurs on the mainland storyline is almost an afterthought in the story, with more focus given to it in promotional materials and viral marketing instead of in the movie itself.
  • Despite his return to the franchise after years of absence, Lewis Dodgson’s role regarding the continuity of the series is non-existent. Nothing about his involvement via Nedry in the first Jurassic Park is mentioned (despite the fact three of the survivors of said incident interact with him through the movie), nor is his connection to Nedry himself revealed (being only hinted by showing the shaving cream can he gave Nedry to introduce the dinosaur embryos and Dodgson being eaten by Dilophosaurus like Nedry), with his rivalry with InGen never alluded to at all. In fact, you could have Dodgson be a brand new character and the difference would have been minimal. It's very subtly implied in the film that through Wu, he potentially had a hand in the things both Hoskins and Mills did though (i.e. "little side projects"), which would make him not just the Greater-Scope Villain of the previous films, but the whole series too.
  • Many fans felt this way about the Atrociraptor pack and Pyroraptor. After they revealed in the marketing/leaks, many assumed they would at some point in the film encounter Blue and Beta, contrasting the more Prehistoric Monster weaponized Atrocis and the natural living Feathered Fiend Pyro (as a nod to JP's influence on raptors in pop culture), and either fighting or getting along and becoming a mixed pack to end Blue's Last of Their Kind arc. Come the final film......none of them even show up in the same location.
• Ugly Cute:
  • The Moros can be seen this way, what with its overall tiny size and raggedy fluff. Many, including Trevorrow himself, enjoyed the few scenes it appeared in, especially at the end when one plays with a little girl.
  • Beta is a baby Velociraptor with big eyes and high-pitched chirps, evidently intending to invoke this trope.
  • The Lystrosaurus also invokes this, with its small size, squinty black eyes, beak, tusks, and naked skin with some strands of hair.
• Unexpected Character:
  • When fans got a list of characters who'd be returning to the franchise, few were expecting Lewis Dodgson, the Greater-Scope Villain of the first film, to be among them, especially since his role appeared to have been split between Mills and Ludlow.
  • Nobody was expecting the Buck and Doe from the second film to make a surprise cameo at the end of the film as they form a pack with Rexy, as confirmed by Trevorrow on Twitter.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: The Giganotosaurus, whose death is seen by some viewers as needlessly cruel and unnecessary compared to the Indominus rex and Indoraptor. Unlike the latter two, it rarely acts aggressive towards the main characters, and its initial interaction with Rexy amounts to little more than a short argument over food. Nevertheless, its rather gruesome death is framed as something heroic.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Even though the movie makes attempts to frame Charlotte Lockwood and her actions in a way where she is clearly meant to be a good person and incredible scientist who just wanted to have a child despite her infertility when she made her and to protect said child from the same condition that was killing her, however the movie fails to address the fact that Charlotte doesn't show any signs of caring that she violated a multitude of ethics and moral boundaries and sentenced her child from conception to exist in a frightening human rights limbo due to her origin as an illegal human clone just because Charlotte seemingly didn’t attempt adoption and was seemingly fine using Maisie as a Guinea pig to test her experiments as she was shown casually injecting a syringe into the infant Masie, not to mention it comes across as a selfish act that when she managed to make this miraculously discovery which would revolutionize medical science she never shared this knowledge with anyone or recorded her work for someone to discover and instead used it for her own gain and then took it with her to the grave.
  • Dr. Wu, despite the fact that he genuinely regrets creating the locusts for Dodgson and is the one to destroy them, never shows any regret over his role in creating and mistreating both the Indominus rex and Indoraptor. This led to the deaths of dozens of humans and dinosaurs alike. Also, he left six teenagers to die on Isla Nublar without ever telling anyone they were still alive in the third season of Camp Cretaceous.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: As to be expected from the franchise, the effects look absolutely astounding. The 4k release of the Prologue especially shows off beautifully rendered herds of dozens of dinosaurs, with the skin textures and especially feathers looking extremely lifelike.

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