USA TODAY — T. rex, you’re all teeth, no arms. Velociraptor, step aside. There's a new dino-monster stomping into "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom."
Beware of the Indoraptor, the supervillainous hybrid dinosaur created as the ultimate war machine in "Fallen Kingdom" (in theaters Friday). It even out-beasts the genetically created Indominus rex from 2015's "Jurassic World."
The Indoraptor takes its brutal genes from Velociraptor and Indominus rex (among others), making it 10 feet (from claw to cranium) of unleashed terror that emerges fully in the film’s second half.
"This is the dinosaur that breaks out as the star of the show," says director J.A. Bayona of his fictional creation. "We wanted to create a memorable character and liked the idea that, bit by bit, we discover something has been cooking in the shadows. That's Indoraptor."
The savage creature is concocted in Dr. Wu's (B.D. Wong) secret dinosaur laboratory for maximum teeth, lengthy arms and killer claws. It's a little unhinged and twitchy, as it's brought out for sale to the highest-bidding warlord before all the genetic kinks can be worked out in "Fallen Kingdom."
But unstable only adds to the allure as it tangles with stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard. Bayona asked the visual effects team at Industrial Light & Magic to reflect the dinosaur genetic input. But he added references such as Boris Karloff's classic Frankenstein to the mix.
"We wanted the dinosaur to have the mood of a rejected creature. I thought about the terrifying sadness of Frankenstein," says Bayona, who also requested references to mentally ill patients in psychiatric hospitals. "We wanted to bring the kind of shakes they have with their bodies from the illness for the Indoraptor."
The creature is especially potent in small settings, with the film's second half set in a mansion in pursuit of a terrified young girl, Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon). The monster creeps up walls and into her bedroom, eliciting fear from the cowering Maisie by tapping its claws.
"That tapping on the floor is scarier than anything in that setting," Bayona says. "And when you see him in the dark, you only see the dots of the eyes and the teeth. That’s a terrifying image."
Indo is short for "indomitable," while raptor refers to the Latin term "to seize," based on the creature's deadly arms, says John Hankla, a paleontology adviser for "Jurassic World" from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.
"Raptor means it's using arms to grasp or reach out, thief-like," he says. "It's designed to be indestructible, even by humans. It's the unstoppable thief."
The Indoraptor is brought to screen through computer effects and animatronics — the creature's head, neck, shoulders, one foot and one arm were created for shooting closeups. Curious schoolchildrenwon't find the screen creation represented at Hankla's Denver museum. Which is fine by him.
"Watching the first 'Jurassic Park,' I was a dinosaur nerd, so I was rooting for the dinosaurs to survive," he says. "But no one wants that creature to succeed."
