Did jurassic park really overhype T rex?

[thunderhawk]

I haven't seen it so much here, but on Carnivora they liked to bash and disprove T rex to the point that it couldn't win a fight against anything. They said it to combat the generally overhyped attitude that people take toward it, and usually cited Jurassic Park as evidence for it.

I don't actually think the JP T rex was so inaccurate as Carnivora wanted you to think. If anything, the raptors were the most overrated dinosaurs in the movie, much more than T rex by any account.

First, T rex was shown running too fast. True, but there is as much evidence for a fast T rex as there is against it, so it's just one theory for T rex against a competing one. The raptors were almost twice as fast they would have been in real life, "cheetah speed" quote un quote. Real Dromeosaurs could probably manage at best 40mph, if not 30

Second, T rex was an inaccurately efficient and successful hunter. True, no hunter is perfect, certainly not the biggest ones like lions and crocodiles today. But then, what animals does T rex ever really hunt on screen? It's main prey was humans with a dash of goat and Gallimimus on the side. How is unrealistic is it really for one of the largest predators in history to be able to hunt down humans. Again, the raptors actually take the cake. They have been shown wiping out entire batalions of armed men and creating elaborate traps for their prey, feats that no scientist would acknowledge they would be capable of.

Thirdly, T rex is clearly second to Spinosaurus in the movies. Although Spinosaurus is also admitedly overrated, it still caught less flak than T rex on Carnivora. It's still a debate whether Spino really was the better predator, but if one of theories of Spino is true, that it was just a fish eater, that would mean that Spino is magnitudes more overrated than T rex.

[apexpredator7]

it was overatted but not hugely like velociraptor

[Venomous Dragon]

So was spino, movie spino was monster.

[Anomonyous]

It was overrated in speed and height, but that's about it.
RL deinonychus might've been able to sprint at the same speed as RL Tyrannosaurus If Thomas Holtz is correct, dromaeosaurs are not the speed demons they're hyped to be.
That scene in JP3 was stupid, it just spanned a new wave of fanboyism. Wonder if Jack Horner tried "to get people thinking" again.
There's no "better predator". Tyrannosaurus would blow at fishing, after all.

[rhino]

I don't remember the movie very well but based on what thunder hawk claims and what a lot of other people say about this animal, I'd say yes. T-rex was indeed overrated by that movie and by many people in general.

It's almost become the lion of theropods. By that I mean people see it and think it's the ultimate fighting machine and top killer. When in reality it likely wasn't. It was as cowardly and opportunistic as any other predator. Mostly attacking babies, elderly, and ailing individuals and only going after prime adults when it was out of options.