Velociraptor are well known for their role as vicious and cunning killers thanks to their portrayal in the 1990 novel
Jurassic Park by
Michael Crichton and its 1993
film adaptation, directed by
Steven Spielberg. The "raptors"
portrayed in Jurassic Park were modeled after the related dromaeosaurid Deinonychus, which had been named at the time by
Gregory Paul Velociraptor antirrhopus.
[4] Paleontologists in both the novel and film excavate a skeleton in
Montana, far from the central Asian range of
Velociraptor but characteristic of the
Deinonychus range. A character in Crichton's novel also states that "
Deinonychus is now considered one of the velociraptors", which suggests that Crichton used Paul's
taxonomy even though the "raptors" in the novel are at another point referred to as
V. mongoliensis.
[42]
The filmmakers greatly increased the size of the
Velociraptor and changed the shape of its snout to proportions more characteristic of
Deinonychus.
[43][44] In real life
Velociraptor, like many other
maniraptoran theropods, was covered in feathers.
Jurassic Park and
The Lost World: Jurassic Park, were released before this discovery, so the creatures in both films are depicted as featherless with scales all over in the manner of modern reptiles. For
Jurassic Park III the male
Velociraptor was given quill-like structures along the back of the head and neck. While this was as far as CGI effects could realistically go (feathers remained difficult to animate at the time), the structures do not resemble the down-like feathers real-life dromaeosaurids bore or the fully developed arm feathers, akin to the wing feathers of modern birds, born by
Velociraptor.
[10]