D-REX or the diagnostic mutation of our time

A critical and personal review of Jurassic World: Renaissance and the monster as a cultural symptom.

Like many children, I was fascinated by paleontology—although my interest focused more on ancient and aquatic creatures than on land animals—to the point where, at a very young age, I was able to name all the periods that humanity has never known and can only imagine through the remains of extinct animals. And then, when my parents took me to pseudo-(pre)-historic gatherings, at least that’s how I remember them, where I learned how to make fire with two pieces of wood, I was fascinated by the huge ox bones I was shown, which I mistook for the femur of a T-Rex. Or some other dinosaur.

Even though I devoured all the picture books on the subject—even though I couldn’t read yet—I didn’t see the iconic and cult classic Jurassic Park (1993) until I was an adult. I was entering my twenty-fifth year on the blue planet, having completed my studies in archaeology several years earlier, changed my life four times, had time to experience the stress of adult life, the hassles of everyday life, and poor health that was difficult to treat.

I’m telling you all this because I went to see Jurassic World: Renaissance (2025) on the big screen, in a packed theater, and when I saw the mutant dinosaur Distortus Rex, or D-Rex to its friends, I recognized myself in it, a perfect and sickly syncretism of our sick, distorted society, overwhelmed by the evils and tumors that humanity has created to destroy itself with its great intelligence. This is one of the themes evoked and defended throughout the film, along with the notion of open source in science and health

1/ Genetic garage: Darwinian mutation, idealistic perfection

Although the film is not very well rated and the mutants are not really as popular as expected in the Jurassic Park universe, it seems to me that this installment has managed to pull off a coup on important issues that are central to our times, by offering a Chernobyl-like Kaiju that symbolizes and sums up the film’s entire intention in the sad abomination that is the D-Rex. A disturbing reflection of our times… and our future.

Although we barely glimpse it at the beginning of the film and it struggles to be contained on the big screen at the very end, the D-Rex, with its steroid-enhanced beluga head, immediately reminded me of the sculpture “Graham” by artist Patricia Piccinini, an effigy created for the Australian Road Safety Commission. The sculptor imagined what Darwinian evolution might have improvised to “improve” the human body in order to adapt to the great revolution that is the car.

It may seem trivial in this day and age, but the car, a deadly machine hurtling down roads at speeds of several dozen kilometers per hour, every day, at all hours of the day and night, is a revolution that transcends our fragile human condition. An object that seems safe, but is in fact terribly dangerous if poorly controlled, the car is a symbol of the time we steal from Time itself. Whereas certain distances used to take several weeks or even months to cover, they can now be covered in a matter of hours. The car—and all our other super transport systems for that matter—is an absolutely fascinating and frightening accelerator of human time, playing with our lives. Just like the meteorite that struck the earth millions of years ago.

2/ Always more, never enough

The D-Rex is also quite a beast in its own right. It is solid, with an extraordinary engine, a creation that is destined to “do great things,” especially to entertain our obscene gaze. A kind of colossal toy, a puppet of capitalism designed to produce more and more… But what exactly? Unfortunately, tragedy can quickly strike with such an ultra-aggressive, hyper-modified death machine. A nice, well-tuned speed machine ready to wreak havoc. And beyond that, even if I’m not sure it was the intention of the designers of this Dino Monstrus, its shapes may remind us of Graham’s disturbing sculpture representing the “ideal” of a humanity that is not yet. D-Rex doesn’t really exist; it’s an anomaly of the future, unsuited to our present, and one that certainly shouldn’t exist at all, for the good of everyone. And especially its own.

I hate cars and prefer to use my legs to enjoy the most beautiful things nature has to offer. I’m tired of seeing landscapes flash by at high speed, distorting their precious and unique beauty.

3/ The Savage, Violence & Silence

In these beautiful landscapes, I would prefer not to encounter a genetically modified creature, a hunter, with rare intelligence, particularly stealthy, and I am not referring to Alien: The Eighth Passenger (1979), the well-known terrifying science fiction creation.

I’m not sure Graham allowed for the creative process behind the D-Rex, but I can bet my life—like the late Martin Krebs—that all adults addicted to science fiction recognized a bit of the Xenomorph in this mutant. Much more massive, but with very similar behavior, despite its colossal dinosaur ancestry, the D-Rex has all the hallmarks of a pre-Xenomorph, even in its aesthetic with its large tumor-like head, its posture, and the exuding super-intelligence that its “species” should not possess. What’s more, its appearance was treated in the same way as in the first Alien movie.

The creature is not shown head-on from the beginning. It is presented to us in a jar of solution allowing stasis between life and death, it is suggested to us in the mist, we sometimes hear it, we guess at it at other times when it is not there, and then until the last minute… We don’t know who it is. Not until our lives are in grave danger and an unfortunate choice offers us up to its endless hunger.

The D-Rex is the undisputed ancestor of the Xenomorph and Godzilla, devourer of helicopters—another means of transportation that defies our humanity, which could have made all the difference in the escape, but where an angry earthly deity wiped it out with a well-placed roar. When the D-Rex dies out, it will have given birth to two super-creatures angry at humanity. Suffering from our lack of genius. Unless it’s the other way around? Perhaps the D-Rex is the bastard child of the Xenomorph and Godzilla? After all, it is an agent of a future that does not exist. An illusion symbolizing our decadent society, fueled by poorly digested knowledge, pseudo-intellectual but truly blind to reality.

When a society is nothing but a bubble of illusion, whether the present is tomorrow or tomorrow is now hardly matters. We have Time at our disposal, we twist it, hurt it, torture it… distort it.

Distortus Rex suffers from his sovereignty, powerful and empowered, his loneliness angers him, and the responsibility that weighs on his colossal body overwhelms him.

Like this two-headed raptor, mummified in its half-evaporated formaldehyde, his biochemical cellmate, the D-Rex should not exist, because he goes against natural principles and this causes him terrible suffering. There is also a fleeting mention of euthanasia in the film. The animal condition, their health, the fight against disease, where the battle begins and ends.

CONCLUSION: And there was light

Like Icarus wishing to escape from a labyrinth that seems to imprison him, he flies straight towards the Sun, the sublime image of the divine, thinking himself capable and strong enough to enjoy the sky that is not his home.

D-Rex is irresistibly drawn to light, to everything that shines, like a magpie loves beauty that reflects the perfect face of the sun. Even if this light will lead to his downfall—at least for a while. The light distracts him from his initial goal just as it leads him to it. Just like Icarus. By being too hungry for something, we lose the meaning, the purpose of our actions.

D-Rex is the symbolic god of our current society. Mutant, distorted, sickly, hungry, tumorous, greedy, dangerous, destructive… But D-Rex is an animal among animals, and we must consider it as such in order to appease it or… finish it off in the best possible conditions.