The Vastatosaurus rex (meaning "ravager lizard king") are the main antagonists of the 2005 remake of King Kong, despite having only one appearance. They were created by director Peter Jackson and designers Greg Broadmore and Christian Pearce (who also did some concept art for the 2014 Godzilla film).
Etymology[]
The name Vastatosaurus rex means "ravager lizard king" and the term Vastato is a conjugation of the Latin term vasto, meaning to "devastate, ravage or to lay waste". "Saurus" is a mixture of Greek and Latin root of the word sauros, meaning "lizard" and finally, "rex" is Latin for "king".
History[]
According to Peter Jackson, the Vastatosaurus rex was an evolved descendant of the iconic Tyrannosaurus rex. The Vastatosaurus rex is the result of what would happen if Tyrannosaurus evolved on Skull Island for 66 million years.
In the 2005 prequel novel King Kong: The Island of the Skull, a sailor named Sam Kelley was trapped on Skull Island and named the Vatatosaurus, "V. rex" since he noticed that it was too large and ferocious to be a T. rex.
In the movie, a Foetodon was about to eat Ann Darrow, but a juvenile V. rex unwittingly saved her by eating the large lizard. The V. rex gave chase to Ann, but she managed to hide behind a fallen tree, where an adult female V. rex, who appears to be its mother, attacked her. Fortunately, Kong rescued her and fought the dinosaur, who joined with the juvenile V. rex that is its offspring.
While Kong fought the two V. rexes, an adult male specimen, the father to be exact, appeared and attacked him. Kong crushed the juvenile's head with a boulder, but fell into a ravine while fighting the male and the female. While the three monsters got stuck in the thick vines that kept them from falling, the male tried to eat Ann, which led to Kong killing him as Ann fell into the head of the female. Ann and the female Vastatosaurus (who was the last remaining one) fell the short distance to the ravine floor where she tried to kill her. but Kong appeared. After biting the dinosaur's tongue, he was able to knock the V. rex off balance and break her jaw before snapping her spinal cord, killing the giant reptilian creature and crushing her skull in the process.
According to the book Skull Island: A Natural History, after a 1948 earthquake (measuring 9.2 on the Richtor scale) caused Skull Island to sink into the ocean, the last remaining Vastatosaurus were wiped out along with the island's other inhabitants.
Appearance[]
The Vastatosaurus rex are very ancient dinosaurs with bloated chests, pale rubbery jaws, and huge armor plated legs. Their coloration is a desaturated blue-gray color that appears as green and they have deep orange eyes and single row of overlapping teeth in their mouths.
Vastatosaurus had three fingers while their Tyrannosaurus ancestors had two and the V. rex developed a waist and hip bones. They were covered in rough, pronounced crocodilian-like scales. They also measured 40-50 feet (12-15 meters) in length and stood 20 feet (6.1 meters) in height. Male Vastatosaurus developed small crests on their heads and were typically more muscular than females.
Abilities[]
Jaw Strength[]
Much like their Tyrannosaurus ancestors, the V. rex had a very powerful bite force, which some have estimated at 8-9 tons, stronger than that of T. rex, which had a bite force of 6.4 tons.
Speed[]
The speed of Vastatosaurus has been estimated at 25-37 miles per hour (40.2-60 kilometer per hour).
Videos[]
Trivia[]
- The Vastatosaurus' roar is a combination of lion, walrus, alligator, pig, horse, and donkey sounds.
- In early concept art of the film, the Vastatosaurus rex are depicted as brown T. rexes and there was also talk of having the dinosaurs stand upright, like Tyrannosaurus were originally believed to do.
- Vastatosaurus rex is a tribute to the Tyrannosaurus rex from the original 1933 King Kong movie (although the T. rex was referred to as simply just a "meat-eater" in the film's script). The T. rex in the original film, just like the V. rex, had pebbly skin and three fingers.
