Jurassic World - Trailer #2 (Universal Pictures) HD

[Channel72]

And the posture of many of these dinosaurs makes them look like chickens or turkeys with long tails, so they look slightly silly.

Yeah, a lot of the depictions look pretty harmless. An actual velociraptor (not the mislabeled Jurassic Park version) probably would come off as a very fast, slightly aggressive rooster. Although it still had the trademark hooked claw of all the Dromaesaurids.

Regardless, a predatory bird can be pretty fucking awesome:



So I see no reason why a modern audience would necessarily dismiss feathered dinosaurs as silly, especially children who haven't grown up with the idea of dinosaur=lizard/godzilla.

I'm quite aware the movies aren't hard science and I don't look for an accurate depiction there.

Yeah, that's understandable. I think I hold Jurassic Park to a slightly higher standard only because the first movie at least tried to portray dinosaurs realistically. Yeah, they definitely took some liberties, e.g. a venom spewing Dilophosaurus/confusing velociraptor with deinonychus, etc., - but do you remember how dinosaurs were portrayed in movies before Jurassic park? It wasn't just the lack of good CG, they were always portrayed as these lumbering slow beasts that dragged their tails:



Jurassic Park basically incorporated all the advances in paleontology, and introduced modern audiences to the warm-blooded, fast moving dinosaurs that held their tails above the ground for balance, and also popularized the (then somewhat less well known) idea about the evolutionary pathway from birds to dinosaurs. But then after the first movie, they sort of stopped keeping up with paleontology for the most part.

Although, I remember this cool documentary from the 80s that actually had a pretty good stop-motion depiction of a pack of deinonychus hunting another dinosaur. (Also, it was hosted by Christopher Reeve.)

[Tribble]

If I remember correctly the jp raptor was based off the newly discovered Utah raptor, which at the time the book was written was considered to be a subset of velociraptor.

[Borgholio]

Although, I remember this cool documentary from the 80s that actually had a pretty good stop-motion depiction of a pack of deinonychus hunting another dinosaur. (Also, it was hosted by Christopher Reeve.)

That was one of my favorite tv shows when I was a kid. I always felt sad when the asteroid hit, even though I saw it happen a hundred times.

[Channel72]

If I remember correctly the jp raptor was based off the newly discovered Utah raptor, which at the time the book was written was considered to be a subset of velociraptor.

The Utahraptor is way too large to be the species depicted in Jurassic Park. The only well-known species that really matches the size and appearance of the "raptors" in JP is Deinonychus. Apparently, one paleontologist at one point mistakenly classified Deinonychus as a sub-species of Velociraptor or something, and Chrichton happened to read his book, which is why I guess Chrichton used the name velociraptor. The whole explanation is here.

[Alyrium Denryle]

But I notice a lot of artistic recreations of these animals (especially those from actual paleontologists) choose bright colors to depict the feathers. That seems like a bad evolutionary outcome for any predatory species looking to stalk it's prey and blend into the background. I guess they had to rely on speed.

There are two reasons to have feathers other than flight (or forms of movement approaching flight like gliding, fluttering, or wing assisted incline running). Insulation is the first. But for that only down would be required. Other than that, display. For display, an animal wants colors that, at least on the right background, will be visible, with pigments that are either physiologically expensive to produce (so they act as a display of being healthy and well fed), have pathways that get disrupted by disease (so they can display their lack of infection and thus healthy immune system), or that are CAUSED by infection ("Look at me, I have a massive parasite load and still manage to be buff and sexy. I am a badass, fuck me!").

There need not be any particular conflict here. Disruptive patterns will work, so will iridescent coloration that is not in an actual pigment at all, but in patterns of reflection off certain structures, but that require illumination at the right angle to be seen. Alternatively, the bright colors could be invisible due to positioning (under side of forelimbs, for example), or grow in after molting during the breeding season.