From our expert-level binge-watching experience (which should be an entry on our resume at this point), we’ve come to admire a lot of notable characters in our favorite movies and TV shows. While our favorite obsessions range from Riverdale to the Star Wars franchise, our fave characters typically have one thing in common: they’re all badass women who have survived a lot of BS in their own respective tv and movie runs.
As Fiona Gallagher withstands raising her own siblings while attempting to handle adulthood, Khaleesi is out here struggling (albeit succeeding) to train her own dragons and cope with the fact that she f*cked her nephew, so all our on-screen women have already survived a variety of situations. Though our beloved characters have gone through a lot of what the f*ckery, we can’t help but imagine how they’d use their unique skills and experiences to survive all the eruptions, science experiments and deadly dinosaurs on Isla Nublar—because we ask the important questions about films, particularly Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, here at Her Campus.
1. Betty Cooper (Riverdale)
Sure, Betty might seem like a shy teenager, but as soon as she gets away from her emotionally abusive mother and her enabling father then she’ll be able to embrace herself. TBH, being on an island full of dinosaurs might be the unconventional vacation her mental health needs.
Compared to Betty’s toxic AF family and the stressful school drama, evading dinos and disaster will be a breeze. From the all the murder mysteries and overall Riverdale-ness she’s had to survive the last two seasons, we’d imagine that she’d find the best hiding places to escape all the carnivorous dinos on Isla Nublar.
Plus, we can’t think of a better college application essay than topic than, “How I Survived Isla Nublar and Saved Multiple Used-to-be-Extinct-Endangered Species.”
2. Kimmy Schmidt (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt)
Point blank, Kimmy survived being kidnapped, living in a bunker and emotional abuse, and she’s still a cheerful and optimistic person. She’d obviously approach a rather confused Gallimimus during her first few hours on the island.
After politely asking the Gallimimus if she could get a piggyback ride to safety (Galliback ride?), the Gallimimus would naturally respond with a grating shriek and hobble-sprint into the distance, only to be eaten by a horde of Compsognathus who weren’t really that hungry to begin with (after some post-Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom brooding, we’re officially unstanning the Gallimimus because of her lack of character development).
Don’t worry: Kimmy will eventually wander into the forested portion of the island, where Blue will greet her. Seeing as Kimmy is already so apt at miraculously mastering languages, she’ll speak fluent Velociraptor to Blue and they’ll scurry off to safety away from the impending eruption.
Being the do-gooder that Kimmy is, her and Blue will also save the rescued dinos from a lifetime of enslavement. But, Kimmy will also convince Blue not to hurt or kill anyone or any dinosaur in the process—which is important because Blue needs a sensitive but strong woman role model in her life.
3. Enfys Nest (Star Wars)
Enfys might not have an elevated midichlorian count like Rey, but she’s a badass all the same. In the wake of Crimson Dawn’s abuse against her people, she pioneered her own band of rebels—the Cloud-Riders—to subtly hurt Crimson Dawn’s intergalactic tyranny.
Though Enfys probably wouldn’t have access to her Skyblade-330 swoop bike in this unlikely movie traverse, to say Enfys is motivated AF is an understatement. Seriously, despite insurmountable challenges, Enfys finds a way to achieve the improbable, like undercutting Crimson Dawn.
Training dinosaurs might not be her forte, but she’d easily find a way to turn some scrap metal into a worthy weapon, thus protecting herself and anyone else on the island while she escapes the billowing pyroclastic flow.
4. Fiona Gallagher (Shameless)
Fiona has gone from a single guardian to her five younger siblings, to a felon, to a business owner. If nothing else, her perseverance gets shit done and yields positive character development.
Amid the literal flames on Isla Nublar, Fiona would be scolding a toothy Baryonyx into submission while also finding time to contain Dr. Wu’s glorified experiment-gone-wrong (i.e. the Indoraptor).
Seriously, she’s dealt with Frank’s BS and Jimmy-Steve’s fuckboyery for way too long, and she’s not about to get run down by an overgrown, bipedal crocodile.
5. Kat Edison (The Bold Type)
One of Kat’s best (and sometimes worst) attitudes is that’s she’s unabashedly her. Whether she’s exploring her sexuality or coordinating the Scarlet Magazine’s daily tweets, she hones everything she does which makes her the most potent force on Isla Nublar (sorry, not sorry Indoraptor).
As a proud feminist, Kat will likely organize an extravagant seaward effort to get as many dinosaurs off the island as possible. Ultimately, she’d probably save all the BA dinos, which would prevent ~that~ moment with ~that~ dino from happening, thus saving us a lot of tears. After all, she wields her determination like a productive sword—regardless of if that determination is used for work, her personal life or saving dinos.
6. Jane Villanueva (Jane The Virgin)
Sure, Jane is terrified on an island full of dinosaurs, lava, and overall doom, but she’s also thriving on Isla Nublar. While the island is basically about to explode, she’s crouching behind a tree scribing her latest novel, using the quarreling Sinoceratops and the Carnotaurus as inspiration for her blossoming new romance.
What we might see it as a brutal fight between the two dino women, Jane recognizes that it’s so much more than that. The Carnotaurus is clearly harboring internalized lesbianphobia about her sexuality. Meanwhile, her on-and-off girlfriend, the Sinoceratops, is trying to reassure her that it’s okay that the Carno doesn’t accept her sexual identity—because she (the Sino) accepts her and they’ll get through this together.
Somewhere along the line, the Carnotaurus recognizes that she loves the Sinoceratops and ignites an abridged proposal to her long-time significant other (after all, the island is about to be engulfed in lava). Overcome with emotions, Jane officiates the impromptu, but prehistorically overdue wedding, before the trio narrowly escape the island.
Seeing as a plethora of bird species are members of the feathered LGBTQ+ community and dinosaurs as the ancestors of birds, dinosaurs can be queer, too.
7. Daenerys Targaryen (Game of Thrones)
By default, we’re assuming that in this improbable situation, Daenerys found herself on Isla Nublar without her beloved dragons—because a dragon-on-dino conflict just seems unfair. This fictitious set-up could be an expanded mesh-up between the Jurassic World realm and the Game of Thrones universe, and Daenerys needs to save her better-dinosaurs dragons from an impending natural disaster.
Within her first few moments on the island, Khaleesi has already tamed a squadron of Compsognathus. Before Dr. Wu realizes he can conserve precious research funding by redirecting his efforts to using Daenerys’ innate imprinting capability to train his dinos-turned-weapons, Daenerys is somehow already riding the Mosasaurus into the sunset to put a definite end to Dr. Wu’s misguided science.
Daenerys will destroy the future of the franchise because she’ll literally prevent future dino mashups from being born.
8. Leslie Knope (Parks and Recreation)
Even before landing on Isla Nublar, Leslie has already thoroughly researched the terrain, all the dino species, and a strategic operation and exit plan. Complete with a color-coordinated mission binder, Leslie has already organized an efficient escape route for all the dinos, which obviously won’t go according to her plan—but she’s used to that given her experience with her predictably apathetic Pawnee residents.
Once she gets to the island, Leslie will physically push every last grunting Ankylosaurus off that damn island. As per usual, she’d also wrangle Andy Dwyer, while preventing him from playing with actual lava from his sheer boredom and innate curiosity.
9. Cristina Yang (Grey’s Anatomy)
First of all, we all know Cristina would utilize her medical expertise, fundamental scientific know-how, and general screw-it attitude to strategically sabotage Dr. Wu’s DNA-splicing tendencies and prevent at least half of the totally avoidable plot from happening. (You can thank her later, humanity.)
Still, Cristina will dismantle JW‘s problematic system with her usual snark. And, she’ll probably leave an Allosaurus sobbing in her snide aftermath.
10. Sofia (Young & Hungry)
Sofia is a thriving single woman, and if there’s anything we’ve learned from our own life experiences it’s that single women support each other. There are a lot of single dinosaur women on Isla Nublar, minus the newly wedded Sinoceratops and Carnotaurus, obviously. However, the Mosasaurus has been a singleton who’s basically been starving for attention since Jurassic World.
Perpetual singledom might drive the Mosa to a Bumble-obsession, but we all know she’s just looking for a bestie. (After all, she’s confined to that glorified fishbowl with no friends and she desperately needs to vent.)
Being the confident single woman she is, Sofia will effortlessly befriend the Mosasaurus and give her some necessary tips on surviving single life.
11. Lou (Ocean’s 8)
IMO, Cate Blanchett’s Lou’s powerful wardrobe and big BDE would just halt the island’s volcano from erupting in the first place. There’s no other explanation for it other than Lou is just that bish. She’s managed to make every queer woman endlessly dehydrated and rob the Met Gala, so she can do anything.
After all the singlehandedly stopped disaster and doing some leisurely dino-taming, somehow, Lou would still look effortlessly fashionable in her leather pants and a button-up blouse.
Granted, we omitted a lot of our favorite super-powered characters. Seeing as, well, Valkyrie would obviously crawl on back of a Brachiosaurus and drink while she incoherently sobs about her dead girlfriend, and Tandy would cluelessly shoot light daggers from the palm of her hands (and probs accidentally kill a few Stegos in the process)—so their Jurassic-themed story arc seems pretty obvious.
Nevertheless, now we kind of want some crossover films in the future of the Jurassic World franchise. (Don’t @ us, we’re only human.)