8 Star Trek Episodes That PISSED OFF Other Franchises
3. Distant Origin Vs Jurassic Park
Distant Origin is a third-season episode of Star Trek: Voyager that is generally regarded as one of the strongest overall scripts in the show's seven-season run. The plot follows Professor Gegen, a Gallileo-esque academic who is on a quest to prove that his species, the Voth, are descended from mammals on a far-off world. That world happens to be Earth, and while it isn't mammals they are descended from, it is in fact the dinosaurs. Specifically, the Parasaurolophus.
The episode aired on 30 April 1997, four years after the release of Jurassic Park and roughly one month before the release of The Lost World: Jurassic Park. This episode directly contradicts both films, as Janeway and the Doctor categorically state that the hadrosaurs were cold-blooded creatures. The Jurassic Park franchise maintained that they were warm-blooded, which was in keeping with scientific trends that had originated in the seventies, with the discovery of the Deinonychus.
Though there is little evidence that the Jurassic Park franchise was in any way adversely affected by the episode, it was an example of Star Trek seemingly going out of its way to being different from one of the most successful franchises of all time.