Jurassic World

[tgreco]

The brachiosaur and triceratops thing was all Spielberg, I haven't read the book in good long while but I don't recall anything in the book that said that brachiosaurs could chew while triceratops couldn't. It's kind of surprising that they'd make such a basic mistake considering that Horner was their consultant, that's the sort of mistake that not even an amateur dinosaur enthusiast would make. I wonder if that was something that was pointed out by Horner but it was either too late to change the script or he was simply overruled on.

well, the gastroliths are indicative of a dinosaur or reptile or bird that needs to be able to grind up food internally.... so Crichton having the Triceratops getting sick from the West Indian Lilac when replenishing gastroliths was completely wrong.

and the Brachiosaur is chewing when it's eating in the film, when Grant and the kids are in the tree, before it sneezes

and as for the Utahraptor... why not just make it a Deinonychus, a very close relative, that was the correct size.... I'll bet it was just because they like the sound of the name Velociraptor more.

I understand creative license, but when they claim the attempt is to show them true to life... and they make so many mistakes. It's just maddening that they wanted to change the public perception of dinosaurs, but couldn't be bothered to fact check.

 

[Riceball]

well, the gastroliths are indicative of a dinosaur or reptile or bird that needs to be able to grind up food internally.... so Crichton having the Triceratops getting sick from the West Indian Lilac was completely wrong.

and the Brachiosaur is chewing when it's eating in the film, when Grant and the kids are in the tree, before it sneezes

My point was that those things weren't necessarily the fault of Crichton's, I don't remember whether gastroliths were specifically mentioned in the original novel but I'm fairly certain that there was no mention of the brachiosaurs chewing in the JP novel. Regardless, those things really should have been caught and corrected by Horner since he was acting as the consultant to the production.

 

[tgreco]

Crichton did mention the gastroliths in the novel

the Brach chewing was all Speilburg

 

[Riceball]

Yes, I meant Paleontologist, I frequently get the two mixed up. The need to explain what their job is wasn't necessary.

Didn't they have it in one of the books where dinosaurs had in fact escaped the island and were attacking children in their beds/cribs?

Sorry, no offense intended; I really didn't know that you actually knew the difference.

To answer your question, I do recall something in the books, either JP or the Lost World, about some dinos having escaped and, in some cases, attacking children in bed. I'm pretty certain that no specific species was named but it was suggested that it was one of the smaller theropod species like the compies or maybe a slightly larger one (don't recall what other small, carnivorous theropods were mentioned) but still smaller than the raptors although I think in the book the raptors were described at their true size.

 

[Westies14]

I'm surprised so many people were able to get through that book! I've picked it up a handful of times to attempt it - I'm a huge fan of the film and dinosaurs in general - but for me, it's unreadable. The concept is tremendous, but it's so poorly written. There are errors constantly that any junior editor should have caught (from simple typos to grammatical issues to things like tenses changing back and forth within a paragraph). Perhaps worst of all, the characters seem willfully ignorant to what's going on around them. There's something to be said for the reader knowing something a character doesn't to create suspense, but once it's plainly revealed to that character (often an expert character, no less) the character ought to catch on. It's just so damn distracting that I can't enjoy the story. I don't think I've ever made it even halfway through!

That character issue is one of my major beefs with the second movie as well. Julianne Moore is supposed to be at the top of her field, and in every other sentence she acts like it. "We're not supposed to interfere - we need to keep our distance" and all that. In the next scene, she's petting a baby stegosaurus or marching through the dinosaur wilderness in clothes soaked with baby T-Rex blood. :facepalm It's no fun witnessing "experts" that seem to understand less than the audience!

 

[Westies14]

Sorry, no offense intended; I really didn't know that you actually knew the difference.

To answer your question, I do recall something in the books, either JP or the Lost World, about some dinos having escaped and, in some cases, attacking children in bed. I'm pretty certain that no specific species was named but it was suggested that it was one of the smaller theropod species like the compies or maybe a slightly larger one (don't recall what other small, carnivorous theropods were mentioned) but still smaller than the raptors although I think in the book the raptors were described at their true size.

This part I know, because it's the part I've read ten times! The compies did attack a baby in the beginning of that horrible first book. They'd gotten off the island and everyone refused to believe it as the evidence piled higher and higher.

 

[Lynn TXP 0369]

Not much to throw in the conversation.
But this You tube of JP mistakes is pretty good.
Jurassic Park Movie Mistakes - Part 1 - YouTube
I love the open/closed rover door part, I never noticed that.
Lynn

 

[rodneyfaile]

I love the phrase "just because you can, doesn't mean you should". I like the sentiment behind it and use it often.

But lets be honest, if we get the chance to bring back dinos, I'm all about it!

 

[TheDoctor]

I'm surprised so many people were able to get through that book! I've picked it up a handful of times to attempt it - I'm a huge fan of the film and dinosaurs in general - but for me, it's unreadable. The concept is tremendous, but it's so poorly written. There are errors constantly that any junior editor should have caught (from simple typos to grammatical issues to things like tenses changing back and forth within a paragraph). Perhaps worst of all, the characters seem willfully ignorant to what's going on around them. There's something to be said for the reader knowing something a character doesn't to create suspense, but once it's plainly revealed to that character (often an expert character, no less) the character ought to catch on. It's just so damn distracting that I can't enjoy the story. I don't think I've ever made it even halfway through!

That character issue is one of my major beefs with the second movie as well. Julianne Moore is supposed to be at the top of her field, and in every other sentence she acts like it. "We're not supposed to interfere - we need to keep our distance" and all that. In the next scene, she's petting a baby stegosaurus or marching through the dinosaur wilderness in clothes soaked with baby T-Rex blood. :facepalm It's no fun witnessing "experts" that seem to understand less than the audience!

I assume you're talking about "The Lost World" and not the original "Jurassic Park". The second book wasn't nearly as good as the first book, but I would say it's pretty far from "unreadable" - in my opinion. Everybody has their books they just can't stomach... Mine is "The DaVinci Code" (ancient secrets, puzzles, albino monk assassins... What can possibly go wrong? Oh... The writing....).

 

[Westies14]

No, I've never bothered trying the second. I can't get past the writing of the first half of the first.

 

[Riceball]

No, I've never bothered trying the second. I can't get past the writing of the first half of the first.

You sure you're not confusing The Lost World with Jurassic Park? Julianne Moore's character was in The Lost World, not Jurassic Park.

I agree with The Doctor though, The Lost World was nowhere near as good as Jurassic Park was. To me it felt like TLW was written purely to capitalize on the new found popularity of JP after the movie came out, it was like he was thinking that they'd want a sequel so might as well hurry and write a sequel novel for them to base a sequel movie on and collect a nice paycheck along the way.

 

[Scareb]

Actually that beginning from the first book could make for a great type of film. It could be a small coastal village or even a larger town in the vicinity of Isla Nublar that has had reports of numerous attacks on villagers (I doubt they'd keep the baby attacks) and people are claiming to see large lizards attacking people. The attacks are few and far between but there are lots of missing pets, livestock, etc.

They get a sample like in the book, send it away and they discover its one of the Dino's from Hammond's park. Cue Tim the PALEONTOLOGIST who's services are requested to help identify and capture the Dino's. They could have it that entrepreneurial locals have been capturing the Dino's because they fetch a very pretty penny.

The only thing I can't see them getting is the large Dino's. One of the guys on IGN made a good point of having aquatic dinosaurs show up in the film which would be cool but I don't remember any on INGEN's list.

 

[Crank729]

I love the books! The second wasn't fantastic but I still enjoyed it. I read both of them about once every two years.

 

[Kohrsfilms]

I always thought the reason they ommitted the Dilophosaurus was because of the incredible liberties they took with it

it should have been about 20 feet long, the frill was completely made up, as was the spitting venom stuff. It's an incredible looking dino on it's own right, why they chose to do to it what they did, was always something that stuck in my craw

If I remember correctly the venom spitting was in the book. Can't remember if the frill was or not. It's been years since I last read it.

But I always liked the fictional elements of Dilophosaurus. It made sense to me that the genes for stuff like that would be present in the DNA but not necessarily in the fossil record. So they would have had no idea until they cloned one. The venom could have even been junk that was present in the strains of frog DNA. So within the context of the movie it makes sense.

I've never really liked that with each movie they change the dinos to make them more scientifically accurate. The dinosaurs are products of genetic experimentation and gene-splicing so it would make sense if they were not 100% accurate. They just needed to look good for visiting park guests.

 

[Westies14]

You sure you're not confusing The Lost World with Jurassic Park? Julianne Moore's character was in The Lost World, not Jurassic Park.

I agree with The Doctor though, The Lost World was nowhere near as good as Jurassic Park was. To me it felt like TLW was written purely to capitalize on the new found popularity of JP after the movie came out, it was like he was thinking that they'd want a sequel so might as well hurry and write a sequel novel for them to base a sequel movie on and collect a nice paycheck along the way.

Haha yes, I'm sure - I was just comparing the qualities of the characters. "Expert," but dumb. The issue bothers me in the first book as well as the second movie. Waaay too far into the book, with way too much evidence that Dinos had escaped the park and were attacking, people were saying "naaaah, it's not the dinosaurs!" That's on top of the tense shifts back and forth ("he went up the hill and then he comes back down") and grammatical errors, run on sentences and simple typos. Try reading it out loud (my wife and I did this) and see how many times you have to stop mid-sentence and go back to correct something.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Actually that beginning from the first book could make for a great type of film. It could be a small coastal village or even a larger town in the vicinity of Isla Nublar that has had reports of numerous attacks on villagers (I doubt they'd keep the baby attacks) and people are claiming to see large lizards attacking people. The attacks are few and far between but there are lots of missing pets, livestock, etc.

They get a sample like in the book, send it away and they discover its one of the Dino's from Hammond's park. Cue Tim the PALEONTOLOGIST who's services are requested to help identify and capture the Dino's. They could have it that entrepreneurial locals have been capturing the Dino's because they fetch a very pretty penny.

The only thing I can't see them getting is the large Dino's. One of the guys on IGN made a good point of having aquatic dinosaurs show up in the film which would be cool but I don't remember any on INGEN's list.

I like that idea. Much of the beginning of the book is really interesting with the escaped dinos. And would fit nicely as a sequel. And have the local governments act like Australia and issue kill orders and the population wanting to go to the island and kill everything, because they are fed up with the protection laws.

And bringing back Tim would be a good idea.

If I remember correctly the venom spitting was in the book. Can't remember if the frill was or not. It's been years since I last read it.

But I always liked the fictional elements of Dilophosaurus. It made sense to me that the genes for stuff like that would be present in the DNA but not necessarily in the fossil record. So they would have had no idea until they cloned one. The venom could have even been junk that was present in the strains of frog DNA. So within the context of the movie it makes sense.

I've never really liked that with each movie they change the dinos to make them more scientifically accurate. The dinosaurs are products of genetic experimentation and gene-splicing so it would make sense if they were not 100% accurate. They just needed to look good for visiting park guests.

How I remember it in the book the venom was more like that seen in Komodo Dragons - venomous if biting you. Not spitting. Could be mistaken.

And yes... no need to change the dinos to make the more accurate to science - they are not real dinos, they are cloned genetically engineered creatures.

 

[Riceball]

They also need to stop with making the raptors smarter and smarter, yes we know that they're supposed to be some of smartest dinos in the park but that doesn't mean they're super intelligent. Actually, this is the problem with a lot of movies when they try to portray super smart animals, I don't care how smart an animal is supposed to be, there's just not way that they'd be able understand anything that's completely out of their experience. It's saying that just because someone has an extremely high IQ can automatically understand quantum physics the very first time they lay eyes on it without even knowing what it quantum physics and never having even learned physics 101.

 

[MooMooEgg]

They also need to stop with making the raptors smarter and smarter, yes we know that they're supposed to be some of smartest dinos in the park but that doesn't mean they're super intelligent. Actually, this is the problem with a lot of movies when they try to portray super smart animals, I don't care how smart an animal is supposed to be, there's just not way that they'd be able understand anything that's completely out of their experience. It's saying that just because someone has an extremely high IQ can automatically understand quantum physics the very first time they lay eyes on it without even knowing what it quantum physics and never having even learned physics 101.

I agree. I liked the intelligence level of the raptors in the first film. They were poking and prodding at things, and you could feel that they were experimenting and trying to understand their new environment (some of the time... The kitchen scene with Lex and Tim is the best example, which is probably why it's so memorable)

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Exactly. Those were smart animals.

 

[Westies14]

Agreed! I thought they were gonna negotiate a treaty by the end of the third one!