Jurassic Park Functions On One Principal - "Dinosaurs Are Totally Rad"

[Seil]

Also, Jeff Goldblum is too, but then again everyone knew that. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=878A6J2vbLA)

Apparently Weird Al Thinks So Too! (http://www.rifftrax.com/rifftrax/jurassic-park)

[Magus]

If Jurassic Park functions on one prinicipal, that dinosaurs are totally rad.

And yet Jeff Goldblum is also totally rad and appears to be a large contributor to the success of Jurassic Park...

Logically, this means Jeff Goldblum...is a dinosaur.

DUN
DUN
DUNNNNNNNNNNNN

[greed]

Nah he's not a dinosaur. He's one of the strongest cards in duel monsters.

Richard Attenborough was good too, perfect choice for his part. Dude actually looks like my zoology professor.

[Amake]

One thing I like about JP is that scene where the girl almost gets her leg eaten by a raptor before pulling it up through the hole in the ceiling. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. When I saw it in the theater, every damn last audience member pulled their leg up in synch. Me too.

Did anyone else experience this?

[Magus]

Yeah, I think I did the first time. Or at least I have done that with other movies (moved to the side slightly to dodge something that was on the screen without thinking about it, that sort of thing), so it is at least something I can see myself doing fairly easily.

[Archbio]

To get a good feel of how awesome Jurassic Park is, just visualize that scene in Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong where a really ugly T-Rex-like dinosaur monster chases the heroine for at least five solid minutes while it's still holding a much larger prey in its jaw.

Now, try and imagine a dinosaur in Jurassic Park doing something that absurd.

[Osterbaum]

Any specific reason why we're discussing Jurassic Park several years afther the latest movie?

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Any specific reason why we're discussing Jurassic Park several years afther the latest movie?

Because Dinosaurs are Totally Rad. I thought the title explained it all.

[Seil]

I've watched the movie recently, and this scene in particular stuck out. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSe10VOFh78) Great cinematography, right amount of goofiness and a T-Rex is about as good as a giant ape. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N66VF9jrgUs)

Plus, what other mainstream flick will let us talk about Goldbloom in such detail? Independence Day? Pffft.

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

Any specific reason why we're discussing Jurassic Park several years afther the latest movie?

Its a Seil thread.

[Osterbaum]

Indeed, how stupid of me.

[Julford Hajime]

Its a Seil thread.
[OFFTOPIC-ISH]Oh man Mac you have like perfect timing with the universe. I'm sitting here playing a game and just hit a cutscene, so I start browsing the forums. Here's the dialogue I'm at just as I open this page:

"It's gross, isn't it? It's disgusting, isn't it? It's..."
Its a Seil thread.
Just thought I should share this.

[Kim]

There is such a thing as beating a dead horse. I mean, I'm all for picking on members from time to time, but it looks like every time I go into a thread Seil has posted in someone has to go out of their way to talk shit on him. It has ceased being funny, and is now just as groan-worthy as you guys claim Seil's posts are. C'mon, give the guy a break.

On-topic: Jurassic Park was pretty fun. I actually read the book several years after watching the movie, and haven't watched the movie since, so it's the book that stands out in my mind most whenever people mention it.

[Aerozord]

To get a good feel of how awesome Jurassic Park is, just visualize that scene in Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong where a really ugly T-Rex-like dinosaur monster chases the heroine for at least five solid minutes while it's still holding a much larger prey in its jaw.

Now, try and imagine a dinosaur in Jurassic Park doing something that absurd.

they basically do, a T-Rex wouldn't chase down a human that persistantly. It burned off any energy it would get from the human just trying to catch it. This is Jurassic Park, not like there aren't better options. It shouldn't even bother with a human

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Humans taste better.

[Magus]

On-topic: Jurassic Park was pretty fun. I actually read the book several years after watching the movie, and haven't watched the movie since, so it's the book that stands out in my mind most whenever people mention it.

The book was simply better. For one thing the park warden guy (the Australian guy in the movie who dies easily) gets out what is basically a small rocket launcher that launches shells that blow velociraptors apart, instead of a pussy rifle. There were dozens of scenes like that that they left out of the movie that were totally awesome.

[Archbio]

they basically do, a T-Rex wouldn't chase down a human that persistantly. It burned off any energy it would get from the human just trying to catch it. This is Jurassic Park, not like there aren't better options. It shouldn't even bother with a human

I'm not sure about that last thing, but granting the fact that the T-Rex was awfully persistant, it's still several degrees off from the Skull Island version. It's going through an arduous chase, with food already in its mouth and with no way to actually catch the human if it manages to corner it, since its mouth is occupied and its arms are extremely puny. The T-Rex in Jurassic Park still has a motive besides random monster mayhem.

Jurassic Park's T-Rex: somewhat unrealistic.
Skull Island's: totally absurd.

[Osterbaum]

There is such a thing as beating a dead horse. I mean, I'm all for picking on members from time to time, but it looks like every time I go into a thread Seil has posted in someone has to go out of their way to talk shit on him. It has ceased being funny, and is now just as groan-worthy as you guys claim Seil's posts are. C'mon, give the guy a break.
My original post was, at heart, a genuine inquiry as to 'why Jurassic Park' all of a sudden. But you're right. Sorry Seil, if you took offense.

On topic, I'm actually interested in what people think of all the three movies. First one was obviosly the best, and it seems that most here liked the second one aswell. How about the third one?

[Seil]

I liked the second the best, what with all the "You did it... again? You remember what happened last time, right? Spitty dinosaur kills Newman, hell breaks loose and kid gets electrocuted? Yeah." As well as for the T-Rex scene.

I am kinda peeved that they wnet with velociraptors throughout the series though. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAIvYPvrSEw) For the big dinosaur, they had the T-Rex. For the sort of comical kill, they had the compies. But they stuck with velociraptors throughout the films as the primary antagonists.

[Magus]

Probably because they're vicious, speedy, highly-skilled pack hunters that may have even killed for sport? They're like wolves but six-foot tall dinosaurs that can leap on you and slice you open with talons. They make a better antagonist than a t-rex because of their size. The t-rex achieves one type of fear through being huge and overwhelming, but it's not the same kind of fear that the velociraptors achieve through their speediness and guile. It's kind of like the kind of fear you feel for a protagonist in an action movie versus the fear you feel for a protagonist in a horror or thriller movie.

[Seil]

There are other dinosaurs, though.

[phil_]

Probably because they're vicious, speedy, highly-skilled pack hunters that may have even killed for sport? They're like wolves but six-foot tall dinosaurs that can leap on you and slice you open with talons. They make a better antagonist than a t-rex because of their size. The t-rex achieves one type of fear through being huge and overwhelming, but it's not the same kind of fear that the velociraptors achieve through their speediness and guile. It's kind of like the kind of fear you feel for a protagonist in an action movie versus the fear you feel for a protagonist in a horror or thriller movie.Except velociraptors are a foot-and-a-half tall.

I mean, yeah, the book goes to greater lengths to emphasize the "they aren't really dinosaurs, more like amusement park monsters" angle, but that just strengthens Seil's case. If we have six foot tall velociraptors, where are my carnivorous pachycephalosauruses? Where are my wiry, speed-form stegosauruses? If we're just making stuff up, let's make up a lot of stuff. Like Chaos Effect, except less dayglo.

[tacticslion]

On T-Rexes: they're always portrayed really poorly, compared to their "real-life" elements. I mean, really, anytime you see a T-Rex fighting for any reason other than self-defense or absolute starvation, it's bonkers. They were scavengers, whose teeth would be ripped out if they were actually trying to bite a fellow dinosaur (or anything even remotely as large as they were) into submission/death.

Fun Bonus: as an interesting side note, it seems that T-Rex's shouldn't really have ever lived, either, since their rib cage appears too small to hold lungs that could have supported it's massive body-size/weight.

There are other dinosaurs, though.

True, true, but we don't get to "know" those dinosaurs in the first movie, and so they continued with the "antagonists" the audience could "identify" with, being "familiar" as they are.

NINJA-almost-edit (Re: to phil_):

As far as "monsters" v. "dinosaurs" go... yeah, but they're working with a limited time frame and limited budget (large as it may have been). Really, this is the reason they cut stuff from the movie that would have been "awesome" - they simply didn't have the time or money, and probably not even the writing talent to pull it off. These aren't indictments against the movie writers, simply that books have a nearly infinite amount of time compared to movies, and can simply do things easier. They weren't going for an action-adventure movie so the rocket launcher went "bye-bye", cool as it would have been. If they'd tried making all the "cool" elements of the book into a movie, the movie would probably have reviews such as "it sucks" and "it doesn't know what it wants to be" and "their budget was spread too thin". I'm aware that there are ways around each of these, but it's very, very difficult to do. I really think they made the movie (relative to the book(s)) as good as they could make it.

All that said: the book's better. Because it's a book. The movie's great, though.

[Aerozord]

while I am aware of how realistic they are, I never pay too much attention to it. I mean the movie is called Jurassic Park, and not a single animal in the movie lived during that time period

[Magus]

Except velociraptors are a foot-and-a-half tall.

I mean, yeah, the book goes to greater lengths to emphasize the "they aren't really dinosaurs, more like amusement park monsters" angle, but that just strengthens Seil's case. If we have six foot tall velociraptors, where are my carnivorous pachycephalosauruses? Where are my wiry, speed-form stegosauruses? If we're just making stuff up, let's make up a lot of stuff. Like Chaos Effect, except less dayglo.

Well, the velociraptor thing was a mistake either on the part of the creator's of the films or what velociraptor's are supposed to be like has been updated since the '90s (I'm guessing the former since otherwise it would be a fairly obvious lapse in logic), and apparently the raptors in Jurassic Park III are the actual dinosaur that they were going for, which is why they have the feathers. I don't think the intent of the movie was to make them mutant monsters, they were supposed to be just like the real dinosaurs in what they looked like, but they made a mistake on the name of the dinosaur and part of the design.

And yeah the book says they made the dinosaurs using a combined frog DNA thingamajig but they never said they weren't supposed to be as close to the real thing as possible. As far as Michael Crichton was concerned, velociraptors were six feet tall. Crichton was wrong, apparently, but the intention was to use real cloned dinosaurs in the story. That's why they didn't make up "cooler" ones on purpose. The character of Grant wasn't interested in seeing made-up monsters, he wanted to study real living dinosaurs. Eventually they find out they are in error as far as the frog DNA causing males to be born even though they were specifically designed to only be female, but as far as Grant was concerned up til that point he was seeing real dinosaurs acting as close to like real dinosaurs as was possible. The discrepancy isn't within the story but in the facts Crichton used for the story and some of the design elements of the dinosaurs.

[phil_]

Maybe Utahraptor just wasn't as cool a name as Velociraptor? It's certainly easier to spell, and we all know that in sci-fi and fantasy hard to spell = cool.

[Magus]

Actually, it's been a while since I saw the movie, did Grant call them just "raptors" in general or did he call them velociraptors a few times?

This is probably also due to the average person not knowing the difference, though I guess Crichton should certainly have known. It's been a while since I read the book and while he had the characters say just "raptor" a few times I'm pretty sure he said they were velociraptors, in which case he is wrong, of course.

[Seil]

I think they said raptors. (http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=xyFVhkIqvQA&feature=related) Though there is one scene in which he explains it all to the kid, lemme see if I can find it. Here it is, I think. (http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=sNQLcYGH4n4&feature=related)

[Viridis]

Fun Bonus: as an interesting side note, it seems that T-Rex's shouldn't really have ever lived, either, since their rib cage appears too small to hold lungs that could have supported it's massive body-size/weight.Is this accounting for the increased oxygen in the atmosphere in the past?

Are you saying "It shouldn't have ever been able to survive" or "It shouldn't have been able to survive in the present once cloned"?

[tacticslion]

Is this accounting for the increased oxygen in the atmosphere in the past?

Are you saying "It shouldn't have ever been able to survive" or "It shouldn't have been able to survive in the present once cloned"?

The latter. Although, I'm curious as to how we should have had more oxygen in the past. I've read many theories and debates in the past, but this really isn't the place for that subject.

[Seil]

A big part of the movie is frogs. They made the dinosaurs all female, to stop them from breeding. In order to create the dinosaurs, they were spliced with frog DNA, which created a problem. Some species of frogs can switch their genders when they need to.

In Jurassic Park, located on Isla Nublar, an island approximately 120 miles west of Costa Rica, an employee for the genetic engineering company InGen is attacked and killed while placing a Velociraptor into a specially built enclosure, prompting a lawsuit from his family. CEO John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) is pressured by his investors to allow a safety inspection by experts before opening the park. He invites paleontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill), paleobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), chaos theorist Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), and his investors' attorney Donald Gennaro (Martin Ferrero) to perform the inspection. The group meets a Brachiosaurus when they set off into the park. At the park, they learn that InGen created the dinosaurs by cloning genetic material found in mosquitoes that fed on dinosaur blood, preserved in Dominican amber. The DNA from these samples was spliced with DNA from frogs to fill in sequence gaps. Only female dinosaurs are created to prevent uncontrolled breeding within the park. The team is also shown the enclosure of the Velociraptor, dubbed "raptors", extremely intelligent, aggressive and ferocious predators.

A look at all the dinosaurs. (http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=b1y1wlpJr30&feature=related)

A look at all the deaths. (http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=mvRxZnZsrpc&feature=related)

[Arhra]

The latter. Although, I'm curious as to how we should have had more oxygen in the past. I've read many theories and debates in the past, but this really isn't the place for that subject.
There are things called plants that can make oxygen.

I'd been wondering if yet another sequel had been announced when I saw this thread.

First one's still the best as far as I'm concerned.

[tacticslion]

There are things called plants that can make oxygen.

I'd been wondering if yet another sequel had been announced when I saw this thread.

First one's still the best as far as I'm concerned.

Problem: earth's gravitational pull isn't strong enough to maintain the presumed required level/desnity of oxygen. Our atmosphere isn't getting any thicker, you know! I understand the theory, I really do. In olden times, there were more plants, they make more oxygen, yay for plants, we don't use them anymore. Oddly, however, our atmosphere - held to the planet by gravity, like most things - isn't heavy enough to make that kind of density happen. We'd need something else to keep it here i.e. a planet with higher density or a "barrier" of some kind. Only the latter of the two holds any water, pardon the pun (how would our planet simply lose density?), but we don't have sufficient proof that a barrier like that ever existed. Further, if it did, we'd have a heavily different view of our planetary evolutionary history - it would change everything we think we know about how our planet formed. What would even cause that to go away? When? How would that have affected our mammalian evolution? I'm not saying "science sucks", unlike Smarty did recently - I'm saying we've got some unanswered and currently unanswerable questions. I'm also not claiming that T-Rex's never existed - that would be stupid. I'm just saying we don't know enough about the environment they lived in to presume what we think we know about them.

All that aside, I liked the Jurassic Park series. The first was the first time I'd ever seen a PG-13 movie. It was in Picadilly Square - the theater there - and I loved every moment of it. My parents were worried I'd have nightmares. Man, were they wrong! I started studying science shortly thereafter. The others just can't beat that experience. Also, they weren't quite as tightly written scripts. Still good, though.

[Viridis]

Problem: earth's gravitational pull isn't strong enough to maintain the presumed required level/desnity of oxygen. Our atmosphere isn't getting any thicker, you know! I understand the theory, I really do. In olden times, there were more plants, they make more oxygen, yay for plants, we don't use them anymore. Oddly, however, our atmosphere - held to the planet by gravity, like most things - isn't heavy enough to make that kind of density happen. We'd need something else to keep it here i.e. a planet with higher density or a "barrier" of some kind. Only the latter of the two holds any water, pardon the pun (how would our planet simply lose density?), but we don't have sufficient proof that a barrier like that ever existed. Further, if it did, we'd have a heavily different view of our planetary evolutionary history - it would change everything we think we know about how our planet formed. What would even cause that to go away? When? How would that have affected our mammalian evolution? I'm not saying "science sucks", unlike Smarty did recently - I'm saying we've got some unanswered and currently unanswerable questions. I'm also not claiming that T-Rex's never existed - that would be stupid. I'm just saying we don't know enough about the environment they lived in to presume what we think we know about them.I don't believe that the theory is that the atmosphere was thicker, simply that there was more oxygen in it (with less of other gases) when compared to the present.

[Aerozord]

Amazing how talk got from, Dinosaurs are Rad, to this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7zo2zY1Zqg)

[tacticslion]

I don't believe that the theory is that the atmosphere was thicker, simply that there was more oxygen in it (with less of other gases) when compared to the present.

First: I'm thinking this being abour Jurassic Park we should focus more on that, maybe move this to another thread if we continue. Second: yes but why are there more of the other gases now? At what point did they simply appear in greater quantity in our atmosphere? The largest amount of our atmosphere is a stable gas that doesn't interact with the plant/animal oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange. Was it simply underground (gasses do that, after all)? Well, that's a very large amount of it. Further, why would there be nearly so many plants in a super-heavy oxygen-rich environment? They'd starve. Only higher densities can explain both a heavier concentration of oxygen and carbon while allowing for argon and nitrogen to be in similar concentrations in the atmosphere. Again, I'm not making the argument "it had to be this way", I'm just saying that these are logical and logistical problems for the current models that we don't have proof or an answer for.

Edit: ninja'd by Aerozord