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

[phil_]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.

[Magus]

Originally Posted by phil_

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.

[Seil]

There are other dinosaurs, though.

[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.

Originally Posted by Seil

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.

[Viridis]

Originally Posted by tacticslion

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]

Originally Posted by Viridis

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.

[Arhra]

Originally Posted by tacticslion

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.

[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

[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.