.
Yes, it’s true: until now, I had never seen Jurassic Park. Somehow, the combination of later-career Spielberg with later-career Crichton was always a bit too much for me. Then, too, I was afraid that the film’s science might provoke me into one of my Dull Thudding Rants.
Yes. Well.
However, on the bright side…the dinosaurs are frickin’ awesome.
.
#1 by rjschwarz on August 17, 2009 - 9:21 am
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Wonderful review, but you missed one nit that drove me crazy. In his desire to create a technology vs raw nature theme they created the most insanely stupid park design in history. Depending upon electrical fences in a tropical area where storms could knock trees and fences down and force you to recapture your dinosaurs every so often is just stupid?
How about using pits and cement moats the way the San Diego Wild Animal Park (and I presume other major zoos) does. The Tigers were are in a pit (or valley, or whatever) at the Wild Animal Park. Down beneath the guests where they can be seeny. Tigers can climb, but it was still designed so that if the end of the world came, that Tiger wasn’t gonna get out. So they spare no expense building Jurassic Park but chose to create a totally worthless containment system designed for theme, not reality. That requires automation and upkeep. Madness. Spared no expense my but, Hammond should have left his dino experts at their dig and brought in some Zoo keepers or something.
And the real maddening thing is a Jurassic Park without carnivores would still have made a fortune with far less risk. Still I love the movie for all its flaws and anti-science messages.
#2 by Bryant B. on August 17, 2009 - 10:00 am
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Not to be too cute (I hope), but Crichton’s quote about “scientific power” seems far, far more applicable to his OWN profession (or at least, his own practice of it). He admits to only needing enough prep work to give himself the ILLUSION of comprehension, hence, “attaining without discipline”. When an author cheats, lies, and/or falsifies, he gets to call it “dramatic license”. And while there’s plenty of criticism available for authors, at the end of the day the same “dramatic license” card allows him a sleight of hand trick wherein any cheating that gets caught is somehow not to be marked against the worthiness of whatever “important” point he has to make.
(sigh) But the dinosaurs were cool. Damn my inner eight year old …
#3 by Read MacGuirtose on August 17, 2009 - 11:59 am
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YES! Someone else who was bothered by Jurassic Park‘s mutilation of chaos theory. I was reading your review and thinking that, of all the excellent points you raised, you still hadn’t touched on the thing that had annoyed me the most (and had even started composing a reply about it), and then, a little over two thirds of the way into the review, there it was! Yeah, personally, the absurd distortion of chaos theory probably irritated me more than any other inaccuracy in Jurassic Park (the novel more so than the movie, if only because the novel dwelt on it at so much more length), and it’s good to see someone else bring it up—in some of the same words I’ve used, in fact, in that I’ve also accused Crichton of presenting chaos theory as just a restatement of Murphy’s Law (and I agree with you that Jurassic Park, unfortunately, has probably colored the public perception of the theory and led to widespread misapprehension). Okay, granted, I’m not sure it aggravated you quite as much as it did me, but that may be because your background is primarily in biology (whereas mine is in physics and mathematics); it’s still good to know I’m not the only one who was irked by that.
(Also, near the end of the article, your criticism of Michael Crichton’s general anti-science attitude warmed my heart; that’s another thing I had kind of been starting to wonder whether anyone but me had noticed…)
#4 by Blake on August 17, 2009 - 12:48 pm
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I have seen this film in its entirety few times, although I really like it as a movie to see dinosaurs do stuff. I haven’t read the book (and its sequel) since I was a young teenager, so I was clearly not going to catch a lot of the scientific errors. I did notice afterward the bit about the size of the raptor when I got a book about dinosaurs and there was a picture of a velociraptor next to a normal mouse, which really brought it into perspective. Nonetheless, I’m willing to forgive most scientific errors if the film is entertaining.
#5 by Prankster on August 17, 2009 - 2:10 pm
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Yeah, the “scientists are only in it for the money” idea is immediately laughable even to me, who has no firsthand knowledge of the scientific community. Ian Malcolm is apparently Homer Simpson. “Everywhere I look I see teachers driving ferraris! Research scientists drinking champagne!”
I’d LOVE to see you take a chunk out of State of Fear, Lyz, even though I’m sure it would probably lead to you being e-shouted at by a variety of cretins.
#6 by lyzard on August 17, 2009 - 4:46 pm
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rjs – No, I got that one too! 🙂 That was my point about building on a tropical island when tropical storms are a problem.
Bryant – I find that irritating, too, but I don’t really dispute his point about the responsibility that comes with working with living creatures and manipulating their genes. I do dispute his assertion of how seriously that responsibility is taken, though.
Read – I was in exactly in the opposite situation to you: it was obvious to me at first glance what was wrong with the biology, but I had to go and do some reading to make sure what I thought was wrong with his interpretation of chaos theory actually was. Let’s face it, if he’d been serious about that, he would have given us an overtly perfect Jurassic Park, which then went wrong due to unpredictable events. Storms on the equator, people wandering off from the tour and industrial espionage are NOT unpredictable events!
HA!! Yes, exactly!! And on that note, I think Henry Wu should have had a Groundskeeper Willie-like fate: “If I don’t save the wee velociraptors, who will? AAAARRGGHH!!!! Help, save me from the wee velociraptors!” Where was THAT scene, I’d like to know!?
And when someone films State Of Fear, I promise I’ll do a SOF vs The Day After Tomorrow: Battle Of The Giant Crap-Fests! piece. But I’m not touching it until then.
Anyway…the good thing about this review is that now I’ve got all this out of my system, the next time I watch JP I can just relax and unleash my inner eight-year-old.
#7 by DaveCausey on August 17, 2009 - 5:17 pm
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Lyz, another excellent review! I still remember how blown away I was in 1993 by the OMG DINOSAURS, but also even that first viewing I was like: “how the HECK would Alan know the Tyrannosaur could only see movement?” I love “Jurassic Park”, but I certainly see it’s flaws both Spielbergian and Crichtonian.
Taking your points one by one, I can only say that I applaud you for being able to make science understandable to my brain! 🙂 *Not that I’m a dummy, just more of a Humanities student then the sciences* I did always wonder though, say if we could clone a viable Tyrannosaur: could it even breathe in a modern atmosphere? I really don’t know.
And as to Malcolm’s rants: to me, lecturing scientists about their lack of ethics is like the endless carping on the horrors of atomic warfare and Hiroshima. Arrogance and ignorance from the self-appointed cultural leaders.
#8 by supersonic on August 17, 2009 - 5:48 pm
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Jeez Lyz, don’t you ever feel like just once writing a lame review, just to keep it interesting? All this consistent excellence is pretty dull after a while.
One thing that bugs me about Chrichton besides all of the other things already discussed: he loves to always have his fictional organizations automating the fuck out of everything so it no longer needs human hands to work, for no reason. This hasn’t changed much since the Andromeda Strain days. This is helpful plotwise in order to create tense situations where the heroes have to fight their own equipment, but more than half the time, instead of setting it up as some kind of frankensteinian object lesson, Chrichton seems to be drooling over the automation and cyberneticity of everything in the same way we all go OOOOH COOL when we see dinosaurs.
#9 by Blake on August 17, 2009 - 6:09 pm
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I’ve been curious of something that other people have brought up on other forums: If Jurassic Park was one of the biggest box-office hits of all time, why were the majority of the dinosaur films we got in its wake limited to the Carnosaur franchise and DTV CGI-osaur fare? Shouldn’t we have gotten lots of medium-budget attempts to milk the genre for whatever profit was possible?
#10 by B. Wood on August 17, 2009 - 6:48 pm
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One of the Changes that I always noticed from the book, and that tells a lot is that Muldoon and Gennero live through the book. In fact book Gennero is considrably more likable a charecter, and seems to have been changed entirely so we can laugh at the slimeball lawer bieng eaten. As for Muldoon, somewhere, I think it was Jabootu, theoriezed that he was a victim of Speilberg’s current guns bad mentality.
As for why there were no zookeepers brought in, they probably would have taken one look at the parks setup, and ran screaming for a helicoptor.
By the way just putting in herbavores would not have ensured the animals wouldn’t cause casualties. The Hippo causes more human deaths in Africa than any other animal.
#11 by Rjschwarz on August 17, 2009 - 7:14 pm
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Agreed on the hippos, and Cape Buffallo do a lot of damage as well. In zoos it’s elephants crushing zoo keepers but you keep you distance and they will leave you be (and of couse driving to within ten yards of a brachiosaurus that might spook or stumble is just foolish) but the safety issues are far easier to deal with. Than with an animal that might hunt park visitors.
Only total morons would keep breeding raptors after attacks on the fences and the death of a worker. If they gave some thought to properly running the place they could have avoided all the problems they had.
#12 by Read MacGuirtose on August 17, 2009 - 7:33 pm
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I did always wonder though, say if we could clone a viable Tyrannosaur: could it even breathe in a modern atmosphere? I really don’t know.
I’ve read an article in—I think it was either Science or Discover; don’t remember which—that did raise the possibility that dinosaurs might not be able to breathe in the modern atmosphere, which after all has a significantly different composition than the atmosphere in the Mesozoic, but as I recall correctly it was mentioned only as a possibility, not as something that’s known for sure. Still, there is at least the possibility—and I’m actually using that as a minor plot point in a screenplay I’m working on.
As for forgiving scientific errors if the script is entertaining—well, I think a major reason that Crichton’s making hash of chaos theory bothers me so much is because there are so many people who only know about chaos theory at all through Jurassic Park, and therefore assume that his presentation of chaos theory as a high-falutin’ restatement of Murphy’s Law is accurate. In contrast, there are probably a lot fewer people who think that Jurassic Park‘s dinosaur-cloning method would really work—sure, no doubt there are some, but I suspect (though I could be wrong) that there are a lot more people who guess that Crichton fudged some facts there than who realize how badly he misrepresented chaos theory. When a work of fiction leads to widespread real-world misconceptions, I’m a little less inclined to be forgiving of the factual liberties it takes…
#13 by ProfessorKettlewell on August 17, 2009 - 7:52 pm
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Lyz – I wait for your reviews like I used to wait for Christmas Eve. For the record, I think far fewer people are of the “oh just lighten uuuuuup and enjoy it” bent than you think. Give ’em hell.
Reed – spot on about chaos theory. I think it’s because it’s so much easier for lazy writers to glom onto things like the stupid butterfly effect or (my personal bugbear) sqeezing lame ‘philosophy’ out of quantum mechanics than it is for them to work through lots of partial differential equations. I mean, I think calculus is fascinating. Why wouldn’t the average movie-goer 😉
And, I know I’m repeating what others said better, but am I the only one who gets sick of writers constructing ridiculous straw men by having fictional scientists do things that real scientists don’t do, and then using this fictional malfeasance to criticise the ethics of scientists? And is there not a slight pong of moral relativism when scientists are criticised for ‘wanting to control’……by people who write fictional situations populated by characters they invented, whose actions they absolutely control and whom they can abuse and kill at their caprice?
#14 by lyzard on August 17, 2009 - 8:11 pm
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Um. No. 🙂
Read – actually, I find that while most people know we can’t clone dinosaurs, they think that the reason we can’t is that “we don’t have the technology – YET”. They don’t realise that the DNA is the stumbling-block. So that’s another thing Crichton has misinformed people about.
Of course, as far as that mammoth DNA goes… 🙂
Supes – I always thought that it must have drivin MC nuts that all his warnings about being seduced by the coolness of science and technology always ended up looking so, well, cool. (And I’ll try to write a lame review, I promise! Actually, tune in next time; I think you’ll find your requirements met.)
#15 by Read MacGuirtose on August 17, 2009 - 8:15 pm
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Ah, yes, quantum mechanics…few things grate on my nerves as much as people claiming that the quantum mechanical “observer effect” (which, of course, they completely misrepresent) proves the possibility of telekinesis and other paranormal phenomena—I actually once gave a talk on that very subject at the Center for Inquiry.
Oh, and, to go along with the Homer Simpsons quote Prankster included above, there’s a Professor Frink quote I’d meant to include in my previous post and forgot…
#16 by ProfessorKettlewell on August 17, 2009 - 8:44 pm
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“people claiming that the quantum mechanical “observer effect” proves the possibility of telekinesis and other paranormal phenomena”
But then you get to one of my favourite things about People Who Believe In Supernatural Powers: if they can misrepresent Heisenberg, or p/w duality or quantum tunnelling, then they want to be friends with physics because it ‘proves’ their theory. And when their mistake is pointed out, it’s suddenly “ah, but your science cannot prove me wrong!”.
” I always thought that it must have drivin MC nuts that all his warnings about being seduced by the coolness of science and technology always ended up looking so, well, cool.”
Almost everyone I know who works in research or tech was driven into its arms by Dire Warnings of The Consequences of Meddling In God’s Domain…..
#17 by Baron Scarpia on August 18, 2009 - 1:46 am
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Fear not, Lyz. I can say, without a doubt in my mind, that I will _never_ take you to task for keeping your brain switched on whilst watching a film.
(Of course, I myself have suffered the accusation ‘Oh, it’s only a film!!’ as well…)
#18 by The Mud Puppy on August 18, 2009 - 10:34 am
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I find Jurassic Park one of those movies where the special effects look better with age, but the screenplay looks worse.
It was also my first experience with “the book was better” as an excited 9-year old who was blown away by the dinosaurs but pissed at the changes from the book. (incidentally, the whole “scientists are EE-vil” never bothered me because my parents were scietists, so I learned that that was bull from an early age) But even viewed on their own a lot of those changes, as you mentioned, are just plain bad ideas.
Of course, I still stew over the decision to make Dilophosaurus into a pipsqueak. At least when I saw the film i coud pretend it was a juvenile, but all the tie-ins and promotional stuff made it clear that it was they actually gave it a make-over in the same way they did to Velociraptor. It’s a silly thing to be annoyed over, i realize, but Dilophosaurus is my favorite dino.
Of course, when it comes to “the book was better”, Jurassic Park doesn’t hold a candle to its sequel, The Lost World. And considering that that book was written specifically to be made into a movie, that’s a pretty sad statement. (Of course the book also didn’t try to personally offend me by having the T-Rex eat a pit bull) I still remember how delightfully stupid Crichton’s explanation for how Ian Malcolm is now not dead is. It amounts to, essentially, “I was never actually dead, just sort of dead.”
I hope you tear the sequels a new one, too. If you were able to so delightfully point out the flaws of this film, your reviews of the sequels would be positively sublime.
#19 by rjschwarz on August 18, 2009 - 10:39 am
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Speaking of the sequels. I hated number two but found number three enjoyable. I still can’t imagine how anyone would be stupid enough to breed flying dinosaurs expecting to keep them in a cage but clearly the guys that built Jurassic park weren’t the brightest bunch, spending more time on the fancy menu than on thinking through various issues the park might have.
I appreciate a big game hunter and vets on staff but would it have killed them to have had an actual paleontologist there from the very beginning?
#20 by supersonic on August 18, 2009 - 10:47 am
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Well, Crichton in general is like that — dress it all up with the most modern discoveries to hide that his plots are right out of cheap midcentury B movies. Like, when I read Congo my immediate reaction was that I was watching an old Tarzan movie in print form.
Apparently, when the rest of us watched dumb films where the scientist would turn a pretty girl into a giant stomatopod just because that’s what scientists do, the rest of us ignored the negative message about science because we knew it was just a plot excuse — I mean, how else are we going to get a sexy stomatopod — but little Mikey C. was the one who actually took that notion of science to heart on some level.
#21 by The Mud Puppy on August 18, 2009 - 11:01 am
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Yeah, I also oddly enjoyed the third one more than the second, despite its studpidity.
For me the ultimate momewnt of stupidity comes when the Spinosaurus kills the T-Rex in battle, despite earlier having been bitten on its graceful (read: fragile) neck by the T-Rex–an animal known to have one of the most powerful sets of jaws in natural history. It was a really insulting moment.
I mean, I get that they were trying to establish that their newer, bigger dinosaur was more badass than ol’ T-Rex…but it doesn’t work that way. A greyhound is bigger than a Rottweiler, but if the Rottweiler got its jaws on the greyhound’s neck it’d be all over.
(And, uh, please just take my word for that and don’t try it at home. Animal cruelty for the sake of proving a silly movie wrong is not cool)
#22 by rjschwarz on August 18, 2009 - 12:10 pm
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“Apparently, when the rest of us watched dumb films where the scientist would turn a pretty girl into a giant stomatopod just because that’s what scientists do, the rest of us ignored the negative message about science because we knew it was just a plot excuse”
I think the difference is, in the past they were EVIL scientists, or MAD scientists with the presumption they were different than the bulk of scientists in their immoral ways. In recent movies they are often just scientists who, if not actively bad, simply don’t care, or don’t think about how their inventions are used.
#23 by Jen S on August 18, 2009 - 1:04 pm
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Read, for a much better, more accurate and enjoyable use of chaos theory in fiction, check out Bellwether by Connie Willis, one of my favorites. You’ll not only want to read the rest of her stuff, but Far From The Maddening Crowd, Pippa Passes, and more!
#24 by supersonic on August 18, 2009 - 1:30 pm
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Bellwether is a fun book. But so far her other stuff hasn’t done anything for me.
#25 by Chad on August 18, 2009 - 4:10 pm
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Liz,
You’ve inspired me a bit to go ahead and do that “History vs. Hollywood” write-up of Braveheart I’ve been dreading, since it is to me and historians what Jurassic Park – well, actually, probably “State of Fear” – is to you and scientists in general.
Anyway, great review, and I do hope to see you tackle more Michael Crichton adaptations. It’s like he exists just for your site…
#26 by lyzard on August 18, 2009 - 6:32 pm
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Hi, Chad! Oh, yes, please take on Braveheart!. The experience will hurt, I know, but you’ll feel so much better afterwards. 🙂
Pup – You have every right to get upset about Dilophosaurus. And, ah yes, the miraculous resurrection of Ian Malcolm! I guess a solemn, silent shake of the head is Kenyan for, “Oh, he’s fine, and he’ll be up and around any minute now!” (Gosh, you know something? – what with writing The Lost World and bringing back Malcolm, it’s almost as if Michael Crichton were selling out his principles for money!)
#27 by Blake on August 18, 2009 - 7:33 pm
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It’s kind of weird for me whenever people attack the history of Braveheart. I have never seen it myself, but I remember having a Zone Leader on the mission who was a medieval let’s-stage-mock-jousts-and-stuff type and he said that he liked it because it was one of the few films that got it right. So whenever people attack the film, it creates a bit of cognitive dissonance with my original impression of the film.
#28 by B. Wood on August 18, 2009 - 8:11 pm
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Guess no matter how you change things, some stuff still maneges to be accurate. Well we can forgive JP for the T-Rex chasing the jeep, because it wouldn’t have been very exciting if they easily escape from it. Sigh, like Calvin said, it’s much cooler sounding if the T-Rex was a predator that chased down it’s prey rather than a scavenger. Still waiting for someone to do a badass feathered therapod in a movie though.
#29 by Naomi on August 18, 2009 - 9:20 pm
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“Speaking of the sequels. I hated number two but found number three enjoyable. I still can’t imagine how anyone would be stupid enough to breed flying dinosaurs expecting to keep them in a cage but clearly the guys that built Jurassic park weren’t the brightest bunch, spending more time on the fancy menu than on thinking through various issues the park might have.”
In the book, the engineers did realize that captive pterosaurs were unworkable– after they tried to build a water ride through the aviary. The aviary was my favorite part of the book (partly because book-Lex gets clawed and very nearly eaten; but mostly because, OMG, pteranodons!), and there was nothing like it on film until the second sequel– at which point I was no longer eight years old and had a harder time ignoring the plot holes and character flaws.
#30 by Ed on August 19, 2009 - 12:16 am
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Excellent review as always, Lyz. Never considered the sheer impracticality of certain aspects of the park until now. Good stuff. I’d like to see you take on the sequels as well, though the third one at least doesn’t try to be much more than a B grade monster movie.
#31 by Dav on August 19, 2009 - 5:48 am
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Thoroughly entertaining review as usual, but surely it is worth pointing out that this film has one of the worst examples in movie history of “If it isn’t in camera shot, nobody can see it”.
At the climax, the T-Rex enters the frame just as one of the Raptors is making its jump and nobody has even turned their head up to then (not even the Raptors who you would imagine would be attuned to another predator in the area).
A 30 foot dinosaur walked into a room and NOBODY NOTICED!?
#32 by DamonD on August 19, 2009 - 5:53 am
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First time commenting here, but I just had to say a couple things.
Number one, that this was an EXCELLENT review of Jurassic Park. A film I’ve watched and enjoyed a couple times, yet come away feeling slightly pissed off for the cardboard characters and moronic science. As said, when you sit down and think of how this park is laid out it’s unbelievably stupid. Thank you for going into such exact detail on the flaws and not being blind-sided by the positive qualities this film does have as well.
Number two – Braveheart would make an absolutely fantastic, hilarious subject for a historical breakdown.
Best wishes with that, Chad!
#33 by The Mud Puppy on August 19, 2009 - 8:25 am
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Pup – You have every right to get upset about Dilophosaurus.
And if I didn’t already have enough reason to hate The Lost World, they cut out the scene from the book that involved my second favorite dino, Carnotaurus. Not only was that one of the book’s most effective scenes–even if, like Dilophosaurtus‘s venom, I rather doubt Carnotaurus would have had (or needed) the capacity for changing color like a cuttlefish–but they effectively replaced the truly wicked-looking Carnotaurus with a really pathetic Velociraptor cameo.
#34 by Onion on August 19, 2009 - 8:34 am
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I never finished the third film. Once the plot started I told myself, “If that kid’s still alive by the time they get to the island, I’m turning this thing off.” The kid was still alive, so I turned it off. I’m assuming no one of real importance got eaten.
And I know it was silly of me to expect the kid to be dead. I knew there was no way they were going to have the parents discover his half-eaten corpse. But hope springs eternal, I guess…
#35 by The Rev. D.D. on August 19, 2009 - 8:55 am
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Man, what a treat that review was! I always like the ones where Ms. Kingsley can strut her stuff and deconstruct a movie this way, down to the bone. I always learn something new in them. I wish I noticed all the things she did, but I didn’t do too badly, comparatively.
Although she made me do the classic slam-palm-to-forehead-while-muttering-“Why didn’t I think of that??” moment when she brought up parthenogenesis as a viable alternative to their sexual tampering. If I ever make it down your way, you owe me a beer for my sore head. 😉
#36 by MatthewF on August 19, 2009 - 9:35 am
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“Shouldn’t we have gotten lots of medium-budget attempts to milk the genre for whatever profit was possible?”
I think the reason we didn’t was that until recently it was just too expensive to produce even adequate dinosaur effects, considering the expectations of today’s audiences. This didn’t really change until the Walking with Dinosaurs show proved you do it on a TV budget (a big TV budget), which was followed by shows like Primeval, and even that was recently cancelled for cost reasons.
After all, the only properly good thing about JP is that the dinosaurs look real, without that what have you got? I saw it in the cinema twice when it came out, not because it had a good story or good characters but because, by god, it had actual dinosaurs in it. it was the moment you stopped having to forgive special effects.
#37 by DaveCausey on August 19, 2009 - 11:48 am
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Hey Lyz-36 comments and counting as I type this.
I think that’s sufficient evidence that “we likey” when you “get scientific” on a movie, Hun!
🙂
#38 by KeithA on August 19, 2009 - 1:53 pm
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Type your comment here
Some people seem to think that “violent, muddy medieval film = historically accurate.”
As a movie, I think Braveheart is fun. As an amateur historian (with Scottish heritage), it’s beyond inaccurate and wanders well into the territory of “genuinely offensive.” Robert the Bruce leading William Wallace into the trap that got him captured by the Brits? William Wallace in kilt and rags instead of armor this is what he looked like in battle, according to Scotland)? William Wallace not being in his…what was it? Weren’t he and Bruce in their fifties or something at the time of the war? William Wallace as the secret father of Edward II’s son?
If you want to find out how accurate Braveheart is, ask a Scot.
As for JP — I realize that I’ve only seen this movie once, when it first came out. Yet I’ve seen JPIII like ten million times, because it’s on TV at least once a week. It would be an OK dumb adventure film if 85% of it wasn’t comprised of Tea Leone shrieking.
#39 by Rjschwarz on August 19, 2009 - 1:59 pm
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At least they didn’t add witches and wizards to Braveheart. They seem to have trouble making a Robin Hood movie without magic these days.
#40 by lyzard on August 19, 2009 - 4:43 pm
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Wow. How long has this “reviewing a film that other people have actually seen” thing been around, anyway? 🙂
Dav – you’re quite right about the T. rex, obviously. That was one of a handful of issues I thought about raising but didn’t bother going back to, after I got into the science. If they were going to cheat that way, they should at least have had the floor shake, only no-one notices because they’re too intent on the velociraptors. However, I still don’t buy any of the going explanations for how she got into the building; not when the ‘raptors had to duck neatly under the plastic.
I’m staggered that the scientist responsible for everything just walked off the island!!
Guns, of course. That’s an unresolvable problem, really. I don’t think the issue was so much Spielberg’s “guns are bad, m’kay?” stance as the fact that, well, who really wants to see the dinosaurs get shot? (I gather this point reaches a level of ne plus ultra absurdity in The Lost World, yes?)
The overriding issue, though, is that the time-frame of the story (Crichton’s rather than Spielberg’s) is completely wrong. At least movie-Hammond says it took “ten years’ research”; the book has Hammond forming his company in 1985 and the ‘InGen Incident’ occurring in 1989. Four years to find, extract, sequence, reconstitute, implant, develop, hatch and reach maturity? Even ten isn’t possible. By my reckoning, there are dinosaurs in that park that must have been hatched about ten years before the technology for recreating them was available. Impressive.
#41 by supersonic on August 19, 2009 - 4:46 pm
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So Bob-Bruce didnae do that to Wally in real life? Ironically, the oddness of that two-faced version of Robert the Bruce makes it feel to an otherwise uneducated viewer like that must be the one part that’s not Hollywoodized, and therefore must have really happened.
#42 by ProfessorKettlewell on August 19, 2009 - 6:32 pm
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“At least they didn’t add witches and wizards to Braveheart. They seem to have trouble making a Robin Hood movie without magic these days.”
But they don’t seem to have trouble making one without a map. Nottingham is not But A Short Canter from Dover 😉
I think the Robin Hood + Magic can be traced back to the ITV series from the ’80’s, which was pretty innovative at the time.
#43 by Chad on August 19, 2009 - 6:38 pm
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KeithA covered it, but I’ve also found the whole “Wallace Was The Real Father of Edward III” thing stupidly bizarre at best and offensive at worst. Also, besides the whole “Haw haw a homo can’t possibly be the real father of a manly man like Edward III!” subtext, there’s the fact that Edward III also invaded Scotland, so it’s hard to see why it’s supposed to be such a brilliant twist that Wallace fathered the next person to really put Scotland under a boot.
Sadly I can’t even find “Braveheart” fun, for various reasons, but chief among them is that it’s a little disturbing when a film expects me to not only root for but be deeply inspired by the guy who goes about slaughtering unarmed men in their beds.
#44 by Thomas on August 20, 2009 - 3:18 am
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“I never finished the third film. Once the plot started I told myself, “If that kid’s still alive by the time they get to the island, I’m turning this thing off.” The kid was still alive, so I turned it off. I’m assuming no one of real importance got eaten.”
On the one hand, I do agree that there’s something to be said for a film being willing to do horrible things to the innocent. But on the other hand, having the kid survive on his own in a monster-haunted wilderness was probably the best idea the movie had, and they did nothing with it. I would have loved a Jurassic Park film where the human characters really are trapped on the island, and have to try and eke-out some sort of existence Swiss Family Robinson-style. Unfortunately lost world films only occasionally seem interested in what it might be like to actually have to survive in a lost world.
#45 by DamonD on August 20, 2009 - 5:12 am
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Here’s a question – how much do you think the ‘cuddlyfication’ of Hammond was down to ol’ Dickie Attenborough being cast? The script made him a softer character but would a different actor have given it a harder edge even with the same lines? Did Spielberg let Attenborough run with it, or would he have been dead-set on making Hammond more sympathetic regardless of the actor?
#46 by Dav on August 20, 2009 - 6:28 am
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DamonD, having seen Attenborough in Brighton Rock, Seance On A Wet Afternoon and 10 Rillington Place, I know he is perfectly capable of being Book Hammond! I think it was all down to Spielberg and Koepp.
#47 by MatthewF on August 20, 2009 - 7:12 am
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There’s a statue at Stirling Bridge in Scotland of ‘William Wallace’ and it looks like Mel Gibson.
#48 by DaveCausey on August 20, 2009 - 11:43 am
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Sir Richard is scarier as “Big X” in “The Great Escape” then he is as Hammond in JP.
Totally capable of the role, I think we can blame Spielberg for this one.
#49 by Braineater on August 20, 2009 - 11:45 am
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“For the record, I think far fewer people are of the ‘oh just lighten uuuuuup and enjoy it’ bent than you think.”
Not around here, Prof. They couldn’t survive in this atmosphere. But in the wild, they’re far from extinct.
#50 by Braineater on August 20, 2009 - 1:50 pm
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Dav, Dave, Damon et al. — a limerick for you:
How much different would it have been
if a harder-edged Hammond we’d seen?
Sure, the Dickie in “Brighton”
is closer to Crichton,
but Crichton was no Graham Greene.
#51 by Mark on August 20, 2009 - 2:51 pm
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I have absolutely no scientific knowledge whatsoever, so this may be a stupid question, but if you decided to create intelligent life (as in Species or Frankenstein’s daughter), wouldn’t it make more sense to make the subject female?
Just going by homicide rates, aggressive behaviour, etc. it would seem to me that chances are a female subject really would be a better, resp. “safer” choice (of course things might be wholly different if we’re talking about a non-human subject).
#52 by The Mud Puppy on August 20, 2009 - 3:00 pm
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Not really, Mark.
I mean, considering dinosaurs are closely related to birds you’d need to take into account that in several species of bird–raptors (ha!), particularly–the female is larger, more powerful, and sometimes even more aggressive than the male.
Besides, as Lyz suggests, not only might it be easier to guarantee no breeding with males, but in the majority of reptile and bird species, the males are much more colorful and have more impressive crests and plumage. So your specimens would likely be more aesthetically pleasing and dramatic.
#53 by lyzard on August 20, 2009 - 4:52 pm
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OMG – page two!?
Dav – yes, thank you; that would have been my answer. Attenborough was quite capable of playing it either way.
Will – have I told you lately that I love you?? 🙂
Mark – just to add my two cents to MP’s response, it’s a question of divided motivation. In Frankenstein’s Daughter and Species, while it is overtly an issue of behavioural control, it’s really a comment on male/female human relationships and above all a rude joke at the expense of the (male) scientists, who of course are depicted as socially inept and clueless about women; when that line is spoken in Species, Mr Action Man Hero replies, “You guys don’t get out much, do you?”, or words to that effect.
In Jurassic Park, it’s about biological control, first and foremost; they don’t seem to consider the question of behaviour but, as MP points out, females are just as likely to be larger and more aggressive.
#54 by DaveCausey on August 20, 2009 - 5:34 pm
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Awesome limerick, Will! 🙂
I was thinking earlier, if you had InGen’s DNA extraction-and-cloning tech, wouldn’t there be about a billion uses that would be more lucrative then a Dinosaur Theme Park? I:E: organ replacement, limb replacement, blood product, and-since they are eeevil scientists, cloned cybernetic Smilodons and Utahraptors for Weapons Division? ( InGen must have a weapons division!)
#55 by lyzard on August 20, 2009 - 5:50 pm
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Actually, Dave, there’s a beautiful moment in the novel where Crichton shoots himself in the foot by having Hammond explain that he applied his technology to “entertainment” because it wasn’t government-regulated, unlike all the other possible applications. And there was me thinking the scientists were just running wild like the dinosaurs! 🙂
#56 by DaveCausey on August 20, 2009 - 5:57 pm
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Hahaha…………..it’s been too long since I’ve read the novel, Lyz.
Just once, back in 1995. I guess I should give it another look. 🙂
*thanks for fixing my formatting, too* 🙂
#57 by The Mud Puppy on August 20, 2009 - 6:06 pm
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since they are eeevil scientists, cloned cybernetic Smilodons and Utahraptors for Weapons Division? ( InGen must have a weapons division!)
Well, supposedly, had Jurassic Park 4 ever gotten off the ground, it would have centered around the government using Raptor Commandos to fight drug lords.
That’s one of those ideas that’s so ridiculous and stupid that it goes right back around to being awesome.
#58 by DaveCausey on August 20, 2009 - 7:44 pm
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OMG! Raptor Commandos?
Think of the TOYS!
#59 by Braineater on August 21, 2009 - 6:10 am
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Ridiculous and stupid, perhaps. But how much dumber is Raptor Commandos compared to, say, Guinea Pig Commandos? Because in case you hadn’t noticed…
#60 by The Mud Puppy on August 21, 2009 - 6:53 am
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Yes, but unlike Guinea Pig Commandos, Raptor Commandos is so ludicrously silly that it becomes awesome. Guinea Pig Commandos are just silly.
#61 by Braineater on August 21, 2009 - 7:56 am
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That’s my point, Mud Puppy. The stupid cuy* movie got made. Whereas the Raptor Commandos movie remains a tantalizing dream.
cuy (kú-wi) n., from Quechua quwi; Guniea pig, esp. when used as food.
#62 by The Rev. D.D. on August 21, 2009 - 10:04 am
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That sounds more like a plotline for Carnosaur 4. They’ve mostly had commandos fighting raptors…why not make commandos fighting commando raptors?
And, and, the raptor commandos can have specially designed guns so we could have RAPTOR COMMANDOS WITH GUNS!! And grenades! And kung-fu grip!
As Calvin might say, “This is so cool I have to go to the bathroom!”
Or, instead of all that, they could just let me film that DinoRiders film we’ve all been waiting for…
#63 by The Mud Puppy on August 21, 2009 - 11:40 am
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Speaking of raptors, Lyz, I’m surprised you didn’t pick up on one of my bizarre little nitpicks, and that has to do with that still of the empty egg shells with the footprints of the hatchlings next to them.
Ever since i saw the movie (at 9, I remind you) it’s bothered me that the footprints unambiguously identify the eggs as belonging to the Velociraptors. Clearly this is a reference to one the deleted subplots from the book, but it’s impossible in the film.
In the book, there were nine raptors so it’s possible — if unlikely — that a breeding pair could have escaped without the keepers’ noticing. (And given that the park is apparently run by idiots, it’s actually quite probable) But in the film we’re told that the “Big One”, a dominant female, killed all but two of the original nine raptors. Considering that all three are well accounted for throughtout the film and don’t even escape until the protagonists try to reboot the entire system, it’s impossible that any of them could have laid those eggs and tended to them — and we never see any hatchlings tagging along on their kills, either.
Thinking about it now, I find it highly amusing that the original novel ended with the looming threat posed by the fact that, as Grant and Gennaro discuss, several of the wild raptors made it off the island. Yet that comes to absolutely nothing in the second novel. Hmm, could that have anything to do with the fact that the film so unambiguously kills off all its raptors? (One by freezer, two by T-Rex) I mean, surely Crichton wouldn’t have sacrificed his professional standards just for a quick buck that way!
Also, I’ve never been able to figure out which of the film’s raptors is supposed to be the “Big One”. I’m guessing She’s the “Clever girl” who dines on Muldoon, and the one who relentlessly pursues our heroes through the control room — but we’re never really given any scene where we’re able to tell that she’s noticably larger than the other raptors.
Lastly, I hate to keep spoiling the surprises that The Lost world has in store for you, Lyz, but if you thought that the T-Rex side-swiping a moving jeep was unbelievable, I can’t wait to read your reaction at seeing a T-Rex do the exact same thing to a city bus.
#64 by Rjschwarz on August 21, 2009 - 12:55 pm
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I always thought they were Compy eggs.
#65 by The Mud Puppy on August 21, 2009 - 12:59 pm
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I always thought they were Compy eggs.
No, if you look closely you can see the footprints have only two toes, and they look exactly like the raptor footprints we later see in the film after Ellie and Muldoon discover that they’ve broken out.
#66 by lyzard on August 21, 2009 - 3:29 pm
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Yes, they’re definitely meant to be velociraptor tracks. I feel doubly aggrieved, being robbed of a swarm of baby ‘raptors both in the facility and in the wild.
What, not with all the stringent security measures in place, surely? 😀 No, you’re right, that whole subplot is impossible.
I love the novel’s subplot about the velociraptors escaping, which involves a pair of them sitting on the deck of the cargo ship in plain sight.
#67 by B. Wood on August 21, 2009 - 5:29 pm
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I do so hope you do the other two Liz.
#68 by Braineater on August 21, 2009 - 6:32 pm
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… on deck chairs, with zinc oxide smeared on their noses and a cheap paperback in their claws, wondering when the waiter is going to bring them their Mai Tais. Silly raptors — it’s a cargo ship!
Muted trombone: Mwah mwah mwaaaah!
Stay tuned for more of Up Your Raptor, the wacky new comedy series from Micheal Crichton! Only on SyFy!
#69 by lyzard on August 21, 2009 - 8:56 pm
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I’d pay good money to see that.
#70 by Dav on August 22, 2009 - 5:08 am
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Are we sure they could be seen sitting on deck? All the evidence from The Lost World (movie) suggests they are invisible on board ship…..
#71 by The Mud Puppy on August 22, 2009 - 9:18 am
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Well, in the book Tim sees them through his nightvision goggles. From near the T-Rex paddock, I believe.
So, apparently the deckhands on the cargo ship are just really not very perceptive. Of course, it’s rather amusing that the captive raptors attack anybody they see — but the wild-bred raptors seem to have mastered the art of not running around like a rabid dog on PCP.
#72 by DaveCausey on August 28, 2009 - 2:59 am
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Lyz, I just watched “Jurassic Park” again. As always, the dinosaurs give me goosebumps.
But something occurred to me. Ian’s little ethics speech: “Nature SELECTED dinosaurs for extinction,” isn’t that like saying: “Dave, you’ve got several illnesses that, even though they are managed by meds and therapy, PROVE that Nature does not intend for you to survive or reproduce.” In other words-dino dung.
#73 by lyzard on August 28, 2009 - 4:04 am
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Yes, it is fascinating watching the line between “taking action” and “interfering” shift according to the philosophies of the speaker.
I also have to wonder how a proponent of the Michael Crichton school of chaos theory can even talk about “interfering with Nature” and “the natural order”, since presumably there *are* no such things, in a world where everything is random and unpredictable. And if everything’s a crap-shoot, then what does it matter what anyone does?
#74 by DaveCausey on August 28, 2009 - 1:18 pm
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LOL. Indeed. Isn’t “Nature” just the flapping of a Butterfly’s wings, or a broken toaster that can send me back in Time? Same-same, right?
Oh, one more criticism: when Alan and Ellie are trying to hold the door against the Raptors, and Lex is rebooting the computer, why in the name of all that is reasonable doesn’t Timmy hand the shotgun to an adult? Oh, that’s right. Spielberg.
#75 by ProfessorKettlewell on August 30, 2009 - 7:10 pm
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All that Nature-As-Agency stuff is creepy…..it’s about a step away from Intelligent Design.