This point was also made in the movie. Totally irrelevant to the plot, as it turned out – but it’s there.
Speaking of irrelevant plot points, in the book Crichton makes a big deal out of a computer bug: the system counts the number of dinos by species, but stops counting when it reaches the expected value. When somebody bumps up the end value of the loop control statement, gasp! number of dinos reported has increased. Fascinating – especially if you’re a computer programmer – but Crichton doesn’t do much with it.
I would like to give a shoutout to the best film in the JR series: Jurassic Park 3.
Why is it the best?[ul]
[li]The story is more economical. In the first two, it’s not enough to have dinosaurs–we also need gratuitously evil & greedy characters. Not only does this distract from the dinosaur spectacle, but it invites numerous plot contrivances because you have the baddies doing something malicious, negligent, or just plain stupid–usually in a way that involves poor motivation or characterization. Having evil characters also gives the “good” characters unfortunate opportunities to moralize about blah blah blah who cares. [/li]
In 3, you have a simple plot–get off the island in one piece. There are no real bad guys (though the Favreau character comes closest), so the story is more linear and primal. For pete’s sake, you’ve got dinosaurs! What more do you need? Also, when you’re no longer striving to make a “statement”, you have more opportunities to be funny and/or scary. I think JP3 is the most naturally funny of the three (and not just jokey jokey) and just as scary as the others.
[li]The acting is the best of the three. Of the original main characters, I think Sam Neill was easily much more believable than Dern or Goldblum, so cutting those two loose (except for one harmless Dern scene) and focusing on him is the best bet. We also have the best actor in the entire series in 3: William H. Macy. And we are largely free of casting choices by good actors in worthless parts (Sam Jackson, Julianne Moore, Vince Vaughn). Plus, 3 gives the least time to that hambone Attenborough, and allows time for the best character actor in the series: Michael Jeter.[/li]
In all fairness, Tea Leoni grates a bit, but at least her character does what most people in her shoes would: she freaks out (which I find preferable to the self-seriousness of Dern’s and Moore’s portrayal).
[li]No annoying kids. In 3, there is one kid, and he is resourceful without being precocious, he is natural without being showy and offputting, and the film doesn’t pander to kids the way the first two do (“Hey let’s make her a computer genius! Or a talented gymnist! Or a know-it-all panicky geek!”)[/li][li]The dinosaurs are no worse than the other two. No doubt, the technological marvel and novelty of the first one’s worn off. But still, you have enough new species and setpieces to make the film engaging, and you have more time for them since the film isn’t laboring over exposition or preaching on soapboxes or constantly returning to Mission Control. And the raptors are scarier than 2.[/li][/ul]
Now, is Joe Johnston, generally speaking, as good a director as Spielberg? Not a chance. But sometimes, less is more, and I think the JP films are definitely a case in point (it’s even shorter than the other two by a full 30 minutes–a much better running time for a basic monster movie, IMHO).
It does show up later in the movie - the kids and Sam Neill run across a nest of hatched dinosaur eggs, showing that some have switched and obviously mated.
The problem with the frog DNA wasn’t that it resulted in the whole transformation of genders thing (indeed, some speculate that dinosaurs may have been that way, anyway), but that it allowed for the whole “T. rex’s eyesight was based on movement” nonsense. This latter “fact” was used in the movie, but no reference was given as to why the heck anyone would think that! If they wanted to pacth together dinosaur DNA from existing animals, they could have (and probably should have) used either crocodile or bird DNA, depending on the dinosaur in question. It would have made a heck of a lot more sense, and they could have still had their “all female” dinos – and they could still allow for the whole “changing gender” subplot – as well.
Further problems with the dinos:
[ul]
[li]The orientation of the hands of the 'raptors and the T.rex and the Dilophosaurus are wrong; fossil evidence shows that the hands would have been held in a kind of ‘clapping’ orientation, so that the fingers would have grasped inwards.[/li]
[li]The 'raptors were too big for Velociraptors, too small for Ultraraptors…maybe they would have fit as either smaller Ultraraptors or unusually large Deinonychus (of course, they might have been an as-yet undiscovered species, I suppose) and they should have been feathered.[/li]
[li] As previously mentioned, the whole “his vision is based on movement” is almost certainly wrong; T.rex likely had pretty good binocular vision (despite what some preliminary reports about “Samson” the T.rex say). In any case, in the scene where Grant holds his hand over Lex’s mouth and tells her not to move, the T.rex takes a pretty healthy sniff of the humans and doesn’t seem to notice them; more BS, as T.rex likely had a very acute sense of smell, more acute than its vision ever was.[/li]
[li] Unless the Dilophosaurus was a juvenile, it was way too small; adult Dilophosaurs were about 20 feet long, and there is no evidence for expandable neck frills or poison glands. [/li]
[/ul]
Yes, mammals protect their young. Some reptiles and birds do, too, but most will save themselves from a larger predator and abandon the young.
Also, these were the raptors from the carefully monitored enclosure, they knew their exact numbers and they were not breeding, so none of them were the offspring of another. They were just pack members. I think attacking a much larger opponent that attacked and killed your pack member is more an emotional response than a protection or defense response, because instinct is going to be self-preservation. It just didn’t sit right with me.
They take this back later in a book or movie. One of the hunters is lying in a T-rex nest, when the mother comes back. One guy runs away, and the other just lays there. I’m not sure who they all were but someone says, “what is he doing?” and then someone else replies something about being grossly misinformed. And the guy gets eaten not long after.
As said before, the eyes sensing movement was supposed to come from the frog genes, although they do attribute it to T-rex somewhere early in book or movie.
They even make a point of T. rex’s superior sense of smell in the second JP movie. You know, the whole “only the turkey vulture has a bigger olfactory lobe” deal, just before the Bakker look-alike gets scared by a snake and dashes out of the waterfall cave…
I totally 100% agree with Archive Guy. JP3 is my favourite.
I really thought they missed the ball on the first two by their attempt to widen the scope of what is really just a monster movie. The reason people wanted to see the movies was to watch dinosaurs eating people, but they had to jam it full of crappy sidestories and annoying characters.
But JP3 winnowed all that out and got to the heart of it. Trap them on an island full of bloodthirsty monsters and watch them run.
Plus it has one of the freakiest moments after the T-Rex rain scene in JP1, i.e. the first appearance of the Pterodactyl out of the mist.
That was very relevant, actually. In the book, everything begins to go off the rails when Grant sees a juvenile raptor running across what should be an empty field. Remember the part at the beginning, too, when a little girl gets attacked by a procompsognathid in Costa Rica?
The point is that dinos have escaped from the island, but they haven’t been noticed missing because the tracking program is designed to ensure that there are enough dinos, not to see if there are too many. The biggest safety concern in the book was keeping the dinosaurs on the island.
Actually, depending on the type of shot, caliber of the gun, choke and the range to impact, the shotgun may have indeed just made 4 holes because the pellets wouldn’t have had time to seperate. Though it’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie, so the holes may be too small.
