In the book, they were described as being between 150 and 300 lbs, with heads two feet long. Which is significantly larger than they actually were (V. mongoliensis had a skull that was less than 10" long).
Here’s a question for you. Would you rather eat that steak that just popped up in front of you, or would you rather go and kill a cow?
I thought I’d heard that the movie’s production began around the time Utahraptor was discovered. The idea of a much-larger raptor excited the filmmakers and the raptors in the movie were scaled up because they thought it would be cooler.
The dates seem to make that possible: discovery of Utahraptor: 1991.
Filming of Jurassic Park: August 24 to November 30, 1992.
Well, I would, but do wild animals think that way? If you’re being attacked by a grizzly, would tossing a salmon at him work?
I remember reading a short blurb about this around the time of the film’s release; while the timing was very close, the preproduction and creature design of the raptors had already come up with the larger raptors, and the discovery and description of Utahraptor was kind of pleasant surprise for the filmmakers; though larger than V. mongoliensis, the Raptors were smaller than Utahraptor, so the in-between size seemed much more plausible.
Depends - is it attacking you because it’s pissed? Probably not. Is it stalking you because it’s hungry. That would probably distract him for a little bit. Animals are not dumb, they’re all about getting the easy meal. That’s why the raptors were stalking the people. People were easy to kill and eat An egg on the floor is even easier.
While that may serve as a nice happenstance for the filmmakers, it doesn’t absolve Crichton: he published Jurassic Park in 1990. Velociraptor was known to be small, as were the other then-known dromaeosaurs.
In his (very marginal) defense, Deinonychus was, for a brief time, thought to be synonymous (by a few paleontologists, but nothing resembling a majority) with Velociraptor (thus the references in the book to V. antirrhopus), but that has since been discounted. So, IF Deinonychus were a Velociraptor then velociraptors could have safely been described as a bit larger, but still a far cry from the human-height critters described in the book and seen in the movie. A large Deinonychus could have shown up at the low end of the range Crichton mentioned, but even then, the skull would only have been just over a foot and a quarter long, not the 2 feet length he gave.
I’m glad they were bigger, though. Small dinosaurs who were as vicious as the movie raptors…they might have been dangerous, but my reaction would have been, “Awww, baby dinosaur!”
The pack hunting technique described by the book and movie better matches their small size. If they were really as big as the movie lets on, they’d be less dependent on numbers to bring down prey.
Inspired by this thread, I’m going to spend the rest of my sick day watching the original Jurassic Park, in the state-of-the-art updated technology (of the early '90s) of VHS.
That was one of the things that irritated me about the (vastly overrated - like most of Crichton’s stufF) book.
These killing machines, who know they have nice, juicy prey cornered, don’t come in and eat. No, they hang around while Grant thinks to himself, “Wow, they’re carnivores. But sometimes carnivores eat eggs when they can get ahold of them. And I just happen to have these eggs next to me. And I just happen to have syringes full of poison. And conveniently it’s a completely fatal poison, rather than one that just makes you ill for a bit. And fortunately it’s one of those things that is apparently scentless, so the raptors won’t eat it (maybe we should just leave out bowls of antifreeze?)…”
Too goddamned silly for me.
You want an example of human brains beating the animals? Look at the kids playing their hide and seek in the kitchen.
-Joe
Merijeek–yeah. It felt so labored. The movie isn’t exactly chock full of realism as we’ve seen. But when we were watching the kids in the kitchen, I felt in the moment. I’m so glad Spielberg didn’t decide to replicate the egg throwing scene.
I thought the Lost World was a cool book. Probably better than the movie but that’s not really hard. Though it was kind of odd when Malcolm gave this huge diatribe about why global warming is a hoax.