I wondered this too (along with how she knew Grant and co. were at Isla Sorna and not Nublar, although, if you listen closely, Grant screams “Site B” before submerging), but, upon a second viewing, it sort of made sense: her husband was involved somehow with international relations, treaties, etc. or some damn thing, of which the writers made sure to make a point in the scene with the three together at Ellie’s home. Presumably, the man had drag, and was able to organize the rescue team at her request.
As for the pedigree of the Spino…well, when you say “nobody knew it existed,” I’m assuming you’re mean that nobody outside of InGen knew it existed. Who, removed of the corporate circle, would be expected to know all of the species being propagated on B?
Another Jurassic screw-up, this one big, and this one from the books. Malcolm clearly dies in “Jurassic Park,” but is the sequel’s heroic protagonist with nary an explanation in sight. Very sloppy, especially for a guy like Crichton.
Well, you should have known better than to stick your neck out in this thread…
InRepair, I assume that Lost World picked up from the end of the first movie, at which point Malcolm was (regrettably) still alive, instead of from the novel. You pretty much have to discount the first book as canon at this point, unless you want to postulate an alternate timeline in which more of the obnoxious characters die. Or you could accept that Malcolm reproduced by fission, like the bacterium he is, somewhere toward the end of JP, and we just never saw the other one in the book.
Ahem. If you hadn’t guessed, I’m not fond of the character in question–or the author for that matter. If you’re looking for any consistency beyond “Science BAD!” in Crichton’s work, I’m afraid you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. IMHO, of course.
Now, would anyone like to take a stab at the smooth-vs-bumpy Klingon foreheads? Or “What happened to the Andorians, anyway?”
I’ve read the rationalization that the smooth headed Klingons were a seperate race that in the era of the original series controlled the Klingon Empire. Between the time of the original series and the “Next Generation” there was an internal war in the empire and the bumpy headed race took over. Of course, this rationalization no longer works because the Star Trek film producers have since retroactively made the original series era Klingons bumpy headed as well.
2.)isn’t it great that nine (count em!) anti-tank HE AP rounds couldn’t even wound the Spinosaurus (or whatever it was) when they first encountered it? wow! how logical!
*
I don’t remember that first few minutes very well, but is it possible they didn’t have time to set up the anti-tank gun? If I remember right, it was a tripod-mounted thing. They only got out of the plane for a minute; maybe they were still setting up (or looking for a place to set up) the big gun when the Spino hit 'em.
Lame, I know. And it won’t stand up if you can actually hear the anti-tank gun firing, instead of just the submachine guns they were carrying. But hey, this is the “rationalize this, if you can!” thread.
-Ben
In the first edition of The Hobbit, when Bilbo and Gollum played the Riddle Game, Gollum promised to give the Ring to Bilbo as a prize if he won. Bilbo won and walked off with the Ring, thag you very buch.
Then even before The Hobbit was published, Tolkien began writing The Lord of the Rings, and soon realized that for the plot to be coherent, the awesome power of the One Ring must be unparalleled, the Ring that could spell the end of civilization. About the time he figured that out, The Hobbit was published.
Oops.
For the next edition of the Hobbit, he rewrote that whole chapter, “Riddles in the Dark.” Now Bilbo came across the Ring accidentally in a corridor where Gollum had dropped it. His prize for winning the game was changed: “If precious asks, and it doesn’t answer, we eats it, my preciouss. If it ask us, and we doesn’t answer, then we does what it wants, eh? We shows it the way out, yes!”
But when Bilbo won this time, Gollum planned to squeeze him and eat him anyway. He went after the Ring, but it was missing and Bilbo made good his escape, as the wails of Gollum echoed down the corridors, “Thief! Thief! Baggins! We hates it, we hates it forever!”
Since Tolkien was posing as merely the editor of the tales, he could play it like this: Bilbo had been trying to conceal his theft of the Ring, so he made up that fake story published in the first edition to make it look as though he’d won it fair & square. Then Tolkien “discovered” the true story buried in Bilbo’s writings.
Okay, maybe picking on an action movie, where plot continuity is typically an afterthought, isn’t fair. Oh well. I just watched Die Hard With A Vengeance, and I have a plot hole for you.
As the gold is being pilfered from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the main antagonist quotes the amount of gold as $140 billion. They fit all that gold into 14 dump trucks; $10 billion apiece, presumably. Given the current market price of gold, $10 billion would weigh approximately 3 million pounds. That seems a little much for a dump truck to carry. Even if they weren’t completely greedy, and only took one-tenth of the gold, that’s 300,000 pounds/truck. That’s a plot hole big enough to drive a, well, a dump truck through.
when they first land, they are only carrying an AT rifle each, no submachine guns. seems silly, but perhaps they were of the mind that all dinosaurs were stupid and slow, but Freakin’ HUGE too, so they wanted something with obscene stopping power and forwent anything like an assault rifle. also, the shots i heard sounded like the AT shot that blew up that plane in the opening, so i thought they used the same weapon.
finally, it wasn’t a tripod, it was a two point stand. the real use for something like that is so you can aim at the same thing (or same general direction) without tiring your arm and stay mostly concealed at the same time. it also helps steady your aim, but you have to keep pointing at the same thing from low to the ground because you can’t really pivot.
the books;
though it did seem like malcolm died in the first one, in the second book he said that he was just in very bad shape, and had survived with only some healing nerve damage to show for it and the need to use a cane.
More than “seemed,” actually. Here’s an exact quote from the final few pages of “Park”: “They did not every permit the burial of Hammond or Ian Malcom. They simply waited.” So the fact that Crichton has him as “The Lost World”'s main character is really bothersome. He’s always struck me in his writing as a pretty observant, fastidious author, one who would at least do what we’re trying to do: explain it after the fact (I’m sure there was no sequal planned in 1990 when “Park” was finished.) It would have been as easy as “the reports of his death were largely exaggerated,” or something like that.
Balance, I’m not calling you out or anything. I’m just curious. Why don’t you like Crichton?
Remember, you asked for it
<crichton-bashing hijack>
I don’t like Crichton because I dislike wasted potential. He could be a decent science fiction author–as you noted, he generally has the right eye for detail, and he is a technically competent author overall–if he would just write science fiction. Instead, he continues to go in for the anti-science claptrap that he assaulted our intelligence with in JP. He’s not just a victim of the Frankenstein complex, he’s a willing vector. This annoys me, and interferes with any effort he makes to get his science right, which annoys me even more.
FWIW, Hammond’s death was one of the high points of the book for me. There was, at least, a certain artistic integrity to it. If I glazed my eyes and pretended that the book was an homage to Mary Shelley, it was almost tolerable. The science was still very bad, though.
So, Crichton’s solution to the oops-I-killed-the-sequel-hero problem was to lie. Bah. I’m telling you, Malcolm’s a slime mold masquerading as an inept mathematician. Enough residue came along on their clothes to make a new one. (Y’know, it probably didn’t help that I don’t care for Jeff Goldblum, either).
</crichton-bashing hijack>
If anyone is interested in my Klingon retcon, I’ll search and post a link to it–I think I posted it in the Enterprise thread.
My memory of JP II is hazy, but I seem to remember that the hand is clutching the control for the doors of the hold, not the wheel - supposedly showing that they got it closed as they died. Of course, that doesn’t explain how the guy who closed it proceeded to get everything eaten but his arm.
I KNOW! He was holding onto the button, and the T-Rex, who was half in the hold, clamped down on him, getting all but his arm in it’s mouth. As he dies, he valiantly pushes the button, which closes the doors on the T-Rex’s head. That’s gotta be it. I mean, it’s even probable. Really!
At the beginning of Pulp Fiction, we see Amanda Plummer and Tim Roth deciding to rob the diner. Amanda stands up and shouts, “…I’m gonna execute every mother----ing last one of you!” At the end of the movie, when John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson are in the same diner at that same time, we see Amanda stand up and shout, “…I’ll execute all of you mother----ers!” Why the difference?
Note: I am pretty sure that I got those quotes right. I don’t feel like digging out my copy right now to check. So please correct me if I’m wrong. I do know that there is a difference in the line when it’s shown a second time.
