Jurrasic Park Flaws

[sketerpot]

How about that ridiculously inefficient GUI?

"It's a UNIX system! I know this!"

That program is "3D File System Navigator" which runs on SGI machines. So somebody must have thought, at some point in time, that it was a good idea.

Of course, that's completely different from UNIX, so it does count as at least one problem with Jurassic Park.

[Chris OFarrell]

And it annoys me that shotguns were completly useless in the movie.

The book was cool with the LAW blowing Raptors into chunky bits of meat. But the SPAZ-12's should have been able to easily deal with the Raptors with a couple of shots. Dinos are not covered with frigen armour afterall. Just cause they are big doesn't make them bullet proof. Look how easily Elephants get blown away by hunters with rifles.

[Dahak]

How about that ridiculously inefficient GUI?

"It's a UNIX system! I know this!"

Actually, that really exists.
It's fsn (fusion) for SGI IRIX, though only experimental stuff.
3D navigator

*edit: damn, a wee bit too late

[Dahak]

Of course, that's completely different from UNIX, so it does count as at least one problem with Jurassic Park.

Well, IRIX is a Unix-derivate, so she was right in that department

[Uraniun235]

I know it actually exists, but if I remember right, it ran at a laughably slow framerate and was just godawfully inefficient overall.

[Guardsman Bass]

The apologists' explanation is that the raptors in the movie were Velociraptor antirrhopus, which IS Deinonychus. Never mind that in the book Wu clearly states that they're V. mongoliensis.

Wouldn't matter either way. Deinonychus were still only 4 feet tall.

Yet almost as soon as the movie came out, did they not discover Velociraptors in Utah that were the same size?

Utahraptor information

Length - 16-23 feet (5-7 m) long
Height - About 6 ft (1.7 m) tall at the hips
Weight - Roughly 1 ton

Utahraptor was about the same height as the movie raptors, although the movie raptors seemed a lot smaller than 5-7 meters in length. Still, they are very close in characteristics.

[sketerpot]

Of course, that's completely different from UNIX, so it does count as at least one problem with Jurassic Park.

Well, IRIX is a Unix-derivate, so she was right in that department

Two things: first, Irix is a Unix. They managed to pay for certification and such, so they get officially recognized as a Unix. Second, familiarity with Unix does not equal familiarity with this weird 3D thing.

Dang creepy 3D things. 3D desktops creep me out. The closest I ever came to using one was when I was standing in a virtual reality cube and it showed gigantic projections of an Irix desktop on the walls. I was standing on icons four centimeters wide!

[2000AD]

I don't recall any actual theory on T-Rex's only being able to see moving objects. Even if so, it would have smelled Grant and the kid, so their defense of not moving shouldn't have worked.

That's not a tyrannosaur trait. That's a frog trait. If you'll read the book you'll notice that the rex wasn't the only one suffering from that problem either. The movie seemed to insinuate that it was a proper rex trait and that it had something in the way of supporting fossil evidence, which is flatly untrue.

At least in The Lost World book (i don't think it was in the movie) it was pointed out that the T-Rex only seeing movement was probably comlete bullshit.
Malcom gave the reason of it not being hungry, having just eaten a goat and a lawyer. How likely is that?

[Darth Raptor]

At least in The Lost World book (i don't think it was in the movie) it was pointed out that the T-Rex only seeing movement was probably comlete bullshit.

In the JP universe, a paleontologist actually did a study on the rex's braincase, and reasoned that the brain would have been similiar in design to that of a frog's; particularly the sensory regions. The only problem is, he fucked it up. Even at the time of TLW it was an obsolete theory, but Baselton was a little out of the loop, since he stood there like a moron when he should have been running his ass off.

Malcom gave the reason of it not being hungry, having just eaten a goat and a lawyer. How likely is that?

How likely is what? The dinosaurs on Isla Nublar were dinosaur/frog hybrids, and any bugs in their visual accuity is the result of that. Apparently, they fixed said bug in the Site B stock. Luck of the draw that Grant and the kids made it by believing a bad theory (which happened to be right for the wrong reasons) while Henry Baselton's remains are so much crusty rex shit.

And would a rex attack something if they weren't hungry? Who knows, there's no way to know for sure. The best we could do is turn to modern anologues, the only problem is the only two animal types that come close to being analogues are crocodiles and birds. And their brains really aren't all that similar.

Generally, crocs don't kill for fun. But they'll kill to get anything out of their territory or away for their nest. Birds run the gammut from being sadistic fuckers to completely beneign when not hungry, but birds are more intelligent than crocs, and have the energy to spare.

Going off of allosaur braincase casts, a large theropod's brain is much more crocodile than bird, with much more of the space dedicated to sensory software than processing power. But they're extinct, so the best we can do is convincing speculation.

[Dillon]

Yeah I figured so. I didn't want to say anything without knowing for sure, but Raptor's opening doors seemed pretty ridiculous.

It's not that ridiculous really, I've had cats and dogs that have learned to use door handles. The pushing of it I'd say was all in the speed at which they found out how to open doors.

One of the things that bugged me most in it was when Ellie, Grant and the kids were dealing with the raptors by that tyrannosaur skeleton and a huge frickin' T-rex comes out of nowhere and saves the day. No booms or anything heard beforehand, unlike before.

Yeah, I was watching it the other day and noticed that. T-Rex's may have been big and powerful, but sneaking around unnoticed couldn't have been something they were good at. I still love that scene though. T-Rex fucking pwned those Raptors.

[AMX]

One of the things that bugged me most in it was when Ellie, Grant and the kids were dealing with the raptors by that tyrannosaur skeleton and a huge frickin' T-rex comes out of nowhere and saves the day. No booms or anything heard beforehand, unlike before.

Yeah, I was watching it the other day and noticed that. T-Rex's may have been big and powerful, but sneaking around unnoticed couldn't have been something they were good at. I still love that scene though. T-Rex fucking pwned those Raptors.

Quess why they put it in?
If I remember the "Making of JP" correctly, they originally wanted to drop the skeleton onto the raptors - but that would've been kinda lame, so they changed it to get an additional Rex scene.

[Master of Ossus]

Quess why they put it in?
If I remember the "Making of JP" correctly, they originally wanted to drop the skeleton onto the raptors - but that would've been kinda lame, so they changed it to get an additional Rex scene.

With all do respect, I kind of doubt that because that scene played out very similarly in the book, as well.

[AMX]

With all do respect, I kind of doubt that because that scene played out very similarly in the book, as well.

WTF?
There was no scene even remotely like that anywhere in the book.

[Pick]

Actually, my two cents in regards to this movie is that the flaws were exceedingly noticeable....... and still not as annoying as their indulgence in random arrogant bullshit.

[Cal Wright]

Over the years and watching it over and over again I see all these flaws your mentioning, but I still love the movie. Lost World is the same way. I'm never to upset about the Dino inaccuracies, it's usually some of the decisions that the characters themselves make or sort of how they get out of the situation that's the glaring mistakes. For one, I don't think some kid is going to survive a fence that's meant to stun a T-Rex. Maybe I'm wrong.

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

How about that ridiculously inefficient GUI?

"It's a UNIX system! I know this!"

That program is "3D File System Navigator" which runs on SGI machines.

What SGI machines would do in a zoo/amusement park, I could never figure out.

[phongn]

They may have needed all that number crunching power for command, control and communications. If they had a bunch of big iron in the back doing it, well, at the time most was (IIRC) UNIX and it'd likely be easier to interface with an IRIX-based GUI.

[neoolong]

Were those computer solely for operations for the park or did they do any work for the labs onsite?

[Drooling Iguana]

Malcom gave the reason of it not being hungry, having just eaten a goat and a lawyer. How likely is that?

She didn't eat the lawyer in the book. Genaro survived until the end, and then died of some disease, the name of which I can't recall, at some point between JP and TLW.

[Icehawk]

If I remember the "Making of JP" correctly, they originally wanted to drop the skeleton onto the raptors - but that would've been kinda lame, so they changed it to get an additional Rex scene.

Heheheh *has fond memories of the final scene in the JP Sega Genesis game*

[Howedar]

Utahraptor information

Length - 16-23 feet (5-7 m) long
Height - About 6 ft (1.7 m) tall at the hips
Weight - Roughly 1 ton

Utahraptor was about the same height as the movie raptors, although the movie raptors seemed a lot smaller than 5-7 meters in length. Still, they are very close in characteristics.

Read that again, 6' tall at the hips.