Re: the value of jp

[freeman@netcom.com (Jay Reynolds Freeman)]

    My background is physics, but I have a recent second baccalaureate
in marine bio, with a strong interest in complex animal behavior
(hyphenated in either place).  I saw _JP_ nine times, and loved it for
its depiction of interesting and plausible behaviors, notably of the
outsize _Velociraptors_, whose repertoire of actions seemed lifted
straight from _Pantera_leo_ courtesy Joy Adamson and Mark and Del
Owens.  What worries me about _The_Lost_World_ (having skimmed the
book in a bookstore, and thrown up even sooner than I did skimming the
book version of _Jurassic_Park_), is that we are going to see only
oversimplified, stylized predataion, with no further exploration of
the behavioral richness that was implicit in the first movie.

    I want to see human field ethologists get accepted by the
_Velociraptor_ pride the way Owens and Owens were by the "Blue" pride in
the Kalihari.
    I want to see the final scene, where one of the raptors, having
escaped from its enclosure during the calamity (where the Central
American military bozos got trigger-happy and all hell broke loose, or
whatever), comes to the rescue of its human pride-mates who are in
mortal jeopardy from a _T._rex_, thereby recalling the penultimate
scene of the first movie, but with powerful dramatic reverse.  (Surely
the apotheosis of _Velociraptor_ was the attack by one on the _T._rex_
that had killed its companion.)
    I want to see the nap-of-the-earth chase of a helicopter by a
_T._rex_.  (That's to get it back in its enclosure -- what else are you
going to do, dart it and carry it piggy-back?  Luring it in from the
ground is too dangerous -- it might catch you -- and it won't follow
anything too high to grab.)  And so on.

    I don't think I am going to get to see anything like that -- just
destruction and munching of humans, who aren't very interesting because
they only had bit parts to begin with.

    Oh well, rant mode off, back to lurking...

                                                --  Jay Freeman