Re: Jurassic Park 2

["Dan Lipkowitz" <lipkowit@midway.uchicago.edu>]

In message Mon, 29 May 1995 23:55:18 -0400, Stang1996@aol.com  writes:

> I think that they were meant to be raptors (because they had two walking
> toes).  I think that Galimimi had three toes, but I'm not exactly sure.

The problem is that if you look closely at the Gallimimus stampede scene,
you'll observe that the animals have two toes on each foot.  It's very
difficult to pick out on VHS if you aren't specifically looking for the
deletion (my kingdom for a laserdisc player), but it is most definitely
present...er, absent.  Whatever.  The reason for this, I am told on good
authority, is that in animating the Gallimimi over footage of running
ostriches, the third toe was accidentally left out.

It still seems likely that the hatchlings were Gallimimi, as the nest was in
proximity to the herd and numerous juveniles were mixed in with the adults
during the stampede sequence.  The question, then, is whether the designers
actually thought the animals had only two toes (rather than simply making
the error of using ostrich feet in the CGI and not noticing the slip until it
was too late), or whether the hatchlings really were supposed to be "Raptors"
(I'm sorry; I just can't bring myself to call them Velociraptors), in which
case one would think Grant might have recognized the unique configuration
and gotten out of there ASAP.

> This leads us to an even more interesting questiong.  Where did the
> raptor mommy and daddy come from?  Muldoon said that they had made eight,
> but Queen Raptora had killed five.

Another vital question is how one gets a larger, smarter individual when all
of the animals are cloned from the same DNA sequence. Did they find blood
from more than one member of the species?

> Does he know that they were
> definately killed?  I mean if I was him I would need dead raptor bones
> confirm death; if they were just missing I would be VERY worried and not
> ASSume them dead.

One possibility is that they were torn to pieces and no one bothered
to make sure that all of the missing members of the pack were accounted for.
This seems rather silly, though, and I'd bet that the only "Raptors" in the
sequel will be the ones that hatched early in the film and are presumably
wandering around the control center somewhere, looking for "Ma" Hammond.

> Anyway.. maybe we'll see some of the other dinosaurs, like the
> Brachiosaurs or Parasaurolophuses and less of those baddly deformed
> theropods.

It really is a pity they cut out the scene with the juvenile herbivores. I
wonder whether the gastrolith-scene with the Triceratops was ever completed;
it would be a terrific addition to a director's cut of the film, and I
would finally be able to explain to friends that there *was* a reason for
the animal's mysterious ailment, but it didn't make the final edit.

Of course, what I really want to see in the next one is the Baryonyx...

Dan Lipkowitz
lipkowit@midway.uchicago.edu