Even More JP Stuff...

[GROSS CORY WALTER <GROS4891@ADC.MTROYAL.AB.CA>]

    Hello all,
    
        I meant to jump on the bandwagon sooner but I don't have 
access to my account on weekends and you folks were pretty 
industrious so I've spent the last few days cleaning out my mailbox.  
Oh well,  down to the farm...

        Let me start off by saying that Jurassic Park is one of my 
favorite movies,  but picking it apart is also one of my favorite 
pastimes (go figure).  One could say that it's the most well done,  
trying to be factual dino-movies yet done (I am interested in seeing 
the forthcomming Dinotopia movie),  but considering the amount of 
complaints that we seem to be able to muster,  such isn't the case.  
Another victim of the "it's cute,  but is it science?"  senario.  One 
of the problems with the whole thing is that Speilberg and Crichton 
say that it is science,  "science eventuality" at least as opposed to 
"science fiction".  I picked up the _Making of Jurassic Park_ video 
and they sadly continued with the charade of it's factual-ness (I 
guess that they can't say on film that they blew it though).  To even 
show what great guys they were,  they mentioned how they were going 
to give the Raptors snake-tounges...but when Jack said no...  Doesn't 
explain why they continued with other inaccuracies even though Horner 
probaly warned them about those as well.  It's a dangerous game when 
handed out to a public that doesn't know enough about dinosaurs to 
pick out what's fiction and what isn't.

        Anyways,  here are some other points that I don't think have 
been mentioned:

    1)The whole Triceratops thing was just a transplant of the 
      Stegosaur thing in the book,  therefore,  the unresolved 
      sickness was probably those berries sucked in with the 
      gastroliths.  But tric. had teeth,  not a gizzard;  didn't he?
      
    2)The one dinosaur that I don't think had any problems was the 
      Parasaurolophus.  You know,  in that scene where Grant was 
      looking out over the lake.  The one that had Brachiosaurs
      crawling out of it even though brachs. probably didn't hang
      around in water...
      
    3)At least no one is bringing up my pet peeve of "where did all 
      the people on the island go?"  they all got on the boat that 
      they kept alluding to during the first half of the movie and 
      that Nedry was supposed to deliver the embryos to.
      
    4)This one goes into "The Lost World" a bit.  In JP,  I thought
      it was established that the DNA rendering material had to be
      gained from the northern hemesphere.  So where did "Site B"
      get all these southern hemesphere dinos from?  I'm mainly
      talking about the Ceratosaurus,  the new pointless gimick
      dinosaur.
      
        My biggest problem now is something that probably has many of 
you upset as well.  Everywhere that you hear about dinosaurs,  you 
hear about JP;  as though the two can't be pulled apart.  On the 
covers to _The Dinosaurs_ documentaries,  they all say somthing to 
the effect of:  "...meet the real paleontologists who helped bring 
Jurassic Park to life".  It seems that now,  the science of 
palaeontology has been relegated to helping make movies.  I could use 
stronger words for how I feel about this,  but I won't.

        On to something anecdotal.  Bob Bakker recently came to give 
a lecture here in my fair city of Calagary,  and I had the pleasure 
of talking with him.  One of the things I mentioned was JP and shed 
it in my usually dim light,  and that's when he practically jumped 
down my throat about everything that was good about it.  So I 
guess he likes it.

        Well anyways,  later...  (by the way,  can anyone find the JP 
Utahraptor toy,  we don't seem to be able to get here in the "freezing 
north" :-))     

Cory Gross
artist,writer,philosopher,scientist
gros4891@adc.mtroyal.ab.ca