RE: Velociraptor

["Charles W. Johnson" <cwj2@eskimo.com>]

On Thu, 6 Nov 1997, Ronald Orenstein wrote:

[snip]

> On both these points: I believe that one of the reasons Spielberg made his
> "Velociraptors" larger than life was so that some of the footage could be
> done with actors in body suits.  Utahraptor was indeed discovered after JP
> started filming.

As far as I am aware, Spielberg's primary reason for increasing the
size of the Velociraptors was to make them scarier.

After all, who was afraid of the pint-sized (juvenile? recipient
of a magical growth-suppression elixir?) Dilophosaur until it started up
with its frill?

> As for accuracy, I suggest that there is a lot more wrong with the
> "raptors" in the film than size and integument.

[...]

> Personally I found the Velociraptors the least convincing of JP's
> dinosaurs. 

I'm not sure. Dilophosaurus was a very close competitor, if not the least
convincing itself. It had size problems (in the opposite direction), was
"reptilified" (Crichton portrays them as vividly colored, with
leopard-like spots, iirc), and of course has the glaring problems of the
wholly invented frill and the poison-spitting (which at least was artistic
license on Crichton's part, and not the fault of the movie).

-- 
[Charles W. Johnson <cwj2@eskimo.com> - http://www.eskimo.com/~cwj2]
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