So I was watching Jurassic Park III last night... (SPOILER ALERT!)

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu>]

Greetings,

Mike Brett-Surman & I (and my wife) were able to get into an advanced
screening of JPIII last night (Thanks Univesal!!).  It was called a "world
premier", but I'm not certain that is correct: it certainly was not the
black tie, red carpet affair that I think of when I hear about "World
Premiers" (of course, those might exist only in movies...).

Although I'm not going to give a detailed review of the movie per se, I want
to send out some thoughts and observations.  If you don't want to be spoiled
of surprises, kill this message (or at least delete it).  Also, if you do a
follow up message to this (at least in the next couple of days), please
leave some "spoiler space" at the top for those folks who don't want to
learn about things too early.

Spoiler space:

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That should be enough.

Okay, in brief: this is not as thought-provoking a movie as the first two
(which, granted, is not saying too much).  This is pretty much all
thrill-ride adventure movie.  It is fun: definitely go and see it if you
like dinosaurs.

Some points, mostly paleontological:
*Jack Horner gets a mention near the beginning.

*In the first movie, we get a fictionalized version of Jack Horner; in the
second, Bob Bakker.  For this one, instead of choices you might predict
(Sereno or Currie), we get a fictionalized version of... DAVE VARRICCHIO!!
The new character is Grant's grad student (just as Dave was Jack's), and
given an association between this character and maniraptoran nests he is
more like Dave than Scott Sampson, for instance.

*A nice point emphasized in the movie: paleontology needs funding!!

*Alan Grant points out that the animals on the islands are NOT dinosaurs,
but are genetically engineered amusment park monsters.  This is actually
along the lines of some of my very first posts on the dinosaur list, back in
1994:
http://www.cmnh.org/fun/dinosaur-archive/1994Mar/0060.html
http://www.cmnh.org/fun/dinosaur-archive/1994Mar/0065.html

*Fewer pastiches of previous movies and books in this, the most prominent to
me being allusions to "Peter Pan" and to "One Million Years B.C.".

*Several plot points and scenes in this movie are derived from the first and
second NOVELS.

The important stuff (the dinosaurs and pterosaurs):
*The animation and puppetry is still excellent.

*Unlike When Dinosaurs Roamed America, there is considerable individual
variation in the patterning on the dinosaur skins (particulary in the
raptors, but also the Brachiosaurs).  In fact, the amount of individual
variation is something closer to what one sees at a dog show or cat show,
rather than in a wild group of animals...

*New dinosaurs: _Corythosaurus_, a nice (but very brief) scene with
_Ankylosaurus_, _Spinosaurus_ (with rather unexpected lacrimal horns, given
that most of the related taxa lack these!), and (disturbingly) an
indeterminate theropod.  The latter is disturbing because in previous works
there was at least some attempt to base all the dinosaurs on real taxa.
This thing (which goes unnamed) MIGHT supposed to be _Ceratosaurus_, as it
has a horn (a CONICAL horn) on its snout, but its head is very big and
rounded and does not match the skull of true _Ceratosaurus_.  One of the
best things the JP series had going for it was at least the attempt to base
its dinosaurs on paleontology rather than simply the imaginations of the
animators (as in older dino-flicks).  I hope they don't do too much more of
this in possible future iterations.

*Similar to the last point above, the skulls of the so-called _Velociraptor_
are seen clearly in fossil and x-rays, and have no basis in real dromaeosaur
skulls.  They are wholly fictionalized.  Perhaps _Thaumatoraptor
nublarensis_ has a deep skull with prominent maxillolacrimal crests, but
_Velociraptor_ and _Deinonychus_ do not.

*Actually, I don't have a problem with _Spinosaurus_ going after human-sized
prey items on occasion.  The jaws of spinosaurids have a curvature and the
terminal rosette of teeth that would make them very effective at picking up
food items in that size range.

*Interesting idea concerning facial pneumaticity of dromaeosaurs...

*Totally silly idea concerning the intelligence of the raptors: smarter even
than primates!  Ummm...  Perhaps smarter than script writers and script fact
checkers.

*One of the most common miswritten names in dinosaur fandom is "pterodon"
for _Pteranodon_.  Well, given that the pterosaurs in this movie HAVE teeth,
perhaps they are _Pterodon_ :-).  The pterosaur colony stuff is fun, but the
science in it has more to do with a Sinbad the Sailor movie than any attempt
at realism.

Incidentally, I have my own hypothesis for the behavior of INGEN's
creations.  Unbeknownst to us, West African Clawed Frogs possess genes for
superstrength, superintelligence, and a hatred of humans.  However, since
they are only frogs, manifestations of these abilities and behaviors are
easy to miss.  However, when incorporated into dinosaur genomes...

For those not on the VertPaleo list, here was my (totally silly) idea for
the plot of JPIV:
JP IV: SVP at Jurassic Park:

*Any time a dino is killed, a swarm of VPers pounce on the corpse,
dissection tools in hand.  Brooks Britt goes after the postcranial air sacs,
Witmer after the facial structures, Hutchison after the pelvic and femoral
myology...

*Jim Farlow trying to chase various sizes of dinosaur through patches of mud
to generate footprints.  (And setting wires across pathways to see what
actually happens to a tyrannosaur trips).

*Karen Chin following the herds, shovel and sample jars at ready.

*And of course the dangers of trying to get some serious measurements of
thermoregulation...

Later,

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
                College Park, MD  20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/tholtz.htm
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796