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

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

> From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> Teoslola
>
> Wow! I think someone has got it! It is a total
> fantasy it is fiction. It is Hollywood it is
> entertainment. Just for the record Superman doesnt
> exist, martial arts experts cant leap 40 feet into
> the air, and cats and dogs cant speak English (at
> least mine dont). I am following Erics advice and I
> am just going to have fun watching it. Crichtons
> books are not science if they were we never would
> have had any film to complain about.

I, too, think the movies are fun.

That being said, some of the paying public STILL treats these movie as based
on fact.  The fact that Horner is a consultant gives them the justification
for assuming anything portayed on screen must have some basis in reality,
even if they realize that the "Jurassic Park" scenario is fiction.

A recent example: while in the "Extreme Theropod" exhibit at the Royal
Tyrrell Museum a couple of weeks ago, I overheard a father telling his sons
that _T. rex_ was incapable of detecting prey that stood still.  He was not
saying "and that is how the fictional story of Jurassic Park portays the
dinosaur"; he was stating it as fact to his kids.

In a similar vein, Ken Kinman recently stated that he assumed that the frill
and poison of _Dilophosaurus_ was based on research when he first watched
JP.  I've also had students who were horrendously offended when I pointed
out problems both with the ressurection scenario and various anatomical or
behavior errors.  The film makers have done such a good job at movie making
that some well-meaning people take it more seriously than intended.

> My two cents.. and back to my heart attack delayed
> thesis (plesiosaurs. Not dinos)
>
Oh, so you work on the Loch Ness monster...  (Get used to this: it is the
sauropterygian equivalent to Jurassic Park :-).

                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