Jurassic park Inaccuracies

[Skm1091]

After I watched the Jurassic park movies. Politics in the movie aside. I find the dinosaurs portrayed in them very inaccurate. For example in the scene bellow you the movie suggest that the Tyrannosaurus Rex could catch up to a jeep. But in real life a Tyrannosaurus Rex can only run 25-30 MPH at best. A jeep on the other hand  can 90-100 mph. So in real life the three guys in the scene would have drove away watching Tyrannosaurus Rex shrink into nothingness while laughing their asses off.

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Another thing that was inaccurate was the velociraptor. The velociraptor was the size of a turkey and they real weren't smarter than a big cat.The "velocirapter" shown in the movie is actually a dino called deinonychus.

And don't make me go into the spino vs trex debate. Or trex eyesight

[Ibrahim90]

Heck, I can tell you more:

1-T-Rex's eyes faced forward, not off to the side. It's head actually looks more like a reptilian version of a wolf's.
2-velociraptor had a slender snout.
3- Dilophosaurus was way bigger, and had no frills.
4-dinosaurs of all types almost certainly had color vision and the ability to discern whether a static object was alive or not (often by smell)
5- velociraptor was not even as smart as a cat: brain structure an EQ point towards an intelligence no greater than a possum or low intelligence bird.
6-T-Rex would have likely ignored the velociraptors.
7-DNA is unlikely to survive even in amber.
8-evidence for pack hunting is still tentative--though it isn't out of the question.
9- velociraptor and Dilophosaurus were desert species, and wouldn't have done well in swamps/jungle. Brachiosaurus was a "savannah" Adapted animal, and would have suffered. In fact, the rest would have trouble because rain forests didn't even exist back then, so in real life the researchers would not have selected isla sorna...

I could go on, but I still enjoy the movie.

[MrBogosity]

Do we even want to get into the mangling of chaos theory and other scientific explanations? True, it's not as bad as Armageddon, but then, what is?

[evensgrey]

We now know that most of the raptors (and likely T-Rex as well) had feathers.  The result would likely have made them look kind of silly and far less intimidating.

IIRC, there wasn't actually any known dinosaur named velociraptor at the time Jurassic Park was written or filmed.  The animal with that name in the film and book was sort of assumed, since it was plausible enough (and needed for the story) to have a raptor of that size and behavior.  The name was so cool that a real animal was given it afterwards.

One of the other funny bits was watching the really bad US attempt at a Godzilla movie, which had at least one shot where one of the hatchings move precisely the same way as one of the velociraptor's did in Jurassic Park, despite being completely different wight distributions.

[MrBogosity]

I think this is a problem with CGI artists in general: everything moves the way a full-sized human would. The movie 9 and the Toy Story movies seemed to do a much better job of this; the dolls acted as though they were really on that scale.

[Skm1091]

Heck, I can tell you more:

1-T-Rex's eyes faced forward, not off to the side. It's head actually looks more like a reptilian version of a wolf's.
2-velociraptor had a slender snout.
3- Dilophosaurus was way bigger, and had no frills.
4-dinosaurs of all types almost certainly had color vision and the ability to discern whether a static object was alive or not (often by smell)
5- velociraptor was not even as smart as a cat: brain structure an EQ point towards an intelligence no greater than a possum or low intelligence bird.
6-T-Rex would have likely ignored the velociraptors.
7-DNA is unlikely to survive even in amber.
8-evidence for pack hunting is still tentative--though it isn't out of the question.
9- velociraptor and Dilophosaurus were desert species, and wouldn't have done well in swamps/jungle. Brachiosaurus was a "savannah" Adapted animal, and would have suffered. In fact, the rest would have trouble because rain forests didn't even exist back then, so in real life the researchers would not have selected isla sorna...

I could go on, but I still enjoy the movie.

Not to mention Tyrannosaurus-rex also had one the keenest senses of smell of any dino during the late Cretaceous. So keen in fact that if it was in a crowded mall it could tell apart every individual by their individual odors. So when Dr Grant said don't move because it can't see you(which is bullshit by the way) all I can say is RUN GOD DAMN IT, RUN!!!

And that thing about him not being able to see you. I read somewhere that Tyrannosaurus-rex had the visual acuity 13 times that of a human. That is over 4 times that of a hawk.

[Ibrahim90]

We now know that most of the raptors (and likely T-Rex as well) had feathers.  The result would likely have made them look kind of silly and far less intimidating.

IIRC, there wasn't actually any known dinosaur named Velociraptor at the time Jurassic Park was written or filmed.  The animal with that name in the film and book was sort of assumed, since it was plausible enough (and needed for the story) to have a raptor of that size and behavior.  The name was so cool that a real animal was given it afterwards.

Velociraptor was a valid genus name since the 1920's--the original fossils of which were discovered by Roy Chapman Andrews in the Gobi desert, and described by Henry Fairfield Osborne in 1924 (the same Osborne who described T-rex back in 1905). you can read about the actual animal in Wikipedia. it was never "invalid" at any point in time, nor was the name first used after the movie or novel.

now, why do we have 10-12 foot animals looking different going around killing things in JP? that was because  for a brief time (during the 70's and 80's), another dromeosaur's name, Deinonychus, was considered by some workers *cough*Gregory S Paul*cough* to be a junior synonym of Velociraptor (i.e. same genus, but different species). This was because Deinonychus was described only in 1969, by the late John Ostrom. And the rules of zoological nomenclature clearly state that if two different fossils are believed to be the same animal, but already have different names, then the older of the two names is to be adopted.

so Deinonychus antirrihopus was according to some, Velociraptor antirrihopus. This was the name Michael Crichton must have seen, and placed in his novel (which lead to the movie).

there are exceptions to this rule of course: T-rex was given a free pass (it should have been renamed Dynomosaurus)....

Speaking of which: T-rex itself was probably not feathered as an adult--or at least not heavily so (as a hatchling this is another story): the large size of the animal, coupled with the sub-tropical environment and weather, would have selected for an animal that secondarily sheds its feathery coat. doesn't mean it's impossible (a Tyrannosaur in Asia was recently described that had feathers: it was ~9 meters long), but without evidence for T-rex....

One of the other funny bits was watching the really bad US attempt at a Godzilla movie, which had at least one shot where one of the hatchings move precisely the same way as one of the velociraptor's did in Jurassic Park, despite being completely different wight distributions.

frankly, it mutilated the novel it was supposed to be based on. Good read, though it's been over 11 years since I read it...

[FeatheredTerror]

Damn, looks like Ibrahim beat me to what I wanted to say. Although I do want to add that there were some other details of the Raptors' anatomy that are now known to be inaccurate. Namely, the hands could not pronate, and would have been folded in a rather birdlike manner, and the tail was actually very stiff, not floppy as seen in the film. Of course, I could go on and on with anatomical nitpicks, but that wouldn't be of interest to anyone other than the specialists. That said, I still love the film.

[evensgrey]

I thought it was known for rather a long time that raptors had rigid tails, there being no point to the way the base is jointed if it isn't.  (Jointed to allow fast swinging side to side, which only makes sense if it's pretty rigid and used as a counterweight in fast running.)

I'm glad that the non-existence of Brontosaurus seems to actually be penetrating the public consciousness.  Not that the name is wrong, but that the animal described under that name literally never existed, being an Apatasaurus skeleton with a random skull stuck on it.

[tnu]

Do we even want to get into the mangling of chaos theory and other scientific explanations? True, it's not as bad as Armageddon, but then, what is?

Expelled?

[MrBogosity]

Expelled?

You win.

[Interstate317]

does anybody know if the dinosaurs were brown and yellow?

I liked that, I didn't want them to be green.

[MrBogosity]

does anybody know if the dinosaurs were brown and yellow?

I liked that, I didn't want them to be green.

I know the feathered dinosaurs were actually very colorful.

[VectorM]

Do you account for what people knew about these dinosaurs at the time?

I think this is a problem with CGI artists in general: everything moves the way a full-sized human would. The movie 9 and the Toy Story movies seemed to do a much better job of this; the dolls acted as though they were really on that scale.

I don't know about the Godzilla movie, but in Jurassic Park, the velociraptors were all people in costumes.

[Ibrahim90]

does anybody know if the dinosaurs were brown and yellow?

I liked that, I didn't want them to be green.

most of the ones that have known colors have reddish, reddish brown, black, gray, white, or have a metallic sheen if the plumage is dark (of a blue or green hue). so here's a list:

1-sinosauropteryx: counter-shaded rufous and white. tail striped in the same.
2-Archaeopteryx: black. yeah, just black. so not only was it the size of a crow, but kind of looked like one...
3-Anchiornis: red/reddish brown crest and fringe, largely dark gray with tones of black and white.
4-Microraptor: dark with a bluish or greenish metallic sheen (iridescent feathers), in a manner similar to black birds.

as it is, I don't know of a species whose plumage is yellow or completely brown.

@ VectorM: yeah, I kept it to what was known by 1993. I forgot to mention that bit XD.