The Big Picture: Dinosaur Exodus

[Darth_Payn]

"Chernobyl Parrots" Dibs on the band name!
IDK about Bob, but I believe I saw plenty of non-white actors in those scenes from EXODUS. Even the Pharoah looks Arabic to me.

of course a claymore lightsaber looks badass, but tiny blades that make it look like that without any real functionality looks retarded. And don't tell me the stubs are made of magic metal, Darth Maul sure would have loved to have that.

Objection!
The problem with the tiny blades isn't that they lack function, its that they look darn well dangerous to use as a careless jedi could easily cut himself.

As for their function, they would stop other people's lightsabres from cutting your hands off. Just think of how many Jedi hands could be saved. On the otherhand, I wouldn't be using them as a boomerang any time soon.

I concur! They might have even invented at least one new lightsaber fighting style to use the two smaller blades to deflect opponent's strikes, too. Besides, lightsabers typically are held with two hands anyway.

 

[Aliasi]

There's an xkcd comic strip that nicely illustrates the fallacy in Bob's thinking on dinosaurs:

http://xkcd.com/1104/

He keeps bringing up parrots and such, and that's the wrong tack to take.

Imagine a majestic bird. An eagle, a falcon, hell, a friggin' roc, given the size of these critters. That's damn scary!

 

[V4Viewtiful]

I've said it before, I'll say it again.

You're arguing about space wizards wielding laser swords. Think about that.

OT: Old school dinosaurs are superior.

well the laser swords are possible... with plasma instead of light... and a continuous power source ¬.¬

Anyway

I shouldn't have laughed as hard in this episode as I think I did. But dear lord XD

 

[Vault Citizen]

I personally think that Jurassic Park should stick to the older image of dinosaurs so that the speciation of dinosaurs in the series as a whole remains somewhat consistent.

As for the Moses issue, I get what you are saying and intellectually I agree but my hear says "Christian Bale as Moses? I must see this".

 

[Dr.Awkward]

It's certainly easy to write why the dinosaurs don't have feathers if you give it some thought. For one the DNA samples from the mosquitoes preserved in amber obviously deteriorated over time (92-96% preserved DNA samples I believe it was mentioned in JP? which was proven highly unlikely for a such sample to be found in real life) and the result of that missing DNA could be incomplete skin genetics. Combine that with the genetics of the chosen carrier that likely end up being dominant to a majority of the dinosaur's genes (or filling in for the missing genes) and what you get is what you see as their best outcome of a dinosaur - Featherless, yet matches the scale and behavior we anticipated (for the most part).

 

[angel85]

you know, fluffy or not, a Tyrannosaurus Rex was still an alpha predator the size of an Elephant with a mouth full of railroad spike sized teeth, it would look rather scary either way. I wish there were fossils of it well preserved enough to show us what its plumage actually looked like, whether it looked like a giant Emu or maybe had just a crest around its neck or something. Besides, we have an in universe justification for the dinos not having feathers, the DNA is 65 million years old! IT had degraded over time and geneticists did their best to repair it with genes from animals they thought were related, a side effect of which being they lost most or all of their plumage. There you go.

 

[Something Amyss]

I'm fine with JP dinos looking like they do. Though the "feathers" thing isn't that new and was pretty well established by the time they made the first one. I'd rather the movies be somewhat visually consistent, though.

Just think of how many Jedi hands could be saved.

In the movies? 0.

My problem, though, isn't practicality. I've accepted laser swords. I'm accepted double laser swords. They look cool.

This looks dumb. I know it's an arbitrary line, but it's space fantasy where space wizards swing space laser swords at each other. Darth Maul's saber didn't make me laugh out loud (though his makeup did), the light "claymore" does.

You see.....that´s where the quote would have stoped 25 Years ago.

Not really. There have been great lightsaber arguments my entire life. I'm in my thirties, by the way, I'll let you decide if I was alive 25 years ago.

When I look out of my window and see an angry Robin forcing other birds away from the bird table, it fills me with awe to think that its ancestor could potentially cleave me in half with a bite.

When I bite into a chicken sandwich it fills me with joy to know how the mighty have fallen.

 

[Evonisia]

Star Wars was never about the writing or the story, so a claymore lightsabre is good in my books. I hope the rest of the film is as ridiculous.

Maybe a dinosaur with feathers can look good, not that one though. It's like they tried designing a really camp parrot and increasing his size fifty times over.

 

[The-Poko]

While I'm a little on the reptile look for Jurassic Park, I was watching the first one yesterday and I recall that they spliced the DNA with that of a toad I think, I mean its not a full proof theory but it makes a little sense. That and feathers must be a pain in the "you know what" to make in CGI without looking cheesy.

 

[Lieju]

Feathered dinosaurs are cool! And it's not just feathers, a lot of the raptors in the movies is wrong, anatomy-wise... Like the position of their arms.

ak93]You know why I'm glad they don't have feathers?

Continuity.

It would be moronic to have three movies of lizard monsters to switch over to Chernobyl parrots. You can't write your way out of it. Sure, one or two killer parrots, but no all of them.

That was one of my grips with the 2nd and 3rd movies (aside from the fact the 3rd one just sucked), the raptors looked different. I can understand if it's a different breed, but seriously... stuff doesn't know it's in a sequel...

You could always explain they have superior technology now, or have found more DNA and can make more accurate dinosaurs without reptile/amphibian DNA.
(Also the dinosaurs in the 2nd and the 3rd movies were on a different island, they could have had different breeds or experiments going on there.)

 

[Hutzpah Chicken]

I thought Mr. Popo was a genie...

Any who, I can understand your dislike of the feathery dinosaurs, Bob. I have the same sort of gripe that the dinosaurs won't even be real props in this movie. I dislike CG when the models and animatronics in Jurassic Park looked as good as they did.

 

[squallina]

Regardless of how you feel about feathered dinosaurs, the book provided two "outs" they can easily incorporate into the movie:

1) The Jurassic Park dinos aren't 100% authentic natural dinos. A big chunk of their DNA comes from modern-day amphibians and reptiles, which can account for their more reptilian look. (This also works as a general handwave for the story: any unscientific facts about the JP dinos can be attributed to this as well.)

2) Even if that doesn't, the Park isn't committed to creating an authentic reproduction of what actual dinosaurs would have looked like. They're a theme park selling people on the popular perception of "Real(tm)" dinosaurs, and most people picture dinosaurs as giant lizards, not giant roosters. There's a conversation in the novel where Dr. Wu, the geneticist, tells Hammond the dinos they've engineered are really fast-moving, but he could start from scratch and whip up a new batch that fit the slower, lumbering brutes their customers will escape. Hammond rejects this, but mostly because of the expense. In any event, reproducing prehistory accurately was never their mission statement.

Exactly what I came here to point out. If the dinosaurs look like they've been redesigned to be more marketable to large audiences at the expense of accuracy, it's because they HAVE BEEN. They're SUPPOSED to look like that.

It's actually a really smart way of getting Bob's "traditional", "awesome" dinosaurs into the story. The explanation makes sense scientifically(to the same degree that cloning dinosaurs makes sense scientifically, anyway), and it shows how the Park's creators are more interested in making money than they are in furthering science. There's really no debate to be had here, Crichton covered his bases.

100% agree to all of this. Only came to add that if people want complete accuracy from anything in the Jurassic Park franchise then someone's going to have to reduce those Velociraptors to the size of chickens. That's how you make prehistoric movie monsters less scary, Bob. Not by adding feathers, but by correcting their sizes.

Also, Dinosaur Island has a completely unimpressive trailer showing off an uninspired concept with underwhelming CGI, but damn I actually really like the colorful, feathered look of their dinosaurs. Their T-rex actually doesn't look any less threatening - if anything it looks faster and like it means war!

 

[MonkeyPunch]

I'm with you on the Dinosaur thing. We are probably roughly the same age so that might explain that...
On the other hand whilst I enjoyed the Star Wars trailer I did not like the Claymore-eque light sabre. Looks like it would have very few practical uses and end up hurting the wielder more than his opponent.
Other than that. I get those feathers off mah dinos!

 

[RJ Dalton]

Can't say I agree with you Bob, I think feather dinosaurs look badass.

Same. It's all about the design. And there's all kinds of potential for interesting ways to represent how they use those feathers. Communication, for example. Body language is a huge form of communication for most animals and having feathers provides interesting ways to utilize that.

Also, what's really wrong with the claymore lightsaber is the utter lack of functionality of those two extra blades. Also, think about how lightsabers are used. Blades capable of cutting through damn near anything sticking out at the sides like that are highly likely to result in injury to the user. At least Darth Maul's double lightsaber had a functionality to it. It's the kind of thing you could easily train yourself to use efficiently in a way that would surprise and bewilder an unprepared enemy. The claymore lightsaber limits functionality for no real benefit.

 

[maffgibson]

ak93]You know why I'm glad they don't have feathers?

Continuity.

It would be moronic to have three movies of lizard monsters to switch over to Chernobyl parrots. You can't write your way out of it. Sure, one or two killer parrots, but no all of them.

That was one of my grips with the 2nd and 3rd movies (aside from the fact the 3rd one just sucked), the raptors looked different. I can understand if it's a different breed, but seriously... stuff doesn't know it's in a sequel...

It's like the Star Wars prequels. I always feel that chronologically, technology regresses in that franchise because so much changes in the prequels.

I definitely agree with you on this: especially seeing that what Paleontology calls "Velociraptors" were about the size of a chicken . Quite frankly, whether those clever girls are feathered or not is the least of the issues with the films.

If we are being slaves to accuracy while trying to retain the part that they play in the films, we are stuck either with people being chased by chickens, or larger feathered dinos called "Deinonychus", which is just hard to pronounce and unappealing.

I'm inclined to say that we should just accept that "Velociraptor" has a pop-culture significance beyond scientific specifics. Let continuity be continuous.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/you-say-velociraptor-i-say-deinonychus-33789870/?no-ist=

EDIT: I have been trying to pronounce "Deinonychus" in any way that isn't "Dino-Knickers". I can't manage it. Style > Scientific accuracy

 

[Rawbeard]

You see.....that´s where the quote would have stoped 25 Years ago.

25 years ago the prequels didn't happen. This isn't going to break the movie for me, I just find it funny (but not in a No More Heroes kind of way. they actually got this design right). then I have seen people bitching, and defending it in a very butt hurt way and that is like catnip for me

 

[twosage]

Regardless of how you feel about feathered dinosaurs, the book provided two "outs" they can easily incorporate into the movie:

1) The Jurassic Park dinos aren't 100% authentic natural dinos. A big chunk of their DNA comes from modern-day amphibians and reptiles, which can account for their more reptilian look. (This also works as a general handwave for the story: any unscientific facts about the JP dinos can be attributed to this as well.)

2) Even if that doesn't, the Park isn't committed to creating an authentic reproduction of what actual dinosaurs would have looked like. They're a theme park selling people on the popular perception of "Real(tm)" dinosaurs, and most people picture dinosaurs as giant lizards, not giant roosters. There's a conversation in the novel where Dr. Wu, the geneticist, tells Hammond the dinos they've engineered are really fast-moving, but he could start from scratch and whip up a new batch that fit the slower, lumbering brutes their customers will expect. Hammond rejects this, but mostly because of the expense. In any event, reproducing prehistory accurately was never their mission statement.

This cannot be repeated often enough.

Bob can rest easy because Jurassic Park has a rare "get out of science free card" narrative that allows them to do pretty much whatever they want (within the context of dinosaur anatomy and behavior anyway). Just like continuity errors in the Matrix can be explained as glitches or awkward game mechanics in Assassin's Creed can be explained as rendering features within the Animus.

I'm 100% committed to rendering dinosaurs in film as scientifically accurately as possible, especially when it contradicts the preconceptions of the public. But Jurassic Park's dinosaurs aren't actually dinosaurs.

 

[Skeleon]

Well, at least you recognize how childish it is. Doesn't really make it better, but okay. If they want to portray dinosaurs, they should do dinosaurs as they probably looked, not as we got used to them to look. You could still have something about genetically engineered giant reptiles or something. Or, hell, if you really want to keep your dinosaurs, say that they lost their ability to grow feathers consistently (because we did see at least partially feathered velociraptors in JP3) through a mutation or mistake or something in the cloning process or something, fine. They are horrible abominations of science and misshapen mutant freaks, not dinosaurs.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I do kinda admit that I find the raptors in the trailer somewhat odd since in the third film they had feathers but none the less it never bother me since I guess it a homage to the first film. I can also let it slid that the whole cloning the dino thing isn't 100% sucess hence the reptiles dino we saw in the film.

In saying so, if the scientist keep insisting that the feather dinos is the true depiction of Dinosaurs then they MUST redrawn and redesign the dinosaurs we got at the moment! I mean look at the T Rex original form that the back was like a slope, I remember seeing drawings of it as a kid and thanks to Jurassic Park, it was redesign (or rather altering the skeletons) so that its back were all straight since that how is suppose to be like and had move.

 

[Amaror]

of course a claymore lightsaber looks badass, but tiny blades that make it look like that without any real functionality looks retarded. And don't tell me the stubs are made of magic metal, Darth Maul sure would have loved to have that.

Objection!
The problem with the tiny blades isn't that they lack function, its that they look darn well dangerous to use as a careless jedi could easily cut himself.

As for their function, they would stop other people's lightsabres from cutting your hands off. Just think of how many Jedi hands could be saved. On the otherhand, I wouldn't be using them as a boomerang any time soon.

If you look very close the tiny laser extensions have two tiny metal extensions were they come out of. So in the case that another jedi might slide his blade down the bastard light sword, it would most likely cut through the metal, thus disabling the tiny laser parts before they could be of any advantage to the jedi or sith fighting with the bastard sword. If they would originate directly from the sword-hilt i would agree that they could be a functional defense.