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Post by theropod on Mar 29, 2013 20:20:23 GMT 5
I haven't seen feathers in the third movie, or were these spikes on the dromaeosaurs heads meant to be feathers? in the best case, that means the whole movie is gonna take place underwater, in the worst case, I'll have to continue watching two legged komodo dragons with exagerated intelligence chase people
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Post by Grey on Mar 29, 2013 20:31:01 GMT 5
Or that the movie will not feature raptors at all.
Or it will focuses on the first generation of engineered raptors of the franchise (don't forget, genetically they are not real dinosaurs, which has sometimes been supposed to explain the poor vision of rex, the small size in Dilophosaurus...this point is particularly mentioned in the novels).
If it features (proto)feathers-less raptors, I just hope it's for a good reason, not for tastes reasons (many fans are against because they don't like the supposed look of raptors with it).
In my opinion, completely feathered raptors on the big screen could be quite frightening, increasing the bird-of-prey dimension they're intended to exhibit. One paleontologist remarked "imagine a raptor cleaning his feathers covered of blood...".
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Post by theropod on Mar 29, 2013 21:37:31 GMT 5
I concur.
btw dromaeosaurs supposedly had true feathers, not just protofeathers, however not that there would be fundamental differences...
You mean the frog-DNA is the cause for the nacked droms? That's be a possibility, but shouldn't they be a bit more slimy then? I really have to read the book.
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Post by Grey on Mar 30, 2013 1:44:12 GMT 5
That's only an hypothesis formulated by the fans. Actually the question of the animals not being "true" dinosaurs is more subtle than this in the novel, at genetic level.
By the way, I disagree the JP raptors are Achillobator-sized. Achillobator approached 6 m and may have weighed several hundreds of kg. The raptors in the movie are the size of big Deinonychus.
And they are Deinonychus actually. That's another common misconception of saying the raptors were oversized from V. mongoliensis. That's not true. When Crichton had written the book, Deinonychus anthiroppus had been proposed by some authors , including Horner I think, as a member of the genus Velociraptor. This has been retained for the novel and the movie, even though Deinonychus prevailed. In the book they are listed as Velociraptor anthiroppus, weighing 70 to 130 kg. Achillobator and Utahraptor, which are sometimes cited as the animals in the films, are far too big.
These are gangs of big Deinonychus that we see in the JP movies.
I strongly recommend you to get the book by the way, a great read, even by from scientific perspective.
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Post by theropod on Mar 30, 2013 2:18:53 GMT 5
As far as I know Achillobator giganticus was about 5m, most of that tail, and maybe 100-200kg. That's about the weight the "raptors" could have been, as they were clearly bigger than the humans. They are larger than Deinonychus, but smaller than Utahraptor. archosaur.us/theropoddatabase/Dromaeosaurs.htm#Achillobatorgiganticus130kg is outside the range I have read about for D. anthirrhopus. I know they were based on the animal then known as V. anthirrhopus, but that doesn't mean it wasn't oversized a bit (but that definitely makes them far more credible as they were at least 10 times the size of a normal V. mongoliensis or V.osmolskae). upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Achillobator_scale.pngThis is achillobator, most likely slightly oversized due to spine curvature. I remember the droms in JP didn't have problems directly facing the human characters. this is deinonychus: www.oldearth.org/curriculum/history/Deinonychus-scale.pngThis one would have.
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Post by theropod on Mar 30, 2013 2:20:43 GMT 5
btw, did the droms have feathers in the book?
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Post by creature386 on Mar 31, 2013 20:13:11 GMT 5
Actually, the dinosaurs in that movie were not as much monsters as in the movies before. Here, they were at least animals in some scenes. It's Hollywood after all.
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Post by Grey on Mar 31, 2013 20:42:46 GMT 5
I've verified.
For sure, the raptors in JP are nearer in size to Deinonychus (though a big one, like the female in the movie) than Achillobator. Verify it by viewing some scenes in YouTube, they are undoubtably human sized and depending their posture, can equal a human in size or only be slightly smaller. Nowhere approaching 200 kilos. There are some estimates of Deinonychus pointing at 100 kg but they are perhaps upper suggestions or outdated.
However the raptors in JP3 seem curiously a bit larger as they largely equal Grant when facing him, though I've not seen any inspiration from the largest dromaeosaurs. Probably perspective only.
The novels date back 1990 and 1995 respectively so no, no feathers in it, but the links with birds are very heavily mentioned. The scientific values of these novels is also elsewhere, in the genetics and scientifical ethics, chaos theory, the influence of discoveries on the natural world (Heisenberg, hinted in the second movie), the fact that despite all our research, we don't know anything when facing a living Jurassic predator (hence, surprisingly, venomous Dilophosaurus).
And the novels are darker and more graphic, violent than the movies...
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Post by Life on Mar 31, 2013 20:59:23 GMT 5
Jurassic Park franchise (Hollywood) based depictions of dinosaurs are not scientifically accurate. The first Jurassic Park movie is a classic due to its fantastic story concept and most realistic depiction of dinosaurs in filmography till that time. However, none of the Jurassic Park based depictions are scientifically accurate. B/W Great update from BCC; finally the company has realized the importance of scientific accuracy in depictions of prehistoric animals? Great share, Grey.
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Post by Grey on Mar 31, 2013 21:14:55 GMT 5
Thanks friend ! Well I'm not totally agreed. As I said, if we look closely, the three films are not more inaccurate than most of the dinosaurs related docs. For example, what's the worst, an anatomically inaccurate Spinosaurus grabbing the neck of a smaller tyrannosaur or an anatomically inaccurate 150 tons Liopleurodon ? Despite the minor physical inaccuracies, for some deliberate artistic license (the Spitter) for others because science and knowledge progress (Spino, raptors...), the JP are valuable as they help the audience to discover science, and encourage them to learn about. The Spinosaurus snout found in 2005 has gained so much attention largely because of its remarked appearance in the last movie. These films do not depict exact animals (for most), but credible animals by modern standards. Also, as expressed in the novels and briefly in the third movie, they are genetically not dinosaurs This has been to explain some inaccuracies in sources more or less official. It's fiction but good fiction, with an opening on the ecological questions (more in the novels and the first two films). Now that's my opinion. And as a cinephile and fan, I'm biased !
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Post by theropod on Mar 31, 2013 22:35:05 GMT 5
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Post by Grey on Mar 31, 2013 22:50:28 GMT 5
The skull of one Deinonychus anthiroppus is 40 cm long. In the novel, the skull is described as 60 cm long but I think that's false statement by the author. Giving their sizes and skull sizes, in the movie and their affiliation, they are more likely big Deinonychus (but I'm certain to gave seen reliable datas of Deinonychus reaching 100 kg). Also Achillobator wasn't known at the time, hence the most possible interpretation is Deinonychus. At the beginning, the skeleton Grant digs up is 6 feet tall, 9 feet long.
The important is that size wise, such dromaeosaurs did exist !
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Post by theropod on Mar 31, 2013 23:59:16 GMT 5
Yes, that's absolutely true. The difference in terms of physiology and behaviour wouldn't have been huge for all we know.
We know that it was meant to be Deinonychus (back then V. anthirropus), so that's no reason to debate. If the skull was 60cm, it's somewhat oversized, but that's not so tragic, we should not foprget we are talking about a novel and a hollywood movie.
I'd be interested in those data, I'll look whether I can find more on it. However taking a skull lenght of approximately 40cm and comparing it to velociraptor (max skull lenght 25cm corresponding total lenght 2m) it should be 1,6 times the dimensions, 4,1 times the weight and 2,5 times the muscular force. The lenght this would procuce very fits the proposed figures, as far as the weight is concerned there are widely varying figures, hence no wonder the estimates for Deinonychus also vary greatly.
btw concerning velociraptor I once found a skeletal on deviantart showing it at a significantly larger size than that, and I commented and asked the user who made it about the animal (he said it wasn't anthirropus). I'll see whether I can find the info again. Generally I think whoever has the ability to make an accurate skeletal drawing has some degree of qualification.
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Post by Grey on Apr 1, 2013 12:23:27 GMT 5
I've heard too of these alleged larger specimen of Velociraptor indeed. But do not forget the skull structure of mongoliensis do not fit the skull shape in the movie, more Deinonychus-like.
Jack Horner has just talked about the fourth JP. I post it the Jurassic Park thread, we are in the Walking with Dinosaurs subject !
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Post by creature386 on Apr 23, 2013 23:05:12 GMT 5
Does "no feathers" mean like in JP III or nothing at all? Anyway, I'm not that sad because of it. The feathers thing is more important in documentaries. There it is really important to look at it, as there are still lots of Maniraptorans depicted without feathers in documentaries. Same in books. So, I think it would be better to make them appear feathered in things what you would actually use as source, especially what small kids would sue as source. Most stereotypes about dinosaurs are born when people are young. Many people stop being interessted in dinosaurs, when getting older. But at that time, they don't watch Jurassic Park (altough lots of children series copy the depictions from JP), so I don't find the scaly lizards that terrible there. But after all, there are much worse stereotypes. Many people think they could outrun a Lion because of some movies. Don't let me start about Sharks.
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