I remember when Jurassic Park came out in theatres - I think I was twelve or maybe thirteen at the time. And my mind was blown - the special effects were astounding, the music was stirring. More importantly, the T-Rex and Velociraptors were terrifying, the scene when Dr Ellie Satler (Laura Dern) and Dr Alan Grant (Sam Neill) see the Brachiosaurus for the first time was beautiful, the climactic showdown in the tourist centre was thrilling, and the final scene with the the pelicans was the perfect coda. It had a huge effect on me.
Shame all the dinosaurs are wrong.
I didn't realize at the time, but real Velociraptors were about a quarter of the size as depicted in the film, I now know that what we actually see in the film are Dromeosaurs, or Deinonychus. Velociraptor was a whole lot smaller. And feathery.
Not so terrifying now, huh?
But those original film 'Velociraptors' (or 'Raptors') were frightening - fast, intelligent and co-operative, they changed the way most people thought of dinosaurs forever. They were TOO successful, because now people love them so much they don't want to accept the real thing.
The Raptors acquired a sort of tiger colour scheme in the sequel, which I personally liked much better. I bought several of the striped toys and built my very own Raptor pack. The second movie only brought back Jeff Goldblum as Dr Ian Malcolm but was actually still pretty good, the intro with the little girl and the Procompsognathus ('Compies') was creepy, the reveal of the Stegosaurs was fantastic, the 'dino-roundup' was spectacular and the T-Rex rampaging through San Diego was one of the coolest things ever. It was nice to see the kids and Mr Hammond from the first film in the brief cameo at the start, too.
The third movie kind of sucked by comparison, but it brought back Sam Neill as Dr Alan Grant and gave him a pretty-boy sidekick (Alessandro Nivola), so, points for that. It also brought back Laura Dern as Dr Ellie Satler near the end, which was a nice (and unexpected) bonus. But T-Rex got bested by Spinosaurus, and nobody wanted that. And a lot of the other dinosaurs looked ridiculous - the Pteranodons are goofy looking (they had to hide them in the mist), the Brachiosaurs have a bizarre motley thing going on, etc. I did like the Raptors from this third installment, however - the female lead raptor especially.
I've since become a little obsessed with tracking down images of more scientifically accurate (read: avian, colourful, feathered) dinos. I've come across some really great artwork, and I'll be putting a number of these pictures on this blog in future. Here's just a few to start off:
That last one is a camouflaged Plesiosaur, rather like a carpet shark. I particularly like the shaggy Protoceratops streaking by like a bullet and the 'Yak-like' Alaskan Pachyrhinosaurs below it.
More later.
