Jurassic Park

Corrected entry: When Hammond's helicopter flies in to the Badlands dig site, somehow he manages to get from the helicopter way up to the trailer without anyone seeing him get out, even though they are all watching it land and Grant and Ellie get to it as soon as it lands.

Correction: There is never a scene to suggest they are watching the helicopter all the time, and neither do they get to the helicopter a soon as it lands- there is probably over 10 seconds to get to it and they possibly took a few seconds to tell others to take care of the site.

Corrected entry: Watch carefully as Ellie removes her protective gloves after examining the um, droppings. To properly remove soiled gloves, one should "peel" the first one down from the top, turning it inside out. Hold the removed glove in your other hand, and "peel" the second glove down, turning it inside out and encasing the first glove. This prevents your hands from becoming contaminated. Ellie removes her gloves by pulling the first one off at the fingers, keeping it soiled side out. She then grabs the other glove, removes it the same way, then holds both of them together in her right hand, thereby ensuring nice, dinosaur-poopy hands. (00:51:00)

Correction: OK not pleasant and a strange choice, but not a mistake and definitely not a factual error to decide to remove gloves in this fashion.

tw_stuart

Corrected entry: When Tim is holding onto the fence, when the power came on, it would cause his hand muscles to clench the cable.

Correction: You haven't been electrocuted before. Otherwise, you would know that a powerful electric shock will knock you backwards by several feet.

Charles Austin Miller

Depends on whether it's Alternating Current, which would do as the original mistake says, or Direct Current, which would do the second option, like the correction. Insufficient information is given to say solidly which the fence uses.

dizzyd

We can reasonably assume that Jurassic Park was using Direct Current, wisely intended to repel the dinosaurs away from the fence line. If it was Alternating Current, then the multi-billion-dollar menagerie of ultra-rare specimens would be fried to a crisp (or at least seriously injured) on a daily basis, as they would be unable to release the charged fences. Therefore, Direct Current is the only fiscally-logical choice (and it explains Tim being repelled from the fence).

Charles Austin Miller

Corrected entry: Why aren't there subwayesque service tunnels all round the island to permit the staff to travel hidden from the dinosaurs/sundry other emergencies/all the other incidental occurrences that make every other undertaking on our planet use similar tunnels? Expensive and laborious, but if you have the resources to make dinosaurs, everything else is a breeze.

dizzyd

Correction: Despite Hammond's catchphrase of "We spared no expense", that would have been a huge expense, as underground tunnels suitable for travel are extremely costly. Also remember that Isla Nublar is a volcanic island. The ground may simply not be suitable for that kind of construction.

Greg Dwyer

Correction: Given that "Jurassic Park" was author Michael Crichton's re-imagining of his own film "Westworld" (in which a high-tech amusement park goes haywire and the guests must run for their lives), the whole point of the movie was to place humans and dinosaurs on the same deadly-dangerous playing field. Like "Westworld," this movie was a purely visual film (a graphic novel, basically) that smoothed-over lapses of logic in favor of frantic spectacle. If John Hammond had the foresight to make his Jurassic Park a hermetically-sealed, perfectly-safe environment for humans to observe and maintain dinosaurs, it would have eliminated the thrill of the movie, turning it into a National Geographic documentary.

Charles Austin Miller

But the point is the park was safe, without Nedry's sabotage things would have worked perfectly. Hammond spared no expense and it shows with the fancy security. Because of this Nedry's sabotage was put in.

lionhead

The fact that Jurassic Park could be sabotaged by a computer geek is proof that it was not perfectly safe. A perfectly-safe facility would be foolproof and sabotage-proof.

Charles Austin Miller

Any place can be sabotaged, the point is that it was safe enough to receive visitors, without the sabotage the inspection would have gone smoothly. Adding tunnels or even more security wouldn't change a thing. You are just making stuff up.

lionhead

Correction: They didn't think about it. They didn't need to because they felt they had the place pretty well secured. Besides it wouldn't have helped them much anyway, once the fences were down the predators could get anywhere and a lot of the predators are small enough to get inside the tunnels, the velociraptors could even open doors. Most personnel was already gone so there is no lacking in their infrastructure that would require tunnels. This could have helped Dennis Nedry escape as well. He shut the park down to create chaos and move unseen.

lionhead

Corrected entry: Right before the scientists see the dinosaurs for the first time, Ellie is looking at this plant leaf and saying, "This has been extinct since the ____ period." If it's an extinct plant, how could they duplicate it? Mosquitoes don't drink chlorophyll - there's no way it could have been preserved if everything worked the way they said. No organic material from an extinct plant from either the Jurassic or Cretaceous period has ever been found, and given that plant material decays very quickly, it never will be. The engineers did not use some magical "other method" to clone plants because there aren't any.

Correction: As has been pointed out on this site before, inventing deux ex machina explanations for plot holes and factual errors does not invalidate them. No organic material from an extinct plant from either the Jurassic or Cretaceous period has ever been found, and given that plant material decays very quickly, it never will be. The engineers did not use some magical "other method" to clone plants because there aren't any.

Correction: The video they watch (with Mr. DNA) only explains how they recreated the dinosaurs, which were the main attraction of the park. The engineers used other methods to make the right environment for the animals, but as it's not half as exciting, the viewer never finds out exactly how.

Jez

Correction: The simplest and most likely explanation, once you accept the logic of this movie in the first place, is that the engineers are removing Plant DNA directly from the amber.

dizzyd

Amber is fossilized tree sap, anything fossilized doesn't hold any DNA. However, it is possible amber holds trapped plant parts (called 'inclusion'), from which DNA can be extracted. Theoretically.

lionhead

Corrected entry: When Alan becomes overwhelmed after seeing the movie's first dinosaur, he staggers and sits down on the ground... But as he is bending over before sitting, there are already grass stains and/or wet spots on the seat of his pants.

Correction: I've watched this scene plenty of times and there are no grass stains on his pants.

There are definitely stains on his pants. Clearly visible in 4K.

Then I suggest submitting a screen shot because in the clearest images I can't see any stains or wet spots.

Bishop73

Corrected entry: In the scene where Sam Neill and the little boy are climbing down the tree, the car keeps crashing down a few branches at a time behind them. Why are they in such a hurry? If the car is falling in such a straight line, wouldn't it be easier to climb around to the other side of the tree, where they would be safely out of danger? (01:14:00)

Correction: If you pay attention, as they are climbing down the tree there are no branches within reach that aren't in the path of the falling truck. They would have to go out to the ends of the branches to climb around and that far away from the trunk the branches might not hold their weight. The quickest, safest way down is to outrun the falling truck.

BaconIsMyBFF

Corrected entry: Near the end of the movie, when the raptor is in the control room, the people (Alan, Ellie, Lex, and Tim) crawl into a suspended ceiling. A suspended ceiling should not be able to support the weight of four people.

Correction: Since Dr. Hammond "spared no expense" in building the park, we have no way of knowing what material the ceiling is made from, or how sturdy it is, so this "mistake" is pure speculation, not a factual error.

Jazetopher

Corrected entry: When Nedry slips on the waterfall, a cartoonish whistle is dubbed just below the background noise.

Correction: It's the sound of the winch being rapidly pulled out.

Corrected entry: Ellie locks the outside handle of the freezer with the steel pin, but somehow the second raptor gets out.

Correction: You're confusing two of the raptors here. Ellie locked one in the electrical area, but there may yet be another way out. Lex locked the one in the freezer, which is probably dead after that. There was still the third raptor there.

LorgSkyegon

Corrected entry: In the last scene, the helicopter is shown out at sea, yet the intercuts of the interior show a mountainous green background close by.

Correction: The exterior shot of the helicopter leads straight to the end credits of the film and fade to black; there are no intercuts to the interior. The previous shots of the interior show trees on the right side of the helicopter while Grant sees the birds flying over the ocean from the leftside windows, indicating that the helicopter is flying along the coast of the island. We cannot see the island in the exterior shot because the shot is from the perspective of the island (from the helicopter's right side).

JC Fernandez

Corrected entry: In the scene where the lawyer is running to hide in the bathroom, you can see a rock sign near the bathroom. When Malcolm is running from the Tyrannosaur, the sign is gone. (01:00:55 - 01:04:40)

Correction: The rock is there in all the shots in "The Ultimate Collection" DVD box set version, but it is only visible briefly in Dr. Malcom's shot.

Oliver Hunter

Corrected entry: During the beginning when the gatekeeper falls when he lands on the ground you can see behind him the light on the lock is already red. In the next shot you see the locks lights going from green, to yellow, and to red again. (00:02:30)

Correction: It looks more like a red lens flare spot than the lights on the doorway. In slow motion the red spot can be seen in front of Jophery, which wouldn't be possible if it was the light on the door.

Oliver Hunter

Corrected entry: In the scene where the characters have fallen from the hanging T-Rex fossil and are being surrounded by velociraptors, the camera views across the room showing nothing at all and then back to the velociraptors. Then it swings back and T-Rex just appears out of nowhere and saves the day by eating one of the velociraptors. How did it get in? We just saw there was nothing there, and they've already elaborated about how much noise a T-Rex makes when it's close, the water ripples, the shaking, and pure noise.

Correction: Previously submitted and corrected entry.

Jazetopher

Corrected entry: During the scene with the T-Rex attacking the Explorer 04 the hood level fog lights are off. After the Rex flips the Explorer onto and over the edge the fog lights are on.

Correction: Already submitted, complete with timecode.

Jazetopher

Corrected entry: If you play the film in slow motion just as the Dilophosaurus opens its frill for the first time, you can see that it is folded around the puppet's neck like an umbrella instead of being skin-tight and indistinguishable as it was previously.

Correction: Even in slo-mo, this was hard to see, thus disqualifying this per the rules of this site. Furthermore, it looks flawless at normal viewing speed.

Jazetopher

Corrected entry: With some of the electric fences it seems that the wires enter the bushes and just disappear. If the fence wires really do continue, we would surely see more columns appearing in the bushes.

Correction: Already submitted entry, complete with screenshot.

Jazetopher

Corrected entry: When Timmy is near the top of the fence, just before the electricity turns back on, he has his head and shoulders through the fence, with the wires resting against his armpits. Since the shoulders are the widest part of the body on a person of normal weight, a hole wide enough for your shoulders is wide enough for the rest of you. The spaces in the fence are somewhat circular--they are at least as tall as they are wide--so why is Timmy climbing the fence in the first place? He could have just crawled through at the bottom! (01:39:10)

Correction: At first glance, this is correct. Timmy could fit through the fence wires that are CLOSE TO THE TOP, but earlier when the characters are standing at the base of the fence you see Grant put his face practically touching the fence while he's attempting to make the hole larger and its clear that his head wouldn't stand a chance of fitting thru the hole and i seriously doubt that his head is larger than a ten-year old's shoulders. A possible explanation: the fence they are climbing is labeled as perimeter fence, so likely the holes are smaller at the base of the fence to prevent the small dinos from escaping, but the holes become larger as the fence becomes taller to save on materials a bit as the small dinos obviously couldn't get high enough up on an electrified fence to get through a larger hole towards the top.

Very well, but fact of the matter is, Somewhere on that fence, Timmy could have slipped through, and saved himself from having to climb all the way to the top, saving time, energy and at least some of the risk of climbing to great height.

dizzyd

Corrected entry: In the scene where Nedry falls off the waterfall, the jeep rope in his hands is gone, but when Nedry stands up, the rope is back.

Correction: He scoops the rope up just as he stands up.

Corrected entry: When the raptors open the lever handle doors, (like going into the kitchen) the handle on the opposite side moves too. With these types of doors, only the handle with the pressure applied to it moves, not the other side. This was added to show the raptor's claws on the door handle.

Correction: I've seen plenty of lever handles where the two handles are directly connected. And even if it had never been seen before, there's no reason to say it couldn't be done. It is, after all, easier than keeping the two handles independent.

Garlonuss

Jurassic Park mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After the T. Rex rolls Explorer 4 upside-down with Lex and Tim inside, in the closeup when the dinosaur bites on the rubber tire we see the hub hole at the center of the wheel rim, but two shots later the wheel cover is back on the wheel.

Super Grover

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Trivia: When the grandchildren and Grant are crawling above the drop-down ceiling to flee from the raptors, the raptors at one point have "squares" of light shining on them. If you look closely at this light, these "squares" of light are not really squares, but the letters A T C G, the DNA sequence abbreviations.

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Question: Are the people present at the digging site when they're discussing new approaches to analyzing skeletons supposed to be paleontologists in dr. Grant's group? If so, why would they laugh at his musings of "how dinos learned how to fly"? And why would he have to explain it to them? Seemed to me like he is explaining very basic stuff to the people that would already know this (and of course, to the movie audience).

Answer: They are not paleontologists, just people interested in dinosaurs. It is common for museums and other scientific organizations to offer the general public an opportunity to participate in a real paleontology dig. For a fee, they become an exhibition team member for a period of time, learn about dinosaurs, help excavate fossils, and so on. This is likely how Dr. Grant (or his institution) supplements his research funding.

raywest

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