Jurassic Park

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

Question: Was there any truth to Hammond's comment that none of the rides at Disneyland worked when the park first opened? I just find that a little hard to believe.

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: Yes. The first opening day of Disneyland in California was catastrophic. The pavement was fresh and the sun was so hot high-heeled shoes actually sunk into the walkways. Counterfeit tickets were made, resulting in more people than the park had room for. They ran out of food and drinks. Bathrooms clogged and shut down. Many of the rides broke down on opening day. The Storybook Land Canal Boats had to be pulled by cast members in rubber boots. At the time, there were no guide rails for Autopia; some of the cars crashed into each other, making them inoperable. A gas leak in Fantasyland lead to the land being temporarily closed for part of the day.

David Yard

Question: Where do the staff and crew of Jurassic Park go after the dinosaurs escape? I mean you see a staff member tending to the triceratops, there were many scientists in the dinosaur lab, and would assume that there would be many more people on the island but they are nowhere to be seen after the dinosaurs escape.

mitch_ando9

Chosen answer: They all left on the same boat Nedry was trying to get on with the embryos. You can hear Samuel L Jackson's character announce that the boat will be leaving at a specific time and everyone had to be there or be left behind.

Shannon Jackson

Question: Hammond gets Grant and Satler to go to Jurassic Park by saying he will fully fund their dig for 3 years. Since Grant says he isn't going to endorse the park, does he still get the grant money? In other words, was the grant dependent on Grant and Satler visiting the park, or on their endorsement?

zephalis

Chosen answer: Hammond's proposal appears to be that Grant only had to visit the park and render an honest opinion about it, although Hammond is confident Grant will endorse it. It was never actually revealed whether or not Hammond continued funding Grant after his refusal to endorse the park (which was sarcasm). However, since Hammond agreed with him, it seems likely he would probably fund Grant's dig in appreciation for everything Grant did (saving his grandchildren) and also to compensate Grant for nearly getting him killed.

raywest

Question: I can't remember if any of this part occurs in the book, it's been years, and this always bothers me. When Hammond takes them on the tour/ride with Mr DNA, the video is made specifically for his interacting live with his clone. What purpose would this serve since eventually the park would open to visitors and he obviously would not be able to host this tour every time?

Answer: It was a specially-made promotional presentation, specifically designed to appeal to Hammond's investors in the park and to gain professional endorsements.

raywest

Question: Wouldn't John Hammond be just a little bit worried at how animal rights activists may react to his park feeding live animals (like goats and cows) to the dinosaurs, and the damage it could do to the park's future?

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: There are several factors to consider. First, zoos do feed live food to some exhibit animals that will not otherwise eat, like feeding live mice to some types of reptiles. Also, Jurassic Park is still top secret and is not yet open to the public, and therefore Hammond and the staff are, at this point, unconcerned about that and may change their practices later. Another consideration is that the park is in a foreign country that may have less stringent rules and regulations regarding zoo and aquarium practices; Hammond is likely paying them well to establish his park there and is bringing in tourism dollars. Finally, Hammond simply may be unconcerned about it, convinced that his fantastic park will be such a huge success and public demand to see the dinosaurs so great that it will overrule objections by animal rights groups.

raywest

Answer: In Jurassic World they still use animals so this isn't a concern.

What happens in a later movie is irrelevant to the question.

lionhead

Question: What exactly was Dennis Nedry's plan overall? The shutting down of the command building's doors makes sense but shutting down all the park fences always struck me as a really pointless risk, especially considering he then proceeds to drive through the very areas he just disabled. Was he trying to create a distraction to cover his abrupt departure (in which case are we to infer he was actually willing to leave his boss, his colleagues and several visitors stranded with the dinosaurs?) or did he simply not have a safer means of smuggling the embryos off the island?

Answer: Twofold. He had to shut down the fences because they contained the exit gates so he could leave to get to the docks, presumably because he didn't have the time to override the individual doors as he happened upon them. Secondly, it also serves as a massive distraction so that he's highly unlikely to be chased by anyone from the park (Dinosaurs not withstanding!). He had to shut down security features on the island to access the embryos, to navigate through the park, and cause a distraction. All security ran on the same power. He was meant to only be gone for 5 minutes. That was what he had planned.

GalahadFairlight

I agree with the above explanation. Also, Nedry needed the power off so as to not be seen on surveillance cameras.

Question: Right after the man talking with the lawyer in the beginning says "Grant's like me; he's a digger" and the close up of the mosquito in amber, he says something in another language. Sounds like "caleendo" or something. Does anybody know what he is saying here?

Coconut

Chosen answer: He says in spanish "Qué lindo eres" (what a beauty).

Question: I thought that there were only 2 raptors, and one got trapped in the freezer. How were there then two attacking the characters near the entry of the visitor center at the end of the movie?

Coconut

Chosen answer: There were three raptors. Remember Muldoon saying "When she came in she took over and killed all but two of the others," in reference to the largest one. Doctor Sattler locked one in the underground power room before making it back to the visitor center; Doctor Grant later asked her if she was sure there were only two left and she made the comment "Yes, unless they somehow learn to open doors." Which in the next scene with Lex and Tim we find out is possible since another raptor did in fact open a door. Tim and Lex locked one in the freezer, and still had one after them; the second one that appeared in the visitor center was the one Sattler faced before, that's why she was so surprised when seeing it.

David Mercier

Question: How long would it take for some of the bigger dinosaurs to reach their size? Was there any indication (movie or book) how long the Jurassic Park project was going on before everyone came to the island? It seems many of the larger ones were adults and that it would take decades to get that size, yet the park wasn't fully ready (Hammond mentions rides coming on 6-12 months) after all that time?

Bishop73

Chosen answer: The breeding and growing of the animals, as explained in the second movie, took place on a different island. It's never mentioned how long it takes for the larger specimens to full grow, but it could indeed take a decade but I'm sure they used all kinds of genetic manipulation to accelerate the growth, or else Hammond would not witness it all in his lifetime. The Island with the park was only later utilised for that purpose, long after most of their animals had already fully grown. Also told in the second movie Hammond experimented with different ideas for a park before, like building an amphitheater in San Diego. So the park was fairly new.

lionhead

Answer: The park project was initiated about 4-5 years before Grant and the others visited the island. All the dinosaurs were genetically modified with increased growth and development hormones. It took most species 3-4 years to mature. Roughly 0.1% of specimens survived. There were roughly 280 dinosaurs on the island. 238 were accounted for by the system. Source: Novel.

Question: At the beginning of the movie, Alan grant is at a dig in Montana. They load what looks like a bullet into a chamber and fire it into the ground. What was it they fired underground and why did they do it?

The_Iceman

Chosen answer: They are using a ground penetrating sonar device. A shotgun shell is discharged into the earth. The resulting blast creates sound waves that bounce off any underlying object, like fossils, and are transmitted to a receiver and seen on a TV monitor as images to reveal what is buried underground.

raywest

Question: Does anyone know what exactly what the meal was that was served in the conference room? The look on Ellie's face suggests something bad, but does anyone know for sure?

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: It was Chilean sea bass; Ellie went a little green around the gills because she had just watched velociraptors tear a cow apart. I don't think I'd want to eat after that.

tattoojunkie

Question: In the kitchen scene wouldn't the raptors have easily disclosed the hiding children's location by following their smell?

Answer: The raptors are confused by all of the reflective surfaces. Their eyes are telling them one thing, while their noses tell them another. They would have eventually figured it out.

Question: When everyone exited the tour cars, they went downhill to see the Triceratops, but how could they get inside the paddock? Is there no fence surrounding the animals? And is the Trike we see the only Trike in JP? My main question is: Why is the Trike free to roam everywhere it wants, I mean they didn't have to get through a fence to get there because we see the tour cars behind them, and they are not behind a fence.

Answer: A Triceratops is a herbivore. Therefor, it doesn't have the same fences as the T-Rex has and is probably separated by a moat or gap. The largest part of the park is probably like this and access for personnel to the herbivores is probably easy, it's with the carnivores they took extra measures. There are probably other triceratops but this one was sick and was probably separated from the group in case it is contagious.

lionhead

Question: When Ellie and Muldoon are going out to turn the power on, Muldoon sees that the raptors have escaped and says something to the effect of, "even Nedry knew better than to mess with the raptor pen." As a computer person, how would Nedry know much about dinos and as the electric wiring was obviously broken around the raptor cage Nedry must have turned off the raptor fences as well?

Answer: Nedry did not turn off the raptor fences, as anyone in the park would know how dangerous the raptors were. Nedry was no scientist, but was not a fool and knew how to target particular fences via programming. If you remember, Muldoon had the raptor fences checked when the all of the other paddock fences went offline. It was only after the entire system was rebooted to bring the power back online that the raptor fence was tripped, promptly causing the intelligent raptors to break out. Muldoon mentioned Nedry to show that not even he was foolish enough to mess with the raptor fences.

Question: How did the scientists know what breed of dinosaur they were creating? They couldn't tell which dinosaur's blood they extracted from the mosquito, could they?

Answer: After creating the first dinosaur from a DNA sample, they would then be able to identify the species, then proceed to clone more.

raywest

Answer: In the book it states that they don't really know what dinosaur they're making each time. Just that if it works out it does, if not, back to the drawing board and filling gaps to make it work.

Question: In the book Tim is older than Lex and is into computers. In the movie, Lex is older than Tim and is into computers. Why was this change made?

Answer: It was thought that in the book Tim got too much of the focus being the dinosaur and computer expert. So, they reversed the ages and gave Lex the computer skills and Tim kept his dinosaur knowledge so that they each played more equal parts in the movie.

wolfchild

Answer: Steven Spielberg explained that he met Joseph Mazzello (Tim) when he screen-tested for a role in Hook, but felt he was too young. Spielberg promised him they would work together on a future film so it was decided to swap Lex and Tim's ages so he could appear in the movie.

Question: Where are all the other staff members for Jurassic Park? I can understand most of them left on the boat before disaster struck, however the events also continue throughout the morning/afternoon. It's completely light, the weather is fine so the returning boat shouldn't have had a problem returning to the island. Also much of the final scenes of the film happen in or near the visitors centre. So surely there will be staff returning to the island that could have helped or even been involved with some of the escaped dinosaurs having arrived on the island in the morning.Yet we see no other Jurassic Park staff until the helicopter arrives. Surely we should have been able to see the rest of the staff returning to the park in the morning to continue their day's work.

dancutd

Chosen answer: The inference I got was that people were sent away on the boat and told to stay away until the problems in the Park were resolved.

GalahadFairlight

Question: In the book version the character Lex has short hair that's pushed under her cap. In the film version she has a longish plait. I know that the film makers change many things for many reasons, but does anyone know why they changed this?

Answer: Probably because there was no reason in the plot for Lex to have short hair. It simply did not matter whether it was long, medium, or short; if the actress playing Lex had longer hair, then the film makers must have felt that fit the character just as well as a shorter cut.

raywest

Question: In the scene where the raptor tries to break in and Lex is on the computer, Grant and Ellie holds the door to block the raptor, Lex is on the computer, and Tim is looking over her doing nothing. Ellie keeps trying to get the gun with her foot. Is there a reason I'm missing where she couldn't have just asked Tim to run and get the gun for her?

cilan

Chosen answer: In the extremely high stress of the moment, it didn't occur to anyone. Your mental faculties tend to shut down under that kind of pressure.

Phixius

Answer: I wouldn't want a kid to handle a gun in any way, even if they were just handing it to me; they could accidentally set it off. Maybe that thought entered her mind.

Jurassic Park mistake picture

Continuity mistake: While Lex and Tim are hiding in the kitchen, when the large serving spoon falls it cuts to the closeup of the two Velociraptors and the tall shelving unit has vanished, but in the next shot when the one of the raptors leaps onto the counter that tall shelving unit is back.

Super Grover

More mistakes in Jurassic Park

John Hammond: All major theme parks have had delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked, nothing.
Ian Malcolm: But, John, if the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists.

More quotes from Jurassic Park

Trivia: To make the water in the glass on the dashboard 'jump', they strung a guitar string from the underside of the dashboard to a bolt on the floor and then plucked the string.

More trivia for Jurassic Park

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