THE STARS OF JP 2

["D.W.Naish" <dwn194@soton.ac.uk>]

IF JURASSIC PARK ANNOYS OR BORES YOU DO NOT READ THIS.

According to Mark 'Crash' Macready - the guy who did the initial ilustations
upon which the JP dinosaurs were based (he is therefore responsible for giving
Dilophosaurus a dud head and a neck frill, and for putting Gallimimus' feet too
far forwards under its body, and giving the Tyrannosaurus Hallett-style orbital
hornlets, and giving several of the dinosaurs elephantine skin texture..)
STEGOSAURUS will near certainly be making it into the next movie. As those of
you that have collected the toys will know, they even made a fairly good
Stegosaurus toy at the time as they did the other ones.  

BUT they also made two Coelophysis, a juvenile T.rex (obviously inspired by the
book!), Pteranodon (I guess that the pterosaurs from the book, Caeradactylus,
didn't inspire quite the same enthusiasm) and Dimetrodon. 

Even worse, the little die-cast JP models include (only mentioning those that
didn't appear in the film here...); Ceratosaurus, Stegosaurus again, Dimetrodon
again, Iguanodon, a plesiosaur (it's supposed to be Plesiosaurus and the model
LOOKS like Plesiosaurus, but the accompanying illustration was Elasmosaurus) and
Ankylosaurus (thought it didn't really look much like an Ankylosaurus). 

Incidentally, Stegosaurus WAS in J.P., but only its name - and they spelt it
STEGASAURUS. Metriacanthosaurus and Proceratosaurus also got a mention - these
were all names written on the embryo-storage flasks. As Peter said some time
back, a number of other theropods were also supposed to be living on the island
(Baryonx and Herrerasaurus among them). 

In the book, Crichton called his ankylosaurs 'Euplocephalids'. Dryosaurus
hopped, and the hypsilophodontid Othnielia was back in the trees again. And,
when a giant dragonfly (cf. Meganeura I suppose) lands on little Tim's
outstretched arm, Dr. Grant says "Giant insects were charaterisitc of the
Jurassic...".   Say what? 

At one point, Grant and the kids see some Microceratops - they also live in
trees! But they're not mentioned in the species count table either, as far as
I can remember.

There was a sequel run in 'Jurassic Park' the comic, but it was extremely
disapointing. Sattler and Grant return to the island with the military to 'clean
up' the place. The whole thing started quite well, with the T.rex bashing a
couple of tanks around (they were trying to dart her, not blow her up). They
then find out that Velociraptors are breeding in a remote cave on the other side
of the island (cf. the book) BUT a kind of bounty hunter bloke is capturing them
for some rich Colombian drug fiend who, somehow, has learnt of these aggressive
animals and wants to get them trained to be his own personal guard dinosaurs.
The rest of the story revolves around his kidnapping of Grant and Sattler, their
(succesful) attempts at training the Velociraptors, and the use of them to do
evil deeds for their 'master'. Being so super clever, the dinosaurs eventually
kill their captors (obviously not Grant and Sattler though) and escape into the
Amazon, where they do a bit of eco-damage killing indigenous people and wildlife
(they hunt and kill a jaguar, which is obviously inspired by a bit in 'Predatory
Dinosaurs of the World' where Paul says 'Put a leopard and a (Deinonychus)
antirrhopus together, and the former is in trouble..'.)

FOR THOSE THAT HATE J.P. PLEASE FORGIVE US. JP is an integral part of
contemporary interest in dinosaurs, and discussion of aspects in it is not
harmful to our interest in dinosaurs generally. I didn't 'like' the film - but
I love the special effects!

"Where's the goat?"

DARREN NAISH