RE: No Jurassic Park

[Luis Oscar Romero <lor@fibertel.com.ar>]

Hello, dinolist
  
I've been reading with great interest the thread on "Crichton's science" (!) 
and the Jurassic Park series, and I couldn't help been tempted to add my two 
argentine pesos to the matter:
 
Even though Deinonychus (oops, sorry, velociraptors) are a little bit too human 
for my taste, Crichton generally depicts dinosaurs as animals, not monsters, 
with animal behaviour and no superpowers, like other dinosaur movies where all 
dinos are carnivorous and innately hostile to the human being (even sauropods), 
or impervious to rifle bullets and tank shells!!!
 
I find JP series more related to the classic movies about the african sabana, 
more than Godzilla genre. In fact, the hunt sequence in JP II is a direct 
hommage to "Hatari!", a classic of the '60s with John Waine, where they chase 
rhinos from a Land Rover, equipped with lassos... sound familiar?
 
This "animality" is what makes the JP books and movies realistic and likeable, 
even though their scientific deviations, which are noticeable only to 
scientists. 
 
After all, we all have swallow the Sherman tanks with balkenkreutz painted to 
make them look as german Tiger tanks (ughhh) in movies like The Longest Day, 
The Big Red One and many other, or the  AT-6 Texan planes painted as japanese 
Zeros in Pearl Harbour and Midway, or the Hispano Messerschmitt in the Battle 
for Britain, etc., etc., Not to mention the so called peplum films of the 
sixties, or the more recent Troy, with its blonde Achillles, doing Jackie Chan 
stunts in his elvish armour, wearing boots instead of greaves (ughhh and more 
ughhh)...
 
But this is about dinosaurs, and I wish to express my loving for the creatures 
in JP... even though sometimes they are not exactly they way we now believe 
they were or act (it can change tomorrow and change again the day after: What 
if we find a spinosaur fossil with a T-rex byte neck wound that has healed? ). 
 
About the science.., Well, they are novels, not textbooks...  And I don't feel 
like blaming Crichton for taking some detours from orthdoxia to fit the plot.
 
If they are not doing JP IV, couldn't give it a try at Raptor Red?? Pleease?...
  
  
Luis Oscar Romero, lor@fibertel.com.ar 
2008-12-13