Jurassic Park: Helpful or Harmful?

I'd say overall it's helpful. For one thing it ignites an interest in a subject, an interest that if followed will lead to real learning. There are two ways it does this (that are apparent to me, anyways). One is the big, moving dinosaurs on the screen. The other is the attention it draws to excited geeks discussing current and ongoing debates to do with our understanding of dinosaurs. Mention of the bird relationship, catastrophic extinction event, child rearing, intelligence, warm-bloodedness and so forth made me very curious. Of course, not all of those things panned out (T-Rex's vision is based on movement!?) but it can make you want to find out, and these days you're just a wiki away from a better starting point.

You'd have to do a lot of good to compensate for putting the neologisms 'T rex' and 'raptor' into the popular vernacular.

Not to mention using Jurassic as a synonym for Mesozoic.

And have you ever noticed how many Spielberg movies center around child-haters or bad fathers learning to love unconvincingly precocious kids? Kinda makes you wonder what the man's home life is like.

Aaaah, Spielberg just gets on my nerves. Pay no attention to the grumpy old poop behind the curtain.

Well, his films always have a KID in them. That irritates me. As for Jurassic Park, I think that, ultimately, the first two movies were helpful in aiding the public's understanding and awareness of both dinosaurs and paleontology. The third film could have done more, but it ended up doing less. My hopes are not high for the fourth installment.

I still field questions about the movie(s), and I eagerly tear down every falsified premise made therein. On the other hand, it's good to know that people are interested enough to ask these questions. It shows that SOME growth is taking place.

In fairness to Spielberg (or whoever did the screenplays for these films), Sam Neill's character seems well-grounded in basic science. As he points out in one movie, the Jurassic park creatures are NOT real dinosaurs, they're just genetic constructs created to resemble dinosaurs. So long as they keep getting that point across, the science shouldn't be too horrendous.

Overall Jurassic Park has been a positive influence for science and paleontology.

I think it is important to keep in mind that Jurassic Park is fiction meant to tell a story: it is not supposed to be a hard documentary or a substitute for a paleo course any more than Jaws is meant to be an oceanography lesson or Aliens a study in astronomy, and to expect otherwise is naive. I think everyone gets that. The dinosaurs in the movies are as much actors portraying fictional characters as Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum.

That being said, a good deal of care was taken on behalf of the screenwriters, directors, and producers - much to their credit - to ensure the dinosaurs were authentic to a point and as accurate as the plot and story structure would allow. Albeit for the famous examples otherwise, I believe they succeeded. It's easy to look back now and nitpick about naked dromaeosaurs or shrunken, venomous dilophosaurs; but the films took a huge step in presenting dinosaurs to the mainstream public not as cold blooded, tail-dragging failures of evolution, but as the warm blooded, sophisticated ancestors of birds science shows they were.

The criticism that science is out of the reach of the common person is ever present, but popular entertainment like Jurassic Park was/is a great way to make science, even in small doses, accessible to the masses. There will always be room for improvement as far as scientific accuracy is concerned in these movies, but at least they're opening the door for people to find out more about our earth's wonderful prehistory.

Having worked in a museum as a science educator I'd say every 10th question I got was about something from JP.

Overall the movies did GOOD.

I do have a few pet peeves.

The Grant dig at the beginning of the first movie. Having lead tours to dig sites, and supervised guests on a simulation dig that one scene has caused a lot of damage in public understanding.

A lot of people think that the New Mexico sonar gun is a common use tool, and that Dinosaur bones are stupid easy to find. Further more visitors (especially on the sim digs) are amazed how hard excavating really is! In the movie a mere brushing off of sand and you have a whole skeleton... Speaking of which people think most Dinosaurs are found complete and whole. Granted that's also a problem of museum's in how they present cast skeletons, but the JP dig didn't help.

Funny aside I had one very keen 30 yr old woman on a tour who paniced about damage to the bones when a plane flew slightly close to the ground over our example bonebed due to the bit with Hammonds helicopter.

The Velciraptors are a category of their own!

1. It would have been nice if they actually were Vraptors or named Utahraptor. I know its due to Crichton referencing Gregory Paul's reassignment of Vraptors, but man oh man I was sick of people complaining about our Dromaeosaurs in the dino hall being "babies".

2. Their being from krypton and have super speed, intelligence, and door opening powers. #1 question was "Could raptors REALLY open doors"... My answer either exampled how it might be possible. Or if I'd gotten asked a lot in a day (which sadly happened a LOT) I'd get sarcastic and say "no idea, don't care, and neither should you. It wouldn't have been an issue as there were NO doors back than!

3. I also hated the whole Grant prototyped raptor vocal... horn?... people wondered why we didn't know what dinosaurs actually sounded like, and why I couldn't tell them what their genitals looked like (JP was again only 10% of the questions. The MOST common questions from adult were by far about Dino sex)

4. Its a small one more due to us staff. Why'd they have to have that catchy phrase "Stay out of the long grass!". Anytime you'd head out into the badlands and come across prairie someone would shout it.

Jurassic Park 3 is just a problem!

I rant about it pretty in depth on Traumador's blog (the site linked to my name here), but the basic gist is it should be called JP3: Attack of the Fish Eaters.

I swear if I get another question about Spinosaurus being stronger than T-Rex I'm going to reenact the fight on the other person.

The Pteranodon scene also leads to any number of STUPID questions about pterosaurs...

Personally I found the WORST influnence on guests though (apart from creationists!) especially kids are books with outdated information. Now working as a skool teacher its scary how many libraries still have dinosaur books from the 80's and BEFORE!

That's where the JPs are great. They in very simple manner blow these old boring ideas on Dinosaurs out of the water, and cause the keen kids to seek better info!

My 2¢ worth: I agree that the JP movies generally did more good than harm -- except perhaps for the second one, which will always be defined for me by the fantastically stupid scene of the girl using gymnastic moves to kill a raptor. Yes, there are lots of blunders, big and small. Yes, there are lots of bits of artistic license presented as 'facts.' The awesome skill of the SFX crews make it nearly impossible for the average watcher to tell where fact ends and fiction begins, at least as far as the dinosaurs' appearance and behavior are concerned. OTOH, they did get the dinosaurs' appearance basically right, and in most cases they did do an adequate job of presenting the dinosaurs as animals, not mythical monsters. The "Making of Jurassic Park" featurettes on the movie DVDs claim that the palaeontologists who consulted on the CGI dinosaurs were impressed by the SFX guys' efforts to make realistically-moving CGI dinosaurs, and allowed as how they might have gotten the dinosaurs' movements more or less correct.

And in fairness it must be said that some of the science blunders weren't known to be blunders fifteen years ago.

As both a dinosaur nut and a computer geek, I'd like to add that some of what I liked best about the Jurassic Park novels never made it into the movies: for example, the persistent habit of virtually all the human characters of missing ways in which the systems they'd created could fail. Crichton had the same theme underlying virtually all his novels, and by the time he wrote JP he'd gotten very good at hammering it home in numerous ways: assumptions can kill you. Big assumptions, little assumptions, any assumptions at all. So you should make as few assumptions as possible, and do your very best to see them before you make them. That's a valuable lesson for scientists to learn.

And in fairness it must be said that some of the science blunders weren't known to be blunders fifteen years ago.

I'd also put in my 2c that when you're composing something that's part of a series, then sometimes narrative requirements take precedence. Even if it turns out that an earlier installment was wrong about something, it's still (in my opinion) far more important to remain consistent with the narrative 'facts' that were established previously than to pretend they never happened. This was a serious problem with the book The Lost World (Crichton's, not Doyle's), which bears almost no resemblance to the movie - things that Crichton no longer agreed with from Jurassic Park, such as Tyrannosaurus seeing only movement, were changed freely without concern. Sure, the movement-vision-only thing was kind of stoopid to begin with, but the point was that it had already been established so the author should have stuck with it.

I actually rather like the movie of The Lost World, but I don't look at it as anything more than a fun big dumb monster movie. Jurassic Park 3, by contrast, was the kind of movie that makes you want to drive nails into your eyes so you don't have to watch any more.

It's fairly obvious (to me, at least) that like Arthur C. Clarke with 2001 and 2010, Crichton wrote the novel The Lost World as a sequel to the movie Jurassic Park, not a sequel to his own original novel. The most glaring evidence for this is that Ian Malcolm died in the novel Jurassic Park, but lived in the movie, and he reappears in The Lost World. However, I admired Crichton's ability for quick thinking in the way that he took many of the criticisms of the first novel and movie, and made them plot points in the second. For example, one of the big scientific criticisms of Jurassic Park was that it would take huge numbers of eggs and a long, long period of trial and error to get even one successful hatching. Lo and behold, The Lost World contains a huge factory complex that did exactly that: produced thousands of eggs, most of which failed, for the sake of a few live hatchings.

Jurassic Park III is nothing more than an updated Ray Harryhausen film: lots of brilliant state-of-the-art SFX, but the characters and plot are complete tripe. Well, they're complete tripe unless you're a particular breed of SF geek, who finds speculations like the notion of intelligent raptors to be interesting and thought-provoking. I am such a geek, and I do find that idea thought-provoking. For that and that alone, I enjoyed JP3. Well, that and marveling at some of the phenomenal set-pieces and action sequences. Kinda like an Indiana Jones film in that respect: Spielberg never gives you complex stories or characters, but you can always depend on him for lots of edge-of-your-seat action sequences.

Jurassic Park 3, by contrast, was the kind of movie that makes you want to drive nails into your eyes so you don't have to watch any more.

For what it's worth though, aside from the spinosaurus nonsense JP3 was something of a return to form for the franchise. Following the completely mindless (though fully entertaining) Lost World, a straight-up action flick devoid of much of the science present in the first film or either of the source novels aside from some jargony exposition and the occasional throw-away line, JP3 at least incorporated science into the story and attempted to use it as a plot device.

I remember, shortly after JP3 came out, being approached by a former classmate who was not at all a science buff, let alone a paleontology enthusiast, but who had seen the movie and became very intrigued by the raptor colors and feathery quills. I ended up having a great discussion about paleontology, evolution, etc. with someone who I'd never imagined would show interest in such things, and she was absolutely mesmerized and wide-eyed as a child the whole time.

I think that sometimes, from the point of view of being a "dinosaur expert," it's easy to dismiss pedestrian dinosaur inquiries as "silly questions." But the point is, these movies are getting people to ask questions, and that's the first step in getting the correct science-minded answers.

It's an interesting question. I think that the films were good for raising awareness of paleontology, but didn't do nearly as much to increase understanding.

There is nothing wrong with this, because once people are aware, they'll seek out better sources to become more educated (I would hope).

It would be awesome to have a movie that did both really well, but we live in an imperfect world. So I say that, overall, they have been positive.

Insomuch that the franchise always manages to trigger a new wave of dinomania among the general public with each successive film, and always manages to draw a few more people to the field of paleontology with each go around, I'd say it's done a lot of good.

Unfortunately, the misconceptions it's created have the sort of sticking power that would make a glue factory jealous. The general public seem to equate "realistic special effects" with "realistic science" as far as dinosaurs are concerned, and so "Raptors" are still the naked Mary Sues of the animal kingdom, Spinosaurus is still the "biggest toughest monster EVER," Dilophosaurus will always be branded as that "spittin' lizard" (thank you Family Guy...), and people still attempt to use T.rex's "vision-based movement" as an argument to have it declared a scavenger. And no amount of cage rattling from the paleontology crowd or the dino enthusiast crowd has changed the general public's viewpoint one tiny bit by my reckoning.

The only time the general public has ever accepted a correction of Jurassic Park's inaccuracies was when it yielded an even more spectacular animal (Utahraptor), and still got the science wrong in delivering it to the public ("oh yeah, the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park were based on Utahraptor all along, totally!").

And what burns me the most is that Jurassic Park has perhaps the easiest out for admitting its scientific faults (and perhaps even fixing them) that one could ever ask for, and I can guarantee the filmmakers will never use it: mutations through cloning. Every scientific fault without exception could be explained away in an instant by one or two sentences in a script pointing out how using frog DNA to fill in genetic gaps caused mutations (Jurassic Park 3 came close, but never built on or emphasized the point enough). And then a rival genetics company, using an improved cloning method, could create accurate dinosaurs over the course of a future film.

But I'm rambling. My point is, yes, in creating several waves of dinosaur enthusiasm among the general public, Jurassic Park has done a lot of good. Good that probably outweighs the bad. But the bad it's done will be extremely hard to shake (and has proven virtually impossible to chip away at thus far), and only gets more frustrating when considering how the filmmakers have literally the easiest out one could ever have in this situation, and will never use it.

They were fun to watch - and for the most part they were positive. If only in terms of igniting the spark of fascination in another generation of kids (and maybe bringing a smile to us older kid's faces).

When I was a kid we had to make do with Valley of Gwangi, The Lost World and Journey to the Centre of the Earth - in comparison the Jurassic Park series were much more informative.

The degree of silliness did seem to increase as the series went on. The first one was to my mind the best, by the time we reach the third the level of intelligence of the 'raptors' seemed to be becoming way over the top - if they'd gone much further they'd have invented fire and built a boat to get them off the island.

I am annoyed that the series managed to take a perfectly good English word 'raptor' - meaning a bird of prey - and end up applying it to another group. If you refer these days to seeing raptors so many people give you a funny look like your losing the plot assuming you mean velociraptors not birds of prey.

Don't get too hung up over accuracy - it is entertainment afterall, and remember we don't actually know what the extinct creatures were like, in ten years time we may find the bits we complain about as inaccurate are different to the bits we complain about today. Nitpicking over points of accuracy in a piece of fiction can make you look very much like Ross from Friends - a sort of mix of geek and pillock who has completely missed the point.

I think one of the biggest negatives for me, quite aside from any issue of accuracy, was that essentially the Hammond character is a mad scientist in the Victor Frankenstein mold. Sure he may look like Santa, but a key message of the film is that science is a brute force that barrels along wherever it likes, to potentially disastrous consequences, probably involving many deaths along the way. It taps into a fear of science that has all but cauterised the development of GM technology in Europe and that still fills the debate around cloning and stem cells with soundbites and received wisdom (see Malcolm's "Life finds a way") rather than objectivity.

I don't necessarily believe that this outweighs the benefits of the film, and actually, it's probably one of my all-time favourites. I only really mention this because after a quick skim, I don't think anyone else has.

Nagi, do you mind if I borrow this:

Unfortunately, the misconceptions it's created have the sort of sticking power that would make a glue factory jealous.

It's one of the best such lines I've seen in dog's years.

Corax: um, raptor is not just 'a perfectly good English word,' and the confusion you're talking about only occurs in English. The application of "raptor" to birds of prey is itself a derived meaning. The original Latin word "raptor" actually meant a thief or robber. That's the sense in which Andrews used it when he named Velociraptor: "fast thief," not "fast bird of prey." It survives today in Spanish as "raptor" or "raptora", meaning an abductor or kidnapper.

And in fact, this is precisely the derivation Crichton gives for it in the novel Jurassic Park: Spanish-speaking Central American workers on Isla Nublar started calling the velociraptors "raptors", presumably after some sort of nasty encounter with them. And the name stuck because it was both a Spanish word and a contraction of the dinosaur's generic name.

i don't understand how t-rex having movement based vision would be evidence that it was a scavenger. carcasses don't move much. anyway, when i read the book i always assumed that was the product of the frog DNA, since in the book it was learned after the dinosaur was cloned, rather than somehow being known by dr. grant.

the second book at least had some interesting ideas on dinosaur behavior, particularly with the raptors and how as intelligent animals growing up without parents they lacked social skills. this may be out of date now but the books went a lot farther portraying dinosaurs as animals instead of monsters than the films do. perhaps the fourth movie should deal more with dinosaur characters and reduce the usually bland humans to cameos as dinosaur food. baby dinosaurs are far more sympathetic as leads than speilberg movie children. also, david attenborough could narrate it. all major problems solved-more science, more compelling drama, and a higher body count than JP3.

though the way things are going, i'd guess the fourth JP film will feature Predators dropping down on isla sorna and impregnating the dinos with alien facehuggers so they can hunt the resulting dino-aliens. meanwhile, scientists have raised an orphaned baby superintelligent raptor and taught it sign language, and upon returning to the island with it they come face to face with utter ridiculousness......

@ Wolfwalker: Feel free. :D

@ Ian: It would seem, based on what few articles exist, that JP4 is going to basically turn into Dino Riders, except not even one-billionth as cool. Something about dinosaurs being engineered to carry weapons for the purpose of war. Or some crap. Dunno how valid that is, though. Seems to pop up, get discredited, pop up again, get discredited again. Last I checked, it popped back up again and has yet to be shot down again, so make of that what you will.

Personally, I think JP4 ought to be something of an adaptation of the Lost World novel. Something about the ecosystem is breaking down, and there's a rush to reverse it before the island's population goes extinct. Tie in the book's explanation to something about faulty genetics, maybe have Biosyn get overzealous and attempt to "fix" the situation by breeding a newer, corrected population (insert anatomically-correct dinos here), and so on and so forth.

Of course, a movie like that would fail miserably, seeing as it's biological mystery and not all "blood, violence, raptors killing stuff lololol," but I'd find it a hell of a lot more interesting, at least.

I'm really late to the party, but I feel that Jurassic Park is a 50/50 type thing.

It's definitely helpful in garnering initial interest in dinosaurs, and it illustrates them being as cool as biology-enthusiasts see them.

However, what's not helpful is its almost stand-alone presence as a dinosaur-themed blockbuster. I honestly can't think of any other film about dinosaurs that has gained so much praise, so much success, and has been absorbed so well into the public consciousness than Jurassic Park, but since science is an ongoing endeavor, people seeing the film will get some very wrong ideas about dinosaurs.

Thus, I vote that a movie starring fuzzy raptors, lumbering T-rexes, and other less anochronastic creatures be produced soon.