With Jurassic park world dominion coming out soon we take a look at the jurassic park francaise.
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The book
In 1990 Michael Crichton wrote the book Jurassic Park in its essence as "a superior specimen of the [Frankenstein] myth". The overriding premise being that the ability of science to interfere with nature would lead to its demise. However it has Dinosaurs in it! Lets focus on those rather than the dystopian nightmare of genetic engineering. By 1993 Jurassic park the film was made grossing a cool $912 million.
How the Dinosaurs come to life (on screen)?
After much debate between Spielberg and his team it was decided that they would use, for the first time, computer generated animals on screen. As the special effects team Industrial Light and Magic said:
"To create living, breathing, photorealistic dinosaurs the likes of which had never been seen before, the visual effects team developed a substantial amount of new technology."
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Could Dinosaurs come back to life?
Well yes they could but as this article states, we would need Dinosaurs DNA. Lets just grab some amber! Sadly the oldest DNA found is just over a million years old. DNA degrades rapidly. The period we need for most of the Dinosaurs is about 66 million years ago, just 65 millions years out!
What effect did the film have?
Its believed that the huge increase in popularity of dinosaurs has led to a Golden age in Paleontology as Steve Brusatte - Paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh, said:
“The film led to more people studying paleontology, more funding for the field and more jobs. So many of my colleagues who are 25-35 years old were hooked into dinosaurs by Jurassic Park.”
Whats in a name?
As Shakespeare said would a dinosaur still roar as much if it was misplaced in the time period? Ok well maybe he was talking about smells and roses, but if he had said this, he would have been right. Only two dinosaurs in Jurassic park are from the Jurassic period, the rest are from the Cretaceous period.
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Any other little inaccuracies?
Feathers? Some species of Dinosaurs definitely had feathers. The T Rex and Velociraptors are examples. Did all Dinosaurs have feathers? It's hard to tell as feathers are not great at being preserved. The natural History museum has a great article on this.
Some Dinosaurs might have had different sizes, Velociraptors were only a meter tall and would probably look more like a large bird then a terrifying scally 6 foot plus monster. That's not to say that all its close relatives were small, Utahraptor would certainly give you a fright.
Although it might not have been 100% accurate, it was one of the first films to depict living dinosaurs with some degree of accuracy. Science, like dinosaurs, is constantly evolving and without the interest caused by Jurrasic park and its subsequent reboots, many paleontological facts would have remained buried!
We have lots of great Dinosaur products. Why not take a look around now!
