Wednesday, April 03, 2013

Welcome to Jurassic Park!

Me and Leo
In two days, the 3D version of Jurassic Park is released, which explains the T-shirt. 

It's been twenty years since the movie was originally released and it still has some of the best, most-true-to-life effects and realistic dinosaurs of any dinosaur movie, anytime, anywhere.  And the score and main theme by John Williams are his best, IMHO.

I have a lot of favorite scenes, particularly the one where the lawyer gets eaten by the T.rex. :-).  It also formed the basis for some irreverent but nonetheless legitimate science:

In The Complete Dinosaur (Indiana University Press 1997),  M.K. Brett-Surman and James O. Farlow address the question thusly:
It is agreed by all living humans that the highlight of the movie Jurassic Park (Universal Studios 1993) was the consumption of the lawyer by the true hero of the movie, Tyrannosaurus rex.  This brings up the obvious question: how many lawyers would it take to properly feed a captive T.rex?
The answer: it depends on whether a T.rex is endothermic or exothermic (i.e., cold or warm-blooded).  Their conclusion?   If the T.rex is warm-blooded, 292 lawyers per year.  If the T.rex is cold-blooded, 73 lawyers per year.  Assuming the average lawyer weighs 150 pounds and weighs around 4.5 tons, that is.  Now you know.

That said, my favorite scene of the movie was (and still is) is the one where Grant and Sadler first see the brachiosaur and the herd of hadrosaurs in the distance.  It just has a majestic feel to it, and was the first time you actually saw dinosaurs as "real" animals:

So, yes, I'm going to see it in 3D, and enjoy every minute of it. :-). 

P.S. The Complete Dinosaur just issued as a second edition last fall and you should check it out.

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