Jurassic Park III

[Andrew]

With this movie the film series finally becomes a parody of itself.  Never you mind that the second was almost a copy of The Last Dinosaur.

Firstly, the one rifle (said to be 20mm!) is ineffective against the Spinosaurus?  What?  Can someone explain that please?  Elephants were often hunted with rifles of .375 - .468 caliber.  That is a great deal smaller  than a 20mm round.  Also, that rifle looks really lightweight.  My shoulder hurts just thinking about it..

The Spinosaurus being made out  to be a predator that "comes running" to eat Tyrannosaurus Rex also was absurd.  The reality would be like a lion eating a slightly smaller tiger.  The Spinosaurus was bigger (listed as about 14 meters to the T-Rex's 12), but any fight between the two would be savage beyond belief.

How about the kid making his own ghillie suit and being a survival master?  Or the pteradon's swooping close to the helicopters?  Or the adult pteradon leaving a large live meal - an "animal" large enough to hurt a chick, at the nest?

The whole satellite phone idiocy too.  Mein Gott!

[Evan3]

Yes Yes, Steven Spielburg did well to distance himself as far as possible from this dreck, with Sam Neil in too, what did you expect.

[Reed Rothchild]

Spielberg didn't distance himself that far - he was an executive producer on it.

There were plenty of dumb bits in this movie, not least when Tea Leoni lands and starts shouting through the megaphone. On an island filled with huge carnivorous beasts. Oh, yeah,they won't hear that.

[Reed Rothchild]

Oh , and was there an actual dinosaur called Spinosaurus? I felt that they kinda made him up, like they enlarged the velociraptors to 6ft tall, just to make them a scarier beastie.

[Ash]

When I saw it in the theater I loved it.

However, after a second viewing I changed my mind.

The entire film I just wanted to stuff a gag in Tea Leoni's mouth!

Damn was she annoying!  (well, her character was)



Post Edited (05-12-03 20:03)

[Andrew]

> Oh , and was there an actual dinosaur called Spinosaurus? I
> felt that they kinda made him up, like they enlarged the
> velociraptors to 6ft tall, just to make them a scarier beastie.

Yes, though it appears the only complete skeleton was destroyed during WWII.

http://dinosauricon.com/genera/spinosaurus.html

Also, the two were separated by a few million years.  Why the Spinosaurus would instinctively hate the Tyrannosaurus is beyond me.

[Brother Ragnarok]

I would guess the instictive hatred would be bred of territorialism.  Put a lion and a bear in a cage and they'll fight each other too.
Not only were the Spinosaurus and the T-Rex separated by time, they were separated geographically.  T-Rex is from North America, Spinosaurus lived in Egypt.
As for the raptors, it's been debated as to whether they got the idea to make the regular raptors bigger, or if they decided to shrink the Utahraptor down to six feet.  The thing that bugs me the most about it is, if they were going to make them that size, why not just use Deinonychus, which actually was that big in the first place?

Brother R

[Fearless Freep]

I would guess the instictive hatred would be bred of territorialism. Put a lion and a bear in a cage and they'll fight each other too.

Are you sure?  I thought carnivores were territorial mostly within their own species.  Given a sufficient food supply, I would think the two would just ignore each other

[Brother Ragnarok]

True.  But given the limited food supply on an isolated island for two carnivores that big, I can't imagine they'd never have any squabbles over supper.
Wow, are we trying too hard to rationalize this movie or what?

Brother R

[Johnny Blister]

I liked this movie.I think it was great,and an improvement over the first one)and the second one too).

[Andrew]

"... if they were going to make them that size, why not just use Deinonychus, which actually was that big in the first place?"

I thought of this too and decided it must have been for ease or pronunciation.  "Raptor" rolls off the tongue for anybody, the "Deinonychus" is a little harder.

The good part about this is that it got me really interested in dinosaurs again, after almost twenty years.  Went looking for books and found "Dinosaurs: The Encyclopedia" by Donald F. Glut.  This book itself is amazing according to the info I found.  Along with lots of fairly up-to-date research (1997) it details every classified species, spending from 1-3 pages on each.  And then there are the two supplements, published in 1999 and 2001 seek to update the original with the latest theories and finds.   I want these pretty badly.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0899509177/badmoviesorg

There it is, if just interested in taking a look.  Warning:  if you buy it via that link, I do get a commission.

[Ken Begg]

Well, say what you will, it was a hell of  a lot less dumb than part 2.

[Chadzilla]

I think the series has settled into programmer status - the contemporary equal to something like the countless Mummy sequels and House of Movies ground out by Universal in the 40s.  Get the characters on the Island on some pretext, them have the dinosours chase them, catching and eating one or two just to make us try and believe that the stars just might be in danger.

I did like the parasailing tour.  Someone just might be dumb enough to try something like that.

Not surprisingly, the movie was shot without a completed script and the story kept changing.  Co-star Bill Macy did not have fun making the movie.



Post Edited (05-12-03 20:02)

[Johnny Blister]

Well,I liked it.

[Fearless Freep]

I thought of this too and decided it must have been for ease or pronunciation. "Raptor" rolls off the tongue for anybody, the "Deinonychus" is a little harder.

Heaven forbid we should have a sports team named "The "Deinonychuses"but then, I live in Albuquerque.  Our new AAA baseball team is "The Isotopes"  ('why' is a question for the reader)