Exclusive Jack Horner Interview @ TresCom!

[scallenger]

Check it out!

http://www.trescom.org/index.php?page=resources/interviews/horner.htm

Includes some very interesting details on his involvement with the previous Jurassic Park films and JP4!

[scallenger]

To me the most interesting part was this, when it comes to JP4:

I have our original JP4 script from 2004, and it was actually a pretty good story, but then a series of unrelated events took place that put the whole process on hold.

Wait, so he liked the "dinosaur with guns" story? That's the only one close to that time that I think he could have been referring to, because around 2007 it was that script that ALMOST got made until it had leaked and the public response was very negative, which put it on hold. Apparently Spielberg had liked this idea, too.

More recently new writers were brought in to create a different story, but it simply didn't pass muster with Steven (or, quite frankly, anyone else) so it has once again been tabled as far as I know.

Now, it seems a bit unclear if this means the movie they ALMOST filmed (the recently revealed "Jurassic Park rebuilt" plot), or if he means the rewrites the director did with his fellow scribe that put the movie on hold. I wish we could re-ask that question for more clarification!

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Interesting interview, as I mentioned before I was not aware that Horner was dyslexic.. even to the point of not being able to read anything.

The attack dinosaurs was actually introduced into the JP franchise in the Raptors comic series. Where it was handled pretty well..so I def can see that theme working if done right, so no surprise he liked that aspect..adding guns to them though ? Why not just attach laser beams to their heads ?

[Dinoguy2]

Good interview. Only quibble is with one of the questions... "a Hoatzin, which exhibits far more basal characteristics than most aves."

This old canard of living fossils raises its head again. Hoatzin are actually pretty derived in Aves, other than the fact juveniles retain free digits outside the egg (all other birds have them too, they just fuse in utero). Almost all other birds have claws on their wings too, it just isn't very well known. http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2010/06/30/clubs-spurs-spikes-and-claws/ As Naish points out, it's astonishing that more people don't know birds have claws, since chickens have them! They're plain as day in most buckets of hot wings

In terms of phylogenetics, chickens + ducks ARE the most basal birds other than paleognaths. Ideally, a Tinamu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinamou) or a Screamer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screamer) would probably be the best candidates, since they're among the most "primitive" (plesiomorphic) living birds on both sides of the ancestral Aves split. But chickens are the next best thing and, as Horner said, far more common.