Bakker made up Utahraptor Discovery story

[Dinoguy2]

The intro from Raptor Red is getting repeated a lot lately around the release of the Jurassic World trailer.

Bakker wrote about a call from Dr. James Kirkland, who was part of the team that discovered Utahraptor:

"Jim!" I yelled. "You just found the giant raptor Spielberg made up for his movie." Jim thought I was daft. He didn't know about the other phone call I had gotten about giant raptors that morning. It was from one of the special effects artists in the Jurassic Park skunkworks ... the artists were suffering anxiety about what was to become the star of the movie—a raptor species that had never been documented by a real fossil. ... Just before Jim called, I'd listened to one artist complain that Spielberg had invented a raptor that didn't exist. ... He wanted hard facts, fossil data. "Yeah, a giant raptor's possible—theoretically. But you don't have any bones." But now Jim's Utahraptor gave him bones.

Yeah, no. That's all false. Here's what Jim Kirkland has to say about it on Twitter:

Major revisionist history by Bakker! Reality at SVP 1990; Bakker; "Just crushed Torvosaurus claw."

https://twitter.com/Paleojim/status/537636579473256448

Looks like Bakker made up this popular fan story to embellish his own role. How professional.

Should really have been obvious from the beginning though, because nobody called them "raptors" until JP came out and invented that term, so Kirkland would have had no idea what Bakker was talking about!

[Patrx]

I'd always kind of assumed that the version of the story from "Raptor Red" wasn't meant to represent what actually happened - just to serve as an intro to the main novel.

[leidy]

It's pretty obvious when you listen to Bakker that he's always been a bit of a storyteller.  I'd say he's easily the best paleontologist when it comes to taking events and facts and turning them into a compelling narrative.  I'd be very surprised if he'd be able to resist twisting things just a little bit along the way if it makes the story more interesting.

Entertaining, charismatic guy no doubt, but occasional grain of salt required.

[Gwangi]

I always found that story kind of odd. I've even gone back to read it in order to make sure I interpreted it correctly. The Velociraptor in "Jurassic Park" were Deinonychus, modeled after the "Velociraptor antirrhopus" from the book which is what Deinonychus was lumped as by Gregory Paul. That's my take on it anyway. I honestly question how big of a role Bakker had in "Jurassic Park" anyway. We all know Horner was consulted at great length but I haven't heard anything about Bakker consulting except from Bakker himself. Aside from getting eaten in "The Lost World" I get the feeling his role was minimal.

[leidy]

I always found that story kind of odd. I've even gone back to read it in order to make sure I interpreted it correctly. The Velociraptor in "Jurassic Park" were Deinonychus, modeled after the "Velociraptor antirrhopus" from the book which is what Deinonychus was lumped as by Gregory Paul. That's my take on it anyway. I honestly question how big of a role Bakker had in "Jurassic Park" anyway. We all know Horner was consulted at great length but I haven't heard anything about Bakker consulting except from Bakker himself. Aside from getting eaten in "The Lost World" I get the feeling his role was minimal.

Don't they specifically refer to his book in the movie?

The way I understood it, artists at Winston studios were in correspondence with Bakker, but I believe Spielberg and Amblin were more enamored with Jack Horner.  They're both credited by Crichton in the acknowledgments of the original novel. 

I agree about the Velociraptors actually representing Deinonychus as per G.Paul's lumping.  Oversized for effect, like everything other than Dilophosaurus.   

[Gwangi]

Don't they specifically refer to his book in the movie?

Oh yeah! I guess they do! But the book Tim has with him as a stand in for Grant's (and I've paused it to check) is "Digging Dinosaurs" by Jack Horner.

[leidy]

makes sense, since Grant is basically a Hollywood version of Horner. 

Bakker always seemed quite enthusiastic about taking credit for whatever influence he may have had on the JP movies, despite how they appear to slight him in 2 of them.  Reminds me of that expression about success having many fathers (while failure is an orphan). 

[Dinoguy2]

Another interesting anecdote recently posted on FB says that Jaques Gauthier was initially hired as consultant, but he quit when they rejected too many of his suggestions, then they hired Horner. Apparently the biggest suggestion Gauthier got into the movie was removing the forked tongues of the raptors.

(Knowing Gauthier, who basically coined the phrase "birds are dinosaurs" and helped invent cphylogenetic nomenclature, he probably wanted feathered raptors too, wouldn't be surprised if that's why he walked away!)

[amargasaurus cazaui]

I always found that story kind of odd. I've even gone back to read it in order to make sure I interpreted it correctly. The Velociraptor in "Jurassic Park" were Deinonychus, modeled after the "Velociraptor antirrhopus" from the book which is what Deinonychus was lumped as by Gregory Paul. That's my take on it anyway. I honestly question how big of a role Bakker had in "Jurassic Park" anyway. We all know Horner was consulted at great length but I haven't heard anything about Bakker consulting except from Bakker himself. Aside from getting eaten in "The Lost World" I get the feeling his role was minimal.

Don't they specifically refer to his book in the movie?

The way I understood it, artists at Winston studios were in correspondence with Bakker, but I believe Spielberg and Amblin were more enamored with Jack Horner.  They're both credited by Crichton in the acknowledgments of the original novel. 

I agree about the Velociraptors actually representing Deinonychus as per G.Paul's lumping.  Oversized for effect, like everything other than Dilophosaurus.

Actually I think not and this is one of the many issues I have with the entire franchise......yes oversized everything including Stegosaurs that were twice as big as real-life, however the compies were also poorly thought out. They were presented as chicken size in the movies, despite the fact there has been a secondary discovery that enforces the idea the first specimen was only a juvenile. Given the second specimen was discovered in 1971, there was really no excuse for this either.....as I have said previously, people always credit Jurassic park with having the most accurate dinosaurs presented in the movies to that point in time , which is simply incorrect. While they did away with many of the old tail dragging, more time dated concepts, they replaced them with a whole new set of idiocies that are just as hard to work with. Misinformation and exaggeration are not educational...nor should they be viewed as such, because now I get asked ten times a week...about venomous frilled dinosaurs and raptors that could run 70 miles an hour and turn door knobs. ugh.......The movie could have been much more iconic if the science had just been applied.

[Gwangi]

Actually I think not and this is one of the many issues I have with the entire franchise......yes oversized everything including Stegosaurs that were twice as big as real-life, however the compies were also poorly thought out. They were presented as chicken size in the movies, despite the fact there has been a secondary discovery that enforces the idea the first specimen was only a juvenile. Given the second specimen was discovered in 1971, there was really no excuse for this either.....as I have said previously, people always credit Jurassic park with having the most accurate dinosaurs presented in the movies to that point in time , which is simply incorrect. While they did away with many of the old tail dragging, more time dated concepts, they replaced them with a whole new set of idiocies that are just as hard to work with. Misinformation and exaggeration are not educational...nor should they be viewed as such, because now I get asked ten times a week...about venomous frilled dinosaurs and raptors that could run 70 miles an hour and turn door knobs. ugh.......The movie could have been much more iconic if the science had just been applied.

So what movie had the most accurate dinosaurs up to that point in time? Even if inaccurate, "Jurassic Park" dinosaurs were still the most accurate, there is no other contender. So you can complain about the movies short comings all you want but there is no other movie that can claim that title. I really don't want to get into this debate again but I really feel like you're too hard on this movie because at the end of the day, it's only a movie. Few movies, scientific or historical are 100% accurate, typically a lot less. Neil DeGrasse Tyson pointed out all the inaccuracies of "Gravity" (and there were many) but still admitted he enjoyed the film. On his list of the most accurate science movies I do believe Neil DeGrasse included "Jurassic Park", along with "Contact" and "Deep Impact" among others. Likewise, a number of paleontologists enjoyed "Jurassic Park" despite its short comings and I'm willing to bet a good number of younger ones were inspired directly by it. Go read Doug Watson's post in the "Jurassic World" thread, it's a very good one. He argues that dinosaur science wouldn't be where it is now without the surge of popularity ignited by "Jurassic Park". Surely that counts for something?

The "compies" from "Jurassic Park" were all messed up simply because they were presented by the Bakker character as "Compsognathus triassicus" which does not exist. He used the genus name for Compsognathus longipes and the species name for Procompsognathus triassicus. He also said it was a Triassic dinosaur, true for P. trassicus, not for C. longipes. For what it is worth the animals in the books were proper Procompsognathus triassicus.

[tyrantqueen]

Actually I think not and this is one of the many issues I have with the entire franchise......yes oversized everything including Stegosaurs that were twice as big as real-life, however the compies were also poorly thought out. They were presented as chicken size in the movies, despite the fact there has been a secondary discovery that enforces the idea the first specimen was only a juvenile. Given the second specimen was discovered in 1971, there was really no excuse for this either.....as I have said previously, people always credit Jurassic park with having the most accurate dinosaurs presented in the movies to that point in time , which is simply incorrect. While they did away with many of the old tail dragging, more time dated concepts, they replaced them with a whole new set of idiocies that are just as hard to work with. Misinformation and exaggeration are not educational...nor should they be viewed as such, because now I get asked ten times a week...about venomous frilled dinosaurs and raptors that could run 70 miles an hour and turn door knobs. ugh.......The movie could have been much more iconic if the science had just been applied.

So what movie had the most accurate dinosaurs up to that point in time? Even if inaccurate, "Jurassic Park" dinosaurs were still the most accurate, there is no other contender. So you can complain about the movies short comings all you want but there is no other movie that can claim that title. I really don't want to get into this debate again but I really feel like you're too hard on this movie because at the end of the day, it's only a movie. Few movies, scientific or historical are 100% accurate, typically a lot less. Neil DeGrasse Tyson pointed out all the inaccuracies of "Gravity" (and there were many) but still admitted he enjoyed the film. On his list of the most accurate science movies I do believe Neil DeGrasse included "Jurassic Park", along with "Contact" and "Deep Impact" among others. Likewise, a number of paleontologists enjoyed "Jurassic Park" despite its short comings and I'm willing to bet a good number of younger ones were inspired directly by it. Go read Doug Watson's post in the "Jurassic World" thread, it's a very good one. He argues that dinosaur science wouldn't be where it is now without the surge of popularity ignited by "Jurassic Park". Surely that counts for something?

The "compies" from "Jurassic Park" were all messed up simply because they were presented by the Bakker character as "Compsognathus triassicus" which does not exist. He used the genus name for Compsognathus longipes and the species name for Procompsognathus triassicus. He also said it was a Triassic dinosaur, true for P. trassicus, not for C. longipes. For what it is worth the animals in the books were proper Procompsognathus triassicus.

This. A lot of Ray Harryhausen's stop motion dinosaurs were flawed too. Like the pteranodon from One Million Years B.C. having bat wings or Gwangi being an amalgamation of a Tyrannosaurus and an Allosaurus. Granted those films were not nearly as popular as JP is, but it is a fictional story. Creative liberties are taken.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

Actually I think not and this is one of the many issues I have with the entire franchise......yes oversized everything including Stegosaurs that were twice as big as real-life, however the compies were also poorly thought out. They were presented as chicken size in the movies, despite the fact there has been a secondary discovery that enforces the idea the first specimen was only a juvenile. Given the second specimen was discovered in 1971, there was really no excuse for this either.....as I have said previously, people always credit Jurassic park with having the most accurate dinosaurs presented in the movies to that point in time , which is simply incorrect. While they did away with many of the old tail dragging, more time dated concepts, they replaced them with a whole new set of idiocies that are just as hard to work with. Misinformation and exaggeration are not educational...nor should they be viewed as such, because now I get asked ten times a week...about venomous frilled dinosaurs and raptors that could run 70 miles an hour and turn door knobs. ugh.......The movie could have been much more iconic if the science had just been applied.

So what movie had the most accurate dinosaurs up to that point in time? Even if inaccurate, "Jurassic Park" dinosaurs were still the most accurate, there is no other contender. So you can complain about the movies short comings all you want but there is no other movie that can claim that title. I really don't want to get into this debate again but I really feel like you're too hard on this movie because at the end of the day, it's only a movie. Few movies, scientific or historical are 100% accurate, typically a lot less. Neil DeGrasse Tyson pointed out all the inaccuracies of "Gravity" (and there were many) but still admitted he enjoyed the film. On his list of the most accurate science movies I do believe Neil DeGrasse included "Jurassic Park", along with "Contact" and "Deep Impact" among others. Likewise, a number of paleontologists enjoyed "Jurassic Park" despite its short comings and I'm willing to bet a good number of younger ones were inspired directly by it. Go read Doug Watson's post in the "Jurassic World" thread, it's a very good one. He argues that dinosaur science wouldn't be where it is now without the surge of popularity ignited by "Jurassic Park". Surely that counts for something?

The "compies" from "Jurassic Park" were all messed up simply because they were presented by the Bakker character as "Compsognathus triassicus" which does not exist. He used the genus name for Compsognathus longipes and the species name for Procompsognathus triassicus. He also said it was a Triassic dinosaur, true for P. trassicus, not for C. longipes. For what it is worth the animals in the books were proper Procompsognathus triassicus.

I always respect your views as one of the more well educated people in the forum here, and thanks for sharing them. To respond directly to a few of your comments, I am trying hard to understand how anyone can label the dinosaurs of Jurassic park the most accurate to date. As I pointed out quite clearly, we traded one set of mistakes for another. This is nothing that deserves a most accurate crown or anything that can be defined.If anything all you can do is state they updated the mistakes they made....if anything the previous more poorly done movies often had the excuse of incomplete knowledge. Most of the mistakes made in Jurassic park were intentional and done to sell tickets.
  I am unsure that listing the movie alongside movies like "Contact" and "Deep Impact" has a thing to do with accuracy, or helps the movie. Grabbing several movies that lack scientific basis and fact and lumping them all to raise the value of one is not as I see it a great strategy, and only indicates the level of science that was used.
  I did read Doug Watson's post, and while I find Doug to be well informed and highly intelligent, i disagree rather grandly with his conclusions. The simple reasoning is this...we now have a generation or two of people that bought into Jurassic Park and accepted the dinosaurs as given. We replaced tail dragging and cold blooded, with misting, sneezing, massively oversized or completley undersized animals. You can sit and posture that it is only a movie , that it is entertainment....but I remember all the talking heads, the interviews, the commentaries that were coming out in articles at the release of this movie claiming ..endorsed by actual paleontologists, and the most accurate dinosaurs ever to come to the screen etc. Ugh......this in a nutshell is the problem. The movie took itself too serious to start with and then demanded everyone else do the same. I was old enough to be discerning when the film was released, and I can tell you it does not meet the credentials the people responsible claimed for it. You do not educate by misinforming, nor do you demonstrate proper scientific views of things by portraying them incorrectly. If some feel that practice is acceptable that is their choice, but frilled, venom spitting Dilos did not exist and this movie placed that icon into peoples concepts as a real dinosaur,alongside the entire pantheon of poorly thought out dinosaurs it offered. Dilo=Horner terra nova level science)
  The compie comment I can accept at face value except that even Procompsognathus had an estimated size of around 1 meter, hardly the animal I see used in the movies either. This aside from the fact that you seem to be glossing over that it was again the movie spouting incorrect information, combining names from two animals and then stating it as a valid dinosaur.The actual dinosaur Procompsognathus was placed in crocodilyiaforms by Sereno, but then retrieved by Chatterjee, a paleontologist you have taken great pains to disagree with in most things, although I think he was correct this time around. He assigned the type specimen an entire grouping of traits that clearly make it theropod, however other than that, there is little agreement amont scientists what the animal is, or if any of the secondary referred specimens belong in the same category.Per Wiki....."In 2004 David Allen considered Procompsognathus to be a primitive, non-dinosaurian ornithodiran.[24]" In short the dinosaur at this point is badly blurred and named from the holotype which was badly crushed and has also been accused of being a chimera itself. The dinosaur itself is so muddled I am unsure why it would have been offered in the movie as a central character, except to make a buck of course.The wise path might have been to use Compsognathus as it was, and follow the science rather than muddying the waters with dinosaurs that are not well understood, or even for that matter considered a dinosaur by many.

[Patrx]

I see what you're saying there, I think - but I would argue that the mistakes Jurassic Park helped "correct" in the public consciousness were grander and more complex than the new mistakes it made. At the time, the main problem with the Deinonychus was that they were a bit too big. Easy enough to explain to people and easy enough for them to accept. Questionable acrobatics aside, the Brachiosaurus was a pretty spot-on 1993-era brachiosaur, palaeontologically speaking. The Tyrannosaurus was even better (arms were too big, teeth were too sharp) The Dilophosaurus is pretty far off (what's the deal with that wrong and boring skull design?), but the frill and venom were just speculation, not errors. The Triceratops was essentially correct for its time.

Contrastingly, the most accurate movie dinosaurs before that had huge problems with comparatively big, complex explanations that people probably would have been slow to understand or accept without a visual, cultural event like Jurassic Park. Unless there was a film I never heard of, the designs of movie dinosaurs were based on existing art and creative liberty, not fossils and skeletons. Their posture and structure, their entire metabolism was wrong, not just their size or skull design.

In short, I honestly think the Dinosaur Renaissance would never have reached the general public without Jurassic Park, and that's a pretty big deal. The ideas from that time period may have not all stood the test of time, but they were effectively and entertainingly conveyed to people via the movie in a way that stuck. That's pretty impressive.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

I see what you're saying there, I think - but I would argue that the mistakes Jurassic Park helped "correct" in the public consciousness were grander and more complex than the new mistakes it made. At the time, the main problem with the Deinonychus was that they were a bit too big. Easy enough to explain to people and easy enough for them to accept. Questionable acrobatics aside, the Brachiosaurus was a pretty spot-on 1993-era brachiosaur, palaeontologically speaking. The Tyrannosaurus was even better (arms were too big, teeth were too sharp) The Dilophosaurus is pretty far off (what's the deal with that wrong and boring skull design?), but the frill and venom were just speculation, not errors. The Triceratops was essentially correct for its time.

Contrastingly, the most accurate movie dinosaurs before that had huge problems with comparatively big, complex explanations that people probably would have been slow to understand or accept without a visual, cultural event like Jurassic Park. Unless there was a film I never heard of, the designs of movie dinosaurs were based on existing art and creative liberty, not fossils and skeletons. Their posture and structure, their entire metabolism was wrong, not just their size or skull design.

In short, I honestly think the Dinosaur Renaissance would never have reached the general public without Jurassic Park, and that's a pretty big deal. The ideas from that time period may have not all stood the test of time, but they were effectively and entertainingly conveyed to people via the movie in a way that stuck. That's pretty impressive.

aha now the way you worded that Patrx I do agree with your comments on the whole. Perhaps its  certain wordings that trigger my thoughts, as I do find the way you stated things much more ....accurate and correct to my own experiences.
  I do have a comment or two about the trike as well...and its accuracy oddly enough. I am fishing here as I dont know these answers for myself but am guessing given the other scenes in the movie and so forth, so I hope a few of the more studied chip in as well.
   In nearly every scene of the movie, there is an underlying agenda to present dinosaurs as warm blooded. From the Tyrannosaurus hunting at night in the rain, to misting breathed raptors, to sneezing sauropods, nearly ever scene is intended to silently underline the warm blooded school of thought Applying this to the trike, and trying to find the punchline I came up with two questions which for me would suggest it did not escape the agenda.......so I am asking if anyone else wonders this or caught it, or am I just wrong in the perception or idea.In the first one, the triceratops is lying on its side on the ground and breathing slowly...in fact very slowly for a cold blooded animal lying in the direct sunlight. You watch as the chest inflates, and deflates, and as Grant listens to or places his head on its body....in my idea the breathing was indicative of a warm blooded animal and not something a reptile would do normally? Is this thought out well or no? Especially given the way he seems to be listening to it as if hearing the heartbeat.....it made me wonder if this was the shot taken at the triceratops being warm blooded. The second one was for me more of a smoking gun, the enormous pile of dumpings. Generally as mammals we produce much more waste than our reptilian planet mates. I felt the reasoning behind the enormous pile of dung was entirely suggestive once more of a warm blooded animal. Especially given that Ellie never finds the cause of the sickness in the feces, and makes the scene moot otherwise. Much like the other warm blooded asides shown in the movie, they serve no purpose unless you understand the agenda Horner was following. Thoughts?

[leidy]

people always credit Jurassic park with having the most accurate dinosaurs presented in the movies to that point in time , which is simply incorrect. While they did away with many of the old tail dragging, more time dated concepts, they replaced them with a whole new set of idiocies that are just as hard to work with. Misinformation and exaggeration are not educational...nor should they be viewed as such, because now I get asked ten times a week...about venomous frilled dinosaurs and raptors that could run 70 miles an hour and turn door knobs.

So what movie had the most accurate dinosaurs up to that point in time? Even if inaccurate, "Jurassic Park" dinosaurs were still the most accurate, there is no other contender. So you can complain about the movies short comings all you want but there is no other movie that can claim that title. I really don't want to get into this debate again but I really feel like you're too hard on this movie because at the end of the day, it's only a movie. Few movies, scientific or historical are 100% accurate, typically a lot less. Neil DeGrasse Tyson pointed out all the inaccuracies of "Gravity" (and there were many) but still admitted he enjoyed the film.

To respond directly to a few of your comments, I am trying hard to understand how anyone can label the dinosaurs of Jurassic park the most accurate to date. As I pointed out quite clearly, we traded one set of mistakes for another. This is nothing that deserves a most accurate crown or anything that can be defined.If anything all you can do is state they updated the mistakes they made....if anything the previous more poorly done movies often had the excuse of incomplete knowledge. Most of the mistakes made in Jurassic park were intentional and done to sell tickets.

We replaced tail dragging and cold blooded, with misting, sneezing, massively oversized or completley undersized animals. You can sit and posture that it is only a movie , that it is entertainment....but I remember all the talking heads, the interviews, the commentaries that were coming out in articles at the release of this movie claiming ..endorsed by actual paleontologists, and the most accurate dinosaurs ever to come to the screen etc. Ugh......this in a nutshell is the problem. The movie took itself too serious to start with and then demanded everyone else do the same. I was old enough to be discerning when the film was released, and I can tell you it does not meet the credentials the people responsible claimed for it. You do not educate by misinforming, nor do you demonstrate proper scientific views of things by portraying them incorrectly. If some feel that practice is acceptable that is their choice, but frilled, venom spitting Dilos did not exist and this movie placed that icon into peoples concepts as a real dinosaur,alongside the entire pantheon of poorly thought out dinosaurs it offered. Dilo=Horner terra nova level science)

I don't know where you get that Horner was going around making this stuff up and putting it in the movie to advance some agenda of his own.  He was an advisor, nothing more.  They asked for his input, but ultimately they put in what they wanted.  It's not like he had a veto to prevent stuff he might not have agreed with, like the hunting T.rex.  The venom spitting Dilophosaurus was not a Horner invention, that came from the novel.  The idea was to present an example of the kind of real life animal stuff that fossils alone may never reveal.   

There's a lot of artistic license in the movie.  Even still the dinosaurs were more accurate, not only compared to other dinosaur movies, but compared to what you would see in museums at the time.  No one should expect to get their science from movies, but if it sparks an interest that leads to further investigation, that's fundamentally a good thing.

Don't fault Jurassic Park because people lazily repeat and plagiarize it's dinosaurs.  Look how many books and documentaries owe their existence directly to the interest generated by the movie.  There've been many opportunities to set the record straight. 

[Gwangi]

You know, I had two paragraphs written but I'm just deleting it. I've done this before, more than once, it's tiresome. Patrx, Doug and Leidy can take it from here and say what I would have said anyway. You formed your opinion of the movie 22 years ago and nothing I say can change that. Carry on, I'll grab some pop corn!

[Patrx]

   In nearly every scene of the movie, there is an underlying agenda to present dinosaurs as warm blooded. From the Tyrannosaurus hunting at night in the rain, to misting breathed raptors, to sneezing sauropods, nearly ever scene is intended to silently underline the warm blooded school of thought.

I'm not sure I'd call it an "agenda", per se, but Jurassic Park definitely takes steps to portray the dinosaurs as "warm-blooded". That was probably its greatest strength scientifically. That was the state of paleontological science at the time, cutting-edge research that was the main drive behind the Dinosaur Renaissance. The "warm-blooded" depiction of dinosaurs is what made Jurassic Park more than just a monster movie, it was part of a major cultural paradigm shift along with the likes of Bakker's Dinosaur Heresies or Paul's Predatory Dinosaurs of the World. New research has happened since then, but "warm-blooded" dinosaurs were what dinosaur paleontology was all about circa 1993.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

Wait, theres that word accurate again.....the dinosaurs in the movie Jurassic Park were not accurate, and were not close to accurate. Were they an improvement over previous dinosaur movies? That remains to be seen but as time passes, the prevailing logic says NO resoundingly.
   Again, as I stated previously, older dinosaur movies had always used poorly done dinosaurs using ages old science and bad special effects. Along comes Jurassic Park and promises the most updated realistic dinosaurs possible. Did they deliver? When you examine closely the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park nearly all, if not all were not done correctly. Even more astounding is that the science existed to do them correctly, but they were not done in this fashion to make them more dramatic, to up ticket sales and to cater to various influences egos. I am unsure HOW anyone can sit and state that dinosaurs in Jurassic park were correct , accurate or even close to such. I was trying to  name one that escaped the heavy handed mucking about that was done.
Tyrannosaurus.............NO
Compies......................No
Raptors.......................No
Stegosaurus................No
Spinosaurus................No
Brachiosaurus.............No
   The point is quite obvious...they are NOT accurate . We traded one set of mistakes for another. This does not mean they were accurate, we merely updated the mistakes being made, or as Malcom said in the second movie..." No, your making a whole new set of mistakes this time"
    As to Horner and his influence, read some of his books on this topic. Many of the scenes used in the movie were his ideas and suggestions.....even an incomplete list would in some way affect practically every scene in the movie, so ingrained was the agenda to portray all dinosaurs as warm blooded. Yes, I call that an agenda.....if you havent looked closely at the movie...consider.
We have Tyrannosaurus hunting at night, in the rain no less to suggest warm blooded. Nevermind the concept suggested about vision being based on movement, Horners idea. We have Raptors breathing mist, and scenting with their noses, both traits of warm blooded animals. We have raptors running at speeds that could only be with a warm blooded metabolism. We have sneezing Brachiosaurs, because in order to catch a cold you of course have to be warm blooded. The list goes on and on, nearly every scene has its moment of reinforcement for this concept. Why? And further how is that accurate?
   Finally and this idea really does stick in my head in a bad way..we praise the movie and tell everyone how it has raised awareness and served to get people interested in dinosaurs and yada yada, and how the movie is such a tremendous thing ...but yet, by the same token when the movie teaches people poor science, inaccuraccies and exaggeration, not to mention dozens of bad theories about dinosaurs, we say...oh it isnt the movie's fault and people are lazy and dont do the research. I simply do not care for double standards and the movie should take the hit for the bad it does as well as the good.
  @ Patrx, you might see the portrayal of all dinosaurs as warm blooded as a strength for the movie scientifically, however as each year passes, it becomes a glaring flaw for the movie as it becomes more and more obvious that a one size fits all method of endothermy for dinosaurs does not work . I believe there will be a day that people sit and laugh at some of the scenes from the movie for that reason in particular.....and even more that people considered dinosaurs like that accurate.

[Dinoguy2]

Wait, theres that word accurate again.....the dinosaurs in the movie Jurassic Park were not accurate, and were not close to accurate. Were they an improvement over previous dinosaur movies? That remains to be seen but as time passes, the prevailing logic says NO resoundingly.
   Again, as I stated previously, older dinosaur movies had always used poorly done dinosaurs using ages old science and bad special effects. Along comes Jurassic Park and promises the most updated realistic dinosaurs possible. Did they deliver? When you examine closely the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park nearly all, if not all were not done correctly. Even more astounding is that the science existed to do them correctly, but they were not done in this fashion to make them more dramatic, to up ticket sales and to cater to various influences egos. I am unsure HOW anyone can sit and state that dinosaurs in Jurassic park were correct , accurate or even close to such. I was trying to  name one that escaped the heavy handed mucking about that was done.
Tyrannosaurus.............NO
Compies......................No
Raptors.......................No
Stegosaurus................No
Spinosaurus................No
Brachiosaurus.............No
   The point is quite obvious...they are NOT accurate . We traded one set of mistakes for another. This does not mean they were accurate, we merely updated the mistakes being made, or as Malcom said in the second movie..." No, your making a whole new set of mistakes this time"
    As to Horner and his influence, read some of his books on this topic. Many of the scenes used in the movie were his ideas and suggestions.....even an incomplete list would in some way affect practically every scene in the movie, so ingrained was the agenda to portray all dinosaurs as warm blooded. Yes, I call that an agenda.....if you havent looked closely at the movie...consider.
We have Tyrannosaurus hunting at night, in the rain no less to suggest warm blooded. Nevermind the concept suggested about vision being based on movement, Horners idea. We have Raptors breathing mist, and scenting with their noses, both traits of warm blooded animals. We have raptors running at speeds that could only be with a warm blooded metabolism. We have sneezing Brachiosaurs, because in order to catch a cold you of course have to be warm blooded. The list goes on and on, nearly every scene has its moment of reinforcement for this concept. Why? And further how is that accurate?
   Finally and this idea really does stick in my head in a bad way..we praise the movie and tell everyone how it has raised awareness and served to get people interested in dinosaurs and yada yada, and how the movie is such a tremendous thing ...but yet, by the same token when the movie teaches people poor science, inaccuraccies and exaggeration, not to mention dozens of bad theories about dinosaurs, we say...oh it isnt the movie's fault and people are lazy and dont do the research. I simply do not care for double standards and the movie should take the hit for the bad it does as well as the good.
  @ Patrx, you might see the portrayal of all dinosaurs as warm blooded as a strength for the movie scientifically, however as each year passes, it becomes a glaring flaw for the movie as it becomes more and more obvious that a one size fits all method of endothermy for dinosaurs does not work . I believe there will be a day that people sit and laugh at some of the scenes from the movie for that reason in particular.....and even more that people considered dinosaurs like that accurate.

I'm sorry, but do you understand that there's a difference between the phrases "accurate" and "most accurate to date"? Nobody is saying they were perfectly accurate at the time, but it's not possible to say they weren't more accurate than previous movies. The fact that their tails didn't drag along proves that.

Only warm blooded animals can catch colds... What? A cold is a virus it has nothing to do with temperature...

[amargasaurus cazaui]

It is rather simple...accurate to date or accurate either one BOTH rely on something being ACCURATE  wether at that time or currently. This cannot be said for Jurassic Park dinosaurs at the date of release of the movie or now either, sorry. They have never been correct and were never. I am unsure what torturing of logic would suggest because a dinosaur does not drag its tail its somehow accurate despite a littany of other issues. That is just not good reasoning. As I have said before, the Jurassic Part dinosaurs simply traded more dated mistakes with more money motivated ones.
  As to the comment about having a cold and so forth, I suggest you might read Horner's books where he actually bragged at the reasoning why he insisted on that scene being placed in the movie, wherein he himself explains the sneezing scene and its implications for warm blooded dinosaurs. He himself stated, the dinosaur was given an apparent cold because a cold blooded animal does not catch a cold.