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The Lost World (Jurassic Park)

8/18/97 Update
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7/14/97 Update
7/7/97 Update
6/30/97 Update
6/23/97 Update
6/16/97 Update

Four years after the collapse of Jurassic Park, Ian Malcolm is summoned by the head of Ingen, Incorporated, John Hammond. The company is on the verge of filing chapter eleven and Hammond's nephew, Peter Ludlow--now in charge of the company--wants to exploit the Ingen's only remaining resource to save the company from bankruptcy. Unknown to anyone outside the company, Ingen had a "Site B" where the dinosaurs for Jurassic Park were actually birthed. For four years dinosaurs have been flourishing on the island. After a career as a rampant opportunist, Hammond has become a naturalist and now believes that the dinosaurs should be left alone. To this end, he want to send a four-person expedition onto the island to do a non-invasive survey. Hammond then intends to use this survey to inspire public opinion and force Ingen to keep its greed-driven paws off Site B. At first, Malcolm refuses to go. He attended the last dinosaur disaster and has no need to experience another. Unfortunately, Hammond drafted Malcolm's girlfriend for the mission as well and she is already on the island. Sarah Harding is a paleontologist and couldn't wait to go. Frantic, Malcom demands that the expedition leave immediately. In short order the team locates Harding but Ludlow soon arrives as well to capture some dinosaurs for an zoo that Ingen intends to operate in San Diego. Of course, havoc ensues as T. Rexes and Veloci-raptors snack on humans. Eventually though, everyone is airlifted to safety. Ludlow's great white hunter even manages to bag a T. Rex. Then the boat carrying the T. Rex crashes into the dock at San Diego with the crew all dead. The T. Rex. escapes, chomps on the citizens of San Diego for a time, is eventually recaptured and taken back to Site B and all is well. (Maybe.)

Brash Reflections

Net and I and Lizzie all went to see the movie with Charles and Jenetta Gragg. These are our collective reactions.

Obviously, the whole point of this movie was to have dinosaurs stomping around and eating people. And--as usual with Hollywood--the visual effects in this movie are amazing. (The only problem I saw was whenever the dinosaurs hopped onto something or hopped off something, they seemed to float a bit. It just didn't quite look right to me.) And--as usual with visual effects movies in Hollywood--the plot was not exactly engaging . . . just one dino incident strung together with another until the movie quits.

There were lots of little oddities in the character motivations and actions. For instance, there's a photographer in the four-person expedition. Except, when he first sees the dinos he stands there and stares. Most photographers I know would have snapped for their cameras the instant the dino appears. It's an instinctive response. Good photographers "see" with their cameras. And then the guy jumps up onto a log formation and Harding--the red-headed paleontologist stands just a few feet away and he doesn't see her!

And speaking of Harding, she sneaks up to get a photo, the camera starts rewinding, the dinos get spooked and she run into the pack. How smart is this?!

I could go on and snicker about the about-face that the great white hunter makes at the end of the movie along with the other one-dimensional characterizations but it was an action-adventure/visual-effects-predominant movie and they aren't known for incredible characterizations in the first place so . . .

I was not impressed with the vehicles brought in by the four-person expedition. In the first place, the have camo-paint but it's shiny! Does this seem like a good idea? And the big trailer unit has thick bars over the windows and a flimsy trailer-home door? Seems to me that the whole idea of this unit is to protect people from large beast and you would want to re-enforce that baby with a completely enclosed cage (or at least some portion of it) even if you would only get five gallons to the mile!

And then there's the whole trailer off the cliff scene. The entire time I watched this scene I was thinking WHIRL, WHIRL, DIETS, WHIRL, DIETS, DIETS, DIETS. Just a few of the minor points: Why park next to a cliff? Why does the trailer have real glass instead of safety glass. Better yet, why doesn't the trailer have two-inch thick Lucite? How could Harding slide down the rope like she did and not sustain incredibly painful rope burns? Why didn't anyone tell her to lie back down when the glass was breaking underneath her?! (Think about it: Harding falls onto the non-safety glass at the "bottom" of the trailer. The glass cracks. She gets up on her hands and knees. In other words, she had concentrated the pressure of her weight into four small points. This is not a good idea. Not surprisingly, the glass begins to crack. Malcolm--chaos theorist and all around genius that he is--can't figure out that the reason that the glass is cracking is because she has concentrated her weight?! If she had eased herself back down and "swam" for the edge, everything would have been fine. There's lots of other minor problems with this scene but I'll leave the rest for you fellow nitpickers with the exception of one.

Imagine this scene: You have an RV with a long RV-like trailer. The trailer is hung off a cliff. A four wheel drive vehicle is winced to the front bumper of the RV attempting to keep it from going over the cliff. A rope that is not in line with the four-wheeler, the RV and the trailer is tied to a tree stump, travels through the broken out windshield of the RV, through the RV, through the trailer and finally reaches a trio of heroes who are dangling off the cliff underneath the trailer.

Now imagine that the entire conglomeration of vehicles goes down the cliff: trailer first, then RV, then four wheeler. In this scene, we see our trio of heroes suspended in the center of the trailer and RV as they race away. No way. No how. WOULDN'T HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE! In order for our heroes to be suspend in the center of the trailer, the rope would have to be attached to a boom that was swung out over the cliff so the rope would hang parallel to the face of the cliff, approximately four feet away. Otherwise, the edge is the rope will be constrained against the edge of the cliff as the vehicles go over and the vehicles would strip our hero right off the rope! (Which would be a bad thing!).

In addition . . . the vehicles are not going to go over that cliff in a nice straight line. They are going to twist and gyrate. In short, the heroes wouldn't stay in the center of the vehicles even with the rope attached to a boom and our heroes would be stripped off the rope.

And finally, what happened to the four-wheeler when the whole conglomeration went over the cliff?!?! That four-wheeler should have followed the RV off the side of the cliff and, once again, cleaned out heroes off the rope!

And why didn't the Rexs take a break from their attack during this scene. Why didn't they finish the job in the first place. Through out this movie, dinos seemed to disappear at the most convenient times.

And why didn't anybody think that maybe carrying around a jacket soaked in baby T.Rex blood was a Bad Thing?!? (I call this suspense-essential-stupidity.)

And did anyone else find it absolutely amazing that the raptors tore through a herd of hunters in no time but they seemed unable to kill our heroes?!?!

And how about the upper body strength of that Harding? She hanging off a roof with one arm, shuffling tiles with the other hand and she's not even breaking a sweat. Adrenaline is a wonderful thing but, to me at least, it just got a bit ridiculous.

I'm running out of time but a few other matters before I go:

Why did Ingen build it's facilities on Site B above ground?! This was a breeding station. Why not building them underground for minimal environmental impact. With a three foot steel door for an entrance hatch ain't no dinosaur gonna get through!

This is just a personal observation but I am growing more and more appalled at the cheapness of the news industry. The end of this movie features Bernard Shaw and CNN reporting on the dinosaurs. In other words, the creators gave this guy money and he pretended to read the news. Surprisingly enough, he sounded just as sincere when he read the fake news and when he reads the real news. In other words, this guy is willing to read anything if you give him the right amount of money?! Does anyone else agree with me that this undermines the foundation of trust and confidence in news anchors. Did Walter C. ever do this? (And the news people wonder why we don't trust them.)

And though I enjoyed the movie, I must say that I rolled my eyes at the "happy family scene" at the end. The camera shows us the T. Rexes frolicking on the plains and then pans over to show us a parade of other dinos trundling by them. So . . . I guess the T. Rexes had fed recently and the other dinos knew. (Stegosaurus checks his watch, "Let's see . . . um . . . Rexy ate Uncle Bob at three. It's five now. Yeah, I think we'll be okay. Let's have a parade!")

There's more but I leave it to you fellow nitpickers!

Reflections from the Guild

[Note from Phil: I have not verified these but they sounded good to me!]

Brian Phan, San Jose, CA: I thought this was a OK movie. It was not better than the first, I can tell you that. If they ended it at when Malcolm and his gang were leaving on the helicopter, I'd say it was too short. It was nice that they added the San Diego scene. I was caught up in the movie that I didn't watch out for the nits, but here are the very few I found.

Is the guy so dumb as to walk into a place with a T-Rex infant in it? That's what I'm asking.

In the beginning, Malcolm speaks with Hammond in his bedroom. Hammond has trouble getting up so he needs his cane. Yet just a few minutes later, he's walking OK without the cane!

So, in the end, all the dinosaurs are alive, huh? A few were some birds. Isn't it possible they might escape and fly to the mainland? (Note from Phil: Depends on how far the peridactyls can fly!)

Matt Thomas: I just saw the movie at a sneak preview last night, and I must say it is AWESOME! A couple problems, though. The biggest one I noticed was that in one scene Malcolm and another guy are talking about observing the dinos, and Ian says that you can't observe without changing because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Now, I thought the HUP said that there was no way to predict where in space a particular atom is at a given time. (Note from Phil: It does, but as I understand it, the reason that you can't know the position and velocity of a particular entity, like an electron, is that your efforts to observe the entity affect the entity and that distorts the results. I think . . . )

Joseph Pintar of New Hartford, NY: I just saw the Lost World: Jurassic Park. This movie makes Jurassic Park look tame by comparison. There are a few nits I caught.

I don't think they ever said during the movie what happened to the first park, but I do think it was destroyed (I read it in one of the publicity articles). In the original Jurassic Park novel, the park was bombed out of existence, which was not in the original movie. There is definitly some kind of translating the book to movie error here. Of course, there were a couple of scenes where two people were talking at once and I had to go to the bathroom at least twice during the movie(and I just had a "small" Coke during the movie), so maybe I missed it. Anyway, if they knew about the other island, why didn't they destroy it too (Answer: a billion dollars in box office gross plus merchandising)? (Note from Phil: If I recall, there was one line about destroying Jurassic Park and the feeling I got was that no one ever said anything about Site B.)

So the hunters want to take live dinosaurs back to San Diego. I find this idea illogical and unbelievable. Transporting all those dinosaurs to San Diego is both expensive, time consuming and not practical. Wouldn't U.S. customs stop this idea cold by not allowing them to import something as hazardous as dinosaurs onto U.S. shores? Also, I find it difficult to believe that these dinosaurs could be contained. At least on an island, if the dinosaurs did get loose, they couldn't hop on a ferry to the mainland. I just find the entire idea impractical.

After that thrilling trailer sequence, the hunter team shows up with Ian's daughter. Did she climb down from the tree? If I were her, I would be scared stiff and stay up in the tree (Of course, if I were her, I wouldn't be up in that tree or on the island to begin with.) That leads to another question, where did she hide during the trip to the island? (This is explained in the book, but not here. Another instance where they change the book but forget to correct for the mistake in the movie.) (Note from Phil: Given that the trailer is a mess when they arrive and Malcolm comments that it looks like her room, I felt like the creators dropped enough hints to suggest that she stowed away inside the trailer and ate the stored supplies.

During that velicraptor attack in the high grass, did anybody else hum the theme from Jaws?

So the T-rex rampages San Diego. What, not New York, LA, Washington, or some other place? I guess there are only so many times these cities can be destroyed, but San Diego is relatively unexciting place for a T-rex to rampage (My aplogies to anyone in San Diego. No offense.) I know Hollywood is looking for new cities to rampage (The TV movie Asteroid, for example, hit Dallas and Kansas City.), but I think they should stick to New York and LA. (Note from Phil: Wasn't Site B closest to San Diego and doesn't San Diego have a world-reknowned zoo?)

I wonder if Steven Spielberg intended the ship crashing into the dock and the T-rex attacking the bus to be in-joke references to the Speed and the upcoming Speed 2.

Michael Harrel: At one point in the movie, a boat carrying a T-rex in the cargo hold crashes onto a San Diego harbor. Everyone on board the boat has been killed and eaten, and the creators expect us to believe that the rex did it. Unfortunetely, some of the corpses are in a room the would be WAY too small for the rex to get in, and there is no evidence that the Tyrannosaur wrecked a wall or something to get in. I suspect that there are now velociraptors in San Diego! (Whoa, talk about setup for another sequel, huh?)

Myles Hildebrand: Just saw the Lost World and had to say: cool, but...

Okay, I know the ending is supposed to be a combo/tribute-to/rip-off-of Dracula's arrival in England and King Kong BUT- how did all those guys aboard ship die? If the T-rex was loose below decks, how could it kill the guys above decks? And if it was above decks and only got trapped at the end, why is the guy with the button dead? And how did it kill the cabin crew so that there's an arm dangling from the wheel? I was hoping for raptor stowaways but - it just doesn't make sense!

Bob Canada: Went to see The Lost World on Sunday (May 25)--had to buy tickets in advance and arrive at the theatre 45 minutes early (or so the ticket booth advised us). And it was on 3 screens! Man, these blockbusters are getting out of hand. Anyway, I enjoyed the movie, to an extent. The usual--short on plot, long on action. Wouldn't it be nice if just once they spent as much on the script as they did on the special effects? Character development was pretty much non-existant, especially among the "evil scientists." They were all a very non-descript bunch, until suddenly the story would focus on one, prompting me to think, "Oh, I see, this guy is one of the characters...(such as when the guy who wondered off to go to the bathroom and got attacked by the Compys--who the heck was he?)." I was mightily impressed with the dinosaurs though--dino technology has advanced exponentially in the last 3 years. Especially the last scene of the pteradactyl landing in the tree-that really blew me away. There was absolutely nothing artificial about that shot-it was absolutely perfect. Of course there were some nits...

I'm recalling these nits from memory, since I can't pause or rewind the movie, so some of them may be in error.

As the ship approaches Site B, Eddie tells Malcolm that the venom or poison in the dart gun "works faster than neurotransmitter velocity, so the dinos will be dead before they know they've been shot." Uh...I'm certainly no doctor, but did he just say the poison works faster than it works? How could a substance travel through your body faster than it could be transmitted?

When Malcolm enters the trailer lab to argue with his daughter Kelly, we see piles of candy wrappers, etc., all over the floor, indicating that this was where she'd been stowing away. Did no one ever once enter this trailer during the whole trip to check on any of the sensitive equipment, and see these obvious signs of human habitation?

When the T-Rex was sticking its nose through the tent, its head was touching the dirt. How did it get its giant head that close to the ground? Could a T-Rex really lay down on its belly (and then get back up with its useless forearms)?

I'm sure this will be the most submitted nit of the whole movie--what happened to the crew of the ship that was carrying the T-Rex? How was it they were all killed and half-eaten while the T-Rex was apparently in the ship's hold the whole time? As near as I could tell, the baby was never on the ship, so I don't think it killed anyone. Maybe one crewman walked down into the hold and was eaten. Another crewman heard his screams, and walked down to investigate, and was also eaten. Another crewman heard his screams, and so on and so on, until the entire crew marched down into the hold one by one. The guy steering the ship got so scared that he just exploded, leaving only a hand grasping the wheel...

So now that the captured T-Rex story is on CNN, EVERYONE knows the locations of Jurassic Park and Site B. How long will it be before some other corporation (Microsoft, perhaps?) mounts an expedition to capture some dinos, despite Hammond's inspiring fireside chat that these animals don't need us, and need us to step aside and leave them in peace. And would that ship really be sea-worthy, after plowing into the pier like that?

Aaron Nadler of New Cumberland, PA: There is a scene (if you havn't read the book) where 2 T-Rexes push a trailer over a cliff. In the process, one of the characters (Eddie Carr) jumps in through the smashed back window, and throws a rope down to Jeff Goldblum and Co. If you look when he first jumps in, there is a bookshelf with all of the books still on it, standing straight up, (LIKE THEY'VE BEEN GLUED DOWN) after to LARGE dinosaurs slammed this trailer at least 25 feet. Go figure.

Second, a T-Rex stomps through a suburban backyard, only to find that the pool doesn't ripple from his shaking steps. Also in the next scene, a kid looks out his window to see the dino, but the aquarium next to him doesn't ripple, either. (Note from Phil: Must be that super-firm San Diego soil!)

Ben Puntch: I don't know if you are going to nitpick "The Lost World," but if you do, I've got one for you. When the trailer first gets knocked over by the T-rex, a pane of glass falls out of the rear window of the trailer. However, when the trailer gets knocked over the cliff, the glass is back in the window so that Sarah can fall onto it! Anyway, thanks for listening to me rant.

Rob Orton: When Malcom is looking at the InGen helicoppters through the binocculars, he seems to be holding them backwards

Why were the velociraptors not attcking from the side instead of every direction. didn't Grant say in the first one that the raptors attack from the sides and in packs. come to think of it the raptors only hunted in pack in the feild and were actually attacking each other in the workers village.

Rob Levandowski of Rochester, NY: In one scene, the two trailers are hanging over a cliff, and the photographer is trying to save the others trapped in the trailer. He tries to connect the trailer to the winch of his Mercedes-Benz Jeep-wannabe, but the Benz starts to slide in the mud, so he hops in and guns it into reverse.

Now, the Benz is a stickshift -- we see him shift into reverse. Keep this in mind.

Since the car, when first slipping, is skidding -- the tires don't rotate -- we can presume that he put the parking brake on. Now, think about the procedure you'd have to do in order to pull this off: put your foot on the brake and clutch; start the car (if necessary), shift into reverse, unset the parking brake, take your foot off the brake, gun the gas, and let the clutch out.

Think carefully about those last three steps, and about the amount of weight pulling the car forward. At some point, the brakes are going to be off and the clutch is going to be disengaged. At that time, the wheels will spin freely, having neither brakes nor engine friction to stop them. It seems to me that the Benz would thus go flying off the cliff.

We then see him spin his tires. (Of course, this Benz has absolutely astounding tires to gain any purchase in this mud, rather than merely dig a rut.) He's weaving from side to side, -because the tires have lost friction with the ground- as they spin, making it possible for the vehicle to move sideways. Of course, if you lost friction with the ground, and you were tethered to an immovable object like a tree, you'd go side to side as shown. If you were tied to two trailers hanging precariously off a cliff and you lost friction with the ground... you'd go over the cliff.

A more realistic strategy would have been to attach the jeep to a sturdy tree or rock with chains, and then use the winch to pull up the trailer. I've seen off-road jeeps equipped with twin front-and-rear winches for this purpose. In a pinch, you could wrap the cable around a tree once before hooking it to the trailer, so that the tree takes the brunt of the weight.

Which reminds me: before doing all this, the photographer ties a rope (loosely) to a dead stump, so that he can throw it down to the others. The stump looks old and rotten. It wouldn't have been a good choice -- it looked as if it might crumble under the strain of the rope.

Also, the glass in the trailer window cracks under the woman's weight. When it cracks, and shatters, it doesn't appear to be safety glass. Seems strange that a trailer designed to withstand severe stresses, and attacks, wouldn't have safety glass windows. (Automotive safety glass has a sticky plastic sheet between two layers of glass, to help keep the glass "intact" even when broken, so that glass shards don't go flying around the interior of the car. Also, the glass is designed to shatter into many very tiny pieces, with minimal rough edges, to avoid cutting someone who hits the windshield in an accident.)

When the "great white hunter" fires his sabotaged gun, it clicks. There should have been a small popping noise from the primer of the gun. A cartridge bullet has a primer -- the small dot in the center of the back of the cartridge -- that makes a small explosion when struck. This explosion then ignites the main charge of gunpowder. The primers appeared to be intact when he opened the gun. (It would be difficult, and unwise, to attempt to remove the primer from the cartridge quickly with field tools.)

Too bad the trailer's phone system didn't have a speakerphone. (It did in the book.)

In the first movie, Ian Malcolm tells Dr. Grant that he has four children. Why does the one in this movie get special attention?

The hunters have a jeep with a passenger seat that extends on an outrigger. Jeeps are very tippy to begin with -- having an adult male in a carseat that far outside the wheelbase ought to make it prone to tipping with the slightest upset. Unless, of course, there's a large counterweight on the other side, which would make the vehicle that much slower. It seems like an unnecessarily complex design. (Note from Phil: But, of course, it *looks* cool! ;-)

Katrina Pipinis: Saw The Lost World -- was soooo disappointed. This is what I get for reading the book first. The book was better.

A T-Rex running around in San Diego (that's in California, right? I'm just trying to get my geography right -- which side of America is Costa Rica on East or West? They sure got to San Diego quickly, either way)? (Note from Phil: Costa Rica spans the small portion of land that connects Central and South American so it touches both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.)

Sure, it was great fun hearing "Daddy, there's a dinosaur in the back yard", but still.... I smell a tribute to King Kong with Rexy causing havoc wherever it went.

The Dinos were great (love those compys), but the characters didn't seem quite right to me (I think it was that this-is-what-I-get-for-reading-the-book-first syndrome).

Brian Bogovich, Pittsburgh PA: Hypothetical situation:

You are going on an expedition to an island inhabited by animals known to be violent, who are 50+ ft. high. You have no way of knowing how they would react to a change in their environment. Would YOU place your base of operations at the top of a cliff???

Shouldn't the ship carrying the Rex have sent out a distress call when the dinosaur started killing everyone?

[Aside from what killed the sailors on the ship,] the cargo bay doors are found partway open, because a hand from a dead body is pressing the button. There are problems with this.

1. what killed the man obviously not the tyrannosaur, because it would have had to be in the cargo area before the crew could close the doors

2. If he was dead, why was his hand still pushing the buttons? unless he was electrocuted, the crew member's muscles should have relaxed when he died, not contracted and held the button in place (I may be wrong about that, I'm not an anatomy student)

3. The hand was obviously plastic

Not a nit, an observation - didn't you expect to hear the crowd of frightened Japenese start shouting "Godzilla!"

Brian O'Marra, Little Rock, AR: I thought it was technically superior!! Very intense scenes throughout! I love the scene where Sarah is laying on the glass of the vehicle that is hanging off the cliff. The glass is cracking underneath!! Also, when the crew are running through the field, and you see the Velociraptors making lines in the field closing in!! Also, the Japanese tourists running away from the T-Rex in San Diego was a great tribute to Godzilla!! It was a hoot!!

On to the nits...First, not a nit but an observation, isn't it interesting how the first time the T-Rex makes an appearance in both movies, it's nighttime and it's raining.

I thought the scene with the Velociraptors and Malcolm and Sarah was a little too contrived. Sarah is hanging from the tiled roof, the one Velociraptor falls from the roof on to the other velociraptor down below. Sarah then falls right in front of them, and guess what? Both Velociraptors don't notice her!! These dinosaurs, who, supposedly work together (as the first movie brought out) now are fighting one another, just in time for Sarah to get away!!

I know that the stars of this movie are usually not going to be dinner, but there were too many scenes where these extremely intelligent, and very fast dinosaurs appeared to be a little deliberate, and a little dense!! They seem to continually allow our heroes to get away!!

Also, Sarah tells her crew that they're there for observation only, no interraction. Really?? Isn't this the same person who was just petting a baby Stegosaurus??

Finally, the last scene shows three Pterodactyls flying. Funny, as big as they are we never saw them throughout the whole movie!! Which brings up another question, why breed prehistoric birds on an island you're trying to quarantine from human contact? What's to stop them from flying off the island??

The scene where the ship carrying the T-Rex crashes in the dock lost me a little. Seems there should have been another scene to add a little missing continuity.

6/16/97 Update

Alexander Shearer: Though the establishing shots of downtown San Diego were nice, none of the T-Rex's subsequent rampage is in San Diego (my friend tells me it's Burbank). If it was San Diego, that would probably be the neighborhood where I grew up, given the T-Rex's location.

BTW, San Diego would be a great place for a dino park. As noted in the film, you have the San Diego Zoo (did they also mention Sea World and the Wild Animal Park?).

Another mini rant: If you were sending people to an island full of potentially dangerous critters like that, wouldn't you pack at least one weapon which would absolutely, for sure, take one out? Maybe a LAW, or at least a grenade launcher.

In the boat-into-dock scene: Why didn't at least one of the dock operations people show some self-preservation? They all know that the ship is racing towards the dock at full flank speed, not responding to calls...why did they all just stand there?

In the waterfall scene (hiding from the T-Rex) the snakes slither all over the "bad paleontologist" and then, after he becomes T-Rex chow, completely ignore everyone else in the waterfall. Maybe they don't want to overfeed the big guy?

M. Farahbakhshian: [Concerning, the dinosaur parade at the end of the movie,] Often savannah predators give signs that they are satiated and mean simple to walk through...for instance, a cheetah will hold its tail over its head, implying that it is not hungry or cannot run (a cheetah needs its tail out as a rudder to run). Perhaps dinosaurs do this as well in ways not easily discernable.

The reasoning for this is simple: for most predators, the urge to chase is seperate from the urge to eat. This is why a dog plays fetch. As an instinctive reaction (cf. Desmond Morris ,"The Human Animal") a predator would waste a LOT of metabolic energy chasing any animal that flees in its presence. Hence, the signals to avoid being lured into a deadly chase. (Note from Phil: Hmmm.)

Scott Padulsky: Most of the nitpicks I had in mind were taken, but here's a few I haven't seen:

I know its cold to think about it, but corporations are in business for one purpose: to make profit. So here you have a bioengineering company that has successfuly produced some of the greatests feats of genetic engineering--feats that would make their stock go through the roof--and they keep it a secret! I don't think so. The (fictional) engineering techniques would have many uses besides just producing dinos, plus the preteige (sp?) alone would make them a fortune. I doubt they would keep it secret let alone dismiss Ian Malcolm when he tried to bring attention to it.

Considering that Ingen got its source DNA from mosquitos trapped in amber. I must say I'm surprised that they found DNA from so many different species of dinos. I mean, mosquitos trapped in amber are rare, plus these mosquitos had to have bitten a dino shortly before being trapped, plus the DNA would have had to remain useful at least 65 million years (and for some of those dinos, longer than that). I can accept five or six different species (i.e. the first movie) but not the fifteen of so from this one. Then again, maybe prehistoric blood is more common than I thought.

Lastly, since when was Hammond part of Ingen? I got the impression, from the first movie, that Hammond built his fortune creating natural attractions. He mentions that he started his career with a fleas circus and also that he has a reserve in Kenya. I was under the impression that Ingen was a sub-contract he used to make his dream of living dinosaurs come true. Again maybe I'm off base.

Aaron Nadler of New Cumberland, PA: I've got a great line for you- After all of the InGen party is killed by the Raptors, Malcom says, "We should've stayed in the d*** car!" An homage to the lawyer Gennero in JP1!

Kevin Loughlin: It seems everyone has the biggies, but a few more comments are in order...

Not only was the window not safety glass, but there were no bars! All the side windows had 2-inch iron bars, but this back one is just plate glass.

To your comment on the Mercedes Jeep(in that it didn't go over the edge with the trailer): After the first trailer explosion, the jeep comes flying and explodes with the rest of it. It's sailing through the air, so it has a bit of an excuse for missing the guys on the rope.

The Rex was stored on-deck, as you can see the remains of the cage they had it in on the island sitting there. The way it seems to have worked is, Rex breaks out of the cage, mangles most of the crew, including in the control room(!?!), the remaining crew get him in the hold somehow and just get the doors closed as they die. I'll leave the feasibility of this up to you.

The Godzilla reference will go even further in the Japanese release. I've heard that one of those tourists will get a line, to the effect of 'I came here to get AWAY from this!'

Disturbingly enough, I left the theater rather hungry...

Lisa Shock of Phoenix, AZ: I couldn't help thinking that Malcom, who was there in the first film, should have brought a small automatic pistol. It seems kind of silly that his expedition only had the one tranquilizer gun. If I had been there before, and seen the velociraptors, I'd have a small, waterproof gun with me at all times.

How did the ship make it in to port in San Diegoso accurately? Sure, it came in too fast, but it landed precisely where it was supposed to dock without any course corrections for hundreds of miles. I grew up around boats,and this was a truly amazing feat.

Bob Sabatini: I only have two nits for this movie, first of all, I am a porfesonial photographer (if selling four prints counts as profesonial) and I wanted to confirm your comment. if that were me sent to be the photographer, the camera would never leave my eyes, except for when changing film.

At the begining of the movie, Malcom says that three peopole died at "site A" four years before. Let's see here, I rember at least four, possibly five (my brain is fried because of the hot weather.) In case your brain is fried worse, I rember the guy at the beginning, Dennis (the bad guy) the computer guy, and the man who was eaten off the the toliet (that was cool)

Eric Brasure: I'll make this quick. One word: tanks. There is no way a dinosaur is going to knock over a tank. If the team really wanted to stay alive, they would not have jeeps. Which is better: maneuverablilty or protection?

Erin Hunt of High Point, NC: Why would the Rexs push the trailer *partway* over the cliff, walk away, then come come back? This is especially odd when you consider that T Rexs were actually quite stupid!

Isn't it convenient that the photographer's dart gun got stuck just when he needed it!

Sarah, Malcolm and the others took a big risk, setting those dinosaurs free in the hunters' camp. Somebody could easily have gotten killed. What if someone had been standing in front of the tent flap when that Stegosaurus came charging through? What if someone had been standing near that jeep when it exploded? What if the dinosaur with the battering ram head had caught the guy it was chasing? Very, very, very irresponsible of them. (Note from Phil: I thought so too but the guy was supposed to be from some kind of Earth First organization and they typically aren't known for their sensibilities. True story: One such organization just staged a "liberation" raid on a mink farm, setting 40,000 mink free to roam the night. The result: I believe 11,000 dead very shortly afterward because they don't know how to survive in the wild. The prospect for the rest: Very dim.)

I know the big game hunter was supposed to be a villian, but I just didn't think he was that bad a guy. I didn't see anything terribly wrong with him trying to "bag" a T Rex, and he was the smartest person in the whole movie. Yes, he did allow Sarah to walk around with baby Rex blood on her so that a T Rex would come to him, but this seemed more a case of overconfidence than sheer callousness. Besides, the heroes were just as bad in this regard (see above nit).

When the photographer guy first rescues the baby Rex, he calls it a "her". Later, as they're pulling it out of the jeep in front of the trailer, he calls it a "he".

Sarah has presumably been Malcolm's "steady" for a while now. Don't you think that at some point, a conversation like this took place: Malcolm- "So there we were, with the T Rex practically on top of us! We were sitting there as still as can be, trying not to move or make a sound..." Yet, when the T Rex appears outside the trailer window (with plenty of forewarning), she immediately moves! Atleast she knew enough not to scream.

At one point, Malcolm pauses for a moment, then says something like, "Hold on. This is going to be bad." The trailer is then pushed over. How did he know something was about to happen? Sounds like someone forgot to put in a sound effect!

Loved the moment where Malcolm tries to get off that elevated platform by climbing down a rope, but instead slides straight down with a splat. But if the platform is in the treetops, too high for a T Rex to reach, shouldn't he have been severely injured?

During a velociraptor attack, Sarah falls down several levels of floor, or whatever it is she falling down, but still manages to roll out right where Malcolm and that kid are.

Malcolm is one tough guy. He's the only character, besides the big game hunter, who never shows any *real* panic, no matter what.

Why did the T Rex, in San Diego, chow down on that street lamp? Does it think this edible?

I won't even mention the "how could the T Rex kill the crew of the ship" nit, it's already been mentioned so many times. Suffice it to say that I think they were setting themselves up for a possible sequel.

When baby Rex and daddy Rex (atleast, the big game hunter called it a "buck") gave each other a look, then the baby Rex attacked Ludlow, was anyone else imagining daddy Rex saying, "Good job, son! You'll be as good as your old dad in no time!"?

There are too many Idiot Plot moments to list, but one example is, why didn't the guy who was attacked by Compys try to climb a tree? And why is it that when people in the movies get scared, they lose the ability to walk?

I just had to laugh when, at the end, Hammond claims that dinosaurs "need our absence to survive".

I don't buy this whole pseudo-environmental message about leaving the dinosaurs (a.k.a "nature") alone or paying the price. With the exception of the T Rex and a few others, I don't see how putting a dinosaur in a zoo is much different from putting any other dangerous animal in a zoo. Right here in North Carolina, we have a zoo that's held *many* dangerous animals, including polar bears, lions and rhinos, for twenty years, and in all that time there hasn't been a single mishap. Of course, we don't have scriptwriters to provide us with "animal escapes" plot devices. :-)

Benjamin Knoll: In your Lost World debriefing you asked "Why park next to a cliff?" In the book, they parked a ways away from the cliff, and the two T-Rexes pushed them to the cliff. That's what it looked like happened in the movie, too.

What was with Malcom's kid? I looks like the only thing she did to advance the story was that little gymnastic bit with the velociraptor. In the book, there were two kids, neither of which were related to Malcom. An african-american boy, and a caucasian girl. It looks like the movie combined the two kids. And why is she so dark-skinned? If her mom was african-american, and the dad (Malcom) was caucasian, shouldn't she have a bit lighter complexion? If you get any free time, you should read the book, it was really good.

Brian Straight of Shawnee Kansas: Mrs. Sarah "if we so-much-as bend a blade of grass" Harding, fixes an injured T-Rex's leg, pets a baby Stegasaur, and completely changes how the T-Rex preseves territory by dragging the baby's blood all over the island.

If the dinosaurs are breed on Site B, and then transported to the park island, then why where we wathcing raptors hatch in the first movie?

In the first movie the raptor's skin was green, in this one they seemed to of changed to desert-camoflauge.

So how long do we stare at strange noises at night, before we decide to run away from a large cargo ship heading into the pier.

Everyone else asked it, so I will too, How did the ship's crew die?

InGen is very resoursive they managed to get the Merceds 4x4 before anybody else! They won't be available until this fall.

Lisa Shock of Phoenix AZ: One more observation: Did you see Arold Schwartzenager's picture in the movie poster (at the video store) for "King Lear"?

Charles Wallace of Antioch, CA: Well, I saw the movie, and though I thought the characters were extremely one-dimensional, and the story line leaving some large enough gaps to parade a T-Rex through, I LOVED the effects! I thought the dino parts were totally excellent, even if the dinos actions weren't.

I've got two main nitpicks:

When the Raptor is on the shingle roof of the tool shed, shouldn't it be attempting to attack Sarah Harding? It just seems to stand there and look at her and hiss and growl. But it makes NO move what-so-ever to bite her head off or attack or anything of the sort! It just stands there, looking menacing, but acting docile.

The Jurassic Park: San Diego attraction was totally unbelieveable. It was what, exactly? A stadium? That's what it looked like. A BIG stadium with a open roof and enclosed box/room/whatever seats, like the press boxes or luxury areas of a sports stadium. And the floor area of the arena was VERY small in general. What were they planning to do with the dinosaurs? Pull them around the ring like dogs on leashes? The dinosaurs had no room to move around or interact or act as though in a natural environment. It was just a stage to show them off on. AND - if the roof was open, what did the builders and designers expect to do if they HAD captured pteradactyls? Just put them on little swinging seats like canaries?

Charles Sylvia: Besides the one-dimensional stereotypical characters of this movie, I think another problem of this movie was it's so likeness to the first one. One of the reasons I didn't enjoy this movie so much is because well, basically, I've seen this before. Both movies have a scene where it is raining at night, something involving a vehicle, and a tyrannosaurus attacking the vehicle. All in all I didn't really like the movie that much, and I thought the ending scene with the tyrannosaurus loose in San Francisco was ridiculous. But..yes, the special effects were great.

Besides all the obvious nits everyone's submitted, there's one more obvious nit that isn't up yet so I might was well send it in. Malcolm's daughter, is basically..."useless" to the development of this movie. She doesn't do anything except be an extra character there. The kids in the first Jurassic Park actually had a purpose and made the movie fun. And then...just to attempt to give this girl some sort of reason for existing, they throw in this gymnastics thing. Which of course is totally ridiculous. This girl has been scared to death for the whole movie. She must be physically exhausted, yet somehow she musters up the strength to pull off her fancy gymnastics move (on a bunch of metal bars which are CONVENIENTALLY there and CONVENIENTALLY stable) and manages to kick the dinosaur which must weigh much more than her through the wall. Somehow this seems too far fetched.

And THEN...Sarah Harding, after managing to survive more than one close encounter with a velociraptor, falls through the roof, hits a glass light and rolls through some glass and then gets up outside and she's fine. I think that she'd at least have broken some bones doing that.

One more thing :

I suppose this isn't a nit, but I wonder if predatory dinosaurs really WOULD be so aggressive towards human beings if they were to encounter them somehow. We are unlike anything they've ever seen before so I wonder if they would consider us as prey. Another thing about Jurassic Park is most of the behavior of the dinosaurs is open to all sorts of nitpicking since nobody knows for sure how they really would behave. For example, would a bunch of compys really be so aggressive and relentlessly pursue a large prey relying on numbers. Probably not since at the time the procompsognathus triassicus lived, which was the early triassic period, there were no very large creatures anyway.

David Tayman: Someone mentioned something about characterization of characters not being right. These might be some reasons:

In Jurassic Park (the book, not the movie) Dr. Hammond is eaten by Compys at the end (a note about the compys: Supposedly, acoording to the book, the compys carry a type of poison that acts a tranquilizer. When Hammond is bitten in the book, he immediately becomes peaceful, loses care, and falls asleep. In the LW move, that one guy going to relieve himself was /covered/ with the little beasties, was bit several times, and didn't seem to have any kind of reaction.)

Malcom isn't the current boyfriend of Harding in the book. They fell in love once, and hadn't seen each other for at least a year.

The character of Malcom's daughter in the movie replaced two characters from the LW book, a white girl named Kelly (no relation to Malcom), and a black boy named Arby (again, no relation to Malcom. Just a colleage of Kelly).

The first half of the book has a character (who doesn't appear in the movie) called Levine trying to find Site B. In the movie, Hammond openly tells Malcom at the beginning.

In the book, the Bad Guy is the person who hired Nedry (the guy who stole the embryos in the first movie/book) named Dogdson. In the movie, he is replaced by The Great White Hunter and his whole 'army'.

The entire T-Rex-get's-Loose-In-The-City-as-a-Godzilla-rip-off sequence was /never/ in the book.

Jim Cadwell: This has to do with one of the dinosaurs--the mimentiosaurus. This is a large sauropod-like dinosaur whose neck is longer than the rest of it's body and tail. It is indeed a strange animal. My nit, however, has to do with it's neck.

The mimentiosaur's vertibrae have long bony projections going backward and attaching to the other vertibrae. This makes the mimentiosaur's neck almost rigid. Real mimentiosaurs would stand in a grove, holding their necks straight out and occasionally swinging them from side to side and eating the tops of tree ferns. I saw mimentiosaurs in this film bending their necks freeley and running around with the parasauroliphi when the bad guys were chasing them.

Murray Leeder: My, my, my. I enjoyed this film, although it was nothing but a clothesline on which to hang special effects and repetitive suspenseful sequences. Rather a disappointment, if you ask me...

I was especially annoyed by the very presence of Malcolm's daughter. Just what was she doing there? She played zero plot role... did they really need an extra person to be scared?

None of the characters are particularly interesting. Malcolm was one of the few interesting characters in the first film, yet he doesn't have the opportunity to do ANYTHING in this film, save run around and yell and issue dire warnings. Very disappointing.

A word on the direction... I had to remind myself at times that this was directed by the same man who did the Indiana Jones movies, "Jaws", "Close Encounters", "E.T."... and "Schindler's List"! It was done fairly well... but not the Spielburg kind of well. (if you want to see a thriller really done right, check out his highway-horror flick "Duel")

And why bother painting the work centre elaborately when tourists will never see it?

Why name the character Harding? That was the name of the veteranarian Hammond had working for him in the first book (and film)!

Cowboy paelantologist: "They have no reason to fear man." Nasty guy with cattle prod: "Now IT does." (emphasis mine) WHO WROTE THIS!

Was I the only one who thoughts that the T-Rex eats dog sequence was in honour of the Far Side cartoon "Rex Vs. Godzilla"?

6/23/97 Update

Murray Leeder: Also eaten in the first film was Muldoon, the hunter. Remember, his last words were "Clever girl..." (that's five)

I've got to wonder. At times, it seems like Hammond has recreated the "time of the dinosaurs", but he really hasn't. Bear in mind that the creatures on this island should have been seperated by enormous distances... both temporally and physically. But this isn't brought up at all in the movies, or the books for that matter (at least not in the first one, I haven't read the second).

Somehow I'd be a little more concerned if my daughter had just risked her life to kick a dinosaur. But hey, that's me, and I'm no parent...

What's with those velociraptors? I thought they were pack hunters... why did they start competing over food (and let the food escape in the process! And you thought only humans were dumb in this film!)

Matthew Chiappardi of Hamilton, NJ: Gotta agree with you, while this movie may have been exciting, it's pretty much worthless. Our heads get used to the dino-bash mantra. Spielberg is slumming here. However, I was never that impressed with "Jurassic Park" either. Of course, the special effects were great, Jeff Goldblum was great as usual, and kudos to Vince Vaughn for a great breakthrough performance. Best of luck to him.

Now...the entire trailer on the cliff sequence was so unbelieveably absurd. It's got DIETS written all over it, I mean these are people with no special training to deal with a situation like this. I probably would have died in about two seconds.

Why did everyone just stand around wide-eyed when the boat was coming towards San Diego?

The scene where Malcolm's daughter is flipping around in the barn and smashes into the Raptor killing it is pretty dumb as well. A Raptor has got to have the mass of about a cow and a half. Can she really exert that much force on it?

Speaking of Malcolm's daughter, this is anotther example of Spielberg's sloppy pandering filmmaking here. Every character is drawn so one-dimentionally. So often in these summer blockbuster films we set up conflict and relationships with such potential that just fizzle away, are ignored, or wraped up too neatly. Same deal with Malcolm and his daughter. This was an opportunity for some great storytelling on Spielberg's part (he does have the ability), Spielberg himself has an adopted black daughter for whom he is never around because his work lofts him all over the globe donating his life to films he directs. Sound like a paralell to Malcolm and his daughter on some level? Looked glossed over to me.

Also, Phil, your comments about Bernard Shaw are kind of silly. I'll give you that television journalism is a pretty abysmal medium, but there are some shining spots. CNN is one of them. Being a TV anchor is of course a performance job, it's public speaking. He is always just reading copy. His job is speak that copy with deadpan conviction. He was given a role in a movie that is clearly 'make-believe' to do what he does every day. Of course he's going to read the copy they give with the same conviction he does on CNN everyday. IMO it doesn't hurt Shaw's journalistic credibility to accept such a role. Infact it added a bit of fun credibility to the film to have his trusted voice and image there. It was just a fun goof, I don;t think it brings up any irony about modern slanted reporting. Shaw's a great TV journalist. Remember, however high a pedestal we put Walter Cronkite on, he's still just a talking head like the rest of them :)

(Note from Phil: Well, first of all, I really can't say that I believe anything I see on the television news anymore because I have absolutely no confidence in the journalistic integrity of the medium. But on a larger scale--from my viewpoint at least--I see Shaw's duplitcity in this movie as a further corruption of the line between fantasy and reality. Everybody says that they know that this is just fantasy but the more I am a nitpicker the more I realize how much the human brain adopts as fact from fictional sources. The actual storyline may be shuttled off as fiction but the background material is often accepted verbatim. Consider the whole defibrillator sham. Here we have a situation where the collective consciousness of the American people is completely out of whack with reality. I find this profoundly disturbing and the situation is not an isolated phenomenon. Information is the very basis of our thought processes and our thought process form the basis of our perception of reality which in turn forms the basis of our behavior and collectively forms the basis of our society. Without sounding conspiratorial (and I am not a conspiracy theorist for reasons that will become clear in just a moment), if we as a society cannot clearly distinguish fact from fiction we are in a very dangerous place and we leave ourselves open to all manner of manipulation.

Less you think I'm an alarmist, I offer you some tidbits. There was a report on NPR several months ago on studies into the way the human brain stores memories. To their surprise, the researchers found that actual memories and false memories (i.e. watch you personally experience versus the fiction you view or read about) are stored exactly the same way! The brain does not differentiate in the storage technique used for real versus imagined experiences. Only on retreival does another portion of the brain signal that a given memory is fictional. Needless to say, it is then absolutely essential for that mechanism to work! If that mechanism breaks down--if a person allows themselves to believe "facts" that are based speculation or hearsay--the person involved has launched into a floating reality that may or may not have any moorings in the real world. (Personally, I often conduct interrogations of myself, "How do I know [whatever]?" to make some attempt to keep myself honest.)

As only one quick example, consider the whole conspiracy phenomenon. If you listen for any length of time to conspiracy radio, you hear people talking with absolute conviction about "extreme possibilities" and only when you listen closely do you hear the illusion break down. Example, (I don't listen to conspiracy radio that much but I was driving around one day) this guy is ranting about how the media has covered up all this amazing UFO, he says that there has even been a giant UFO over Phoenix and though there's been some local reporting, the national news networks have covered it all up. I'm thinking, "huh?!" This goes on for minute after minute until the host takes a call from a lady in Phoenix. He asks her if she has seen the big UFO. She expresses her utter frustration with the whole thing because she's a believer and she hasn't been able to spot it. Then the host asks if there's been any local news coverage and she says no! But the guest was still convinced that there was an amazing UFO siting in Pheonix. (He probably thought that she was a plant to discredit him.)

I don't have the time to discuss what I believe are the origins of the whole conspiracy phenomenon but, in short, I think it's directly related an eroding of the ability of the populace to distinguish fact from fiction and their willingness to accept soft data. (And I think television has played an immense role in this. That and . . . the INTERNET where anybody can say anything and at least some of it is believed as real information. I was appalled this year that my daughter could use any Internet source in her papers. She just had to list the URL and she could quote from it! ANY source! That's because the teachers have swallowed this idiotic notion that the Internet is a glorious place where research is easy and magical and always rings true.)

"Erosion of Reality" is a huge discussion and I don't have the time to go into here but it does have very important real world applications. If you can change the populace's perception of reality--and you do that by blurring the line between fact and the fiction you are attempting to peddle-- you can influence how they vote (anyone remember the scare tactics used during every election by both sides of the politcal aisle?). You can also influence what they buy (Oprah says that she's never going to eat another hamburger because of her fear of "Mad-Cow" disease and cattle prices drop). You can even influence how they behave.

This is why I am death on anything that blurs the line between hard data and fiction--including much of what is foisted on us as "science." "Such-and-such-a-thing causes cancer in laboratory animals." "Oh yeah, well how big of a dose did you give them and what were you determined to prove in the first place--before you started the experiement!" (And, I could go into lots of example of stuff like this!)

(Looking at the clock) Arrgh! No time, can't finish. Quickly, in my opinion, the news should be hard data with an little editorializing as possible. Just the facts. And newspeople should conduct themselves in such a way that people can have confidence in the fact that when they are behind that desk what they report is clean, hard data. I know, I know. Ain't gonna happen. But a guy can dream, can't he? Anyway, back to Matthew's comments. Sorry for the soap-boxing ;-)

It does bring up a nit, the field reporter talking over the video of the ship carrying the T Rex refers back to Shaw as Bernard. I watch a lot of CNN and every field reporter and co-anchor always refer to him as Bernie.

All in all, "The Lost World" stunk. Of all the big hollywood blockbusters this summer, I'm waiting for "Men in Black". That looks like a lot of fun. Also, like you, I'm dreading "Batman and Robin".

John Reese: Many people have commented on the tributes to King Kong and Godzilla in this movie. When my mother saw the movie, she was reminded of the old Tarzan movies. Specifically, she noted the extreme callousness in the reaction of the hunters to the deaths of their comrades. In the Tarzan movies, it was common for a hapless native guide to fall off a cliff or be eaten by a lion. At this, members of the expedition would pause for a moment, say, "Poor devil!" and go on as if nothing had happened. Of course, The Lost World took this callousness to new heights. ("Did you find him?" "Only the parts they didn't like.")

Speaking of this and of character development, the Great White Hunter showed visible regret at the end for the loss of one of his comrades. Um...who was this person? Was it someone we were supposed to care about? Guess I wasn't paying close enough attention.

I would be a little frustrated if I were Michael Crichton. When he wrote Lost World, he altered the circumstances of the first novel in deference to the movie (can you say "sell out"?). For instance, he brought Malcolm back to life when he had died at the end of the first book. So what does Spielburg do? He changed up the story AGAIN! I guess Michael Crichton is crying all the way to the bank. (Note from Phil: Well . . . when the only standard by which something is judged a success is money . . .)

Bob Canada: One more quick Lost World nit--if Site B was built first, and was where the dino-cloning technology was invented and perfected and that's where the first batches of dinos were developed, then why wasn't it called SITE A??? You don't name something B if you haven't built A yet. Me think scriptwriter am from Bizarro-World.

Murray Leeder: Isn't it interesting that it's only raining at certain points, and those points always correspond to scary things happening?

Brian Alan Smith of Columbia, Missouri: I agree with every single complaint thus far about the movie. :) My two cents:

Did it bother anyone else that, perhaps, the most memorable moment for the big action theme of "Jurassic Park" (heard in the first movie when the helicopter approached the island, and when the T-Rex attacked the velociraptors at the end) was in the scene after Ian Malcolm left Dr. Hammond? I mean, big, bombastic music for a scene in which an old man counts on his fingers? C'mon!

And, my nominee for Greatest Lines Ever to be Unincluded in "The Lost World" (since the Japanese tourist saying "I came to America to get away from this!" apparently WILL be included): return to this exposition scene:

Man 1: "Yes, but there's a problem. We'll have to go through velociraptor territory."

Man 2: "Wait a minute. What's a velociraptor?"

The answer SHOULD have been:

Man 1: "It's a hook-clawed predator dinosaur about the size of a man. You know...a raptor. Like the Toronto Raptor basketball team."

Man 2: "Oh, so THAT'S what those are!" (rest of crowd makes the connection, and nods understandingly) "I don't think too many people ever heard of a RAPTOR before...how'd they come up with THAT name?"

Man 1: "I don't know...maybe the owners got it out of a book, or a documentary film...but we can talk about this later."

Because, with all the other in-jokes in this movie, I just wished *someone* would take the time to bash a team that not only got its name from a hit movie, but also failed to take the WHOLE name...since we all know -- from the FIRST MOVIE! -- that "raptor" means "bird". Rant over. :)

Kekoa Kaluhiokalani of Columbus, OH: First, you can see the cameraman (cameraperson?) in the scene between Ian Malcolm and John Hammond. Towards the end of their conversation, John is walking back to his bed and Ian's leaned up against a desk. The camera zeroes in on a ring on Hammond's left hand. Right as that happens, if you look on the nightstand by Hammond's hand, there's a small mirror and in that mirror--oops!--you can see the StediCam operator's legs reflected.

When Nick carries the baby T-Rex into the trailer, you can see the electrical cord that powers the little dino. Look under the T-Rex as it is being carried to the examination table and you'll see a black cord. At first I thought it was the Nick's belt or something hooked under the baby's leg to keep it stable. On second look it was clearly a power cable. (I could be wrong on this one.)

In the scene where Dieter is being chased by the compys: You can clearly clearly clearly see the strings attatched the other greenery to give the illusion of real creatures jumping over the ferns. Millions of bucks to film and they couldn't take time to erase those strings in postproduction??

Finally, actually this one is a fun nit, because I think this one was deliberate. In the final scene, when Ian, his daughter, and Sarah are dozing on the couch--look very carefully at the television screen. But don't watch the CNN broadcast, look at the hazy reflection of the people on the couch on the screen's surface. You see Ian, Sarah, Ian's daughter, and Steven Spielberg himself sitting between them all. He's is very clearly defined by the hair, the beard, and the dark glasses. Kinda cute.

Charles Sylvia: Bob Sabatini pointed out a nit involving Malcolm saying that three people died on the first island in the original Jurassic Park. Actually, there weren't just four, there was five deaths that we know about : the worker in the beginning, Dennis Nedry, the lawyer, the raptor specialist, and the computer programmer who continuously says "hold on to your butts."

Erin Hunt as well as a few other people asked why the tyrannosaurs would push the two trailers partly off the cliff, go away, and then come back to finish the job. Well, probably because they had their baby with them. They probably pushed the trailer a little, then took the baby back to the nest, and then came back to finish the job.

One last thing : I have a question to anyone who can answer it. There has been great confusion around the whole Jurassic Park/Lost World book to movie thingy. I never read the first Jurassic Park but I did see the movie. I've heard that in the book Malcolm is killed by velociraptors who break through metal bars on the ceiling and come down and eat him. But then, the novel "The Lost World" featured Malcolm. So I guess the novel, the Lost World, is a sequel to the movie, and NOT the book. But then, I did read the Lost World, and it is completely different (and better) than the movie. I've explained this before and I've heard different reactions. Many people tell me that Malcolm did not die in the first novel, but there is a scene where raptors break through bars and badly injure him. I also heard that this particular part in the book is rather mysterious and we are not told what happens after the raptors break through but we assume they kill Malcolm. I really wonder what Micheal Crichton's intent was. Did he mean to have Malcolm die in the the book and then decide to include Malcolm in the Lost World because he liked the movie better than his own book? Or did Malcolm just not die in the book, or did Crichton rely on the mysteriousness of the wording so it's up to speculation whether he died or not. (The obvious solution to my question would be to actually READ the book myself, but since I can't seem to find a copy I'll just rely on the next best source for information, Nitcentral.) (Note from Phil: It's been too long since I read Jurrasic Park!)

Ben Jackson: In response to Bob Canada's theory of the toxin. He said it travels faster than neurotransmitter velocity, meaning the nerves. It travels throught the bloodstream and affects the body before the nerves can transmit a message to the brain that something has puntured the skin. I am just saying that, no, he did not say that the poison works faster than it works, although, I don't think it could travel through the bloodstream faster than a neurotransmission.

If I knew that there were DANGEROUS, MAN-EATING animals lurking around, I wouldn't go off of the trail into the woods to go to the bathroom, or walking on a game trail in the first place. (I am just assuming it was a game trail)

You gotta hand it to General Motors (assuming that was a Corvette Malcom was driving to get the Rex back to the boat. I'm not that good with cars). I REEEEEEEEAAAAAAALY don't think a Corvette could crash into a bunch of stuff (like driving through a wall, for example) and still be able to out run an angry T-Rex male trying to get its baby back, do you?

Schuyler Hauser: Besides the Schwarzenegger "King Lear" poster in the video store, there was also a cardboard standup for "Tom Hanks in 'Typhoon Surprise'". I couldn't catch what the other posters were, though.

As to the San Diego attack: Yes, the street scene was filmed in my town, Burbank, California (and the credits list thank yous for Pasadena and Arcadia, other LA suburbs). I was driving home one night and San Fernando Boulevard was blocked off and there were very bright lights on. My brother told me that he had gone down to see what was happening and was told by a cop that it was for "The Lost World". You can see signs with a stylized "B" on them for Burbank, and catch a glimpse of the Media Center Mall and other shops along the street. The t-rex walks past a street sign for "Cedar", but there is no Cedar street off that portion of San Fernando.(It's further south, but perhaps they shot there another night) I saw the movie at the AMC theater right off San Fernando - kind of interesting to see a movie right where part of it was filmed.

Product placement: Aside from the Mercedes, anyone notice the subtle-like-a-hammer plugs for Krakle candy bars and Nikon. Sarah even says "Is that a Nikon?" And of course the giant Unocal 76 ball that breaks off.

Our heroes must be made of titanium. They jump, fall, crash every which way yet no one breaks a bone or even gets a sprain, and both Ian and Sarah smash through glass with no severe cuts.

The daughter: Didn't the woman she was supposed to stay with do anything when she didn't show up? Didn't anyone check the equipment for this top secret mission for stowaways? (A spy for a competing company or a reporter could have come along easily) The gymnastics bit was too corny for words. Interesting how the kids for the first movie also popped in for a second and then disappeared.

Hammond's bed has a series of IV bags hanging above it, but then he gets up and walks over to the desk. What's the point of having IV bags if they aren't hooked up to the patient?

For a couple, Sarah and Ian sure don't keep track of each other's wherabouts. While we're at it, the "why didn't you save me from that boring museum reception" speech of Sarah's is too cliche for words.

All in all, it didn't have even the bare threads of plot and character that were in Jurassic Park, although the effects were terrific. One final bit: the screenwriter, David Koepp, makes a cameo appearance in the movie as "Unlucky B*stard".

Kurt Harbaugh: A good "I wonder if everyone in the theater was thinking this even though they never said it" line: "I always wanted two men to fight over me!" (When the two velociraptors are fighting over Harding.)

6/30/97 Update

Andy Jackson of Star, ID: Okay, first off, this movie should have been called "Jurrasic Park: We Want More Money By Re-using Effects and Plotlines"

What's with the giant glass wall in the trailer anyway? If I was designing a heavy duty RV, in fact any type of vehicle at all, I wouldn't put a giant glass wall in the back. "Let's see, if someone rear-ends you, the glass shards will kill you so fast..." It doesn't make a huge amount of sense, or any at all.

Second, the rather obvious, blatant, badly-acted advertisment for Sega by the girl. "She's such a troglodyte, she doesn't even have Sega!" You can almost hear the the sponsors snickering in the background. (This one was noticed by my friend Reed)

Lastly, when Ian finds Sarah's bag and begins to call her name, I know I'm not the only one who thought it sounded fake and dubbed in. I've heard Jeff Goldblum yell in other movies, and this had a VERY different sound.

Joanna: Just a quick note on lost world. Best line: "We won't be making the same mistakes twice." "No, you'll be making new ones." Jeff Goldbloom was the saving grace of this movie. On that note, why were there no briefings?

Even if Mr. "keep the baby t-rex alive" and cohorts didn't know that they were chasing dinosaurs, couldn't someone have told them that in the event of an attack by "large animals" of any kind, running in all directions while screaming and waving your arms makes things worse?

And I've seen many nitpickers mention the book "The Lost World" but I feel I should point out that quite a long time ago, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published a book called "The Lost World" about a secret island of dinosaurs.So far, I have seen a reprint of it sold side by side the Crichton book in only one book store, and it was an alternative one in the depths of Toronto. Now maybe Crichton didn't rip it off on purpiose, but the similarity (right down to the title) is startling...

7/7/97 Update

Richard Poythress of Madera, California: Was it just me or did Malcom seem a lot more outgoing in this movie as opposed to the original Jurassic Park? If you'll recall, in the previous movie and book, Malcom had a lot less to say and what he said didn't make much since. No doubt the transition from supporting role to lead role changed Malcom's outlook on life.

I'm suprised that no one has picked this next one up yet. The T-Rexes on this island seem a lot slower that their counterparts in the first movie. If I'm remembering correctly, Muldoon and Satler had to drive "much faster" to escape those jaws of doom. However, in this movie, our heroes are limping along a path but still seem to evade rex long enough to duck under a waterfall. I realize that rex can't go fast through dense jungle, but the path seems wide enough.

One last point. When our heroes stumble upon the site B command post, they find that it too had been ravaged by the dinos. Did those guys from inGen just leave the door open after they left or was there another "accident?" No doubt many of these questions can be answered by...a sequel!

Murray Leeder: At first, I was going to comment on the fact that Hammond's grandson looked a whole lot different. But then I noticed the credits... same actor! My, how they change...

The Carrolls: Did anyone notice that this movie, aside from the title, had absolutley nothing to do with the book?

Why would the raptors go after humans, working fairly alone (one raptor per person) When the humans were little more than snacks? I mean, would they attack a group of small, bony creatures, armed with high powered weapons, when they could have just as easily killed a steg or a brontosarus? NOTE: It was explained in the book that they had some kind of disease.

Sara Green: I just have a few things to mention, not really nits so much as observations. Firstly, I think that if the environmentalist guy had just left the gun alone, a whole lot of people would still be alive. The Great White Hunter could have been killed as well. All well and good to save an extinct species from becoming extinct? Anyway, that hunter really should have considered his choice in arms. To down a T-Rex, that rifle sure looked awfully inadequate.

I am always interested in reading rants and soapboxing. Your rant about the thin line between fact and fiction was very good. It has taken me five years to recover from my public education enough to think clearly when some "authority" speaks. For example, I have a biology textbook that has a section heading titled "the fossil record provides evidence for evolution." The book goes on to describe how fossils are formed. It never mentions how fossils support evolution. I guess I'm just supposed to accept that it is true because the section header says so? Anyway, there is something to be said for policing one's own knowledge and questioning authorities.

Oh, and I have a glossary term to add: And Verily, He Can Still Walk. This describes any situation in which a character falls from an incredible height, is badly injured, has lost tremendous blood, or what-not and can still perform his or her Heroic Task and see it through. To which the proper reaction is to say, "And verily, he can still walk." Is there any real need to offer examples? (Well, everyone has mentioned several in The Lost World. I think the best one is in Eraser, when Arnold crashes to the ground after attempting to ward off an airplane by shooting at it. It's so absurd. I love it.)

Andrew Williams: I was reading your nits picked from "The Lost World" in the July issue of the Nitpicker's Guild newsletterwhen I got to the part about the tyrannosaurus. You siad, quote, "Could a T-Rex really lay down on its belly (and then get back up with its useless forearms)?"

The answer is yes. I have in front of me the 1987 "Dinosaurs!" book of the Childcraft reference series. Despite being for young children, "Dinosaurs!" is actually a very good book with lots of good information about dinosaurs. I quote from page 263:

"A Tyrannosaurus's arms were tiny for its huge size and apparently useless. The hands had only two fingers tipped with tiny claws. A Tyrannosaurus couldn't have used such tiny arms and hands to hold its prey, or to fight with. So what were they good for? Although they were small, the arms were strong. Scientists think a Tyrannosaurus used them to push itself up after it had been lying down to sleep, rest, or eat."

So a Tyrannosaurus could push itself up with its forearms after all.

(Note from Phil: Actually, I didn't wonder if a T-Rex could lay down on it's belly but the point is well taken! ;-)

Richard J. Stuart of Seaford, NY: Doesn't anyone know theres a major Naval base in San Diego? Last time I was out there, we had ASW military aircraft constantly flying over our heads. Now I don't think the navy is perfect, but it just seems to me that a Giant Dinosaur running amuck throught the city is the sort of thing they just might notice. I'm willing to bet that under those circumstances, someone can dig up a .50 caliber machine gun in one heck of a hury. How long did it take the California cops to dig up extra guns to deal with the real life robo-bandits? Worst case I'd think one of those ASW planes could konk Mr. Trex on the head with a sonar bouy. Maybe not the most deadly attack, but distracting I'd think. Should give them time to crank up one of those 76mm OTO MELARA's on one of those ships in the harbor or call in a plane from Mirimar (remember Top Gun anyone? At F-14 speeds its not far.)

Want to know what guns will do to a T-rex? Watch footage of poachers going after Elephants with a machine gun. It isn't pretty, especially not for the elephants.

[From Someone Identified Only As Walman]: I haven't noticed anyone recalling the scene when they first arrive on the island in "Lost World". They watch all those helicoptors go by, You can't miss them because they didn't look that far away. So here is our little troupe, standing in what appears to be an open clearing..............and no one from any of the helicoptors saw them? Wouldn't all those people be checking out that island after riding over all that ocean? Wouldn't our "good guys" be just as visible? I guess not because later they are surprised that someone else is on the island! P.S. I still liked the movie anyway!

Paul Walker: First, great cinematography, boring plot, shallow characters.

As to the deaths on the first island, as far as Malcom knows, there are only three deaths. The black computer guy, the raptor keeper, and the lawyer.

Now, the nit.... Wasn't the first movie pretty detailed about how the T-rex didn't have a good sense of smell and used movement to track? I remember one scene where the T-rex in the first movie sniffed at the Dr. and the girl and then moved on? What gives? How come the T-rex is such a great smeller now?

Anyway, this movie was OK, but like everyone else, I'm looking to Men in Black for my entertainment.

Lisa B: This isn't really a nit, but I was kind of upset that the movie was (for the most part) completely different from the book. What was with the T. Rex on the mainland, tromping through the city? Never happened in the book. And, from what I remember from the book, there weren't hundreds of people on the island watching the dinosaurs. Of course Hollywood had to spruce up the movie and make it more exciting. This always seems to happen when a movie is made based on a book (except in the case of Andromeda Strain, that movie seemed exactly like the book :-)

7/14/97 Update

Doug Brooks: In the San Diego video store, when the camera moves to the door to see the guy become dinner, you can see the camerman's reflection in the door. That may have been hard to avoid, but it's still there for all nitpickers to see.

Murray Leeder: Speaking of T-Rexes and smelling, I thought it odd that they needed Rex Jr. to make a noise at the end to attract its parent. After they had spent ALL that time talking about its sense of smell.

Brian Fitzgerald of Acworth, GA: I have several things to say about your comments on "the lost world". First, good movie, not great, the plot was not as good as the first movie or the book. Next the cinematography(filming) was excelent. They had several scenes where shots were one long continuas shot was used when it would have been easier to use several short cuting shots,(ex. the opening shot on the island, malcom in the subway, the trailer falling around the people).

As for the trailer with the exposed glass in back. There was a metal door behind the glass at the begining of the scene. After the first half goes off the cliff the door falls off. (Note from Phil: Ah!)

Charles Sylvia wanted to know about Malcom being alive in lost world. In the first book it said that he died right before they left the island. Read the first 3 or 4 pages of "lost world" agian. Crichton writes some stuff about how he was not dead but nearly dead and some news reports and other publications(his book) listed him as dead. The book is a seaquel to the first book, Crichton just thought that malcom belonged in the second book. He uses those cryptic lines in the book to explain it away.

Brian Phan wanted to know if the peridactyls could fly to the mainland. From what I understand peridactyls don't actually fly under there own power, they glide. They would be lucky to make it 2 or 3 miles without landing somewhere. They would splash into the ocean well before reaching the mainland or other islands.

Rob Levandowski was worndering about why one of malcom's kids gets special attention. In the first movie Malcom said that he had been married several times. Kelly was probley the only child from his marrage to her mother. At the begining of the movie he says that kelly's mother dumped kelly with him and "split for Paris". His other kids are probly with there mother, a diferent ex-wife. As for the the jeeps with the passenger seat that extends on an outrigger, and there effect on tipping. You see that they only extend the seat long enough for him to aim the gun and take a shot. Almost as soon as he fires the driver reals him back in.

As for the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lost world book. In the book "lost world"(crichton) the name comes from near the begining as rurmers of the island spread someone says something to the tune of "so you beleive that this island is some kind of lost world, like that book by Arthur Conan Doyle"

Final note, regarding your observation about the news guy sounding just as real as when he reads the real news. You think that if cheap for a newsman, newsreporters are basicly just actors, there shows producers do the real "reporting". If you want to find out more about this I recomend reading Michael Crichton's book "airframe"(Great book, exciting, and interesting). You also ask if Walter C. ever did that, yes in fact he did. Somewhere in the middle of "Close Encounters of the Third kind" he has a short scene where he reads some fake news about that area where the aiens will land. You where talking about the problems with the TV and internet news being slanted. Printed news is not this great always accurate medium while electronic mediums are false. Arround the turn of the century long before TV and computers there was a phenonima called "yellow journalism". This was papers exagerating or even making up stories. Pulitzer, (the guy they named the Pulitzer prize after) was very big on this, along with another Newspaper editor (can't think of his name) who he competed with for readers. These men practicly started, and then esculated the spanish american war with there fake storys and made up field reporting from the front lines. In fact Teddy Roosevelt and the rough riders did not charge up san juan hill and defet the bad guys. They walked up the unguarded kettel hill, they did not think that it sounded exotic or exciting enough, so they changed the story and the reporters went along with it because it made a better story. (Note from Phil: Walter, Walter, Walter, you disappoint me! Wait a minute: [grasping at straws] Was this *after* he retired? As for printed news, I am aware that it is an tainted as the rest. I *barely* have more faith in it than televised news! When I encounter "news," I attempt to pick out the actual facts and ignore the editorializing. I am particularly amused by the "conclusions" reached by studies when they are reported verbatum by newscasts without the reporters actually reading the study itself and digesting the raw data but that's another topic and I'm out of time.)

7/21/97 Update

Amber Heinzel of Joliet IL: Just one minor thing to a really cheezy movie. The guy that I went with had to keep shushing me because I kept laughing - the first movie was way better. Anyway, I think it was during that famous tie-up-the-jeep-so-the-trailer-doesn't-take-a-header-over-the-cliff scene, (when it was raining) did ya notice that the guy in the jeep was not wet, wet, then not wet again? Ironic, isn't it?!!?

7/28/97 Update

George Taylor: I thought the movie had great effects, although the compys attacking the girl just didn't look quite there, if you know what I mean. BTW wasn't that scene in the first book?

I've just a couple of fresh nits from this movie. The High-Hide was winched up by the 4X4, but how did it stay up by itself when the 4X4 was driven back to the trailer?

Also someone mentioned the T-Rex chomping on the street lamp, shouldn't he have gotten a strong shock from the wiring?

Stuart Forbes of Edinburgh, Scotland: The Lost World has only just come out here in Scotland so please excuse the lateness. I've only got the one nit, but it's a good one. When the trailer is hanging over the cliff and the guy (I forget his name but he becomes Rex food soon after) tries to send the rope down and hook the trailer to the truck watch the ground very closely when he approaches the back of the trailer for the first time. The ground seems to buckle underneath him in places almost as if it is made of wood. I actually went back to see it just to check out this nit and I'm pretty sure it's right. I have to say I was disapointed with this film. All I can do now though is wait for Men in Black and Contact, both of which aren't out yet over here.

8/7/97 Update

Benjamin Puntch: Just saw it for a second time, at my friends insistence. Here are a few more things I noticed.

When Malcom's team first land's on the island, why do they give malcom the gun with the incredibly deadly neurotoxin? He is basically the only one without any real field experience (With the exception of the first movie.)

When they first spot the Stegosaurus, Vince Vaughn (I can't remember hius character's name) pulls out his little digital camcorder, and flips out the screen. The camera cuts away to the stego's, and then back to the group, and he flips out the screen again. Why would he close it?

InGen must be swell people to work for, seeing as they provide there workers with uneven parallel bars to practice on (Because despite good technical accuracy, they still get low marks from the foreign judges 8))

Also, a note on the neurotoxin. If I recall, a neurotoxin kills you by shutting down your nervous system. It would then be an impossibility for it to kill you faster than nerve transmission speed, because it wouldn't have time to send you're brain the "Hey, we're closed" message. Just a thought.

Jason Vines of Fairview Heights, IL: First of all, I'd like to say that this was a good movie. Not as good as Jurassic Park, but better than your average blockbuster. I've seen this four times; twice in US, and twice in Ireland/UK. Enjoyed it each time. Now, onto the nits!

I can't believe that nobody else noticed this. Did anyone notice how the Tyrannosaurus rex changes size during the course of the movie? When the rex is chasing the Marlbaro Men, he fits beneath the canopy cleanly, and he doesn't appear to be that wide. But when he's in that one neighborhood on the mainland, he appears taller than a two-storey house! That canopy did not appear to be two-storeys high. Also, did you notice that, when the rex was smashing Carter like bubble gum, how his foot completely covered Carter? A rex foot was not big enough to do that! Now, when the stegosaurs attacked Sarah, did you notice how low those tails went? They could not go that low. The lowest the tail could've went is probably basketball-hoop height (ten feet tall.) Also, did anyone else notice that the raptors were only desert camouflage when one of the raptors leapt towards the screaming black guy? The rest of the time, the raptors were colored the same as the first film: a gray color. Also during the high grass scene, didn't it appear a bit too bright? When the raptor was leaping, you could see the pitch black behind it, but if you look at the grass, it looks like light was shining on it. When RJ was screaming "Don't go into the high grass!", what does he do? He goes into the high grass.

Some funny moments: when Peter walks into the cargo hold, the baby rex crying is fairly audible. "Are you there?" Peter asks.

"I'll be back in five or six days," Harding said. "No," Malcolm said, "you'll be back in five or six pieces."

"Go outside," Malcolm tells Kelly. Moments later, Kelly opens the door. "No, don't go outside, it's not safe!" Malcolm yells.

Malcolm, "We're taking the kid..."

Little boy, "There's a dinosaur in our backyard." ::dog goes into doghouse::

Well, that's it from me. None of this stuff is absolutely 100% certain, but I'm pretty sure about this stuff.

Also, in the first book, the power got restored and the raptors got fried just before they managed to break through the bars....

Murray Leeder: Does it strike anyone else as odd that a conference with the investors in San Diego takes place in the middle of the night while the island can't be more than one time zone away?

8/18/97 Update

Brad Higgins: Just saw The Lost World for the first time last night (being stationed in Korea, we get the movies about two months after they're released stateside), and therefore I only read the Brash Reflections file on it for the first time today. What a surprise! Most everyone agrees with me that this movie was long on special effects and action, seriously lacking in plot and character development, and basically only made to make a few quick bucks! Still, it was a lotta laughs and quite enjoyable. Of course most of the nits I had are already taken. I do have a few thoughts, though.

One more thought on the boat with the dead crew. They must have been killed fairly late in the voyage since the boat was pointed almost straight towards the dock. Certainly plenty of time for someone to pick up the radio and yell "HELP!"

Regarding your thoughts on the integrity of the news and entertainment media, and the willingness of the public to accept as fact anything it sees, I wonder how many people believe all the theories about dinosaur behavior patterns put forward in these movies, simply because they were presented in a plausible manner. Granted, most of these theories are based on scientific fact, but until we actually can clone dinosaurs, they will still only be theories. For instance, when dinosaur fossils were first discovered, scientists believed that they stood with their legs in a splayed-out stance, like lizards and crocodiles, and were all considered slow, lumbering beasts. They published this theory in a believable fashion, and it was accepted as fact. Then, during my childhood, dinosaurs were shown standing with their legs straight underneath them, some walking upright, and dragging their long tails on the ground behind them. Some scientist must have found evidence to support the theory that this was how they stood, he published it in a believable fashion, and it was accepted as fact. Now, of course, we see that none of this was so, that in fact dinosaurs held their tails straight out behind them, supposedly for balance, allowing them to run faster. Do we believe it? Yes, until the next theory comes along to disprove it. Personally, I'll believe it when I actually see it, although, based on these movies, I probably won't live to tell about it. (Note from Phil: Good point!)

Someone asked about the dinosaur hatching laboratory seen in the first movie. The book explains that that was just for show, for the tourists to see, and was much too small a facility for large-scale (pun intended) production of these creatures.

Concerning velociraptor behavior patterns, it was explained in the book version that, 65 million years ago, velociraptors had evolved a rudimentary intelligence which replaced some of their basic instinctual drives. This meant that in order to hunt in an organized pattern, socialize properly with others, etc, the parents would have to teach the young how. This behavior is quite common among many animal species alive today. So these velociraptors, who were bred on the island and reared by humans who knew nothing about how to teach one the skills it needs to survive in the wild, were completely on their own growing up. They would still have the instinct to breed, but would not know how to teach their young, and cycle would continue. They would essentially be "uncivilized" velociraptors. This explains the lack of organization in their hunting, and why the two raptors took to fighting each other instead of continuing their attack on Sarah Harding. Of course this opens up a huge nit in the first movie. How did those raptors know how to do it?

Speaking of the attack on Sarah, it looked like the one raptor had plenty of time to take a good bite out of her back, yet all that happened was she lost her outer shirt. And when she got up, there were no tears on the back of her remaining shirt, no blood, no scratches, nothing. I guess she's just that good.

Also, has anyone else noticed that these dinosaurs only eat men? I guess it's true what Ellie Sadler said in the first movie: "Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the earth." If the movie Sphere, coming out this winter and also based on a Michael Chricton book, is true to the novel, we just may see a monster eat a woman or two. Not that I actually want to see a woman get killed, mind you, it's just that I'd expect a little less sexual discrimination from these dinosaurs.

Why didn't any of these raptors get cut, scraped, slashed, scratched, bloodied or even phased when crashing head first at full speed through shattering glass windows?

One rather comical moment was when Malcolm goes in the door, a raptor crashes through the window right next to him, Malcolm comes back out the door. WHIRL and DIETS, but funny nonetheless.

Regarding T-Rex size, again according to the book (wouldn't it be nice if this was Star Trek and the book would not be considered "canonical?"), there were two adults, one male, one female, with the female being the larger of the two. So it's possible that they were showing two different animals.

If you would like to add some comments, drop me a note at chief@nitcentral.com. Please put "The Lost World" in the Subject line and include your real name, city and state (or province and county as the case may be) in the body of the e-mail so I can give you credit if you are the first person to bring up a particular nit. (Remember the legalese: Everything you submit becomes mine and you grant me the right to use your name in any future publication by me. I will do my best to give you credit if you are the first person to submit a particular nit but I make no guarantees. And finally, due to the volume of mail received at Nitpicker Central, your submission may or may not be acknowledged. However, your submission will earn you a membership in the Nitpickers Guild if you are not already a member!)

Copyright 1997 by Phil Farrand. All Rights Reserved.