Re: How would you survive a Jurassic Park?
Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 7:32 pm
If they could make a correct movie adaptation of The Lost World, I think I'd see it 20 times in theatres.
Daystrom Institute Technical Library
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One of Chricton's big themes is that systems designed to do one thing inevitably end up behaving in ways the designers didn't expect because unanticipated circumstances arise.Sionnach Glic wrote:It's much better. The film changed quite a lot. Spoilers below!
Hammond dies. He's eaten by a pack of compsognathus after falling down a hill and breaking leg.
Ian Malcom is nowhere near as annoying as his film counterpart, and dies at the end of the book.
There are a few new characters.
The roles of the kids are swapped.
The raptors are far more dangerous and far smarter, and pull off some pretty impressive feats.
There's an entirely new sub-plot involving a freight ship that left the island with some dinosaurs on board.
Muldoon is a complete badass in the book. He complains that Hammond hasn't bought him enough rocket launchers, takes down a T-Rex single handedly, kills half a dozen or so raptors by himself, survives an ambush by raptors and eventualy makes it off Isla Nublar.
The island is carpet-bombed into rubble at the end of the story.
But the military wasn't quick enough, as a number of raptors escape the island and end up in the jungles of South America.
The collapse of the park itself also happens quite differently in the book. It's far more gradual. In the film it's a case of Nedry flipping a switch and all hell breaking loose. In the book it's a case of a number of design and personel fuckups set into motion by Nedry's plotting eventualy doom the park over the course of a couple of days or so.
At least he corrected it rather, than sticking to that disproven nonsense.GrahamKennedy wrote:Interestingly, the second book seems largely about debunking some of the things said in the first. For example they poo-poo the idea of a T Rex only being able to see moving objects and claim it didn't eat anybody because it had only just finished eating the goat so it wasn't hungry.
I am curious, how was it disproven (though I agree that it was nonsense)?Captain Seafort wrote:At least he corrected it rather, than sticking to that disproven nonsense.GrahamKennedy wrote:Interestingly, the second book seems largely about debunking some of the things said in the first. For example they poo-poo the idea of a T Rex only being able to see moving objects and claim it didn't eat anybody because it had only just finished eating the goat so it wasn't hungry.
Man, now I really need to read these.One of the big reasons I liked the JP book was the way he had the park fail was incredibly realistic. As an engineer I see systems engineered like that all the time. It requires the people running things be familiar with the system and know how it will behave. If they don't you're f***ed.
The fact that Rexes had binocular vision, identified both by the fact that they've got both eyes in the front of the skull, and brain casts that demonstrate that they had the processing power to actually use it. That obviates any chance of them being restricted to movement to pick out an object from the background.stitch626 wrote:I am curious, how was it disproven (though I agree that it was nonsense)?
Indeed. The earlier Crichton novels showed one of the greatest degrees of actual scientific thought in fiction since Heinlein. The amount of research he put into Congo, for example, was incredible. I recommend JP, of course, as well as The Amdromeda Strain, Congo, and Sphere (the awful movie version notwithstanding. Ditto for Eaters of the Dead.)stitch626 wrote:Man, now I really need to read these.
Ah ok, thanks.Captain Seafort wrote:The fact that Rexes had binocular vision, identified both by the fact that they've got both eyes in the front of the skull, and brain casts that demonstrate that they had the processing power to actually use it. That obviates any chance of them being restricted to movement to pick out an object from the background.stitch626 wrote:I am curious, how was it disproven (though I agree that it was nonsense)?
Andromeda Strain as well as Sphere were both excellent books, the movie adaptations were pretty much crap though... The original Andromeda Strain movie, wasn't all that bad.Mikey wrote:Indeed. The earlier Crichton novels showed one of the greatest degrees of actual scientific thought in fiction since Heinlein. The amount of research he put into Congo, for example, was incredible. I recommend JP, of course, as well as The Amdromeda Strain, Congo, and Sphere (the awful movie version notwithstanding. Ditto for Eaters of the Dead.)
Aye, that was one of the things I loved about the book. The collapse happens in a way that seems realistic and quite possible. Well, to someone with no engineering experience like myself, at least. Most of the problems stemmed from people....just being people. Not checking reports too thoroughly, getting a sort of tunnel-vision where they only focus on the main problem at hand, cost-cutting problems, etc.GrahamKennedy wrote: For instance, in the book Nedry turns off the internal park fences but not the main fence, and not the raptor pen fences. So although the dinos are free to intermingle, they can't get out to attack the visitor's centre. Power is them restored and all looks good.
Unfortunately, the engineers programmed in a safety feature; if power is lost accidentally and then restored, it restores on the battery backups. The idea being that if the generators have already failed once it's best to be on batteries while engineers check the generators out. But there's no engineers around... and nobody realises what's happened because although it's printed out on a status report, nobody is in a mood to read it. So the park chugs along... until the batteries run flat, and that's what kills ALL the fences.
Ha, I remember that part. The "expert" warns the others to all stand still so they won't be seen, and is promptly eaten.GrahamKennedy wrote:Interestingly, the second book seems largely about debunking some of the things said in the first. For example they poo-poo the idea of a T Rex only being able to see moving objects and claim it didn't eat anybody because it had only just finished eating the goat so it wasn't hungry.