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Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Dinosaurs / Film / Nerd Today's Dinosaur News

Posted by Mary Traverse on Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 1:34 PM

Disappointing news from Jurassic Park 4 director Colin Trevorrow:

Among the many worries from fans for Universal's Jurassic Park 4 was the possibility that we could see dinosaurs covered in feathers, as opposed to dinos in their classic form. The last installment in the series, 2001's Jurassic Park III, featured velociraptors with feathers. However, Safety Not Guaranteed director Colin Trevorrow, who was recently hired to helm Jurassic Park 4, has taken to his Twitter account to confirm that there will be "no feathers" in the sequel.

You know, it hadn't even occurred to me to worry about this, but now I'm annoyed that there will be "no feathers." Although I guess with all the crap science in the previous Jurassic Park films I shouldn't be surprised. (However we here at Today's Dinosaur News would be lying if we said this would prevent us from seeing Jurassic Park 4. I mean, let's be reasonable. There will still be dinosaurs in it, even if they're naked.)

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I don't think I realized there had been three Jurassic Parks, never mind that number four was in the offing. Two sounds vaguely familiar, but three?

Posted by Levislade

on March 20, 2013 at 2:01 PM

Did you see the recent research that shows that the half-life of DNA is 521 years, meaning that half of all bonds would be destroyed in 521 years, and ALL the bonds would be gone in an estimated 6.8 million years, or around 1/10th as long ago as the big dinosaur extinction event 66 million years ago, and around 40 times more recent than the Jurassic?

More realistic estimates of the age of the oldest possible recoverable DNA are around one million years, not a whole lot further back than the oldest recovered to date (800,000 to 500,000 years ago).

There is no dinosaur DNA. If you're interested in the "Jurassic Park" franchise, you're not interested in dinosaurs, you're interested in something about as reputable as creationism.

A much cooler movie would show Treverrow and Co. being murdered in their beds.

Posted by Fnarf

on March 20, 2013 at 2:02 PM

Could be worse; remember the original idea of genetically engineered dinosaur soldiers?

Posted by thename on March 20, 2013 at 2:03 PM

I'm with you, M. It's a case of "I was happy when there weren't options. But if you suggest options and then take them away, now I'm unhappy with only getting what I've been happy with!" I WANT SOME FEATHERS BECAUSE SCIENCE AND CHANGE.

Posted by dbannon on March 20, 2013 at 2:07 PM

this is a dealbreaker for me. no feathers, no watchie.

Posted by treefort on March 20, 2013 at 2:11 PM

@2 I guess you missed when I said: "with all the crap science in the previous Jurassic Park films I shouldn't be surprised"

Posted by Mary P. Traverse

on March 20, 2013 at 2:11 PM

@2 :(

Posted by ArtBasketSara on March 20, 2013 at 2:19 PM

Maybe if I focus real hard...ah! now there is no comment @2...that's better!

So now we can get back to the real business of cloning real dinosaurs...

Sweet. And real!

Posted by ArtBasketSara on March 20, 2013 at 2:24 PM

Keep in mind they aren't actually dinosaurs, but are modern lizards which have been spliced with some dinosaur genes to create animals which look like we imagine dinosaurs looked like. The people who created the dinosaurs probably should have used bird DNA as a starting point, but but by using lizard DNA they spliced dinosaur genes into a descendent who had already evolved away from feathers.

Or was it frogs?

Posted by fletc3her on March 20, 2013 at 2:54 PM

i say, if they're continuing the franchise, they should keep the science consistent, even if it's outdated. if the dinos suddenly show up with feathers, wouldn't Grant be like "WTF? where'd these feathers come from?" it would be like hyper-evolution.

as long as they don't go back and Lucas the first few movies to add feathers, though, i'm fine either way.

and fnarf, everybody knows the biggest plot holes in Jurassic Park are the sizes of the dinasaurs. mature dilophosauruses were up to 20 feet long, while velociraptors were closer in size to turkeys. and yet, the movies are still awesome.

Posted by bauhaus junkie on March 20, 2013 at 3:06 PM

Ok. It is a movie and movies toss around the truth until it makes something interesting. And when it doesn't, they make up the facts. But one of the things I love about CGI dinosaurs is that they make me feel, for one tiny moment, like I can see back in time and watch my favorite creatures. So please, give them feathers!

Posted by Pope Peabrain on March 20, 2013 at 3:40 PM

@9: IIRC, that's actually been specifically called out in the movies and the books. Toward the beginning of the third movie, Dr. Grant defends continuing to study the fossil records since the animals on Isla Sorna aren't rally dinosaurs. And I think a similar point is made in the second novel.

@10: I always figured it was a juvenile dilophosaurus.

Posted by Ben on March 20, 2013 at 3:59 PM

Guess we'll just have to add bald dinosaurs to the pile of bullshit movie tropes, along with; cars that explode, "silencers" that make guns whisper, and color grading that makes people look like their staring into a sunset... at night.

I say mak'em furry, get Shatner's fat ass in front of the camera and call it Night of the Lepus II.

Posted by Dougsf on March 20, 2013 at 4:07 PM