Support NeoGAF

[MisterGrey3000]

Sadly, no.

Man oh man, I love this; it always looks like Lacerda went back in time and took photos of these animals, it's fantastic!
Also, I love how "mammalian" people make therizinosaurids look in paleoart.

Reminds me how the Kiwi looks like a theropod rat.

The title of "Honorary Mammal" is definitely justified.

 

[WorldStar]

Lies and slander.



This is the Thomas Holtz paper

Spoiler

T. rex is the king, and don't you forget it!

Exactly.

then what happens when he is on the chase and trips over a log

 

[Foxy Fox 39]

Gaf. More and more I keep looking at birds as if they are dinosaurs. I can't help it. And it's weirding me out because it's simultaneously making dinosaurs seem just a little less awesome but making birds seem way more magical.

Like I literally look at chickens and mentally say "Hey theres a dinosaur. Dinosaur tastes so delicious"

 

[A Link to the Past]

Y'know, here's my issue with Jurassic World. I respect that Spielberg wants to stay true to the vision he had with the original, but Jurassic World looks boring and it doesn't feel like anything interesting is going to be done with the world. If they had at least gave us feathered dinos, I could say "well at least they're being bold and taking risks!"

 

[Mumei]

then what happens when he is on the chase and trips over a log

Accidents can happen to the best of us, I admit.

Gaf. More and more I keep looking at birds as if they are dinosaurs. I can't help it. And it's weirding me out because it's simultaneously making dinosaurs seem just a little less awesome but making birds seem way more magical.

Like I literally look at chickens and mentally say "Hey theres a dinosaur. Dinosaur tastes so delicious"

Come on. Give birds a bit more credit than being chickens!

Golden eagles are so cool.

 

[Tiktaalik]

That's not at all a theme of the film, in fact the theme is that these are real animals who will behave as nature meant them to, not humans. And central to the film's fascination was the scientific wonder, the two scientists who suddenly stood face to face with real dinosaurs and learned about their behaviour from them. This suggestion of a scientifically realistic approach to the depiction made the simple adventure film many times more fascinating, to kids as well as adults.

Feathers alone don't matter that much in isolation - it won't decide whether the film is good or not at all - but what they chose to do with this particular aspect does tell us a lot about how they approached the movie as a whole: If they're "just" movie monsters then the film will "just" be a monster movie, and the sense of wonder and the unique qualities of the original is most likely lost.

JP is about the arrogant hubris of scientists and capitalists that think they can create life from nothing and control nature. In the novel genetic engineering is discussed more in depth, and the book talks a great deal about the dangers of custom tweaking life forms.

This theme is more present in the novel than in the film, but the message is there in JP1 and the point is underlined in JP3. At one point Grant dismisses the "dinosaurs" on Isla Sorna and says, "What John Hammond and InGen did at Jurassic Park is create genetically engineered theme park monsters! Nothing more and nothing less."

I think retconning the dinosaurs to have feathers would weaken this message and take away an opportunity to explore the genetic engineering angle, which I still think is very relevant discussion to be having today.

I do think it would be important for JP4 to somehow bring up the fact that we now know about feathered dinosaurs, and to explain why the dinosaurs on Isla Nubar don't have feathers.

 

[Foxy Fox 39]

Accidents can happen to the best of us, I admit.



Come on. Give birds a bit more credit than being chickens!



Golden eagles are so cool.

Golden Eagles are pretty cool. I love birds.I wish that JP had some of this variety. Looks amazing.

Cassowary!!

The Abyssinian Ground Hornbill and it's various cousins

The Sage Grouse

The Vulture Guinea Fowl

The Eurasian Spoonbill

Skinny Headed Anhiga

Bearded Vultures

Secretary Bird

 

[MisterGrey3000]

^^^
Also, yes; Birds are awesome!!
I can only hope that Bats will do us the same justice when we're gone.

Come on. Give birds a bit more credit than being chickens!

Hehehe
I always wonder why people immediately jump to harmless dull-witted domesticated birds every time feathered Dinosaur topics come up; there are plenty of medium-large sized herbivorous and predatory wild birds alive today that can easily brutalize or kill a human being.

 

[ShironRedshift]

JP is about the arrogant hubris of scientists and capitalists that think they can create life from nothing and control nature. In the novel genetic engineering is discussed more in depth, and the book talks a great deal about the dangers of custom tweaking life forms.

This theme is more present in the novel than in the film, but the message is there in JP1 and the point is underlined in JP3. At one point Grant dismisses the "dinosaurs" on Isla Sorna and says, "What John Hammond and InGen did at Jurassic Park is create genetically engineered theme park monsters! Nothing more and nothing less."

I think retconning the dinosaurs to have feathers would weaken this message and take away an opportunity to explore the genetic engineering angle, which I still think is very relevant discussion to be having today.

I do think it would be important for JP4 to somehow bring up the fact that we now know about feathered dinosaurs, and to explain why the dinosaurs on Isla Nubar don't have feathers.

Hmm, I'm not sure I agree. After all, the angle they're going with World is that the Park was reopened and successful for about a decade now or whatever, and due to that success, people have started to get bored of those same "genetically engineered theme park monsters," leading to the main plot beats of the film about the hybrid species and whatnot. However, since the guests of the park are apparently so bored with the same-old scaly dinos anyway and thus trying to mix things up, why not try and mix it up and generate some excitement by showing the guests the dinosaurs as they actually were for a change while they're at it?

Them actually intentionally trying something different like that (in addition to the hybrids or whatever, or even having them there in the background in their own exhibit or something as a prior failed attempt to respark interest in the Park or something that people didn't take to, as a much smaller project before deciding more drastic changes are needed to recapture the guests' attentio) to try and stir up excitement in the Park again after the novelty of being able to see living dinosaurs starts to wear off seems perfectly in line with the direction their going with World to me and the perfect opportunity to have feathered dinos in there somewhere and it's just kinda disappointing that they don't seem interested in really taking advantage of that opportunity.

 

[Loofy]

Im coming around to the idea of dinosaurs with feathers. But not that silly peacock stuff.

I think their feathers probably looked closer to a penguins rather than ostrich since it seems they were more likely to swim than todays birds(and I dont mean floating)

 

[MisterGrey3000]

Im coming around to the idea of dinosaurs with feathers. But not that silly peacock stuff.

I think their feathers probably looked closer to a penguins rather than ostrich since it seems they were more likely to swim than todays birds(and I dont mean floating)

I doubt that.
If anything, dinosaur proto-feathers were probably more like Ratite (Ostriches, Emus, Kiwis, and Cassowaries) feathers than penguin feathers; penguin feathers are specifically adapted for an aquatic life and most dinosaurs (especially theropods) were terrestrial animals that spent a lot of their time being dry.

 

[Amalthea]

It needs to be said that in some rural places of the world people are actually still afraid of birds of prey. Of course it's mostly because of misconceptions like that bearded vultures steal kids to eat them, wich is unlikely since they are scavengers. But it sure must look scary if a bearded vulture eats the corpse of someone who died in the mountains. Especially since they carry parts of carcasses in flight to drop them on stones to get to the bone marrow.
Imagine a vulture found a dead child who fell of a cliff while playing and there you have the impression that they steal human children too.

 

[lastplayed]

Gaf. More and more I keep looking at birds as if they are dinosaurs. I can't help it. And it's weirding me out because it's simultaneously making dinosaurs seem just a little less awesome but making birds seem way more magical.

Like I literally look at chickens and mentally say "Hey theres a dinosaur. Dinosaur tastes so delicious"

But birds aren't dinosaurs, and dinosaurs aren't birds. You can still look at them as two completely different things. It's like looking at humans and thinking they're less awesome because they evolved from apes.

 

[Foxy Fox 39]

But birds aren't dinosaurs, and dinosaurs aren't birds. You can still look at them as two completely different things. It's like looking at humans and thinking they're less awesome because they evolved from apes.

Oh I know. I can't help it.

 

[lastplayed]

Birds' feet and talons do make it hard.

 

[MisterGrey3000]

But birds aren't dinosaurs, and dinosaurs aren't birds.

Not all dinosaurs are birds, but all birds are dinosaurs; birds can never stop being dinosaurs just like humans can never stop being great apes.

 

[televator]

But birds aren't dinosaurs, and dinosaurs aren't birds. You can still look at them as two completely different things. It's like looking at humans and thinking they're less awesome because they evolved from apes.

Uh... but birds are classified as avian dinosaurs... Birds are dinosaurs. I guess like humans are primates.

 

[Nikodemos]

But birds aren't dinosaurs, and dinosaurs aren't birds.

Err, birds are dinosaurs. They're a branch of the maniraptor family, part of the theropods.

EDIT: Aah, way too slow.

 

[mrklaw]

It's like we had the same childhood!

Yeah is the whole "dinosaurs have feathers" one of those things that can be reversed in the future? Or downgraded to "well, we don't know which ones had feathers or not"?

the dinosaurs are all cross bred with frog DNA so none of them are going to be 'perfect'. They make a damn hybrid dinosaur in this movie which is bloody stupid. Anyway, it makes simple movie sense that the dinosaurs in this movie look the same as in Jurassic Park - as they are from the same researchers and DNA etc.

And current science says feathers, but isn't that just the current hypothesis? We won't actually know for sure unless we could clone one.

 

[Madness]

The skeleton of the extinct Moa. Not hard to believe dinosaurs and birds are closely related. Evolution has been a wondrous thing. Think about how closely related all mammals are, just 2-5% DNA separates a human from a chimpanzee. Between humans, diversity in DNA is just 0.1-0.4% Not all dinosaurs were necessarily avian though. So you could still have had normal scaly skinned reptilian style dinosaurs as well. I remember reading how some scientists argued triceratops, stegosaurus, along with sauropods probably had scaly skin etc.

All that said, just for the sake of continuity and what I grew up with, I wouldn't have wanted new and radically different dinosaur designs. I know how backwards that sounds, but that's the point of watching Jurassic Park. I would've been fine had they showed feathered dinosaurs and new more accurate designs in the peripheral distance, but nothing major like revamp of T-Rex or Raptor's to accommodate the latest research.

That all said, I also didn't want the new rumored genetic monstrosity they created for this film.

 

[Amalthea]

The classical vertebrate cladistic of Birds, Reptiles, Amphibs, Fishs and Mammals is total bullshit anyway and stems from a time before Darwins evolution theory. If you can put sharks and lampreys in the same group as, lets say, a thuna fish you might as well throw ichtyosaurs and whales in there.

 

[666]

Hey, guys. Guess what... Movies aren't real.

 

[MisterGrey3000]

And current science says feathers, but isn't that just the current hypothesis? We won't actually know for sure unless we could clone one.

No, that's not how it works.
There is some pretty hard/tangible fossil evidence which proves that many non-avian theropod groups from the Jurassic all the way to the late Cretaceous had feathers.
Hell,we just discovered a small feathered Jurassic ornithischian (the group which includes triceeotops, stegosaurus, etc.) not too long ago. Feathers are probably a very basic dinosaurian trait that they inherited from their basal archosaur ancestors.

 

[Anton Sugar]

Hey, guys. Guess what... Movies aren't real.

wow

profound

 

[televator]

Hey, guys. Guess what... Movies aren't real.

So everyone should be okay with it if all the dinos in jurassic park were portrayed by people in Barney the dinosaur costumes and kept the same tone.

 

[Mumei]

The classical vertebrate cladistic of Birds, Reptiles, Amphibs, Fishs and Mammals is total bullshit anyway and stems from a time before Darwins evolution theory. If you can put sharks and lampreys in the same group as, lets say, a thuna fish you might as well throw ichtyosaurs and whales in there.

... But that doesn't make any sense.

 

[Toxi]

Secretary Bird

Words fail to describe how badass this animal is. It hunts venomous snakes by stomping them to death.

So everyone should be okay with it if all the dinos in jurassic park were portrayed by people in Barney the dinosaur costumes and kept the same tone.

I want to see this.

 

[Boss Doggie]

The classical vertebrate cladistic of Birds, Reptiles, Amphibs, Fishs and Mammals is total bullshit anyway and stems from a time before Darwins evolution theory. If you can put sharks and lampreys in the same group as, lets say, a thuna fish you might as well throw ichtyosaurs and whales in there.

that's not how taxonomy works

 

[Chichikov]

Golden eagles are so cool.

I've been the golden eagle festival in Mongolia.
Cool do not begin to describe those animals.
They hunt wolves with them. Wolves!

The classical vertebrate cladistic of Birds, Reptiles, Amphibs, Fishs and Mammals is total bullshit anyway and stems from a time before Darwins evolution theory. If you can put sharks and lampreys in the same group as, lets say, a thuna fish you might as well throw ichtyosaurs and whales in there.

It's not so much Darwin and evolution that put a dent in classical taxonomy, but DNA research.
I will say that, while they didn't get everything right (most famously about sea creatures) it's actually impressive how much stuff they did.

 

[Cow Mengde]

then what happens when he is on the chase and trips over a log

What happens when any of the 11-12 meter predators trip over a log?

This is one of the stupidest arguments I've ever read. People have died from falling on the ground.

 

[Gnome Scat]

Yeah, let's delay the movie to add feathers instead of saying it's paying homage to the old films!