MovieChat Forums > Jurassic Park (1993) Discussion > The park didn't fail because of Nedry

The park didn't fail because of Nedry


It failed because of the storm.

Nedry in the movie and the book had everything planned out perfectly. It would've only taken fifteen to twenty minutes to steal the embryos and transport them to BioSyn's contact at the dock. When he was finished, he would've returned to the control room and set everything straight again to avoid looking suspicious. His plan was to sabotage InGen, not destroy the park.

The only thing that messed the whole plan up was the tropical storm that hit. That's what caused Nedry to get lost in the jungle and killed by the Dilophosaurus. And he was the only one who could unscramble the computers and get the park back online.

So in a sense, the storm was part of life finding a way. God putting nature back in order. It wasn't human action that kept the park from being successful.

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If Nedry hadn't tried to sabotage InGen, then the storm would've just blown over. So it was most definitely human action.

Let's be bad guys.

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And really what messed it up was the amphibian DNA that let them breed.

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Not only that. Why would they breed carnivores? I get the T-rex as the T-rex is more controllable compared to the human size raptor. Why breed raptors? Also, since they were aggressive, why were there a ton of them? Most people in 93, and earlier, had no idea what a raptor was anyway. It just seemed poorly run in general. It was also stupid how Hammond was so anti killing an entity his lab could just make more of.

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"It was also stupid how Hammond was so anti killing an entity his lab could just make more of."

Because making them was insanely expensive. Also, in the book it talked about how the dinosaurs had an extremely high infant mortality rate and went into a lot of detail about the various problems they had, diseases and so on, and frankly there weren't very many of them (or at least didn't seem to be until it was discovered that they were breeding). So every lost dinosaur represented a large amount of money lost, and the very few dinosaurs that survived into adulthood were pretty much worth their weight in gold. Hammond being a capitalist, money was his primary concern. The movie kind of sanitizes him and makes him out to not care about money (because you totally become a billionaire by not caring about money), but book Hammond was pretty open about his greed. Every dead dinosaur was a lost investment.

"Why would they breed carnivores? I get the T-rex as the T-rex is more controllable compared to the human size raptor. Why breed raptors? Also, since they were aggressive, why were there a ton of them?"

Because it's an incomplete set without the carnivores. Hammond wanted to resurrect as many of the dinosaur species as he could. His vision wouldn't allow him to refuse to bring back a species on grounds of safety. Malcolm was trying to drill the concept of safety concerns into Hammond the whole book and Hammond just let it roll off him, not wanting to hear a word of it. And for the part of the scientists working for Hammond, they just wanted to achieve whatever they could and didn't think much about the dinosaurs themselves, another point Malcolm made a lot of in the book.

Also, from a marketing standpoint (which Hammond was all about in the book), how do you make a dinosaur park without carnivores, without the tyrannosaurus, the most famous dinosaur of them all?

As for the raptors, well, probably it's as you say, people at large didn't know about velociraptors, so it simply wouldn't be known how dangerous they were. Not to Hammond and his scientists anyway. Paleontologists like Dr. Grant would certainly know, but no paleontologist seems to have really been part of the project until Hammond brought Grant to inspect the island when the whole thing was already far along. In both the book and the movie it's clear that the security measures around velociraptors were increased over time as it was understood how dangerous they were as a result of the unpredictable, aggressive and intelligent behavior they demonstrated. When they were first born it wouldn't be so clear (in the book, the infant velociraptors were portrayed as docile and cute), but as they grew up, that was when it became apparent what a dangerous species they were.

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“Your scientists were so busy seeing if they could that nobody thought to ask if they should”

Best line in the film.

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And he was the only one who could unscramble the computers and get the park back online.


Arnold does it via an emergency shutdown and complete reboot, which would've work if not for two things:

1. The shutdown means they have to manually reset the circuit breakers, so although it undoes what Nedry did, power remains offline long enough foooooor...

2. The raptors to escape. That was the one paddock Nedry emphatically didn't turn off. But Arnold's shutdown to wipe out his code and unscramble things turned all the fences off, including the raptor one(s).

The raptor escape keeps power offline longer because, as we all know, the raptors kill Arnold, forcing Ellie to go reset the breakers. Their mischief in and around the visitor's center also prevents the humans from immediately restoring everything now that the power is back on. But they do, eventually. And not just the power, but everything needed to run the park ("You name it!").

No wonder InGen's board of directors sides with Peter Ludlow in the second film; the park didn't fail so much as face a massive setback after which it was abandoned by Hammond during a moral crisis. Because at the time he decides to just quit, everything was back up and working, the raptors were either dead or locked in a freezer, and all that needed to be done was to either tranq or kill the T-rex and do a lot of dino-wrangling and fence repair, and a complete overhaul of security with less reliance on automation, and the park would've been ready to go.

I mean, really, how many times will you look under Jabba's manboobs?

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What type of idiot designs the park with the circuit breakers so remote from the control room, and requiring personnel to leave a secure area and travel across territory potentially invaded by vicious predators?

And how could Arnold be so monumentally stupid not to realise that the circuit breakers would trip by the manual shutdown? And not have someone standing next to them ready to reset them the instant they tripped?

Some things are just too stupid for words! Only in the movies.

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EDIT: Just watching it now. Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh on Arnold? They'd never done a full shutdown and restart before and didn't realise it would trip the breakers.

But the design issue is still valid. Why the hell would you have the circuit breakers at "the other end of the compound" requiring someone to leave a secure area?

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While you're absolutely right, this is an artifact of the novel, where the park was in fact designed poorly because Hammond was greedy and cut corners. The design problems remained in the movie as part of the plot, but, with Hammond changed so much, they don't have a logical explanation anymore.

I mean, really, how many times will you look under Jabba's manboobs?

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Thanks for that. I mentioned in another thread that Hammond was a more sinister character in the book, but it's been a long time since I read it. This makes perfect sense.

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I have read the book and Hammond is a greedy jerk. Unlike the movie, Hammond plans to charge $5,000 a day. At the end when the raptors are attacking everyone he is in the main building with Malcolm who is dying and Malcolm is preaching a huge long sermon to Hammond about how wrong he was for starting the park.
"1-800 Spank me? I know that number." Scott Calvin, The Santa Clause.

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Hammond in the movie had an ego. Like you could tell he just wanted spineless yes men. In the movie, he often grand stands to people who are smart or show better logic. His reason for being right? He's rich. Even Nedry tries to talk to him and he's basically tells he's not allowed to give him advice because he's in debt. I don't blame Nedry for screwing him over. He wasn't too nice in the movie.

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Even with the circuit breakers at the other end of the compound, why not have a person go over there while the power is on, secure themselves in the circuit breaker room, and then turn off all the power? They would've been able to re-start the power within seconds, and not give the raptors the chance to escape. Even if they did escape, the person in the circuit breaker room still would've been safe inside, and with the cameras operating (and using walkie talkies) can be warned to stay inside while the rest of the group take out the raptors.

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They didn't know the power wouldn't come back on. They didn't think they would have to go down to the circuit breakers themselves. They also didn't know the power out would shut off all the fences.

Seize the moment, 'cause tomorrow you might be dead.

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Yes. I made those points in my original post.

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In a situation like that, you assume - and prepare - for the worst. Before you turn off the power, you ask, are you 100% sure the power will come back on? What if it doesn't? Where is the switch to turn it on if we need it? Can we get there safely if the power fails?

Not hard questions to ask when you're on an island miles away from help. It's not like they were baking a cake in their lat in downtown Manhattan and ran out of eggs...

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Arnold thought he knew the answers to all those questions.

Seize the moment, 'cause tomorrow you might be dead.

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Not necessarily. The movie drastically overstates how bad the situation is at the end. The only immediate threats are the raptors and the rex, the former of whom are all dealt with at the end, quite decisively, leaving just the rex. And anyone firing a tranquilizer gun can take her down (as proven multiple times in the second film). After that, all that's left to do is wrangle the remaining dinos, do a ton of fence repair, and take things from there.

The "life finding a way" part can be accomplished by finding out how the all-female population was able to breed, fix that issue by either making them all male (as it's harder to turn from male to female in nature than the other way around), or simply use a DNA from an animal that cannot change its gender, and you're good to go. This would of course necessitate the killing or sterilization of the original population, an ugly but necessary step.

Hammond chose not to do this, though, effectively leaving a multi-billion dollar gold mine behind and turning it into an embarrassing write-off for InGen. Frankly, I'm surprised the board didn't vote him out sooner.

The park didn't fail so much as get partially restored to working order and then abandoned by its owner who was going through a moral crisis.

I mean, really, how many times will you look under Jabba's manboobs?

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Honestly, there wouldn't have been any deaths if Hammond was willing to kill the dinosaurs from jump. Including Jophery (sp?). The park and workers were good, it was just poorly managed.

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Also if the storm didn't hit there would have been more employees there. They are left early cus of the storm. The storm also was why they were in front of the trex when the power went out. Which is why it escaped. allot of factors with the storm and nerdy come into play in which if one or the other were not there would make the whole situation different

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Even if there was no storm and even if Nedry didn't attempt to sabotage Ingen by temporarily shutting the power down, The truth remains is the raptors are breeding. and the Park would have eventually been overrun by them because there would be relentless and frequent attacks on park employees and maybe even tourists too. So the park was a ticking timebomb regardless of the storm and regardless of Nedry's sabotage. The minute they found out they had dinosaurs breeding freely around the island they would have had no choice but to close it down.

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Yes.

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The park didn't fail because of Nedry...It failed because of the storm.
No, the park failed because humans can't act like God. That's what the story's theme is.

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