MovieChat Forums > Jurassic Park (1993) Discussion > People need to stop trying to explain th...

People need to stop trying to explain the big drop in the T-rex paddock


Look at every shot of the area. You can clearly see the ground on the other side of the fence being the same level and it's all uphill from there. Then look at shots from the actual drop. The car falls at least ten meters before it even hits the tree, so you're not seeing treetops.

They fucked up. Deal with it and move on. It's still a great movie.

reply

It's dumb that people love insulting and exaggerating same-level mistakes in the sequels but JP 1 is always the exception.

reply

Probably because JP1 is far, far superior to any of the sequels and the franchise is overall regarded as something of a missed opportunity. The drop-off in quality from the first film to the second is jarring.

Still, I think Jurassic World is pretty good and JPIII is a fun B-movie. The Lost World and Fallen Kingdom however add little value to the series.

reply

Jurassic Park is by no means perfect and this is something that bothers me less than scenes involving dodgy acting from the kids and Laura Dern, or the scene in which they're holding the door against the raptor and trying to reach the gun, when Tim is hanging round doing nothing and could get it for them.

reply

I think there was some kind of ratings issue with having a child handle a gun.

Yes, in real life you better believe they would have had Tim get the gun for them. However, I think this was being marketed as a family event with a Spielberg feel(ET, Close Encounters) with a PG-13 rating. I doubt it's a good idea to show a 10 year old handle a fire arm in a wide release family marketed film. There were probably discussions about this scene and the best the writers could do was have Tim looking panicked not thinking strait and rush over to his sister who was working on fixing the doors. I'm pretty sure that Alan didn't say "try to reach the gun" until Tim was across the room with Lex

Also, having Tim get the gun would ruin the suspense and convolute the need to get the door locks up. Plus they had already established Lex as being a computer nerd.. so this paid that set up off as well. You'll also notice that they wrote the gun out of play(Off screen none the less) shortly after.

Side note: this was one of the first if not the first movie to use heavy CGI. The visual of a Dino taking a shotgun slug to the face was probably far more complicated and expensive for the FX crew. I'm not even sure CGI animals are shown taking gun fire connivingly in today's CGI. I remember Jurassic World doing one of the better jobs and it's still not convincing.

reply

Yes this is a good explanation of why they didn't show this and I can forgive the movie for it. Doesn't make it any less bothersome in terms of the plot, because as you say, in a real life situation, it wouldn't have gone down that way, and the scene plays out in such a way that highlights how daft it looks to see Tim doing nothing constructive after Dern says "I can't get it unless I move".

It's not even as if the gun needed to be handled by Tim, he could have knocked it with his foot towards them as it was already so close, but again guns and kids wouldn't mix well in a Spielberg movie.

reply

Indeed, sometimes even the great ones forget continuity. It happens.

reply

Never even thought about this before, I suppose if someone really wanted to explain it, I guess it's possible only part of the fence edge is ground level, and the other is on a cliffs edge, lol

reply