Jurassic Park Report Card

Points For:

• Showing dinosaurs as creatures capable of being fast, agile and active. In fact being one of the first depictions of them as such.
• Bringing up the relation of birds and dinosaurs. (Birds are dinosaurs, for anyone who didn’t know.)
• The velociraptors learn to open the doors. It’s not implausible, and it challenges old beliefs of all dinosaurs as unintelligent. They weren’t.
• The female characters weren’t useless and in fact were at points very useful. It was the young girl who got the security system and the phones running again.
• Approaches the ethics and responsibility of this sort of science without taking the “Me play god” narrative too over the top. 
• Overall entertaining, with good moments of tension and humor. I can’t resist characters who can crack snarky one-liners after nearly being eaten by dinosaurs. 

Points Against:

• Dilophosaurus roughly the size of Velociraptor.
• Velociraptor roughly the size of Dilophosaurus. (I know it was conflated with another dromaeosaurid, but it shouldn’t look like a bloody Utahraptor.)
• No really, dat Dilophosaurus. 
• Too many whippy tails. 
• Brachiosaurus hips were not capable of holding them in a rearing position like that. Also, that sneeze. 
• Why didn’t that T-rex ever get full?
• Speaking of the T-rex: “It can only see you if you’re moving!” This is based off the fact that a number of birds of prey struggle to see prey that isn’t moving, would be my guess, but it’s a silly hypothesis to apply to a creature with nasal cavities that huge. Plus all the screaming. Even if it can’t see people…well, to quote How to Train Your Dragon: “Blind spot, yes. Deaf spot, not so much.”
• Some characters were way too one-dimensional. When I’m barely ten minutes into a movie and turn to my husband to say “He gets eaten, right?” you’ve made your character too shallow.

Gets a Pass On:

• The lack of feathers. That wasn’t known at the time.

Overall Grade: B - 

Overall Paleontology: Rough in spots, but not nearly as horrible as it gets a reputation for being when you consider it’s a movie from 1993 based on a book from 1990. Not surprising it’s about 23 years out of date in some areas.

But that Dilophosaurus. Can’t let that one slide.