History Headscratchers / JurassicPark

** Even with a high metabolic rate, eye-socket diameter suggests few dinosaurs were ''nocturnal''. The humans were doing what mammals had always done when dinosaurs were around: lay low until nighttime, when the big mammal-eating monsters are sleeping.

** The issue is less people leaving the car, and more people leaving the car ''while it's moving''. Muldoon's probably more-or-less fine with people getting out while the cars are stopped at various points on the tour. Also note that Muldoon is the one raising the objection, and Muldoon has been previously dismissed by Hammond as "a bit of an alarmist". One gets the feeling that this is just one of many safety suggestions that Muldoon has brought up which have been overconfidently shouted down.

** On a related note (and this is for the novel), but why on earth did Malcolm agree to go on the tour? He obviously knew something was wrong, and as soon as he saw the growth chart for the Compys on the screen, he must have known that they were breeding in the wild? Why wait until they were in the middle of the tour (I can't remember if they spotted the raptors on the ship before or after he pointed out the flaws in the counting and the growth chart), when they were far from the protection of the control room and the area surrounding it? I can only imagine he hoped that something representing tangible proof would appear on the tour.
** Malcolm wanted to prove himself right, he's clearly got a sauropod sized ego. On another note there are varying degrees of right. Malcolm would have been right if all of Jurassic Park's screw ups had been limited to compies breeding in Costa Rica and perhaps some of the plants starting to pop up there as well. In fact what actually DOES go wrong not so much proves Malcolm correct as it does prove people are dangerous. Had Nedry never sabotaged the system the majority of the first book would never happen. Eventually and likely under far more controlled circumstances than had actually occurred, someone would have found out about the raptor den and taken them out. Unlike the compies who could stowaway on boats undetected or even survive on floating bits of driftwood with ease it's unlikely the raptors would have made it to the mainland in any realistic amount of time.
** In addition to the above, taking Nedry out of the equation, Malcolm had already been proven right during the park tour, with the discovery of the egg fragments and the compy growth chart. Even if they hadn't stopped for the sick Stegosaurus, and hadn't discovered the egg fragments, Malcolm must have known that he was right before they left for the tour. Once they came back, he could easily have pointed out the problem and holed up in the safari lodge until a helicopter could be called for to take them all off the island.
** Plus, a nice free weekend on a lush tropical island resort? Why the hell not? He's expecting that Jurassic Park will fail ''eventually'', he's not expecting to be attacked by dinosaurs ''literally that weekend''.
** As for why he goes on the tour itself, while he's predicting doom and gloom for Jurassic Park, hey, it's still a once in a lifetime opportunity to see a bunch of revived prehistoric animals. Plus he can flirt with the pretty blonde who is also going on the tour. Placed against hanging around by himself in the visitor's resort, I know which one I'd pick.

** This, to be fair, is probably just a consequence of the director and SFX team trying to make Malcolm getting the snot smashed out of him by the T-rex look halfway convincing with the practical model and doing the best they can with what they've got. The idea is clearly supposed to be that the T-rex is shoving Malcolm into the restroom with her snout as she crashes into it, but that was almost certainly the best or only way they were actually able to depict it under the circumstances; it's not a literal T-rex, after all, and Jeff Goldblum isn't likely to consent to genuinely getting seriously injured just for a movie effect, so they didn't really have much choice than to get him to hold on to the head while some crewmembers pushed it into a wall and hope that, with the wonders of camera positioning and movie editing, it would look halfway convincing on the screen. And really, the fact that you have to "frame-by-frame" it in order to make it "extremely obvious" is testimony to the fact that it actually isn't ''that'' noticeable at all, and that they did the best they could to make the effect as natural and seamless as possible. But they're not literal magicians; acting like the filmmakers were genuinely trying to give the impression that Malcolm was holding onto the T.rex's head despite this making no sense and then complaining that this doesn't make sense is somewhat disingenuous considering that it's clearly not what they're actually going for and that what they're actually going for is incredibly obvious. At some point we just have to accept this is just a limitation of the production process, and give them credit for what they were attempting within the limits of what they could achieve rather than acting like the fact they didn't get it perfect is a plot hole that needs to be pedantically taken apart.

** This, to be fair, is probably just a consequence of the director and SFX team trying to make Malcolm getting the snot smashed out of him by the T-rex look halfway convincing with the practical model and doing the best they can with what they've got. The idea is clearly supposed to be that the T-rex is using her snout to shove Malcolm into the restroom as she crashes into it, but that might have been the best or only way they were actually able to depict it under the circumstances; it's not a literal T-rex, after all, and Jeff Goldblum isn't likely to consent to genuinely getting seriously injured just for a movie effect, so they didn't really have much choice than to get him to hold on to the head while some crewmembers pushed it into a wall and hope that, with the wonders of camera positioning and movie editing, it would look halfway convincing on the screen. And really, the fact that you have to "frame-by-frame" it in order to make it "extremely obvious" is testimony to the fact that they did the best they could to make the effect as natural and seamless as possible, but they're not literal magicians. At some point we just have to accept this is just a limitation of the production process, and give them credit for what they were going for within the limits of what they could achieve rather than acting like the fact they didn't get it perfect is a plot hole that needs to be pedantically taken apart.

When Rexy comes over to Grant and Lex, her muzzle can't be more than a few feet away from them. If Tyrannosaurs have a great sense of smell (which I'm assuming they do, to make up for their visual impairment), why couldn't Rexy smell Grant and Lex, especially since Lex probably had a few cuts and scratches that were bleeding?

** This is a case of AdaptationExplainationExtrication - in the book, the reason why the inspection was going on in the first place is because compys got off the island and were attacking children on the mainland. Basically, the aim wasn't just to assess the park's infrastructure - the aim was to figure out a) if compys had indeed gotten off the island and b) how the hell compys had ended up getting off the island. Would any of the experts you describe be able to supply any knowledge that a) is relevant to the situation and b) isn't already there (in the case of a zoo designer - Muldoon would probably be able to supply a lot of info already in that regard)?

*** This is explained in the book. The computer had an automated program that kept track of all the animals in the park. They could input how many animals were expected to be found, and how many actually were. The downside of this is that it would only alert them if the animal died. If there were, in fact, more animals than they were expecting (which was exactly what happened with the raptors), the computer would not count the surplus. Thus, some of the raptors were able to breed and escape without anyone realizing it for a long time.

** Okay, but again -- there've been other attempts at answering this question from an in-universe perspective, almost all of which have received additional and slightly nitpicky criticisms that they don't fully answer the question, or open up other plot issues. Helpful or not, it's beginning to look that this particular question might not have an in-universe answer that you will find wholly satisfying, so you might just have to either accept that one of the previous answers is about the closest you'll get to an in-universe answer, even if imperfect, or accept that you might have to turn to the meta-answer of "it's a story and they needed to be there for the purposes of the plot and no one more 'relevant' did" to have some kind of resolution. Frankly, it doesn't seem like you have many other options on this one.

** Okay, but again -- there've been other attempts at answering this question from an in-universe perspective, almost all of which have received additional and slightly nitpicky criticisms that they don't fully answer the question, or open up other plot issues. Helpful or not, it's beginning to look that this particular question might not have an in-universe answer that you will find wholly satisfying, so you might just have to either accept that one of the previous answers is about the closest you'll get to an in-universe answer, even if imperfect, or accept that you might have to turn to the meta-answer of "it's a story and they needed to be there for the purposes of the plot and no one more 'relevant' did" to have some kind of resolution. Frankly, it doesn't seem like you have many other options on this one (other than maybe trying to come up with an answer of your own and not complaining or picking holes when others take the time to try to answer it for you, however imperfectly).

** Okay, but again -- there've been other attempts at answering this question from an in-universe perspective, almost all of which have received additional and slightly nitpicky criticisms that they don't fully answer the question, or open up other plot issues. Helpful or not, it's beginning to look that this particular question might not have an in-universe answer that you will find wholly satisfying, so you might just have to either accept that one of the previous answers is about the closest you'll get to an in-universe answer, even if imperfect, or accept that you might have to turn to the meta-answer of "it's a story and they needed to be there for the purposes of the plot and no one more 'relevant' did" to have some kind of resolution. Frankly, it doesn't seem like you have many other options on this one (other than maybe trying to come up with an answer of your own and not complaining when others take the time to try to answer it for you, however imperfectly).

** Okay, but again -- there've been other attempts at answering this question from an in-universe perspective, almost all of which have received additional and slightly nitpicky criticisms that they don't fully answer the question, or open up other plot issues. Helpful or not, it's beginning to look that this particular question might not have an in-universe answer that you will find wholly satisfying, so you might just have to either accept that one of the previous answers is about the closest you'll get to an in-universe answer to this particular question, even if imperfect, or accept that you might have to turn to the meta-answer of "it's a story and they needed to be there for the purposes of the plot" to have some kind of resolution. Frankly, it doesn't seem like you have many other options on this one (other than maybe trying to come up with an answer of your own and not complaining when others take the time to try to answer it for you, however imperfectly).

** Okay, but again -- there've been other attempts at answering this question from an in-universe perspective, almost all of which have received additional and slightly nitpicky criticisms that they don't fully answer the question, or open up other plot issues. Helpful or not, it's beginning to look that this particular question might not have an in-universe answer that you will find wholly satisfying, so you might just have to either accept that one of the previous answers is about the closest you'll get to an in-universe answer to this particular question, even if imperfect, or accept that you might have to turn to the meta-answer of "it's a story and they needed to be there for the purposes of the plot" to have some kind of resolution. Frankly, it doesn't seem like you have many other options on this one (other than maybe trying to come up with an answer of your own and not complaining when others try to answer it for you, however imperfectly).

** Okay, but again -- there've been other attempts at answering this question from an in-universe perspective, almost all of which have received additional and slightly nitpicky criticisms that they don't fully answer the question, or open up other plot issues. Helpful or not, it's beginning to look that this particular question might not have an in-universe answer that you will find wholly satisfying, so you might just have to either accept that one of the previous answers is about the closest you'll get to an in-universe answer to this particular question, even if imperfect, or accept that you might have to turn to the meta-answer of "it's a story and they needed to be there for the purposes of the plot" to have some kind of resolution. Frankly, it doesn't seem like you have many other options on this one.