— Dr. Ian Malcolm, in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, neatly summarizes each of the movies in the series.
Scientists discover the ability to bring extinct animals back to life via a complex cloning process. To make a profit off this technology, the InGen company decides to build a theme park featuring living dinosaurs.This in itself would not be such a bad idea, except the organizers rush to get it open, build it on a remote island, and have almost no security personnel, deciding to automate the whole thing with unreliable computers - even refusing to tell the software designer what the system is for.Naturally, everything that can go wrong does go wrong.The book was written by Michael Crichton, while the 1993 movie was directed by Steven Spielberg. Both were insanely popular then and are considered modern classics now. The film is labeled as having one of the most revolutionary breakthroughs in visual effects that changed movie-making. Despite going to great lengths to create extremely convincing animatronic dinosaurs, this was balanced with groundbreakingly realistic CGI ones. The CGI involved essentially killed the use of muppets and stop motion in modern film. Besides the requisite Hollywood mistakes, many paleontologists and dinosaur fanatics also loved it. The moment in the film where the characters first come across a dinosaur in full view and are just blown away, "...it's a dinosaur!" could be the new generation's equivalent to the Star Destroyer overhead from Star Wars: A New Hope.Two sequels were made to the original film. While the second film shared the name of the second book The Lost World: Jurassic Park, (1997) it had a wildly different storyline, mostly due to characters that originally died in the first book coming back. Jurassic Park III (2001) came out several years later. While neither rose to the 'classic' status of the first film, both were fairly well received. The same basic story exists in all of the films, only separated by what characters are involved and certain action scenes. There are also a number of computer-game tie-ins, among the most notable being Trespasser (for being one of the most obvious of betas ever released for retail), Operation Genesis (like RollerCoaster Tycoon with dinosaurs) and an episodic series by Telltale Games (like Heavy Rain with dinosaurs).A fourth cinematic installment has been in Development Hell for nine years and counting - it was even considered that it would not come through after Michael Crichton's death in 2008. But then Spielberg announced in 2013 that JP4 would come out in June of 2014.In the meantime, the first film celebrated its 20th Anniversary in 2013 with a theatrical re-release in 3D.
Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: In the middle of the first film, Laura Dern and Richard Attenborough eat melting ice cream and talk about flea circuses. It's really quite touching.
The film also ends on a very quiet note, where the characters silently reflect in their helicopter while it flies away.
Action Girl: Ellie Sattler in the movie. She is the only member of the cast to survive a physical fight with velociraptors, being able to hit them with slamming doors, to outrun them, and to kick them in the groin.
Sarah Harding in the second book. Probably she's the physically strongest character in the book. However, in the second movie, she doesn't quite fit this trope, though she does give it a good effort.
Kelly Malcolm becomes this during the climactic fight within the island interior in the second movie, using gymnastics to knock a full-grown adult Velociraptor over, managing to get it impaled.
Ian: The coach cut you from the team?
Adaptational Badass: Inverted with Gennaro. In the novel, he goes along with Muldoon to catch the Tyrannosaurus, manages to fend off a Velociraptor attack, intimidates a ship captain with Technobabble, and survives to the end. In the film, he becomes a Dirty Coward who dies a particularly embarrassing death.
Adaptational Villainy: Gennaro, a reasonably fit, brave, and definitely-not-Tyrannosaurus-chow protagonist, is more-or-less turned into Ed Regis from the novel, a spineless lawyer/PR rep who abandons two helpless children and gets eaten soon after.
Adaptation Distillation: Many side plots from the book are written out in the movie and several characters are combined and their fates change.
Most notably, in the film, Hammond's character was a kindly old man who just wanted to share the magic of dinosaurs with people. He's not even all that interested in the monetary benefits of creating a dinosaur park. In the novel, he's a manipulative Jerkass who, while still visionary, really just wants people's money, and won't listen to anyone's advice about how dangerous the situation is. Apparently this was because Spielberg saw a lot of himself in Hammond.
Pretty much all of the sequences from the two novels (mostly the first one) find their way into the movies in some way or another, albeit under slightly different circumstances.
Adaptation Explanation Extrication: The film is still a very good adaptation, but compressing the book meant removing most of the exposition of the book, which contained some explanations that filled multiple small logic gaps present in the movie, such as why the Triceratops was sick.
Howard King in the second novel. Compared to Dodgson, he's not a bad guy, and ends up just trying to survive. He ends up fleeing from a pack of velociraptors, and even gets a Hope Spot when he almost makes it to safety before they bring him down.
All Animals Are Dogs: Nedry assumes this about the dilophosaurus, and tries to distract it by throwing a stick. It doesn't work, so he figures it's just stupid. Then it eats him. Even dogs will prefer a meaty steak to a bone.
All Men Are Perverts: Each movie has at least one male character who flirts openly or outright states that their motivation behind doing certain things is to score with the ladies. In Jurassic Park, it's Ian. He gets better by The Lost World: Jurassic Park so the trope goes to Nick. Jurassic Park III has Billy.
Ian: I'm always on the lookout for a future ex-Mrs. Malcolm.
Always a Bigger Fish: Grant and co. are finally surrounded by the raptors. The leader of the pack looks right about to pounce... and then the T. rex comes in.
Amusement Park of Doom: Isla Nublar definitely qualifies. Isla Sorna (in the film continuity, at least) is more of a Wildlife Preserve of Doom.
Possibly tempting fate, a (traditional) amusement park was built to cash in on the mantra of the film.
Analogy Backfire: John Hammond compares the park's problems to Disneyland not working when it opened.
Malcolm: Yeah, but John, when Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists.
Artifact Title: Only the first film takes place at Jurassic Park, on Isla Nublar. The second and third films are set on Isla Sorna — Site B, where the dinosaurs were bred by InGen. This is largely glossed over, even though it's a pretty important plot point in the books.
Well, in the book the Costa Rican Air Forcenote which doesn't actually exist, since Costa Rica has no military destroys Isla Nublar after the survivors escape. So it's not like you could have a sequel set on the island that included dinosaurs.
Artistic License - Biology: Dilophosaurus was actually about as tall as a man and around 20 feet long. The individual in the film was made a juvenile so it didn't take away from the raptors or the T. rex. The venom the Dilophosaurus had in the film as well as the frill are completely fictional.
In reality, Velociraptor mongoliensis was only a few feet tall. To be fair, the raptors in the film were modeled after the larger dromaeosaurid Deinonychus, which at the time was considered by paleontological consultant Gregory S. Paul to be a member of the genus Velociraptor.
Though awesomely enough, shortly after the film's release a new genus called Utahraptor was discovered, which is somewhat close to the film's Raptors (twice as big). It was originally going to be named Utahraptor Spielbergi, but it ended up being called Utahraptor ostrommaysorum.
The Expanded Universe, specifically the Telltale Games, implies that these inconsistencies are likely caused by Dr. Wu's "quick and cheap" use of frog DNA, although given that the comments come from a rival scientist who wanted to sequence all the samples and fill in the gaps with DNA from other the dinosaur genomes where they could, but was shot down because it would be much more time consuming and expensive, it can't be proven either way. The book itself also heavily implies this.
In the third movie this is given a partial handwave - Dr. Grant tells his class that the dinosaurs on Isla Nublar were not real dinosaurs, and that Ingen genetically modified them - while he doesn't go into details it is generally accepted that all the mutations to the dinosaurs were partly because of merging frog DNA with dinosaur DNA.
The use of frog DNA itself, to the extent it is explained in the film, is a major instance of artistic license: why use frogs when many other animals have a much greater evolutionary proximity to dinosaurs? (To facilitate the plot twist, obviously.)
Artistic License - Geography: The scene where Nedry makes the deal to sell the embryos is set in San Jose, Costa Rica at a restaurant next to a beach. In reality, San Jose is completely landlocked, surrounded by mountains and isn't near any large bodies of water.
Ascended Extra: Gerry Harding, the chief veterinarian from the first film, plays a major role in the Telltale Games game. Ironic, since he also played a major role in the book, but was Demoted to Extra in the movies.
Asshole Victim: John Hammond in the first book, as well as Dennis Nedry in the first movie and book. Donald Gennaro in the first movie. Peter Ludlow and Dieter Stark in the second movie. Lewis Dodgson in the second novel.
Author Filibuster: Malcolm spends half of his scenes in the first book making pages-long speeches about the evils of modern science, while he's supposedly dying to boot. He does it again in the second, but less frequently and less annoyingly (and high off his ass on morphine). The third movie lampshades his tendency to ramble when Eric says he preferred Grant's book to Malcolm's for precisely this reason.
Back from the Dead: Robert Muldoon in the Topps comic series. In the new IDW comic series, Peter Ludlow from The Lost World. Ian Malcolm in the second novel, though he was a case of Never Saw The Body.
Badass: Roland Tembo is not only the only named character from Ingen who doesn't get eaten, but he also captures a bull T. rex... alive.
In the novel, even before the events on the island occur, Grant breaks his leg when his truck falls a hundred feet into a canyon, yet he walks back to his dig in four days without food or water. Once on the island, he faces down a T. rex multiple times (once with a plastic oar and dart gun) and kills several raptors using a few eggs and some deadly syringes.
In the novel, Muldoon blows apart a couple raptors with a rocket launcher and faces down a charging T. rex.
Subverted in the first movie: Muldoon and Grant try to kill Velociraptors...with a shotgun! It doesn't work either time, with fatal results for Muldoon.
Badass Bookworm: Alan Grant in Jurassic Park, Jack Thorne in The Lost World.
Grant might be the most Badass character in the whole first novel, killing three Velociraptors only with his wits, among other things.
' The girl saw the dying Velociraptors and quietly said: "Whoa!" '
Bad Vibrations: The famous "shaking glass" scene when the T. rex realizes the fence is no longer active.
Bald of Awesome: Roland Tembo, the bald big-game hunter hired by the baddies to lead the hunt in the second film. He's bald, and middle aged, but he's on the island to hunt the last big-game creature left - a freaking bull Tyrannosaurus rex.
It's too late when he's killed by a raptor ambush, in the movie. In the book he survives by backing into a pipe where they couldn't climb in after him. Somehow he survived in one of the comics. He and the raptors knew each other so well that they were essentially just playing around.
Bilingual Bonus: When we first see the map of Isla Sorna and the surrounding islands in the second film, we can see them explicitly referred to collectively as Los Cinco Muertes. Apparently, the team didn't actually read the map before landing, because anyone with a basic knowledge of Spanish (or heck, anyone who's seen Sesame Street and West Side Story) would immediately be able to translate that as "The Five Deaths".
After they land one of the locals tells them the name.
In the novel it's clear that "Cinco Muertes" is a local name, not an official one; it shouldn't have been on the map at all.
And in the first film, at the beginning, when Gennaro is being pulled on the raft-thing, the miner says, in Spanish, "Betcha a million bucks he falls!"
Then he does fall.
In The Lost World, a group of Japanese business men are running from a T.Rex, and one of them shouts: "We left Japan to get away from this!"
Black and Nerdy: Arby in the The Lost World novel. Ray Arnold in the first movie.
Black Dude Dies First: Played straight in the first movie right off the bat with the black InGen worker, Jophery, who gets eaten in the first scene. Later averted when Arnold is among the last to die after everything goes to hell.
Averted again in the second film, where a velociraptor pounces on a black Ingen hunter, and in the third film, where the black mercenary is the second one to die.
Bloodless Carnage: Somehow, we are to believe that being pulled in half will not result in having one's guts go flying everywhere.
In the second film, Sarah, Ian, and Nick Van Owen somehow survive through a falling dual-trailer RV as they dangle off a cliff edge. Even with the front windshield smashed open you'd figure something in the vehicle would hit them on its way down...
Call Back: In the second film, when Ian, Nick and Eddie are searching for Sarah, they call out her name repeatedly. At one point, Nick shouts out "Sarah Harding!", which warrants a sarcastic reponse from Ian. Later on, when he, Kelly and Sarah are searching the abandoned center for Nick, Ian calls out for him, at one point shouting "Nick Van Owen!".
One that took a few viewings to catch in The Lost World: When Ian ducks into the car to hide from a pursuing raptor, he locks the car door with his foot.
Also from the second film: Ludlow spends basically the entire movie comparing himself to Hammond, saying that he will succeed where Hammond failed. When the T-rex escapes form the ship and begins wreaking havoc in San Diego, Ian turns and says to him, "Now, you're John Hammond."
Calling the Old Man Out: Ellie outright tells a power-tripping John Hammond that he doesn't have the power he thought he had over Jurassic Park in order to bring his attention back to what's really important, namely making sure that they and their loved ones get off the island in one piece.
Hammond's greedy nephew, Ludlow, during the deleted board meeting sequence, calls out Hammond as a "born again naturalist" who is allowing Ingen to go bankrupt in order to keep the dinosaurs from being exploited; he then has the nerve to say he doesn't enjoy speaking unfavorably about his own uncle.
Kelly gives one to Ian, which serves as a nod to the womanizing ways he admitted to in the first film:
Ian: Does anyone feel that? That's an impact tremor, is what it is. I'm fairly alarmed here.
He does this several times in The Lost World movie most notably when the T-rexes are about to attack the trailers:
Ian: Mommy's very angry.
and speaking from experience minutes later:
Ian: Hang on, this is gonna be bad.
Chekhov's Gun: A couple in the first novel and movie; a considerable number in the second novel; the most egregious being Kelly's gymnastics in the second film. The frog DNA is the most consistent one across the literature and film.
Chekhov's Hobby: One in each movie. Lex was savvy with computers. Kelly mentions being cut from the the gymnastics team. Billy has experience in base jumping.
Chekhov's Lecture: The raptors' "Bait with one, flank with another" plan that Grant describes, and that Muldoon falls victim to. Grant probably should've told him about that...
In the first novel the raptors are often referred to as pack hunters, to the point where four of them distract Ellie just so that a fifth could start a sneak attack from the roof.
Sarah describes her ongoing debate with Dr. Robert Burke regarding the parental habits of T.Rex as a nurturing parent (she says) and not a "natural rogue who would abandon its young" (he says). She gets horribly proven correct. Later, she points out that moving the baby caused the T.Rex to redefine its territory and that it now views the humans as a threat and will use its superior olfactory senses to track them down until they leave the island (or it eats them all), with which Burke disagrees. Guess who lives and who meets a horrible death when the T.rex does everything Sarah said it would...
Child Hater: "Babies smell." Grant does get better during the course of the first movie, enough to not mind the kids sleeping on him. In the book, the Child Hater is Regis. Worse, in the book, Grant loves kids. He finds their fascination with dinosaurs to be heartwarming.
In most of Spielberg's films, all fathers or father-figures are either absent or aloof, probably as a result of his parents' divorce when he was a child.
Chewing the Scenery: How Robert Muldoon is introduced in the first film. "SSSSHOOOOOOOOOOOOT HHHHHHEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!"
Ian Malcolm: God creates dinosaurs, God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man, man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs...
Ellie Sattler: Dinosaurs eat man... woman inherits the Earth.
Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Levine does this in the second book, saying that (specifically) Thorne was driving too recklessly from the charging Tyrannosaur, and (generally) that he was doing all right on the island and didn't need help anyway. Bear in mind this is after his panicked, static-filled phone call begging for help. His rescuers are not pleased.
Same goes for Sarah in the film version, as she straight up tells Ian that he's never around when she really needs him and right now, she doesn't.
Composite Character: Two examples from The Lost World novel that were mixed into one for the movie:
The precocious twelve year-old Kelly and black Child Prodigy Arby, Levine's pupils, were merged into the single character of Kelly, Malcolm's daughter.
The rugged, badass Doc Thorne and his younger (but very capable) employee, Eddie Carr, were similarly combined into the movie's relatively mousy Eddie, while book!Eddie's physical appearance was transferred to new character Nick Van Owen.
In the first movie, Gennaro was basically Ed Regis (a Jerkass publicist from the book), with Gennaro's name and law degree. He's also supposed to be muscled, but in the movie, that went to Malcolm.
Continuity Nod: Dr. Sarah Harding in The Lost World, who helped nurse Malcolm back to health and dated him for a while, is the daughter of Jurassic Park's resident veterinarian, Dr. Gerry Harding. The second novel makes a deliberate Call Back; the movies make no such connection. This is probably because the elder Harding's role was so reduced in the film that audiences could be forgiven for not remembering that was his name.
Cool Vs Awesome: At the end of the first movie, Tyrannosaurus vs. Velociraptor Tyrannosaurus wins
Corrupt Corporate Executive: Hammond was noticeably more corrupt and uncaring in the book, where he suffers a Karmic Death. The movie version is more Walt Disney-esque (well, Walt Disney's charming public persona at any rate). It helps a lot that he was played by Richard Attenborough. The Lost World has Hammond's evil, greedy nephew. Additionally, Lewis Dodgson, head of InGen's rival company Biosyn, precipitates the plot of the first book/movie by hiring the disgruntled Dennis Nedry to steal embryos for him... then goes to Isla Sorna to do the job himself in the second novel.
CPR Clean Pretty Reliable: Tim is revived easily after being shocked by the electric fence. Justified in that he was hanging in the air at the time, which would lessen the damage considerably.
Credits Gag: In the credits of The Lost World, the name of a character (played by David Koepp, who wrote the screenplay for the movie) devoured by the T-rex in front of the video store is given as "Unlucky Bastard".
Darker and Edgier: The second film is remembered as the most violent of the franchise, notably for being the film with the highest body count and the most violent death scene.
Lighter and Softer: The third film, by contrast, was filmed with the goal of being more family-friendly in mind. It has actually shown up on ABC Family several times.
Deadly Road Trip: The vacationers in the beginning of the first book.
Death by Adaptation: Gennaro and Muldoon survive in the first novel but are killed in the first film. Whereas, Hammond and Dr. Wu are killed in the novel but survive in the film. Ian Malcolm supposedly dies in the first book, but survives thanks to Costa Rican surgeons and is in the second book.
Death By Genre Savviness: Subverted in the first film, where Ian Malcolm, who has been predicting disaster from the start, is attacked by the T-Rex but survives. Played straight with Muldoon, who knows exactly how dangerous the dinosaurs are, and is killed by a velociraptor. In the novels continuity this is averted with Muldoon, who survives the events of the first novel, and subverted with Malcolm, who looks like he's going to die but then in the sequel he is shown alive.
Death World: The dinosaur-filled islands themselves, which are even known to Costa Rican locals as "Las Cinco Muertes" (the five deaths). We only get to see Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna though.
Despair Event Horizon: Shortly after Arnold realizes that he needs Nedry in order to get the park back online, Nedry is attacked and killed by the Dilophosaurus. Eddie being eaten and the trailers/radio being destroyed by the tyrannosaurs in the second film also qualifies. In both cases, the one person who could fix things and provide a means for calling for help has been brutally killed off, driving home the point that the survivors are now stranded on a dinosaur-infested island with virtually no means of escape.
Played with in the third film: All seems lost when the group realizes Nash had the phone on him when he became dino-chow. Said phone not only survives being eaten, but it is later dug up from a pile of dung and used to call for help.
Determinator: Life itself. Life finds a way to bypass the safeguards against propagation and self-preservation, namely sexual isolation and lysine dependency.
DeusRexMachina: In the first film, it appears the protagonists are about to be killed by the raptors when the T-Rex appears and attacks the raptors, allowing them to escape. This in itself isn't that far fetched but what is is the fact that the T-Rex appears rather suddenly and is already in the visitor center, despite there being no way it could have appeared by surprise the way it did.
It's easy to miss when watching the film, but the wall of the Visitor's Center is actually unfinished, with a conveniently T-rex-sized hole in it covered only with some plastic sheeting. Right after the T-rex appears, the sheet can be seen now ripped to shreds. Doesn't explain how none of them heard it coming, though.
This might be a Shout Out to the fact that the original Jurassic Park film is considered a major reason that Last Action Hero, which featured a sequence of Schwarzenegger as Hamlet, failed at the box-office as it did.
Dirty Coward: Ed Regis, who abandons the Hammond children in a car with the door open to save his own ass when the T-Rex shows up and gets eaten for his trouble. Donald Gennaro takes on the role in the movie.
Do Not Do This Cool Thing: The novel was intended as a warning about the dangers of playing God and tampering with nature. Yet, let's be honest. When it was adapted to film, how many people walked out of the theater after seeing it thinking, "Awesome! I wish we could bring dinosaurs back to life! Get cracking, scientists. Increase dinosaur DNA research!"? This is, of course, because Ian Malcolm's message on why it was bad in the first place was not the focus of the movie.
The Dreaded: Velociraptors are treated as such by Grant and Muldoon. They are also presented that way in the opening scene to drive home to the audience that modern predators have absolutely nothing on ancient predatory dinosaurs.
Drives Like Crazy: Richard Levine. In the second book, he gets his license yanked and ordered to teach as community service for driving 120 miles/hr in a 15 mile/hr school zone.
Dropped Glasses: Nedry is killed in this way in the first movie.
Dynamic Entry: Frequent with the large carnivores, like Tyrannosaurus and Spinosarus, as well as the Velociraptors.
Everyone Owns A Mac: Dennis Nedry's terminal into the Jurassic Park supercomputer network is a Mac.
Extreme Graphical Representation: The 3D, video game-like computer interface Lex uses to interact with the Jurassic Park systems was a real, though unfinished, file manager called fsn.
Fake Brit: American Arliss Howard as Peter Ludlow.
Finger Wag: "Ah-ah-aah... you didn't say the magic word."
"PLEASE! Goddammit! I hate this hacker crap!"
Flippant Forgiveness: In the second movie, Dr. Malcolm tells Peter Ludlow "When you try to sound like Hammond, it comes off as a hustle. I mean, it's not your fault. They say talent skips a generation. So, I'm sure your kids will be sharp as tacks."
Foreshadowing: The first half of the movie is loaded with moments that hint at serious design flaws in the park, as well as scenes of nature just plainly not cooperating with human control. From the top:
Grant's seatbelt in the chopper is made of two female buckles ( Grant's resolution of this might be intended as very subtle foreshadowing of the female dinosaurs "finding a way"). Ellie seems to have no problem tying hers on, which means he didn't just grab Ellie's by mistake.
Grant, Ellie and Malcolm can easily break out of the restraints during the presentation.
Ellie notes that the prehistoric plants, placed in the visitors center simply because they were pretty, are poisonous.
The Dilophosaurus and T-Rex no-shows.
The car doors aren't locked during the tour. This is lampshaded by Muldoon.
The Triceratops is sick and nobody can figure out why.
A tropical storm is heading straight for the island. Normally they should have had days of warning and would have therefore rescheduled the tour. It's as if Hammond kind of just expected the storm to kindly swerve out of the island's path just for his sake. Which is quite fitting for his character, actually.
For the Funnyz: When Grant touches the (inactive) T-Rex paddock fence in the first film and acts as if he's being electrocuted. Alexis is not amused, but Tim thought it was funny as hell.
For Science!: The motivation of InGen's geneticists, and Ian Malcolm's main beef with them.
Freudian Trio: With Hammond as the Id, Malcolm as the Superego, and Grant as the Ego.
From Bad to Worse: The situation is bad enough with most of the dinosaurs running wild and no way of contact with the main land. Then the velociraptors get loose...
In general, the movies love the "frying pan -> fire" approach. Interestingly, in all three movies there's at least one instance where it involved velociraptors making things worse - in the first, as noted the bad situation gets worse when everyone realizes the raptors, already noted as and very intelligent and cunning, are loose. In the second, the camp is attacked by two Tyrannosauruses at once and the entire Redshirt Army runs for the hills... directly into a colony of raptors, which makes short work of the survivors. In the third, the troupe is lost on the island and has no way of knowing where they are, and things only get worse when another colony of raptors starts tracking them throughout the island after one of them steals raptor eggs. And that's not getting into all the times they run with the "our machinery is messing up/our vehicle has been disabled when suddenly the T-Rex/Spinosaurus shows up to make things worse" angle.
Gadgeteer Genius / Mr. Fixit: In Jurassic Park, possibly Arnold (even more in the book). In The Lost World, Eddie Carr and Jack "Doc" Thorne, who didn't make it to the movie. See Composite Character above. In the book, Carr could be described as a true Gadgeteer Genius while Doc is more a Mr. Fixit, as Arnold would be.
Eddie: Violence and technology... not good bedfellows!
Genre Savvy: In the first film, when Nedry shut off the power to the park, he intentionally left the Raptor fences powered because he knew how dangerous they were.
Godzilla Threshold: Arnold and the others realize that the only way to get wipe out what Nedry did and get the park back online is a total system shutdown, which will wipe out what little electrical power they have left, resulting in the Velociraptors being finally let loose.
It was either that or wait seven days for the dinosaurs to die from lysine deficiency, that the dinosaurs had managed to overcome unbeknownst to anyone.
Gone Horribly Right: Well into the park's collapse, Wu reflects that the dinosaurs' breeding means he's succeeded at recreating these creatures of the past, enough that they can even reproduce themselves.
Gory Discretion Shot: The series loves the "character gets attacked by a dinosaur and dragged offscreen, where a bloodcurdling scream (and maybe a trickle of blood) is used to show that they've been horribly killed" method. Nearly every death that isn't caused by a big dino happens this way.
The Greatest Story Never Told: The Telltale Games series takes place during and shortly after the events of the first film, from the perspectives of one minor film character and a whole bunch of new ones.
Guns Are Useless: Strangely enforced - all three films have a good amount of guns, but no one ever seems to be able to effective use them against dinosaurs (with the exception of a tranq gun in The Lost World.
Jurassic Park: Muldoon is killed before having a chance to shoot anything, and Grant's shotgun jams as soon as the Velociraptors attack. Foreshadowed earlier when the Ingen workers fire uselessly at one of these same raptors while it's mauling one of their co-workers to death.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park: Possibly the most egregious use of this trope. A T. rex attacks a camp full of sleeping hunters. All of whom are well armed. Some of them shoot their guns wildly in the air while fleeing the rampaging dinosaur. The only one who thinks to actually shoot his gun at the T. rex is Roland Tembo, but his shotgun was secretly unloaded by Nick Van Owen.
Eddie Carr's tranquilizer is this on a couple of instances: when the stegosaurus charges after Sarah, Ian yells at him to shoot it; he doesn't want to because they're "just protecting their baby." Later, the rexes attack him in his car (also "just protecting their baby"). He's quite willing to shoot them then, but since his gun picks that moment to get stuck on some netting well...
Jurassic Park III: Armed mercenaries bring many weapons to the island, including an anti-tank rifle. The only thing that is ever used against any dinosaur of any kind (albeit successfully) is a flare gun.
Hacked by a Pirate: Probable inversion, as the hacker screen came up only after Samuel Jackson's attempt at hacking Nedry's computer to restore security.
Have You Tried Rebooting?: When the operators are locked out of the computer system, they restart it entirely and manage to gain access again. This unwittingly screws things up more.
Heroic BSOD: Roland from The Lost World experiences one after learning of Ajay's death.
Grant in the third film, after witnessing Billy's apparent demise.
Heroic Sacrifice: Eddie Carr; doubles as a Despair Event Horizon since he was the only one who could probably have repaired the damaged radio equipment.
Malcolm very nearly made one in the first film to save the kids from the T-Rex.
Billy Brennan and Paul Kirby narrowly subvert this to Disney Death status.
Hidden Depths: In The Lost World, Roland Tembo. Although working for InGen, he shows concern for the safety of Kelly, and his own crew, and at the end seems to realise he's been on the wrong side.
Peter Ludlow: I remember the people who help me, Roland. There's a job for you at the park in San Diego, if you want it.
Roland Tembo: No thank you. I believe I've spent enough time in the company of death.
A deleted scene shows Roland picking a fight with an obnoxious diner making unwelcome advances on a waitress.
Hypocrisy: Ian, upon learning that Sarah is already on Site B, is perfectly willing to jeopardize the lives of two people whom he was about to stop from even going on the expedition in order to ensure her safety; mind you this is immediately after he tells Hammond to "stop leaving his name on other people's headstones."
Tropes I-L
Idiot Ball: Sarah Harding manages to blow off every single one of Ian's warnings throughout the second movie until people actually start dying.
Iconic Logo: Illustrated on top of this page. The third movie replaces the T. rex with a Spinosaurus.
Improbable Taxonomy Skills: Ellie, a paleobotanist, recognizes certain (formerly) extinct plants as poisonous.
Infant Immortality: Pretty much played straight with Tim, Lex, Kelly, Eric, and any baby dinosaurs seen in the film series (baby Stegosaurus, baby T-rex, baby Pteranodons, stolen raptor eggs, etc.) The only real exception was that poor dog in the second movie and possibly the boy of the family that owned said dog who took a flash photo of the T-Rex. Chances are, the boy and his parents were killed, though this is never shown explicitly in the movie.
According to the final script, the rex smashes its head into the boy's bedroom, sniffs the entire family and goes on its way, leaving the kid and his understandably terrified parents completely unscathed. This part of the scene was either not shot or deleted for reasons unknown, and has not turned up in any releases of the film.
This is in the movies only. Sucks to be the baby that gets its face ripped off by compies in the first book. It extends past humans, too, when Tim tried to distract two velociraptors that followed him and Lex by sending a baby raptor found in the InGen lab to them. The adult raptors immediately slaughtered the baby. This scene was roughly adapted for the screen... by an episode of Primeval.
The Lost World novel elaborates on this, saying that by basically being cloned and left to their own devices, most of the raptors were cannibalistic, lacked the maternal instinct of their ancestors, and saw their own offspring as just another prey item.
The little girl in the intro of the second movie was obviously seriously injured, judging by the mother's screams. Peter Ludlow points this out during his business meeting with Ingen's Board of Directors and Hammond later mentions her to Malcolm. In both cases, the listening parties have to be assured that she survived.
Instant Sedation: Subverted: Two characters in the book use a Tranquillizer Dart on a T. rex, twice, and nothing happens. They think it might not have worked, but follow it anyway, and it finally blacks out just in time to save a character. The characters seem surprised. Strangely, one of them is a wildlife expert, and should know better.
Muldoon, the character who does the tranquilizing, actually does mention that the effects of tranquilizing agents depends partly on weight and partly on the species; a badly tranq'd rhino is just mad, a rhino simply chased in a car might pass out. Steve Irwin made a career under the logic that it is safer for an angry crocodile to be jumped on by sweaty Australian guys during capture than depend on its finicky metabolism to process drugs correct. Muldoon could only guess at the T-rex's reaction, and he certainly wouldn't be allowed to use an experimental massive dose on it in case the valuable animal dropped dead from it.
Subverted again in the second movie, when InGen's mooks accidentally give the T. rex too much sedative, causing it to go into cardiac arrest. In their attempts to save the dinosaur they gave it enough stimulant to kill a rhino which cause it to wake up and spend the next thirty minutes trashing San Diego. Odds are good that if it hadn't been sedated again it would have kept trashing the place for quite possibly days until it either burned through the stimulants in its blood or suffered a heart attack.
Ironic Echo: In the first movie, Hammond repeatedly tells everybody very proudly that "We've spared no expense." After the park goes completely to hell and his grandchildren and Dr. Grant go missing, he talks with Dr. Sattler. She compliments him on the ice-cream and he once again says, rather sadly, "We spared no expense..."
It Can Think: Muldoon demands that the velociraptors be killed as they're far too intelligent; testing the electric fence for weaknesses (but never the same spot twice; "They remember," he warns) before they were moved to their high-walled prison. They seem to realize when the power is cut and claw their way through the electrified wire at the top (it's mentioned they test the fences for weaknesses). Even Muldoon underestimates their intelligence - as he's stalking one velociraptor, another ambushes him from the side. His Famous Last Words are a genuinely admiring, "Clever girl!" And of course there's that Tempting Fate scene: "We'll be all right as long as they can't open doors."
Justified Tutorial: Jurassic Park for the Sega CD contains information kiosks which play video footage of Robert T.Bakker, who explains various dinosaur behaviors, cluing the player in on how to deal with them when encountered.
Karma Houdini: Nick van Owen and Roland Tembo, the former of whom caused nearly all the deaths in the InGen team and wound up making InGen order the T-Rex and her kid to be brought to San Diego (which goes as well as you'd expect), and the latter snapping the baby T-Rex's leg to bait its parents and causing Eddie's death (on top of spearheading a half-baked corporate plan that not only gets the team he leads killed, but also gets the new president of InGen eaten and San Diego becoming the stomping grounds of an angry T-Rex), don't get any comeuppance - they simply disappear from the film's final act.
Karmic Death: A fair few people in the films (e.g., Nedry and Gennaro), although there are also undeserving victims (e.g., Muldoon, who was smart enough to realize that even having the raptors exist was a disaster waiting to happen). The trope is very evident in the novel, as not one of the responsible persons has thought of the consequences of reviving the largest predators ever to walk the earth. All of them save two die horribly.
Kill All Humans!: Tyrannosaurs and velociraptors come running for the great taste of human!
In the first novel, the Tyrannosaurus appears to always be a step ahead of every move Grant and the kids make.
Probably justified. In the raptor transport scene it's being handled rather roughly. Mistreated animals often attack humans when they get loose. The attacks may be more about revenge than food.
Actually discussed in the first novel. After some raptors try to attack the protagonists through their electrified enclosure, Malcolm mentions that lions and tigers typically only become man-eaters if they discover that humans are easy to kill, and wonders if the raptors made the same discovery at some point. Early on in the first novel it's mentioned that the velociraptors are actually quite vicious and kill for the pleasure of it.
Killer Rabbit: "Squeeeeeeeee-hoo-hoo?" Come on, it's only a stupid spitting dilophosaur— ARGH I'M BLIND!
This could also be said of the virus Nedry implanted into the computer that killed all the systems, called: whte_rbt.obj
Then in 2 we got Compies. Small, carnivorous, attack in packs and don't fear humans.
Lampshade Hanging: The second book takes an entire chapter to point out how stupid it is to assume a T. rex can't see you if you don't move, killing a character who tries it. It also handily suggests another explanation for the fact that it apparently worked in the first film.
Ian's Genre Savvy line in the second movie: "Oooh, ahhh. That's how it always starts. But later there's running, and screaming."
Only once in the entirety of the second film is it referenced that Ian Malcolm's daughter is in fact black.
LEGO Genetics: The main reason why the park fails - they used amphibian DNA, the closest thing possible to insert into the damaged DNA code without causing mutations. Except it did. The type of amphibian used can change sexes in unequal-gender conditions.
And using it is kind of stupid when you think about it, given that amphibians and reptiles share different classes, as compared to say chickens and dinosaurs, which start differing at the sub-order level, ie. about 6 evolutionary steps closer.
Limited Wardrobe: Malcolm's signature all-black ensemble. In the novel, he jokes about how his clothes are all grey and black, so he can get changed in the dark.
He also said something about not wasting any time choosing what color to wear.
Little Stowaway: Kelly in the second movie (Kelly and Arby in the novel version).
Living Motion Detector: Tyrannosaurs, though only in the first movie. In the book a paleontologist named Roxton theorized this was the case, and Grant acts on it to protect him and Lex from one. It's stated that all the park's dinosaurs have this problem, due to the frog DNA used to patch holes in their genetics.
This became a subject of discussion in The Lost World. It's pointed out that Grant was working off really bad data out of sheer desperation, as there really wasn't any other way for him to have gotten out of that situation alive. Levine, a more well-read genius, states that, "Roxton is an idiot. He doesn't know enough anatomy to have sex with his wife." The reason the Rex didn't chow down on Grant and Lex was because the goat it had eaten moments before was enough to fill its appetite for several hours. Baselton isn't aware of this, and tries the same stunt with a hungry T.Rex. While stealing eggs from its nest. It eats him whole.
The Load: Lex in the book, dear God. She doesn't even like dinosaurs, and was sent to the island with Tim merely as a trip to see their grandfather's park. It should be noted that she is much older in the movie; in the book she is younger than Timmy is in the films. In the movie strengths and weaknesses are pretty much split evenly between Tim (dinosaur knowledge, fear of heights) and Lex (hacking skills, tendency to freak out in scary situations).
Made of Iron: Tim in the first film. That kid goes through a lot , and while he's a limping, frazzled mess by the end of the movie, many of the things he endured would have killed a grown man.
Mama Bear and Papa Wolf: The two T. rexes in The Lost World (novel and movie) are not going to let anyone hurt or take their babies away.
Considering how determined the raptors in the third film are to get back their stolen eggs, one can only imagine how fiercely protective they must be of their young...
Lady Margaret the Triceratops in the Telltale game.
Minion with an F in Evil: Howard King in the second novel; he considers it part of his job to rein in Lewis Dodgson's ruthless side, seems truly horrified when Dodgson seemingly murders Sarah Harding, and is the first to acknowledge that maybe this whole egg theft isn't a good idea. It doesn't save him.
Misplaced Wildlife: Velociraptor bones in Montana. Acknowledged in The Lost World and in the novel.
Kookaburras are heard in the second film even though these birds are native to Australia and the characters are supossed to be in Costa Rica. Also, in the third film, gibbons (native to South East Asia) can be heard.
The Mole: Dennis Nedry, designer and administrator of the park's IT systems, is hired by a competing biogen firm to steal embryos which the rival will then reverse-engineer.
Monster Munch: When the T-rex gets loose in Los Angeles in Jurassic Park II: The Lost World, there's a brief shot of a random civilian being eaten.
Musical Spoiler: Averted. The impressive fanfare kicks in at the exact momentthe T-Rex enters and kills the Velociraptors who were about to kill our heroes; there is no musical build-up whatsoever to the climactic fight.
Never My Fault: Hammond does this near the end of the book, blaming the park's failure on everybody who came to the island except for himself. Cue Karmic Death.
Never Saw The Body: Ian Malcolm. It is heavily implied in the first book that he's dead, but no one ever actually said so, and we never saw the body.
The epilogue does have a line on how the Costa Rican Government did not permit the burial of Hammond or Malcolm while they were investigating the incident.
Though if you think about it, it still works. The Costa Rican Government would certainly have had a problem with people trying to bury Malcolm if he was still alive.
Word Of God says Malcolm was indeed supposed to be dead at the end of the first novel. Since he survived in the movie and became a popular character, Crichton decided to include him in the second novel. The Never Saw The Body aspect merely let him get away with it.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Nick Van Owen (see Too Dumb to Live below) in the second film & the novel's version of Eddie Carr - their decision to help the injured rex infant by bringing it back to camp with them leaves everybody hopelessly screwed over from that point on.
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Ludlow's mooks administer too much stimulant to the T. Rex during transport, resulting in the San Diego rampage. Subverted in that it actually makes things worse for Ian and Sarah at first, but it eventually does lead to Ludlow's Karmic Death.
No Celebrities Were Harmed: Paleontology example: Bob Bakker was namedropped in the first book and film, but got Expied into the character of "Robert Burke" in the second film. See Take That below.
No Pronunciation Guide: “Pachy...pachy...oh hell. The fat head with the bald spot, Friar Tuck!”
Except raptors - at least in the first book, where it's stated that they kill even when they are not hungry, just for pleasure, and sometimes they kill their own. This was later explained as the result of the raptors being bred artificially, thus lacking the social development they'd have gone through if raised in a natural environment, with the benefit of a parent and other peers teaching them proper dino social skills. In short, they were basically creating intelligent, sadistic sociopaths with sharp teeth and big claws.
Non-Indicative Name: In-universe example: the park is called "Jurassic" despite the fact that several of the dinosaurs didn't live in that period (such as the T-Rex and the raptors that lived in the Cretaceous period).
Nose Nuggets: The scene where they're in the tree petting the brachiosaurus and it sneezes on Lex, covering her in snot.
Orphaned Punchline In the book, we only hear the end of a joke Malcolm tells Dr. Harding. Gennaro walks in just in time to catch the punchline: "I'll tell you frankly, I didn't like it, Bill. I went back to toilet paper!'"
In fact, creatures being invisible offscreen is pretty common; Jurassic Park's big reveal of the Brachiosaurus has a massive dinosaur hiding just off-screen until Grant and the others notice it, whereupon it starts making loud calls and huge, thumping footsteps they couldn't possibly have missed; even if they could, there turns out to be an entire herd of dinosaurs just off to one side they would have to have seen on the drive in.
Oh Crap: See the image for this trope. It should look quite familiar.
Mama and PapaT. rex retrieve their infant and gently put it out of harm's way... then ROAR AND CHARGE FULL-SPEED at the trailers. Malcolm and Sarah's reaction is understandable.
"You've bred raptors?"
The look on Grant's face when the jeep starts to slide out of that tree. Not to mention the looks on everyone's faces when they realize what happened to the goat...
The first book has its major Oh Crap moment following Ian's Wham Line: The security system is designed to count each species of dinosaur up to the expected number of said species, and then stops. It can tell instantly if an animal's gone missing. It doesn't say if the animals increase their numbers. They reconfigure it to do so, and Oh Crap ensues when they realize the dinosaur population is over 50% bigger than expected, especially the raptors, which were OVER 400% more than expected.
In the movie, the two kids have gotten back to the main buildings, and are tucking into food...when the girl looks up, and has a classic Oh Crap moment when she realizes she's looking at the shadows of raptors in the next room, moving around.
The book has a whole string of these after the T-Rex is sedated. Alarms go off in the Control Room announcing that the Auxiliary power is running out. After the power goes out, they realize that they have been running on auxiliary power ever since they rebooted the system, which means that all the fences including the Raptor cage have been offline for 8 hours.
Tim realizing that the herd of Gallimimus was suddenly "flocking" into their direction in the first film. "They're, uh... they're flocking this way", indeed.
Roland: "Somewhere on this island is the greatest predator who ever lived. Second greatest predator must take him down."
Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: In the first movie, Sam Neill's American accent holds up pretty well, except for one line during the scene where he throws the stick at the fence.
Peek-A-Boo Corpse: In both versions, a hand falls on Ellie and they both think the man the limb belongs to is alive... until they turn around.
Playful Hacker: Dennis Nedry. "Uh huh huh, you didn't say the magic word!" Even has signs of this in the book with "wht_rbt.obj".
Phlebotinum Dependence: The dinosaurs are deliberately deprived of lysine. It doesn't work.
Police Are Useless: In the second film, during the Tyrannosaur's rampage through San Diego, a handful of cop cars and an animal control van have been called out to deal with a large escaped animal (probably not believing it's a dinosaur). The moment they're confronted with Daddy Rex, every single car gets the hell out of there and are never seen again.
Reality Is Unrealistic: From the book: Wu points out that it would be safer to get rid of all the small dinosaurs and just breed the big, vegetarian and stupid ones, which are what many people expect to see anyway (this was written before the "Dinosaur Renaissance" popularized precisely by this book and movie). He even points out that with their knowledge in genetics, they can easily alter the dinosaurs to behave a certain way, just in case they don't. Hammond refuses however, declaring that he's giving people the real deal or nothing - to which Wu tries to tell him is a stupid idea: the dinosaurs are already genetically engineered and modified, so are already not "real" dinosaurs, but rather, genetically engineered monsters. The dinosaurs had never and would never act like real dinosaurs did, simply because they had been born in captivity, without adult dinosaurs to raise them - the equivalent of feral children. Instincts without a compatible environment resulted in unpredictable - perhaps even suicidal behavior. A huge pack of raptors settle in a particular area simply because a large number of half-grown dinosaur corpses were dumped there after they died of a prion disease - they're there to eat infectious carrion. Similar problems occur when exotic reptiles are hatched from eggs in zoos.
"The Reason We Suck" Speech: In the film, when Sattler joins Hammond eating in the cafeteria of the Visitor Center after everything's gone to Hell:
Dr. Sattler: It's still the flea circus. It's all an illusion. Hammond: When we have control again- Sattler: We never had control, that's the illusion! I was overwhelmed by the power of this place! But I made a mistake too, I didn't have enough respect for that power and it's out now!
Redshirt Army: The bad guys in the second movie show up with a fairly large one. Surprisingly, while it's always obvious that they're there for cannon fodder, they make it through quite a bit of the movie unscathed before dying wholesale within the span of a few minutes.
The Red Stapler: Demand for Amber, and all dinosaur related toys, books and products.
Revision: Why the T. rex in Jurassic Park "couldn't see" people standing still. The second novel explains why she probably could, and why she didn't chow down on the immobile buffet.
Science Is Bad: Stronger in the book than the movie, though not as strong as some of Crichton's later novels.
Science Marches On: A lot of the incorrectness is due to this. It was what was believed to be true in 1992.
Notably, we now know that Velociraptor had feathers and possessed other avian characteristics. (This was sort of addressed in the third film by giving them weird looking little feather "mohawks.")
As the half-life of DNA was recently established, we now know for a fact that even under ideal preservation conditions, DNA cannot survive longer than a couple million years. In this instance there could be some overlap with Artistic License - Biology, as even in 1992 the concept of Mesozoic DNA persisting to the present day might well have been considered scientifically dubious.
Shout Out: In the first film, the shot of the T-Rex wolfing down the goat before looking at the jeeps is modeled after the shot of the Rancor wolfing down the Gamorrean guard before looking at Luke in Return of the Jedi.
The San Diego sequence in the second film has several Japanese businessmen among others running for their lives from the T-rex; one of them yells, "I left Tokyo to get away from this!"
The male raptors of the second and third films bear similar designs to Talon with tiger stripes and head feathers, respectively.
Shown Their Work: The book takes an excruciatingly long time explaining the genetic science in-depth, before any of the main characters show up or the first hints of the park are mentioned. It is legitimately fascinating, though. Crichton also spends a fair amount of time on computer science and chaos theory. This is a storytelling device of Crichton's in every one of his books, however, with whatever the book is centered on.
Also, while most of the information pertaining to the dinosaurs is very out of date, a lot of it was considered to be very accurate when the book was written, with a couple of deviations for Rule Of Cool, such as dilophosaurus being able to spit venom; this was also likely Rule Of Plot to help illustrate that they simply couldn't know everything about the creatures they were recreating, since there might be no way to tell the creature had a venom sack from its bones.
Slasher Smile: One of the raptors makes one as he catches sight of the kids escaping the kitchen and gets ready to follow in the first film.
Slow Electricity: In the first film, when the main switch is turned back on, the hall lights come on one at a time.
Somewhere, a Palaeontologist is Crying: Discussed and intentionally invokved. Ingen had to extrapolate from the decayed DNA, on top of intentional alterations to the genetic code to produce "domesticated" dinosaurs - Basically what visitors would expect based on existing pop-cultural depictions of dinosaurs. It would explain the big raptors, frilled, venom spitting dilophosaur, and noticeably featherless dinosaurs. Dr. Wu pressed for slower dinosaurs, so that they didn't get a chance to munch on humans, while Hammond insisted they keep the current ones on the basis that it wouldn't be honest to show something different than real dinosaurs. Jurassic Park 3 and the novels discussed the fact that they weren't actual dinosaurs - just abominations of nature with genetic materiel from obsolete organisms that couldn't survive in the real world.
Sound Only Death: Pretty much every casualty. Averted with Gennaro in Jurassic Park, Eddie in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and the mercenaries in Jurassic Park III.
Soundtrack Dissonance: The main theme song is a grandiose and adventurous piece fitting for Hammond's vision for the theme park as a whole. Completely ignoring the real horrors that happen such as feeding live animals to the dinosaurs and of course what happens when the power gets switched off.
Spared by the Adaptation: Hammond and Wu, die in the first book but survive in the first movie. Also Ian Malcolm, until the second book retconned his death.
To clarify, Wu wasn't a major character in the film, and Hammond wasn't a Jerkass like his literary counterpart.
Stay in the Kitchen: Hammond to Sattler in the first book/movie. Although in the movie, it was more well-meaning chauvinism (saying he, not her, should be risking his life to get the power back on) instead of being a jerk. Sattler, who is a healthy, athletic young woman (whereas Hammond is an elderly man) notes how dumb this is: "We'll discuss sexism in survival situations when I get back."
Stock Dinosaurs: Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops, and Brachiosaurus all make appearances, and Velociraptor itself became a stock dinosaur because of the movie. In the novels, they were specifically chosen to appeal to people.
Super Cell Reception: The Lost World novel has sat phones that are explicitly extra-durable and specifically made for the island.
Super Persistent Predator: Goes between subverting and using quite a lot in both the novel and film. In the second novel, it is mentioned that the raptors, born without a pack mentality and "code" due to no pre-existing raptor to teach them on Site B, are cruelly intelligent and kill for sport - and often kill each other over food.
Super Spit: The Dilophosaurus that kills Dennis Nedry could spit thick, viscous venom to blind its prey.
Surprisingly Sudden Death: The velociraptors first kill Muldoon by springing a decoy trap, eating him alive with the obligatory screaming, to show they have managed to escape their pen.
Swiss Cheese Security: In the second book, the island's security depends entirely on its remoteness. The characters find this out when their attempt to guess the computer network's password fails and it just asks them to create a new account.
Take That: A bit of a Genius Bonus: The Robert Bakker Expy gets killed, and the technical advisor was Jack Horner, who feuded with Bakker over dinosaur biology.
Real life Bob Bakker, however, is said to have loved the scene. Specifically, Bakker and Horner at the time were not just rivals, but on opposite sides of the T-Rex as predator (Bakker) vs. scavenger (Horner) debate. After seeing his expy nom'ed by the T-Rex, Bakker called up Horner and triumphantly announced "I told you it was a predator."
Tech Marches On: In the book they don't realize the dinosaurs are breeding because they set the tracking program to stop counting when it hit the expected numbers just to save processor cycles. A bit short-sighted at the time, but a completely alien concept to a modern reader whose phone has more power than the entire island is said to.
Nicely averted by the movie. The original novels described the Jurassic Park computer network as consisting of multiple Cray X-MP machines. By the time of the movie, those machines weren't the computing behemoths they were considered to be back in the day, and they decided to replace them with Connection Machine CM-5 supercomputers instead. This makes sense in-universe as that's the kind of machine a business that needed ridiculous amounts of computing power at the time would have plumped for, and it made sense visually because the CM-5 computers were utterly festooned with Blinkenlights, making them the ideal movie prop
Technobabble: Doctor Wu's tour. Justified — they're explaining how they did it.
The raptors are contained, right? "Unless they figure out how to open doors." Guess what happens. Taken to ridiculous extremes in the Rifftrax.
The Croc Is Ticking: Spinosaurus in the third film swallows a satellite phone, which rings from within its stomach.
Theme Music Power-Up: The Jurassic Park theme kicks in for T. rex herself, who proceeds to kick raptor ass and save the day.
"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Third film: Billy is on the receiving end of a rather scathing one when Grant learns that he stole a pair of Velociraptor eggs.
The commissary scene from the first film where the main characters are debating the ethics of dinosaur cloning. Did any of them even touch the food that was in front of them? Though Ellie seems to have utterly lost her appetite after seeing the raptors 'feed'.
After the kids are dropped off at the restaurant to eat something, and they load their plates with goodies from the buffet, a raptor suddenly shows up, sniffing for them from behind a decorative screen. Whatever hunger pangs they had went completely ignored from then and to the end of the movie.
Toilet Humour - "Dino...droppings?" — "That is one big pile of shit." said by Ian as another scientist goes arm-deep in a gigantic pile of Triceratops feces, looking for traces of poisonous berries Also, the characters in the third film dig through spinosaur dung to find the lost satellite phone.
Ian Malcolm: I hope you remember to wash your hands before you eat anything.
Turned Up to Eleven in the third film, where everyone has to go digging in Spinosaurus dung to find the satellite phone. Not to mention Eric keeping a flask of T-rex urine in his trailer. This, in turn, was turned Up to Eleven by Will Marshall
Too Clever by Half: Ian Malcolm accuses Hammond and his team of genetic scientists of this.
Ian Malcolm: I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power you're using here: it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done, and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you, you've patented it, and packaged it, you've slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it! You want to sell it!
John Hammond: I don't think you're giving us our due credit. Our scientists have done things which nobody's ever done before...
Ian Malcolm: Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn't stop to think if they should!
Sarah Harding in the second film (in contrast to the second book, where she's one of the most savvy and effective characters). She is supossed to be a wildlife expert, yet she foolishly allows Nick to bring the injured T. rex baby back to their camp, resulting in the total loss of their fortified, radio-equipped campsite and the death of Eddie Carr. She also foolishly wears the jacket covered in the baby T. Rex's blood while crossing the island, which once again brings one of the T. Rexes to the camp, killing multiple people, and chasing other straight into the raptors. Made even worse by the fact that not only had she stated how bringing the infant to camp had widened the Rexes' territory, but she had also been the one to originally warn about the T-Rex's extremely acute sense of smell. Could be explained by the fact that her character was merged with that of Richard Levine from the book, who exhibits Too Dumb to Live behavior at times. Especially considering she spent her first few scenes admonishing everyone that they couldn't interfere, interact, contaminate the environment, get involved and were were merely observers on the island... Or perhaps a simply case of fatigue induced idiocy, take yout pick.
Not just the baby T-Rex. The audience should have known she was an idiot the moment she approached the baby Stegosaurus. You do not do this to any wild animal's baby, especially if its a social animal that spends a lot of time in a herd and raising its young. They call them Mama Bear and Papa Wolf for a reason, lady.
Anyone who would (a) follow a Velociraptor into dense forest, regardless of how well-armed they might be; (b) run headlong into a field of tall grass in which God knows what might be lurking—after having been briefed that this was near a Raptor nesting site; or (c) knowingly steal raptor eggs for profit before even knowing if they'll make it off the island alive probably has a subconscious death wish.
"Mr. Hammond, after careful consideration, I've decided not to endorse your park." Hammond agrees.
In the second film, when the tyrannosaurs come back for their baby, one of them knocks over a car. Ian Malcolm responds "Mommy's very angry".
Un-Paused : When Tim is stuck on the fence, he gets ready to jump on "three." He gets blown off on two. When he comes to, he finishes the countdown.
The Un Twist: In the book, Dodgson meets with his unidentified mole in InGen in San Jose; later, Hammond picks up Nedry, and only Nedry, in San Jose. The revelation of Nedry as the mole is nevertheless treated as a shock despite there being no other real suspects.
Viewer-Friendly Interface: In the first movie, Lex is able to lock down the visitor center's doors by a highly-visual UNIX program+
which is a real file system, but in reality one made for display, not use.
. The book's version is more practical, but still unfriendly to uninitiated users. Of course, anyone who would be using it was presumably expected to have some sort of training.
The Lost World book parodies this when the InGen OS turns it into a useless display of cutting edge graphical power that... turns the display into a 3D cube. This angers the characters, who are trying to escape feral raptors. The character eventually gets the bright idea to just follow the cables the computer is running on, which are, quite logically, in a crawlspace so they can be serviced. By the time the raptors get in, they're gone.
Averted in the first movie with Arnold's terminal and his attempted bypass of Nedry's sabotage. That was all command-line.
Viewers Are Morons: Back when the first movie came out, DNA wasn't a household term, so the lengthy explanation was necessary at the time. Modern audiences, however, probably feel like the movie is insulting their intelligence.
This is also justified in universe as well. It's supposed to be for the kids, as Hammond explicitly points out. Very simplistic, lots of dramatic music and cool animals.
Villainous Rescue: In the first film, Grant, Sattler and the kids are cornered by the velociraptors, who are just about to attack when the T.rex comes out of nowhere and slaughters them.
The villains from the second film save Ian and the others from dangling over a cliff and help them to escape the island.
In the book, every one of Hammond's department leads figured out their containment methods were inadequate since they were planning on slow, stupid animals. They even give him a range of possible solutions, from equipment upgrades to modifying the dinosaur genetics to make them slow and stupid but he blows them off.
Or at least he does to their face. Later on, they discover that he'd ordered a stash of stronger weapons and hidden them in a secret bunker that some of the highest level folks in the park didn't know about. Perhaps he planned on telling them if he ever thought it was serious enough, but by the time he was at all worried it was too late.
What Happened to the Mouse?: Vince Vaughn's character Nick from The Lost World disappears from the film before the T-Rex makes it to the city. His disapearance is never explained.
It's possible that he just got the hell out and never looked back.
It's never mentioned what happened to the dinosaurs on Isla Nublar after the events of the first movie. In the book they were all killed by Costa Rican Air Force, but in the movie... they were just left free? In the second film it is implied that everyone expected the dinosaurs to die by themselves after a short time, them being lysine dependant and all that.
The junior novelization also mentions Alan internally lamenting that the dinosaurs "would have to be destroyed" thus one can assume this does indeed happen. Of course, keyword here being junior, that's probably because it omits the discussion about the lysine contingency.
In a deleted scene in the second film, we see Ludlow addressing the InGen board about the lawsuits associated with the deaths of Nedry, Muldoon, Gennaro and others. He also mentions the costs of dismantling the Isla Nublar facility.
Any "dismantling" of Isla Nublar seems to have been either handwaved or retconned by the third movie—at least in the JP III novelization, which mentions both islands as being populated by dinosaurs and declared no-fly zones. Udesky briefly mentions it in film, but gets shouted down before receiving any confirmation.
In the first film, we never actually learn why the Triceratops got sick, as Ellie's theory is disproven before the storm hits. She's shown picking up smooth stones off the ground, though, alluding to the correct theory she eventually figures out in the novel.
Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: The Robert Bakker Expy gets killed when his aversion to snakes get him eaten by the T-Rex. The worst part is that the snake was a completely harmless milk snake.
A Winner Is You: Many Jurassic Park games don't bother with endings and just show players a lame and often lazy cutscene of the hero escaping the dinosaurs' island.
Wise Beyond Their Years: Arby and Kelly in the second book. Justified in that Arb is a child prodigy, albeit naive, and Kel is very smart and enjoys being with smart people. Eric from the third film is smarter than most of the other characters put together.
The Worf Effect: The raptors. They kill Muldoon the Great White Hunter in the first film and almost all of Ludlow's Mooks in the second... which would probably make it all the more embarrassing that they are defeated by Lex and Timmy in the first film, and Kelly in the sequel.
The T-Rex, after dominating the first two films, is rather implausibly killed by the Spinosaurus early on in the third film. The Spinosaurus itself is driven away by a flare gun and not seen again for the remainder of the movie.
alternative title(s): The Lost World Jurassic Park; Jurassic Park; Jurassic Park; Jurassic Park; The Lost World1995; Warpath Jurassic Park; Jurassic Park Rampage Edition; Jurassic Park Part 2 The Chaos Continues; Jurassic Park; Jurassic Park Chaos Island
in the film where the characters first come across a dinosaur in full view and are just blown away, "...it's a dinosaur!" could be the new generation's equivalent to the Star Destroyer overhead from Star Wars: A New Hope.Two sequels were made to the original film. While the second film shared the name of the second book The Lost World: Jurassic Park, (1997) it had a wildly different storyline, mostly due to characters that originally died in the first book coming back. Jurassic Park III (2001) came out several years later. While neither rose to the 'classic' status of the first film, both were fairly well received. The same basic story exists in all of the films, only separated by what characters are involved and certain action scenes. There are also a number of computer-game tie-ins, among the most notable being Trespasser (for being one of the most obvious of betas ever released for retail), Operation Genesis (like RollerCoaster Tycoon with dinosaurs) and an episodic series by Telltale Games (like Heavy Rain with dinosaurs).A fourth cinematic installment has been in Development Hell for nine years and counting - it was even considered that it would not come through after Michael Crichton's death in 2008. But then Spielberg announced in 2013 that JP4 would come out in June of 2014.In the meantime, the first film celebrated its 20th Anniversary in 2013 with a theatrical re-release in 3D.
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