JP and real paleontology (posted for A. Martin)

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Date: Fri, 12 Jan 96 09:54:51 -0500
From: PaleoMan@learnlink.emory.edu (Anthony Martin)
Organization: Project LearnLink - Emory University
Subject: JP and real paleontology
To: N.MacLeod@nhm.ac.uk
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All of the great discussion of errors in the movie _Jurassic Park_ was rather
timely for me because I just attended a lecture by Jack Horner last week here
in Atlanta.  At the beginning of his lecture, he made great efforts to point
out that his main contributions to the movie as technical advisor were to make
sure that the dinosaurs looked "right" and that the actors pronounced the
dinosaurs' names correctly (especially Sam Neill and Laura Dern because they
were, after all, playing paleontologists).  As a funny aside, he said that he
was "just making that the dinosaurs looked good and had no responsiblity for
how they behaved."

Probably the most interesting paleontological information that I gained from
his lecture was his accumulated evidence that T. rex was a scavenger (I
entered the room as a skeptic but left convinced that he's probably right).
Of course, as an ichnologist I'd like to see T. rex footprints that lead to
the imprint of a bloated, decaying carcass (complete with gas escape
structures in the surrounding sediment) before I'd be more supportive.
Nevertheless, the depiction of T. rex as a rampaging killer of tiny bipedal
mammals was yet another inaccuracy of the film, although Horner admitted that
scavenging behavior could have been interpreted from the T. rex in the film
eating a lawyer who was sitting on a toilet.

One aspect of JP that I nitpicked with nonpaleontological friends was about
the depiction of "real" paleontologists - most of them do drink beer (I don't
recall either paleontologist drinking one during the entire film, which is
very unusual) and most have some technical savvy.  However, I admit that I
thought it was unlikely that a paleontologist would know how to use an assault
weapon (which naturally jammed on our hero because he was so technically
inept).  Nevertheless, when Jack Horner was being introduced at the lecture
last week it was noted that he was in a Special Forces unit in Viet Nam, so
maybe I was a little presumptuous about paleontologists and their fighting
abilities.

Anthony J. "I'm Mean with a Rock Hammer" Martin
Geosciences Program, Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia  USA