On Thursday, December 6, 2007 I watched with the Geology Club the movie “The Lost World: Jurassic Park”, the sequel to the very popular “Jurassic Park” directed by Steven Spielberg. The movie is based on the second installment of the three-part novel series by Michael Crichton. The trilogy is focused around the chain of islands which is inhabited by freely living dinosaurs. The plot of the film mainly centers on the trouble people get into when they encounter these dinosaurs. The extinct dinosaurs were resurrected by cloning extinct dinosaur DNA that was discovered in dinosaur blood sucking mosquitoes that were preserved in amber. In the second installment the protagonist, initially reluctant to return to the island of horror, starts a bold rescue mission when he finds out that his girlfriend is lingering around on one of the islands.
While I found the movie to be very entertaining, mostly because of the thrilling action, suspense laden scenes and witty humor, I, along with my fellow peers could not help but notice the faults in the plot. For example, the Tyrannosaurus rex that was initially trapped in the cage, managed to escape and devour the entire crew, just so it can dutifully go back into the cage to close and lock it again. These mistakes clearly contradict with the science of physics concerning time and space, but they are not that interesting to contemplate because they are too obvious. However, there are plenty flaws in the plot that are not as easily recognizable by the typical viewer, which allowed us to enter an interesting discussion after we finished the movie. Dr. Holtz pointed out several flaws. For example, many dinosaurs were fully grown and had offspring which indicated that they were at least 15-20 years old. However, in the movie the island is not that old which means that either the island is located in a spot on earth that has its own laws on space and time, or the dinosaurs reproduce before reaching sexual maturity. Also, large animals like dinosaurs demand enormous home ranges which cannot be supplied by a mere chain of relative small islands in the Atlantic. Considering the size of the island and the vast amount of dinosaurs, as one can see in the hunting scene, all the trees should be stripped. Another fault that probably won’t be noticed by the majority of the audience is that the nuclear family of the Tyrannosaurus rex depicted in the movie did not really exist. Fossils show that dinosaur’s nests usually contained about one to two dozen eggs so there would not have been a Tyrannosaurus rex baby without a brother or sister. Another misconception that actually occurs in several movies is that a Tyrannosaurus rex is naturally vicious and takes revenge, even though it recovered its lost offspring, its hunger for human is never-ending and it can effortlessly keep up with a sports car.
In addition to the obvious flaws in the plot, the cloning of dinosaurs from damaged DNA is impossible considering the technology of the time the movie is set in. DNA degrades quickly so it is almost impossible that DNA from the Mesozoic era would remain intact and be preserved. If DNA from the past is preserved, it usually does so in fragments. Also, not all genes in DNA are expressed and useful for cloning and the scientists would have no databank of DNA sequences from Dinosaurs that would enable them to “blast” for what protein the gene expresses and what function it thereby serves. This would make cloning Dinosaurs certainly an unrealistic task.
In my opinion, “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” is a thrilling and entertaining blockbuster. It has science fiction elements in it because it shows the impact of imagined science on current society. This among other things causes several flaws in the plot, which sometimes need a scientific knowledge to discover. Fortunately this does not undermine the fun of watching the movie.