On December 6, 2007, I joined the Geology club as they watched Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World. I had only seen the first movie before and did not realize how many scientific flaws were in the movie but, having heard stories of Dr. Holtz’s post-Jurassic Park lectures, I was both interested and excited to learn more about the dinosaurs in the movie and how the science behind Jurassic Park does not fit together.
While watching the movie I was easily able to pick up on the plot flaws and certain mechanics flaws (such as the “Hide High” that was not attached to anything) but, because I know very little about dinosaurs, was not able to immediately see the mistakes in the behavior or environment of the dinosaurs. I found Dr. Holtz’s discussion on these mistakes very interesting, especially where he showed how scientific evidence completely disproves certain aspects of the movie.
The discussion that reverted back to the original cloning of the dinosaur DNA from the first movie was especially interesting because it addressed an issue I had not previously considered. In Jurassic Park, Dr. Hammond extracted fragmented dinosaur DNA from the blood found in mosquitoes that had been preserved in amber, and filled in the gaps with bird or reptile DNA. As Dr. Holtz pointed out, this would have required that the scientists have previous knowledge of the DNA sequence of the dinosaurs, as they were magically able to name each dinosaur species based solely on the DNA strand. Furthermore, the first “In-Gen incident” took place in 1989, suggesting that the technology used was widely available prior to the mid-1980’s. However, since much of that same technology is still not that advanced, or has only recently become that advanced, the plot is not at all plausible or scientifically accurate.
In terms of the actual dinosaurs, the largest mistake was in terms of their behavior. Although much of the knowledge we have today, especially in terms of herd behavior and “family” behavior, was more recently discovered than production of the movie, certain aspects, such as the hunting methods of the Compsognathus, are blatantly incorrect. This error can, however, be forgiven because the scientific knowledge to disprove their portrayal of the Compys was not present until after the movie was finished. On the other hand, certain errors concerning the size and herd behaviors of the Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex were obviously incorrect.
I found Dr. Holtz’s discussion to be both exciting and enlightening, and I am very pleased that I got the chance to see it. Because I know very little about dinosaurs I enjoyed learning about the recent discoveries of new species, and about the misconceptions many people have after seeing the movie. Overall I had a very enjoyable experience and look forward to learning more about dinosaurs in the future.