Attention ‘Jurassic World’: Tips from a Paleontologist on Making a Great Dinosaur Movie

The fourth “Jurassic Park” installment, “Jurassic World,” is currently in the works. Luckily an equally riveting dinosaur flick is coming out in theaters tomorrow, and we’ve got a few pointers on how to make a great dino flick from an actual paleontologist.

“When that came out, for the first time here were living dinosaurs. It was just like a dream come true for the little boy in me that, here you can really see them moving and they were so believable! So it was so inspirational. Actually when you look at the wonder that Grant (Sam Niell) and Laura Dern showed, you know she’s scooping through triceratops poop and all of this. They were not that far off from real people, real paleontologists who would literally do that kind of stuff. I can’t wait to see ‘Jurassic World.'”

“[Paleontologist] Bob Bakker actually helped [Spielberg] out by giving them measurements of Sue’s skeleton. He helped get the proportions right. So that ‘Jurassic Park’ T-Rex is patterned after Sue. Not too many people probably know that.”

“Bob Bakker actually drew the first drawing of a dinosaur with feathers back in ’72 or ’73, but we didn’t know at the time ‘Jurassic Park’ came out that, in all probability, every meat-eating dinosaur and these bird-mimic dinosaurs had feathers just like living birds. They’re descendants, of course. We still have dinosaurs with us here today. And whether they lost those feathers as they became very large and didn’t really need them for insulation anymore or whether they retained those feathers throughout their life, the truth was that they had feathers. Tyrannosaurus Rex is more closely related to a hummingbird than it is to a triceratops. If you think about that for a minute, that kind of makes you stop. So I’m hoping, keeping my fingers crossed, that the next ‘Jurassic Park’ comes out with a little different view of those dinosaurs. We know the CGI is going to be good. We know that. Which is fantastic. But I wanna see feathers.”

“They should be careful on the various physiological things. For instance, the Camarasaurus in ‘Jurassic Park’ that sneezed onto the poor little girl was chewing the leaves that it was taking off the trees. Those particular dinosaurs did not chew their food. They swallowed it whole.”

But those working on the film shouldn’t be afraid to use their imaginations.
“It’s interesting how in ‘Jurassic Park’ the movie actually foretold science. They foretold the finding of this giant velociraptor because they made the raptors bigger than they were. But we had not yet found a dromaeosaurid that was that big. And now we’ve found them of course! The most fantastic things are out there. It’s ok to use your imagination, but don’t forget what we’ve already learned.”

Finally take some inspiration from current science TV.
“I think ‘Cosmos‘ is the best thing that’s happened to science TV since Carl Sagan was born. I so love that. I think science programs have suffered somewhat…hopefully it will get back to more science and less creative emotions.”