Continuity mistake: When the baby dinosaur is born, Grant's arm swaps from bent to extended between shots. (00:00:25)
Continuity mistake: During the opening sequence a couple shots show it raining where other shots have no rain and a dry environment. First noticed after Muldoon says "Jophery raise the gate" and when the gatekeeper falls off the transport box. (00:02:10 - 00:03:20)
Visible crew/equipment: In the opening scene, a velociraptor is being introduced into the park from a shipping container. The velociraptor runs into the gate as it opens, knocking Jophery off the top; he falls to the ground and is attacked. As he falls, two hands come in to break his fall and prevent him from hitting the camera or hurting himself. (00:02:30)
Continuity mistake: In the opening scene, when Jophery falls from the cage, he lands on his front. The shot changes to a wide view and he is now on his back and rolls over to get up. (00:02:40)
Continuity mistake: In the opening sequence, just after Jophery has been grabbed by the Velociraptor, he gets dragged up in the air. Muldoon reaches up for him then, in the next shot, he reaches up for him again. (00:02:55)
Continuity mistake: During the close-up shots of Jophery being attacked by the velociraptor, he has been lifted high up but in an intermediate wide shot he can be seen back down on the floor. (00:02:55)
Continuity mistake: In the opening scene Jophery is being attacked by the dinosaur in the cage and Muldoon is holding onto him while the workers shock the dinosaur. Muldoon's hat is on in one shot, then the camera cuts and it is off while the camera is dollying forward, then it is on again. This happens just as he is about to shout "SHOOT HER! SHOOT HER!" (00:03:00)
Revealing mistake: In the opening scene Jophery is being attacked by the velociraptor. As the camera pans along the outside of the cage, in between the flashes one can see his legs inside the cage and that nothing is actually attacking him. (00:03:05)
Continuity mistake: The dinosaur fossil the paleontologists are excavating in the overhead shot (when "Badlands, Montana" appears) has a different head than the one they were digging up in the shot right before. (00:05:30)
Continuity mistake: At the start of the Badlands sequence, the palaeontologists are brushing-out a dinosaur skeleton. In the close-up shot, they are working on the head (someone 'picks its nose') and one of them has a red-handled brush. When we cut to a wide shot, there is only one person working on the head (the nose is still being brushed) and there is no red-handled brush in sight. (00:05:30)
Continuity mistake: When Dr. Grant is scaring the kid with his Raptor claw, the pouches on his belt holding his knife and things move around. (00:07:20)
Factual error: Near the beginning, at the "Montana Badlands" dig site of Drs Grant and Sattler, a large shrub identifiable in several shots is creosotebush, a warm-desert plant that doesn't grow anywhere near Montana. Could this be California? (00:08:00)
Continuity mistake: At the badlands, when Hammond's chopper has landed and Grant goes to the trailer to open the door, if you watch the hinges of the door, they're on one side then it cuts to the inside of the trailer and the hinges are on the other side. (00:09:45)
Other mistake: Hammond has a pronounced Scottish accent at the start of the film, which deteriorates markedly in just a couple of scenes. By the end of the film he has an upper class English accent. (00:09:50)
Continuity mistake: In the Badlands scene, when Dr. Grant enters the trailer there is a large overhead shade blocking out direct sunlight. On the inside light is streaming through the windows. On top of that, the first window is larger when seen inside the trailer than it is when seen from the outside. (00:09:50)
Continuity mistake: Towards the beginning of the movie when John Hammond is in the trailer, he opens the refrigerator, takes out the champagne and opens it. The amount in bottle stays the same before and after he pours three glasses. (00:09:50)
Continuity mistake: In the badlands segment of the film, after Ellie, Alan, and Hammond enter the trailer. Hammond decides to open the bottle of champagne that Ellie, and Allen were saving. Hammond begins to buff a couple of glasses with a towel that magically changes to a pink towel in the next shot. (00:10:45)
Continuity mistake: When Hammond meets Grant and Sattler in the trailer he dries the glass with a white tea towel in his hands. A shot later it's pink. (00:11:32)
Continuity mistake: Hammond pours champagne into his glass and it's full of foam. After Grant says his line, when Hammond says, "...for the next three years." the foam is all gone. Foam from champagne takes longer to disappear. (00:12:25)
Factual error: In the early scene where Dennis Nedry meets a man to plan the embryo theft, the subtitle says that they are in San José, Costa Rica. However, the sleepy coastal town in the movie within sight of the ocean bears no resemblance to the real San José (a cosmopolitan capital of almost 1 million people, situated 50 miles from either coast). Even the book makes this error. (00:13:10 - 00:14:45)
Answer: They are not paleontologists, just people interested in dinosaurs. It is common for museums and other scientific organizations to offer the general public an opportunity to participate in a real paleontology dig. For a fee, they become an exhibition team member for a period of time, learn about dinosaurs, help excavate fossils, and so on. This is likely how Dr. Grant (or his institution) supplements his research funding.
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