Jurassic Park

Corrected entry: When we first met Nedry in San Jose Dodgson informs Nedry that he will receive a total of "One-point-five million dollars if he gets all 15 species off the island." Take a closer look at that test tube receptacle. If you look when he is closing the test tube receptacle after he steals the the DNA you can see that there is only enough room for ten species.

ShooterMcGavin34

Correction: The money Nedry receives at the start of the movie is for the five embryos he had supposedly already gotten off the island. He is now getting the remaining ten.

Nedry most certainly did not get five embryos off the island prior to the start of the film. Nedry and Dodson set up a fairly intricate plan in order to get the 15 embryos off the island, it is unfathomable they would need to do this if Nedry had already successfully smuggled 5 viable embryos previously without anyone ever noticing. The mistake is valid and this explanation is completely wrong.

BaconIsMyBFF

Correction: Also, if Nedry had already gotten some OFF, why show him the smuggling device NOW, he could just use whatever method he'd already used, and or just need a replacement shaving cream can with no need to be briefed as to its abilities.

dizzyd

Corrected entry: Why aren't there subwayesque service tunnels all round the island to permit the staff to travel hidden from the dinosaurs/sundry other emergencies/all the other incidental occurrences that make every other undertaking on our planet use similar tunnels? Expensive and laborious, but if you have the resources to make dinosaurs, everything else is a breeze.

dizzyd

Correction: Despite Hammond's catchphrase of "We spared no expense", that would have been a huge expense, as underground tunnels suitable for travel are extremely costly. Also remember that Isla Nublar is a volcanic island. The ground may simply not be suitable for that kind of construction.

Greg Dwyer

Correction: Given that "Jurassic Park" was author Michael Crichton's re-imagining of his own film "Westworld" (in which a high-tech amusement park goes haywire and the guests must run for their lives), the whole point of the movie was to place humans and dinosaurs on the same deadly-dangerous playing field. Like "Westworld," this movie was a purely visual film (a graphic novel, basically) that smoothed-over lapses of logic in favor of frantic spectacle. If John Hammond had the foresight to make his Jurassic Park a hermetically-sealed, perfectly-safe environment for humans to observe and maintain dinosaurs, it would have eliminated the thrill of the movie, turning it into a National Geographic documentary.

Charles Austin Miller

But the point is the park was safe, without Nedry's sabotage things would have worked perfectly. Hammond spared no expense and it shows with the fancy security. Because of this Nedry's sabotage was put in.

lionhead

The fact that Jurassic Park could be sabotaged by a computer geek is proof that it was not perfectly safe. A perfectly-safe facility would be foolproof and sabotage-proof.

Charles Austin Miller

Any place can be sabotaged, the point is that it was safe enough to receive visitors, without the sabotage the inspection would have gone smoothly. Adding tunnels or even more security wouldn't change a thing. You are just making stuff up.

lionhead

Correction: They didn't think about it. They didn't need to because they felt they had the place pretty well secured. Besides it wouldn't have helped them much anyway, once the fences were down the predators could get anywhere and a lot of the predators are small enough to get inside the tunnels, the velociraptors could even open doors. Most personnel was already gone so there is no lacking in their infrastructure that would require tunnels. This could have helped Dennis Nedry escape as well. He shut the park down to create chaos and move unseen.

lionhead

Question: How does the T Rex get to the visitors center at the end of the movie after Ellie turns the power back on?

Beeks17

Answer: After Nedry turns the power off to the fences, the T-Rex is free to leave its paddock. Even though some fences remained on during Nedry's absence, they were all turned off accidentally when the system was rebooted. At this point the T-Rex could have gone literally anywhere it wanted. By the time Ellie turns all the fences back on, the T-Rex is already roaming around the area that houses the visitor center.

BaconIsMyBFF

When Tim gets zapped, it was Ellie turning on the perimeter fence, if I am not mistaken.Then we hear the T. Rex roar inside the perimeter fence. Is the visitor center inside the perimeter fence? Otherwise how did the T. Rex get through? Did she already knock holes in the fence possibly?

The implication is that the T. Rex is already in the area. Whether she got there by a hole created earlier or just before the fence is turned back on is not clear. The fencing that Tim is shocked by is the main perimeter fence. The visitor center is located on the west coast of the island and is separated from the actual park by the giant wooden gate and perimeter fencing. For a map, visit here: http://jurassicpark.wikia.com/wiki/Park_Map.

BaconIsMyBFF

Answer: There were several minutes before the electrical fence turned on. Between the fence perimeter sounding and Laura Dern flipping the switch, the T-Rex could have gone through.

Question: What exactly are the types of frogs that can spontaneously change gender in a single-sex environment, that Grant was referring to?

Answer: To be exact. Grant is reffering to "amphibian DNA" most commonly found in species of West African frogs. It is the amphibian DNA that allows the frog to change gender. It is not specifically related to frogs only.

XIII

This type of behavior has been observed in survival situations. Unbalanced populations.

Question: Just out of curiosity but in the scene with Nedry's encounter with the Dilophosaurus (or whatever), I was wondering, why would the Dilophosaurus wait until Dennis got inside the jeep to kill him? Why not kill him while he was passed out?

Answer: There is no way to realistically answer that because so little is known about dinosaur behavior. Any answer would be a guess with no way to verify its or any other dinosaur's behavior. From a movie standpoint, this is merely a means to keep the audience in suspense-will Nedry survive or won't he? Just when it appears he is safe, the dilophosaurus fatally attacks.

raywest

In the book, Nedry is killed before getting back in the car. This change was adapted for the film audience.

Answer: Also the producers probably wanted to keep the movie PG 13. If they showed the attack on Nedry it might have made the movie rated R.

Corrected entry: When Tim is holding onto the fence, when the power came on, it would cause his hand muscles to clench the cable.

Correction: You haven't been electrocuted before. Otherwise, you would know that a powerful electric shock will knock you backwards by several feet.

Charles Austin Miller

Depends on whether it's Alternating Current, which would do as the original mistake says, or Direct Current, which would do the second option, like the correction. Insufficient information is given to say solidly which the fence uses.

dizzyd

We can reasonably assume that Jurassic Park was using Direct Current, wisely intended to repel the dinosaurs away from the fence line. If it was Alternating Current, then the multi-billion-dollar menagerie of ultra-rare specimens would be fried to a crisp (or at least seriously injured) on a daily basis, as they would be unable to release the charged fences. Therefore, Direct Current is the only fiscally-logical choice (and it explains Tim being repelled from the fence).

Charles Austin Miller

Corrected entry: When Muldoon prepares to shoot the raptor he unfolds his rifle butt. However the rifle is already unfolded when he and Ellie are passing the raptor pen.

Correction: Time passed between those points. It is entirely plausible that he folded his stock as he walked into the thick jungle to keep it from getting hung up on the vegetation, only to unfold it again when he has his shot lined up.

An extremely unlikely situation where by he is making it harder for him to defend himself.

Ssiscool

The SPAS-12 (a shotgun, not a rifle) can be fired from the hip, as seen in a variety of videos on it. In a dense jungle, being able to swing the gun around to an up-close target without snagging would probably be more important than the shoulder stock. In fact, if you watch Muldoon swing around to try to shoot the "clever girl", the stock is in the way on his shoulder, and he couldn't get the shotgun pulled back far enough to hit her.

Correction: It's actually an Italian shotgun, the Franchi SPAS-12. From the time they pick up the shotgun to the time Muldoon extends the folding stock, you can see the folded shoulder rest still laying atop the shotgun.

Corrected entry: In the kitchen confrontation, the two little children are strong enough to successfully force the freezer door shut on a charging Velociraptor. Twenty seconds later, in the control room, the two adults are only barely able to hold a door shut against a charging Velociraptor.

Charles Austin Miller

Correction: There's not really a whole bunch of proof that this is valid. As we saw, the freezer floor was covered in ice, which would have negated some of the Raptor's momentum. The kids could have closed it. In the other case, there was no ice on the floor, so the Raptor had full swing.

But even so if the raptor did slip on the ice going into the door it would still send Lex and Tim flying.

Ssiscool

Question: Why would Alan test an electric fence by grabbing it with both hands? That's like clicking a gun at your head to see if it's loaded. Couldn't he have tried kicking it or maybe tapping it with his hand?

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: Alan already knew the electricity wasn't turned on when he grabbed it. He first tested the fence by throwing a stick at it and nothing happened. He could also see that the warning lights on the fence post were off. He only touched the fence cables to play a joke on the two kids, to lighten the mood a little.

raywest

Throwing the stick was meaningless and would not have told him a thing. Perhaps, he did so to set the kids up for his questionable joke, given what they'd been through and still were in the middle of.

Answer: The stick testing the fence would not work because wood does not conduct electricity.

Wood contains a good deal of moisture unless it has been completely dried out. That's why electric transmission companies and local electric distribution companies cut branches away from power lines and transmission lines. That said. The stick would have to touch a wire and ground simultaneously. In the movie it was thrown against the fence but was not grounded. I don't think I would have used this test.

Corrected entry: When Timmy is near the top of the fence, just before the electricity turns back on, he has his head and shoulders through the fence, with the wires resting against his armpits. Since the shoulders are the widest part of the body on a person of normal weight, a hole wide enough for your shoulders is wide enough for the rest of you. The spaces in the fence are somewhat circular--they are at least as tall as they are wide--so why is Timmy climbing the fence in the first place? He could have just crawled through at the bottom! (01:39:10)

Correction: At first glance, this is correct. Timmy could fit through the fence wires that are CLOSE TO THE TOP, but earlier when the characters are standing at the base of the fence you see Grant put his face practically touching the fence while he's attempting to make the hole larger and its clear that his head wouldn't stand a chance of fitting thru the hole and i seriously doubt that his head is larger than a ten-year old's shoulders. A possible explanation: the fence they are climbing is labeled as perimeter fence, so likely the holes are smaller at the base of the fence to prevent the small dinos from escaping, but the holes become larger as the fence becomes taller to save on materials a bit as the small dinos obviously couldn't get high enough up on an electrified fence to get through a larger hole towards the top.

Very well, but fact of the matter is, Somewhere on that fence, Timmy could have slipped through, and saved himself from having to climb all the way to the top, saving time, energy and at least some of the risk of climbing to great height.

dizzyd

Corrected entry: According to the subtitles at the beginning of the movie, the island is 120 miles WEST of Costa Rica. However, at the end of the movie, they are flying into the sunset...in the evening. If they had enough fuel, they'd be heading to Hawaii. (01:55:05)

Correction: God only knows how many REAL islands there are between Jurassic Park and Hawaii, nevermind the fictional islands they could have been headed to (or maybe even a ship). Since we don't know where they're headed, we can't call this a mistake.

K.C. Sierra

Maybe they're headed for an emergency-mobilized boat with a helicopter landing pad (owned or not by Mr Hammond?).

dizzyd

Question: Why did everyone at the park have to leave? It doesn't make much sense that no one would be there to tale care of everything (i.e. dinosaurs, security etc). I can understand having to leave when things became chaotic, but they were leaving before that even happened; John couldn't handle all this on his own.

Answer: It didn't make any sense that everyone would be evacuated off the island and leave the animals and the systems unattended because of a storm. A facility such as that would have to be built to withstand hurricanes, which in that part of the world, would happen every year. Non-essential staff might leave, but not the caretakers.

raywest

Not everybody left, the essential personnel like Arnold and Muldoon stayed. Probably more stayed and were evacuated later when the animals escaped. The island was evacuated because of a hurricane and no boats would be present to take people to safety, they would have been stuck on the island.

lionhead

Jurassic Park mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After the T. Rex rolls Explorer 4 upside-down with Lex and Tim inside, in the closeup when the dinosaur bites on the rubber tire we see the hub hole at the center of the wheel rim, but two shots later the wheel cover is back on the wheel.

Super Grover

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Trivia: To make the water in the glass on the dashboard 'jump', they strung a guitar string from the underside of the dashboard to a bolt on the floor and then plucked the string.

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Question: Are the people present at the digging site when they're discussing new approaches to analyzing skeletons supposed to be paleontologists in dr. Grant's group? If so, why would they laugh at his musings of "how dinos learned how to fly"? And why would he have to explain it to them? Seemed to me like he is explaining very basic stuff to the people that would already know this (and of course, to the movie audience).

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.

raywest

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