response 1 of 74:

Jul 5 20:19 UTC 1993

To get the discussion back on track, here's what we said in the "Movies"
item (reformatted somewhat for clarity):

#5 Lawrence Kestenbaum (polygon)
 
   "Jurassic Park" was interesting but, overall, a bit disappointing.
 
   Contrary to the critics' appraisal, it is not the scariest movie
   ever made.  It's no scarier than your average plain vanilla
   action/adventure movie, with lots of narrow escapes, and all the
   good guys survive.
 
#7 Aaron Larson (aaron)
 
   re #5:  It is interesting to compare the movie and the book,
           although neither is a masterpiece.
 
#9 the Maniak (sensei)
 
   The scariest movie ever made?  Jurassic Park?  <laughs>  Who uttered
   that tripe?  Sheesh...
 
#10 Steve Maser (hawkeye)
 
   I thought "JP" was the scariest -- or, rather, "most tensest" movie
   *I've* seen since "Aliens".  And I've seen a *lot* of movies.
 
#11 Jennie Dailey (griz)
 
   Chris went to see "Jurassic Park" and told me I'd hate it.
 
#12 Lawrence Kestenbaum (polygon)
 
   Why?
 
#13 Josh Grosse (jdg)
 
   I haven't seen it, but to paraphrase a number of bad reviews, "Great
   special effects, terribly preachy, poor script, bad
   characterization."
 
#15 liza reese (krishna)
 
   Jurassic Park was a pretty good movie, but it had it's faults.  I
   thought the plot ended up to be too "happily ever after" concerning
   numerous narrow escapes.
 
#16 the Maniak (sensei)
 
   You'd probably hate it, Jennie.  :)
 
#23 Patricia Snyder-Rayl (pegasus)
 
   Bill and I liked Last Action Hero much better than Jurassic Park.
   We were both disappointed with JP. The ending was too contrived and
   implausible.
 
#24 Leslie Smith (arabella)
 
   I saw "Jurassic Park" a couple of weeks ago.  I found it to be
   *very* scary.  Can't compare it to much, since I usually avoid scary
   movies.  (I didn't see any of the Alien movies.)  The dinosaurs were
   great.  The story and characters were not so great.  Gee, with all
   the money they spent on the film, you'd think they could have gotten
   a better script.
 
#41 Brian D. howard (ldiot)
 
   I saw jusassic park 4 times and going to see it again this weekend I
   hope
 
#50 Rane Curl (rcurl)
 
   Jurassic Park:
 
   I thought the book was superficial. The movie omits nearly half the
   book (especially all the build-up). The characters are all trivial.
   But the dinosaurs are another story! They were beautifully done, to
   the extent that I stopped wondering *how* they did them so
   realistically. But how did they get Cretaceous plants (all the
   emphasis was on DNA from blood)?
 
#51 Aaron Larson (aaron)
 
   I guess there were bits of pollen and leaves in that amber, as
   well....
 
   Don't think too hard about the science in Jurassic Park.
 
#52 Valerie Mates (popcorn)
 
   (no puns please)
 
   Ran across an article that says the video graphics in Jurassic Park
   were done with a new technique called Metaballs.  Traditional
   graphics modelling is done with polygons; this new technique uses
   spheres instead. The classic Metaball example is the human torso:
   you can use thousands of polygons to model it, or you can use 47
   metaballs and end up with a smoother and more lifelike image.
 
#53 Kent Nassen (kentn)
 
   Well congratulations to polygon on his marvelous graphics ability.
 
#54 Lawrence Kestenbaum (polygon)
 
   <polygon bows>
 
   Actually, when I thought about it, the most impressive special
   effects in Jurassic Park weren't the gigantic carnivores stomping
   around, but the scene with a baby dinosaur hatching out of an egg,
   with a bunch of awed humans helping it along and fondling it.
 
   I guess it was all done with computer graphics, smoke and mirrors.
   But, damn, it looked real.
 
#55 Aaron Larson (aaron)
 
   (Yeah.  Just don't change your loginid to "metaball," okay?  ;)
 
   Many of the scenes in Jurassic Park were done with models.  If there
   was a lot of rain splashing off of the dinosaur or if there was
   direct contact between the actors and the dinosaurs, you can be
   pretty sure it was a model and not computer animation.
 
#56 Marc Unangst (mju)
 
   According to someone in alt.folklore.computers, check out
   comp.graphics and comp.graphics.animation for info on the animation
   in JP.
 
#57 Rane Curl (rcurl)
 
   Nah. Lets talk about it here. How did they do the scene with the
   herd of whatevers (big turkeys...;->), grammasaurs, or something,
   running past the actors?
 
#59 Bruce Allen Price (bap)
 
   Went and saw Jurassic Park for the second time.  I was still not
   impressed with the animation.  That is, it was good, but not
   appresiably better than past dinosaur animation I have seen.
 
   Accept of course the long distance scenes, i.e., when we see the
   first dinos, or the herding dinosaurs.  also noticed several errors,
   such as the scene where the rover goes over the edge of the T. Rex
   compound.
 
   When the jeep arrives to investigate, the first scene shows part of
   the wall missing where the rover was pushed over by the T. Rex, then
   the next scene shows the good doctor yelling over the wall and seing
   the jeep er, rover below, but the wall is intact.
 
#61 John H. Remmers (remmers)
 
   (As "Jurassic Park" discussion is kinda overwhelming this item, I've
   entered a new item just to discuss "Jurassic Park".)

response 3 of 74:

Jul 5 21:09 UTC 1993

re 1:59:  Where have you seen comparable animation?

response 5 of 74:

Jul 6 12:25 UTC 1993

What was that? Grammasaurs? They hadn't been breeding for *that* long.

        Yeah, land of the lost, classic. Compared to that, the T-rex in
JP was just a guy in a big rubber suit.

        

response 7 of 74:

Jul 6 19:35 UTC 1993

Formula for a successful movie does *not* necessarily entail spending
3 times the cost of other movies.   El Mariachi (sp?) didn't cost anywhere
near as much as JP, but it did fantastically...  A good story told well
should do fine...but then that darn hype always seems to be necessary.

response 9 of 74:

Jul 7 02:33 UTC 1993

Re #7: kentn
I believe you mis-understood what pegasus wrote in #6. She did not say that
a movie had to cost 3 times as much as other moveies to be successful,
rather she said that a movie had to *earn* at least 3 times what it cost
to produce in order to be considered a "success".

response 11 of 74:

Jul 7 05:01 UTC 1993

Of course. Even: "Return to Jurassic Park" (after all, those dinos are
still there - and breeding).

response 13 of 74:

Jul 7 20:29 UTC 1993

Why can't we spend as much on a story as we do on efx?

Cyberpunk is here.  Style over substance.

response 19 of 74:

Jul 12 02:13 UTC 1993

polygon:  I read about the relationship i

response 21 of 74:

Jul 13 14:38 UTC 1993

There was a newspaper article recently (maybe y'day?) about hte
creation of sound effects for JP. Theater of the mind is alive
and well ........

response 23 of 74:

Jul 15 04:17 UTC 1993

(Did anybody here read "Juristic Park" in last Sunday's Times?)