33 - Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park

In this episode of Drawn to Darkness, we ask the important questions: Is Jurassic Park actually horror? And would not having a favourite dinosaur be a dealbreaker?

We dive into Steven Spielberg’s iconic dinosaur summer blockbuster, from trembling cups of water and bloody goat legs to whatever chaos theory is, Chekov’s electric fences, and Jeff Goldblum’s unbuttoned shirt. Along the way, we unpack the film’s blend of adventure, horror, and sci-fi, discuss whether the dinosaurs were scientifically accurate (spoiler alert: no), and debate the ethics of cloning extinct creatures, billionaire hubris, and scientists “playing God.”

We also talk about childhood dinosaur obsessions, the trauma of The Land Before Time, why the T-Rex attack sequence and velociraptor attack qualify as horror, and how Spielberg balances awe, suspense, humour, and terror. Expect deep dives into practical effects vs CGI, the terrifying implications of AI and unchecked technology, casual ’90s sexism, theme park capitalism, and how “clever girl” has become a part of our family vocabularies.

Content & Spoiler Warning:

Dinosaur attacks, jump scares, graphic injuries, severed limbs, electrocution, animal deaths (including a goat and a cow), children in peril, broken glasses, and people being eaten by dinosaurs (obviously). We also discuss sexism, commenting on appearance  in professional settings, scientific ethics, AI anxiety, and of course we spoil Jurassic Park.

Palate Cleanser:

After all that dinosaur-fuelled chaos and billionaire recklessness:

• Watching TikTok collectively lose its mind over a businessman being served enormous glasses of wine at a Courtyard Marriott in Westbury, New York. 
• Big Mistakes on Netflix - dark crime comedy featuring Daniel Levy and Laurie Metcalf. 

Spielbergian Recommendations:

• Spielberg’s E.T, The Goonies, Hook (justice for Hook), and of course Jaws.

Creature Features & Survival Horror

• Deep Blue Sea for Samuel L. Jackson
• Rogue for another creature feature that will make you pull your feet up.
• The Birds – because they descended from dinosaurs.

Science, Ethics & Playing God:

• Gattaca 
• M3GAN 
• King Kong 
• Westworld (especially Season 1) 
• Never Let Me Go 
• Klara and the Sun 
• Frankenstein 
• Project Hail Mary 

Dinosaurs & Paleontology:

• See Jurassic Right podcast (for truly dedicated Jurassic Park fans) 
• Jurassic Park Minute podcast 
• The Shortest History of Dinosaurs by Riley Black 
• Dinosaur Train and Night at the Museum for the kids
• Toy Story for short T-Rex arms
• Friends — because Ross Geller was a palaeontologist. 
• Go to Universal Studios Jurassic Park attractions and The La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles 

Actor Appreciation Corner:

• The Big Chill and Ragnarok for more Jeff Goldblum
• Law & Order: SVU for BD Wong fans 
• Big Little Lies for Laura Dern fans 

Homework:

Read The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson.

We’re heading into the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and an exploration of murder, ambition, architecture, and historical chaos..

And remember:

Don’t underestimate wild animals.

Special thanks to Nancy Azano for our cover art (Instagram: @nancyazano) and Harry Kidd for our music (Instagram: @harryjkidd, Spotify). 

Transcript

Anne 0:10

Welcome back to Drawn To Darkness, a sometimes weekly, sometimes biweekly podcast where we discuss our favorite horror and true crime. If you think about dinosaurs every time you eat jello, we're here for you. My name is Annie and I'll be introducing Caroline to my favorite horror movies, podcasts, TV shows and books.

Caroline 0:25

And my name is Caroline, and I'll be doing the same from the true crime side of things.

Anne 0:29

Before we get into the topic for today, we just have to have a little correction, in our sinners episode. I. Called My favorite Vampire by the wrong name. Colin Robertson is actually Colin Robbinson. So if you were screaming at your podcast app when I got that wrong, I apologize. It's Colin Robbinson.

Caroline 0:51

You're forgiven, I think, on behalf of all of our listeners, I should say.

Anne 0:54

you. Alright, well now that I have corrected, the moment I was shame spiraling over with Colin Robertson. I have a question for you. Did I just say it again with Colin Robinson? I think I just got it stuck in my head as Robertson. so my question, what's your favorite dinosaur?

Caroline 1:08

I mean, the first one that comes to my mind is triceratops because my, my middle child has like a giant mechanical one in his bedroom. but I always liked the brontosaurus, like growing up.

Anne 1:19

My favorite is Triceratops too. I was a big fan of Sarah in the land before time I think she was the sassy girl dinosaur, so I liked her there, so she's always been my favorite.

Caroline 1:30

of the crew.

Anne 1:31

Yes. Yeah. Weren't the rest of'em all boys? You have your token. One female character in every eighties and nineties. Child Children's s TV show.

Caroline 1:39

I couldn't tell what Ducky was the, yep, yep, yep. I couldn't

Anne 1:43

Ducky might have been a girl.

Caroline 1:43

Wa was a boy or a girl, but I liked Little Foot, I was

Anne 1:48

Main character, energy, right?

Caroline 1:50

Totally.

Anne 1:50

and I guess we're old enough where it was called brontosaurus, not brachiosaurus or apatosaurus. But then I looked it up. We call it brontosaurus again. that's back like Pluto.

Caroline 2:00

Didn't I say brontosaurus?

Anne 2:01

Well, there was a stage where it was like, it's not a brontosaurus, right? And then it's a brachiosaurus.

Caroline 2:07

I remember like my oldest kid having a dinosaur book. And I was like, why isn't Brontosaurus in here somewhere? I knew that's like one of the ones I know.

Anne 2:16

Nope. It went away and then it came back in 2015, they decided it was in fact its own species. Have you seen it's like a TikTok or reel or something where this woman has gone on a date and discovered that her date didn't have a favorite dinosaur, and she realizes that that was a deal breaker for her. Would it be a deal breaker for you?

Caroline 2:32

No, I never went through a

Anne 2:34

Yeah.

Caroline 2:35

where I was like into dinosaurs. I loved the land before time, but like I think I would've loved it if it was about sheep, you know? Yeah.

Anne 2:43

A, a sheep whose mother tragically dies.

Caroline 2:47

God.

Anne 2:47

that scene is very, uh, Simba and Mufasa, isn't it?

Caroline 2:50

it's like every movie, all of those, Donald Booth. that his name? That did all the competitor, like the Disney competitors, like Secret of Nim Brave Little Toaster and all dogs go to Heaven. I'm not sure if all of those are him, but he had like spun out and created all these other heartbreaking movies.

Anne 3:08

Dogs gonna happen. It's heartbreaking. Yeah.

Caroline 3:10

Ugh.

Anne 3:10

Well, I think for me with the date thing, it might be a deal breaker if, I feel like for someone our age, it could reveal a lack of curiosity about the world, but I'd be okay with it as long as you had some other weird thing that you were super into. not a deal breaker, but I'd wanna know what else you're into.

Caroline 3:25

I am into lots of weird things. Dinosaurs was never one of them though.

Anne 3:29

It won't be a deal breaker in our friendship then. I know you're into weird things. Well, the reason I'm talking about this is that we are discussing Jurassic Park today. This is because Ryan Kugler mentions loving it, and I talked about that in our sinners episode. And we also saw Samuel L. Jackson as stacks in Goodfellas our last episode. Before we get into it, spoiler and content warning. There are scenes that might make you want to pull your feet up onto the couch. Jump scares a goat and a cow die. There's dinosaur snot stuff gets spit into a character's eye. Glasses are broken, which is a trigger for me. and I don't even wear glasses, but it really bothers me when someone's glasses are broken. Like when Piggy's glasses get broken in Lord of the Flies, it bothered me so much. And then there's also a scene in The Mummy where a character's glasses get broken and it just really bothers me.

Caroline 4:16

Totally. I mean, I'm actually like almost blind and I really hate that.

Anne 4:21

There's a threat of being crushed to death and obviously people are killed by dinosaurs and if you're a lawyer you might feel offended by some lawyer jokes. And obviously we'll be spoiling this over three decade old classic. So, Jurassic Park with a 91% on rotten tomatoes, which seems kind of low. What's wrong with you? 9% Steven Spielberg's Groundbreaking and shaking dinosaur thriller opens with iconic spielbergian. Lighting as a worker is violently mauled by a mysterious and menacing creature. Soon we meet paleontologist, Dr. Alan Grant and Paleo botanist, Dr. Ellie Satler, whose dig is interrupted by the arrival of their benefactor, Dr. Hammond, who has an interesting park that he's desperate for them to visit and greenlight. We also meet lawyer Janero rockstar mathematician, Dr. Ian Malcolm Hammond's young grandchildren, and Tim IT expert, Dennis Rie. Hello Newman. Big game expert Robert Muldoon. And hold onto your butts, Ray Arnold, played by Samuel Jackson soon. The reason for the weekend visit to the mysterious island is revealed. Hammond has successfully cloned dinosaurs from blood retrieved by mosquitoes stuck in amber millions of years ago, striking awe in the now extinct paleontologists. What they don't realize on tour is that Ned dri, the disgruntled it guy, has shut down the park security system to steal embryos for a rival genetics company. The T-Rex escapes. Injures Dr. Malcolm and leaves Dr. Grant, Lex and Timmy stranded in the park with the dinosaurs on the loose as they make their way back to the resort. Hammond and his staff try to get Jurassic Park security system back online, but they have to restart the whole system, turns off the electricity to the Raptor enclosure. As the Velociraptors who are ancestors of birds and yet do not have bird brains cleverly stalk and hunt the remaining visitors and employees. They're only saved by the appearance of the T-Rex herself allowing the survivors to escape by helicopter. Needless to say, Dr. Grant and Dr. Ellie Satler do not approve the park. So what adjective would you use to describe this?

Caroline 6:10

I wish like Spielbergian was because

Anne 6:14

It's an adjective

Caroline 6:15

is it,

Anne 6:17

Orwellian Spielbergian, right?

Caroline 6:19

Yeah. I know Orwellian is a word, but So I'm gonna say Spielbergian, but also just like, so fun.

Anne 6:25

Fun was my adjective too. So fun. I love it. I probably didn't even need to re-watch it. You see, I had this one on VHS as a kid, and now it's definitely a family favorite with my own kids.

Caroline 6:35

Do you wanna guess how many times I had seen it before this?

Anne 6:38

Is it pathetic? Like once or twice?

Caroline 6:40

Yeah, it's twice.

Anne 6:41

Twice. So this is your third time.

Caroline 6:43

Mm-hmm.

Anne 6:43

I've probably seen it like 30 times, if not more, because my kids went through a big stage on top of my own stage. But it was fun to watch it with a drawn to darkness perspective. My journey, I guess is, Different than yours because I read the book as a kid, I wanted to be a paleontologist because of this. Having just watched it for your third time, do you think this actually qualifies as horror?

Caroline 7:06

No, I don't, which actually was a big like, debate. My, my husband was like. What somebody said, I was watching this. This is a horrible, I mean, one thing I will say, to be fair, part of the reason that this was my third time watching this. Is that when I was little, I saw a commercial where the eye like, comes over to the car window. I used to have nightmares that, T-Rex is outside my bedroom window and that the eye like came down. as a, as a child, I was too scared to watch it just from the commercial.

Anne 7:37

So it's.

Caroline 7:38

I understand why it's scary, but like it's very like action adventury to me.

Anne 7:43

So it's Jaws, and we decided that qualifies as horror.

Caroline 7:46

That's true, but There isn't like that rate, rate type psycho music this is more fun. I

Anne 7:51

Mm.

Caroline 7:52

Takes you out of that horror space a little bit.

Anne 7:54

So the music, had there been a.

Caroline 7:58

Yeah.

Anne 7:58

That might make it horror. Okay.

Caroline 7:59

I meant to look this up. Is it John Williams? Who doesn't? It's John Williams, right? This music.

Anne 8:03

John Williams again.

Caroline 8:04

Yeah, because I, I was like, the music is, I think what took me there, right in the beginning I was like, this music just brings me to Goonies,

Anne 8:12

more adventurous than

Caroline 8:14

Mm-hmm.

Anne 8:14

great continued collaboration between those two. Well, the podcast, evolution of Horror has an episode on Jurassic Park in that part of their monster series. So they think it qualifies. So I feel, vindicated that I'm not the only one. Yeah. I mean, and there are scenes that are truly scary, like the T-Rex eye, you mentioned, the jump scare with the head of the Velociraptor popping out like between the wires. When Ellie gets the power back on Arnold's dismembered hand landing on her shoulder and

Caroline 8:42

was just gonna say, the hand is very horror.

Anne 8:45

is very hard off of air from the velociraptors nostrils against the window, like it's, I think it.

Caroline 8:51

limping.

Anne 8:52

Yeah. fun fact because of the actual hurricane that hit Hawaii where they were filming, Samuel Jackson couldn't make it to film that scene. his death apparently was supposed to be like a scene, but he couldn't make it. And so instead they were like, well, what do we do? And they came up with a dismembered hand and it's so much better for that, don't you think? so much of horror is what you don't see, that by accident is a perfect example. So for me, I think it qualifies as horror. If Jaws does, then this does. speaking of Jaws, there's so much in common with it, obviously the, the director and that makes Steven Spielberg our first double up.

Caroline 9:30

Oh, yeah.

Anne 9:31

would've thought it would be like Stephen King or like Flanagan, right? We, we've had a double up, mother son between Ronan and Mayo Faroh.

Caroline 9:39

Mm

Anne 9:40

But yeah, this is our first actual double up of a creator. Maybe someday we'll do Jamie Lee Curtis and Janet Lee.

Caroline 9:45

mm

Anne 9:45

of, we've got Halloween and Psycho. one surprising thing I learned in my Jurassic Park research is that people don't like hook. Did you like hook

Caroline 9:54

What? Who doesn't like hook?

Anne 9:55

It's known as bad.

Caroline 9:57

What?

Anne 9:58

I love Hook, the whole Tinkerbell thing. Meh. I didn't like, you know, Julia Robs really as her, but Rufi Steven Spielberg was coming off of Hook, which was considered a failure,

Caroline 10:08

Okay, stop. So was it considered a failure by like critics because like, so was Heather's and Heather's is like a cult classic, there's a lot of things that failed the box office but have become Beloved

Anne 10:20

yeah. And so he, it was like this was a redemption arc for him. Which I just didn't know that Hook had this bad reputation. My kids love it. And speaking of horror, that scene where the family comes home and hook and, there's all, like the gouges in the wall is so scary. It's great.

Caroline 10:33

Oh, I just got chills while you were talking about that. yeah. I love Hook. We've watched Hook as a family too. My kids all loved it. Everyone loved it.

Anne 10:39

love it too. this is not about Hook, but I was just surprised by that. so yeah, Steven Spielberg, master of Humor, action Thrills, special Effects plus Heart.

Caroline 10:48

Mm-hmm.

Anne 10:48

Did you know that he was filming Schindler's List while editing this?

Caroline 10:54

Oof.

Anne 10:54

Imagine the, know, like mind shift that you would have to go through where you're like checking out the dinosaur clips and then filming Schindler's List, in Poland, trying to switch gears like that.

Caroline 11:03

I can't imagine.

Anne 11:04

What a year for him. like Jaws, quintessential summer blockbuster and they have a lot in common. The slaughter of a character early on by something unseen. seen in Scream and Psycho, the withholding of the monster. Prioritizing profit over safety, underestimating animals that act on instinct. Ellie says, these are aggressive living things that have no idea what century they're in and they'll defend themselves violently if necessary.

Caroline 11:27

Hmm.

Anne 11:27

And I think Hammond kind of aligns with the Larry Vaughn of Jaws. Brody's, Dr. Grant Hooper's. Malcolm Quint is Muldoon. Ellie is Ellen, but she gets more to do representing an evolution in feminism and survival situations.

Caroline 11:40

Yeah,

Anne 11:40

gun to your Head, jaws or Jurassic Park, which would you choose to keep? Me too?

Caroline 11:45

Yeah.

Anne 11:45

Well, obviously you don't have as much of a history with this movie, but

Caroline 11:48

Yeah,

Anne 11:48

was a tougher call, but Jaws is like so much more a part of my life than this with the annual summer tradition and all that

Caroline 11:54

Also like, I'm very rooted in what is a more realistic thing. And Jaws, a shark that's, that intelligent is not that realistic, but a shark that kills people is more realistic than like. we found SAP frozen mosquitoes and were able to extract just a singular DNA out of the blood. You know, like all of that stuff was, uh, very farfetched.

Anne 12:16

which makes it, I guess for most people fall more into the sci-fi than horror.

Caroline 12:20

Yeah,

Anne 12:20

hard is farfetched. Paranormal is far farfetched, so.

Caroline 12:24

Well, and I was listening, I've been listening to a podcast a lot lately. Called That Aged Well, and I was listening to their episode on, back to the Future, and they were just talking about how like, in the eighties, everyone was on this kick of just these really crazy concepts of time travel or like weird science or splash, you know, big, all these like very fantastical elements of we'll take something that has a kernel of scientific possibility and just go wild with it. And I think they ended up determining it was probably all the cocaine. but I appreciate it. It's fun.

Anne 12:58

Like all the ghost stories from the 19th century perhaps could be attributed to the use of gas in houses and hallucinations. That's kind of King certainly was on cocaine back then. Came up

Caroline 13:08

Who wasn't.

Anne 13:10

Not me. well, speaking of the amber, not possible. I kind of leaned into my inner 11 year olds who wanted to be a paleontologist, and I read the shortest History of the Dinosaurs by Riley Black. And I searched for interviews with Jack Horner, who's the real paleontologist that Dr. Grant was based on. was for a long time, a proponent of warm blooded active bird ancestors as opposed to like slow land crawling reptiles that we kind of see somewhat portrayed here. so it was funny the other day I was on a video chat with my nephew who's four years old, and he was reading a book about dinosaurs and his dad was like, does anyone know anything about dinosaurs? And I was like, have been summoned. Like right now, I know so much about dinosaurs. more than I did when I was an 11-year-old, for example. I can now be really obnoxious and be like, you know, T-Rex didn't even exist in the Jurassic period. It was cous.

Caroline 14:03

I actually wrote down, did these dinosaurs even exist with each other? On my notes?

Anne 14:10

No.

Caroline 14:11

Yeah.

Anne 14:11

Do you know this is my favorite dinosaur effect of all time. okay. Most dinosaur species preserved in earth sediment have yet to be discovered. that sounds strange, consider how long dinosaurs have existed on our planet. So this is a direct quote from that book, little more than 66 million years separates us from the last tyrannosaurus. About 150 million years have passed since the Stegosaurus walked over Jurassic Floodplains. The two famed dinosaurs lived more than 80 million years apart in which we could fit the entirety of the planet's history since the time of T-Rex. And so like we imagine these dinosaurs interacting, but their fossils were often found in different parts of the planet, separated by like millions of years, not thousands. These timeframes we can't even imagine.

Caroline 14:52

Mm-hmm.

Anne 14:53

Mind blown.

Caroline 14:54

Did you look up how fast a T-Rex can run? Because I did

Anne 14:58

I did too. What did you discover?

Caroline 15:00

45 miles per hour. I was curious like, can that T-Rex outrun the Jeep? and so that's why I looked it up.

Anne 15:07

It can't, I read somewhere that if a T-Rex tried to run that far, it would've just broken its legs, run that fast. Like it just wouldn't have been capable of that. Yeah. You know, how I live in Australia and sometimes if I say I am from Australia, somebody would be like, oh, hey, do you know?

Caroline 15:21

Yeah,

Anne 15:21

some person that lives in like a different city.

Caroline 15:23

yeah,

Anne 15:24

no, like I don't know everybody. So like the idea that a T-Rex knew the Stegosaurus is like asking if I know someone in Sydney who lived there a hundred years ago, right?

Caroline 15:32

yeah.

Anne 15:33

these things did not necessarily coexist.

Caroline 15:36

That happens to my husband too, who left England when he was like 13.

Anne 15:40

oh, do you know this person who

Caroline 15:41

Yeah.

Anne 15:42

Liverpool?

Caroline 15:43

Yeah. It's funny'cause he did live in Liverpool, so,

Anne 15:46

I guess maybe I must have had that information in my head, deep down.'cause I, I don't think I knew

Caroline 15:51

but actually he left Liverpool when he was like two. So,

Anne 15:54

Okay. Well I know someone from Liverpool. Do you think he knows them?

Caroline 15:56

I don't know. We should ask.

Anne 15:58

We'll ask. Okay, so party pooper facts, as I said, this isn't possible. The oldest DNA we've ever recovered is a year, 2.4 million years old, and dinosaurs are at least 65, 60 6 million years old. So it's just not possible. We're like millions of years off. and even if we could clone dinosaurs, we don't know enough about how thin the air was or the temperature they would've been used to, there's so much that would stop, even if you could find the DNA, even if you could clone the DNA to make something like this survive,

Caroline 16:26

if you extracted blood from a mosquito, like wouldn't it all be mixed? How would you know which blood was from which creature? I don't know.

Anne 16:34

Amber's porous things just degrade in it. It looks

Caroline 16:36

Right?

Anne 16:37

they are working towards bringing back a wooly mammoth

Caroline 16:40

Are cute. I shoulda said that because I would've, I would pick that.

Anne 16:45

I found this on a Jack Horner podcast. He's on a ton of them. He's unlike Alan Grant. He likes the publicity it seems like. and he is working on trying to back breed chickens to make dinosaurs like selectively breed to make something that is dinosaur like, which isn't really a dinosaur, but something that looks like it. so They have mapped the wooly mammoth genome because they went extinct like 10,000 years ago. And the Asian elephant diverged from wooly mammoths like 6 million years ago, and it's 99.6% identical. So they can kind of like compare and splice in the differences and then use a current elephant as a womb, I guess. And so they think they can actually do this, should they?

Caroline 17:23

No, that poor elephant.

Anne 17:26

Yeah, so don't think they should do this either. as Dr. Malcolm would also say, let's see, I think I have another few party pooper facts. in real life, velociraptors were probably pretty lame. kid who called them, you know, large turkeys wasn't wrong. They would've been about the size of a dog and had feathers and far less scary. But what a name, right? Velociraptors so cool. and there's no evidence that t rexes can't see you if you stay still,

Caroline 17:50

Yeah.

Anne 17:50

a fallacy for the plot.

Caroline 17:52

Yeah. How would you even ascertain that?

Anne 17:54

Well, if you think about predatory birds, their

Caroline 17:56

Yeah, yeah.

Anne 17:58

and also they would've been able to smell,

Caroline 18:00

Right.

Anne 18:00

about the birds of prey that descended from these animals, we know they have great eyesight, and we know that most predators have a good sense of smell.

Caroline 18:07

That's what I kept wondering, as he was looking at the car, I was like, can he smell? The kids are in there? Couldn't he just be like, that's a vehicle? I think he would've a good sense of smell, but would he know that the children were inside like a sealed vehicle like that? I don't know.

Anne 18:21

don't think a T-Rex would understand what a vehicle is.

Caroline 18:23

They would just smell like, this is not food about the vehicle and, and move on.

Anne 18:27

it's implied that he can't smell because there's one scene where I think is it Lex and Alan are

Caroline 18:31

Mm-hmm.

Anne 18:32

the car and he like gets really close and smells and breathes on them and he

Caroline 18:35

Yeah. Yeah.

Anne 18:37

But,

Caroline 18:37

No.

Anne 18:37

we needed that for the plot. Right? But if you wanna know more about the making of this movie and paleontology in general, a of what went wrong that interviews Stephen Ray Morris from My Favorite Murder, he's a massive Jurassic Park fan and he has his own podcast with 350 episodes called See Jurassic. Right?

Caroline 18:55

I did know that. I forgot. I did know that in the recesses of my brain.

Anne 19:00

When I saw 300 episodes, I just got overwhelmed and I was like, I can't pick.

Caroline 19:03

Yeah.

Anne 19:04

but that exists. And there's also a minute by minute Jurassic Park podcast, which I did listen to about like 15, 20 minutes of, and was enjoying it. So if you really love Jurassic Park and want detail, podcasts exists. some other fun facts, grossed over a billion dollars. box office Mojo puts it at number 18 for highest grossing films adjusted for inflation ever, but Jaws and et do beat it. The T-Rex Rexy Roberta almost ate someone real life because a guy was like working on the inside of it and it got unplugged and like shut down and started to like fold in on him. And he could

Caroline 19:38

Oh, no.

Anne 19:39

Yep, it was a close call for him. Did you know about the other directors that were vying for this?

Caroline 19:44

No.

Anne 19:45

James Cameron wanted to make it. And do you know he, who, who, who he would've cast as Dr. Allen. Grant

Caroline 19:50

Who,

Anne 19:51

Schwarzenegger.

Caroline 19:52

what

Anne 19:52

It would've been weird, right? But I mean, James Cameron can make a movie, right? Like it would've been a good movie. but

Caroline 19:57

he, is he a doctor in the one where he gets pregnant? I don't know. I have seen him play a doctor before.

Anne 20:03

No,

Caroline 20:03

No, no, no. Not twins. Junior

Anne 20:05

I don't know. I know

Caroline 20:05

anyway. Mm-hmm.

Anne 20:08

it on VHS,

Caroline 20:09

I saw it in the theater.

Anne 20:11

Oh, wow.

Caroline 20:12

Yeah.

Anne 20:13

That would've been very different. And Tim Burton was also interested, which would've been very weird.

Caroline 20:17

Then it would've been a horror unquestionably.

Anne 20:20

Well, I think James Cameron wanted to make it like alien, so that would've been, uh, a horror movie

Caroline 20:25

Mm-hmm.

Anne 20:26

We should also point out that it is based on a book by Michael Creon, which I am currently reading with my daughter. kind of thinks it's boring having seen the movie, but we haven't gotten to the dinosaur parts yet. It's, interesting to compare because the scene about, genetics and the DNA that is so concisely done the video in the movie is pages and pages and pages of like deep scientific explanation that is losing my daughter. and that's why I didn't regret reading the Jaws book to see how Spielberg and his screenwriters were able to take this novel that is, I think, very flawed and fix it

Caroline 20:59

Mm-hmm.

Anne 21:00

and make the characters more likable. Because also in the book, Dr. Hammond is pretty evil,

Caroline 21:04

Mm-hmm.

Anne 21:05

whereas he's likable in this. Flawed, but I think he's, Well, we'll get to him later.

Caroline 21:10

Yeah.

Anne 21:11

Um, uh, a little bit about context and setting. Do you remember indoor smoking being a thing?

Caroline 21:17

Yeah. I always think about that in Die Hard. Whenever I watch Die Hard,

Anne 21:20

So glad that

Caroline 21:21

he's like smoking in the airport.

Anne 21:23

Yeah, I spent a lot of my teens and early twenties waitressing, and I can always remember the stench of smoke that would be like, released from my head when I got in the shower.

Caroline 21:30

Mm-hmm.

Anne 21:31

And I think there's a sense of like nineties optimism. is like West Wing Independence Day, air Force one, you know, and I feel like movies are a little bit up until Project Hail Mary, like quite gritty and, pessimistic lately. have you seen Project Hail Mary yet?

Caroline 21:45

I saw it opening weekend.

Anne 21:47

you like it?

Caroline 21:47

I did,, I thought it was long, just because I have like the world's smallest bladder, it was opening weekend, we were all the way up in the front and I had to pee twice. and I was like, why is this movie so long that I have to pee twice?

Anne 21:59

Yeah, my back was hurting by the end

Caroline 22:02

Yeah.

Anne 22:03

for that long. But, it reminded me of this because it's like that optimistic, know, speculative sci-fi.

Caroline 22:09

And it was well timed with the Artemis too.

Anne 22:12

Yes. in terms of real life, this was also a time of interest in genetic experimentation, which is obviously still happening. the human genome project started in 1990, and Dolly the sheep was cloned a few years later in 1996.

Caroline 22:24

You know what I was thinking while watching that video about DNA cause I remember learning that a lot of the jury for the OJ Simpson trial was confused by the DNA stuff because of how early on it was. I was like, they should have just wheeled a a TV screen and like play the doctor d.

Anne 22:42

Yeah. I think those type of videos are great. Like I remember listening to stuff you should know once and one of the host said whenever he's researching something, he's like, explain this to me. Like he googles like four or 6-year-old,

Caroline 22:53

Yeah.

Anne 22:53

so you can get those little cartoon videos that show you how to do stuff. All right. Well let's talk about some of the aesthetic features. You mentioned spiel, Spielbergian, and I think the Spielbergian, I feel like I'm having trouble saying that the Spielbergian

Caroline 23:07

it's hard to say.

Anne 23:08

so awesome, or Ian's easier to say.

Caroline 23:11

It's,

Anne 23:12

So Spielberg talks about God lighting that bluish tint and the glare that kind of obscures what you're seeing in the camera. That creates such a great sense of mystery. Like in Jaws, Spielberg is skilled in the way he holds off on letting us see the monster.

Caroline 23:27

Mm-hmm.

Anne 23:27

Did you know there are only 15 minutes of screen time with dinosaurs?

Caroline 23:30

What really.

Anne 23:32

reaction my daughter had when I, I mean, I haven't checked myself, but I have seen this fact spouted. I bet the time on screen for Bruce the shark is similar, Because he uses techniques to hold off on showing you, like in jaws there's the barrels and Jurassic Park there's characters, expressions, there's moving foliage and we see like the remains of the goat, the remains of the cow. But we don't see the dinosaur right away. part, I think is the water, the

Caroline 24:01

Yeah. For sure.

Anne 24:02

did, you know that was the hardest, scene to film?

Caroline 24:04

I bet.

Anne 24:05

the shots to get the water shaking in the Jeep, they put essentially a guitar string under the car and went bing.

Caroline 24:13

Mm-hmm.

Anne 24:14

those concentric ripples.

Caroline 24:15

I, I can't imagine that must have been very challenging, especially like, Jeff Goldblum uses drops of water to explain chaos theory. Right. it's not an easy achievement,

Anne 24:24

I tried the chaos theory experiment as a kid with the drop of water, and it went in the exact same way. And I was like, what? I guess that's chaos too, but.

Caroline 24:33

Yeah.

Anne 24:34

the water, the jelly, or sorry. In Australia we say jelly. The jello

Caroline 24:38

Mm-hmm.

Anne 24:38

effective at, signaling that danger's coming but it's not realistic. Like maybe with the T-Rex it would be heavy enough, but when the Velociraptors come into the cafeteria and they're like walking around side, they're not that big.

Caroline 24:49

Yeah.

Anne 24:50

giraffes don't shake the earth when they walk around. Right.

Caroline 24:53

And speaking of not realistic, also, this always drives my husband crazy'cause he is an architect you don't crawl above a ceiling. events do not fit humans. like, that happens so much in movies, especially in this time period. Like all the time. Yeah. Breakfast Club, like, it's, it's,

Anne 25:11

Cruise, doesn't he crawl an event in Mission Impossible too,

Caroline 25:14

yeah. these things are not created to

Anne 25:16

also not to, yeah.

Caroline 25:18

Yeah. They're not for humans,

Anne 25:19

It's

Caroline 25:20

it, it

Anne 25:20

an architect's perspective.

Caroline 25:23

guess.

Anne 25:24

the other big with this movie is the CGI. As I said, there's only 15 minutes of dinosaurs on screen that includes animatronics, people in Velociraptor suits and early CGI, which still holds up, don't you think?

Caroline 25:36

sometimes, sometimes it's very obvious, you know, I still prefer like,, practical stuff to CGI. it's funny and it does take you to that time. one of my first notes is when he says, this program is incredible. And it's like this fuzzy Panasonic monitor.

Anne 25:52

Yeah, I love seeing old technology in like eighties and nineties movies. remember when Sandra Bullock ordered a pizza online and we were all so impressed

Caroline 26:00

Yeah. I love that movie. I saw that in the theater too.

Anne 26:04

I probably haven't seen it since then, so I

Caroline 26:06

Well, that's a horror. We can put that on our list.

Anne 26:10

Well, in terms of film history, this was a major turning point. Like when Dorothy walks out into Oz in color, it wasn't the first film to use CGI just like, wizard of Oz wasn't the first film to use color, but it's the iconic one that we think of. and you know, as you said, you prefer practical effects. I do too. And you know, we can see there's a bit of a backlash against overdoing CGI, like Frankenstein, did a lot of practical effects instead of

Caroline 26:33

Yeah.

Anne 26:33

feel like we can apply Dr. Malcolm's comment about dinosaurs. It didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You stood on the shoulders of genius And that's kind of how I feel about CGI now, like it's so easy for them to do, like they're taking what others did and now they overuse it.

Caroline 26:51

Mm-hmm.

Anne 26:52

And you know how I feel about CGI and the re-released original Star Wars trilogy

Caroline 26:55

you and everyone else, like everyone wants that old version back.

Anne 26:59

filled with Fury on that. and the CGI means the actors had to act with not dinosaurs, we talked about last week in our, our, oh, two weeks ago in our sinners episode about Michael B. Jordan acting against himself still coming across as natural and human. And these actors When they were afraid or in awe, there wasn't really actually anything there. I think Laura Dern talks about looking at a tennis ball on a stick.

Caroline 27:21

It's funny to watch what people actually look like when they're recording those things.

Anne 27:25

Yeah. I love those. Behind the scenes, there's a lot of great foreshadowing and symbolism. we get checkoffs electric fence, as they enter. There's that very prominent 10,000 volts electricity sign on the way in that comes back. we can look at the helicopter landing on grant and settler's dig as symbolic of technology destroying the old ways.

Caroline 27:45

such a dick move.

Anne 27:47

Such a dig move. absolutely. I love the ominous shift in the music when they first enter the forum, the, sorry, the entry point. And you see the T-Rex skeleton, and then the T-Rex saves the day,

Caroline 27:59

Mm-hmm.

Anne 27:59

her own skeleton. 10.

Caroline 28:01

did you go to Universal when you were in la

Anne 28:03

I have, yes.

Caroline 28:05

Did they have a Jurassic situation there?

Anne 28:07

the water ride.

Caroline 28:08

so in Orlando they have the velo coaster, but

Anne 28:12

I haven't been on that.

Caroline 28:12

they also have a indoor, like, atrium, an indoor museum type place where you can play with the DNA and stuff like that and it's laid out exactly like that

Anne 28:23

that's so cool.

Caroline 28:23

room. Yeah, it looks exactly like it.

Anne 28:25

I would love that. Oh, so

Caroline 28:26

I didn't realize it when I was there. I like paused the movie and went over to my husband. I was like, did you know they had it? He was like, yeah.

Anne 28:35

must be a Jurassic Park fan, right?

Caroline 28:37

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Anne 28:38

in the Jurassic Park, I didn't notice this myself, but in the Jurassic Park minute by minute episode, the house point out that grant's seat belts in the helicopter don't fit together, right? Like

Caroline 28:47

Oh,

Anne 28:47

parts. He doesn't have the male and the

Caroline 28:49

ah.

Anne 28:49

part of the seatbelt And then he finds a way by tying it up. Life finds a way.

Caroline 28:54

Life finds away.

Anne 28:55

Clever. Just a little, foreshadowing there.

Caroline 28:58

Clever girl.

Anne 28:59

the other thing I love about it, as you said, it's fun. I laughed a lot recently rewatching it with my family. When Jeff Goldblum says that's one big pile of shit

Caroline 29:08

Yeah.

Anne 29:09

me laugh so goddamn hard as a kid. Like I was just like, that is the best thing I've ever heard.

Caroline 29:13

he is so necessary for the movie.

Anne 29:18

Yeah. Oh, he's great. Generic. Getting eaten on the toilet also killed me as a kid. the objects closer than they appear as the T-Rex catches up

Caroline 29:25

Yeah, of course. Classic.

Anne 29:27

feet up onto the couch moment.

Caroline 29:30

must go faster. I remembered. and I remembered the Clever girl of course. Um,

Anne 29:36

that every time our kids do something clever, he's like, clever girl.

Caroline 29:41

mine says it a lot too.

Anne 29:43

They're so weird.

Caroline 29:44

I know. I liked the whole, speech about like, God creates whatever all the way to Laura de being like, women inherits the earth.

Anne 29:54

she also gets, we can discuss sexism and survival situations when I get back. I love that

Caroline 29:58

Mm-hmm.

Anne 29:59

She

Caroline 29:59

I did make a note. Like there's so much casual sexual harassment that was like, we were just supposed to feel like it was fine, you know, like

Anne 30:07

So, yes. I don't wanna get canceled for this, but, I love Dr. Ian Malcolm. Right? I love Jeff Goldblum.

Caroline 30:13

course.

Anne 30:14

do you think he crosses the line with Dr.

Caroline 30:16

Absolute. I remember actually, I can remember the first time I saw this hating Jeff Goldblum because I was not quite old enough to like. Get all of the vibes and just move past or whatever. And just being like, this greasy creep is just like, moving in on this woman. And it's so in, I just hated, I would hate to be in her situation.

Anne 30:38

Because in real life, a woman should be able to enter a professional sphere and not have her looks commented on, it's jarring, it's unsettling when it happens, even if it's

Caroline 30:46

Well,

Anne 30:47

like they're not in a bar.

Caroline 30:48

And then what are you supposed to do about it? you have to like play nice or whatever, but like, fuck politeness as they say it on MFM, or you're a bitch, you know, if you don't just laugh it off oh, men can't say anything anymore, but you know,

Anne 31:02

right. Having said that, feel like Dr. Ian Malcolm was somewhat of a sexual awakening for me. Like I would've been lining up to be a future ex Mrs. Malcolm too, if I

Caroline 31:11

You were,

Anne 31:11

Right.

Caroline 31:12

no, not me. Not me.

Anne 31:14

all black with his like collar undone. You know?

Caroline 31:16

Ugh.

Anne 31:16

Robin Hood fox moment.

Caroline 31:19

no, I was not into that. I just find him entertaining now in a way where I,

Anne 31:24

so entertaining. Yeah.

Caroline 31:24

I feel like she handled him well and like, it would've been fine if I was just able to handle him that way,

Anne 31:31

Which is something women are forced to do all the time.

Caroline 31:33

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Anne 31:34

interesting the way he played it, because he's supposed to be like this maths rock star, right? And he could have been obnoxious, or a total nerd or condescending as sciencey intellectual types can be. But it's with such light, humorous touch and it just seems like he's having fun except when he is serious about telling him and how he really feels.

Caroline 31:51

Yeah.

Anne 31:52

Why was he there?

Caroline 31:53

Yeah, I, I don't know either. I know why they were there, but I don't know why he was there.

Anne 32:00

chaos mathematician, I didn't even know that existed as a job, but I, I do have a friend who and he listens, hi Steve. He was completing a philosophy PhD he said that Google has a philosopher on staff and wouldn't that be like the coolest job to be like the Google philosopher? So maybe it's something like that. Like big companies just have big thinkers.

Caroline 32:18

so I'm guessing one of the investors must have sent him because they're all there because the investors required it.

Anne 32:24

And the lawyers are worried.

Caroline 32:25

Less worried when they think they can make money.

Anne 32:27

Oh yeah. That, that shifts pretty quickly. well I think he gets some of the best serious lines too. You know, we've talked about as a screenwriting device, when a character states the theme early on and he's got that life finds a way and the best line, your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.

Caroline 32:45

Anyway, sorry.

Anne 32:46

to so many things. Now, high ai, if you are

Caroline 32:50

Yeah. It's listening.

Anne 32:51

it is.

Caroline 32:52

Yeah.

Anne 32:53

um, one of my most frustrating Dr. Malcolm moments is when he like, is in that masculinity off with Dr. Grant. And he sees Dr. Grant wave the flare and then he's like, oh, I'll do it too. But he actually has no plan. Intentions are

Caroline 33:07

I was like,

Anne 33:07

were

Caroline 33:07

did he do that? It was, the situation was under control.

Anne 33:12

Yeah. but I do appreciate that he's like, kids get scared he is a dad,

Caroline 33:16

Mm-hmm.

Anne 33:17

with Grant. Who doesn't even like, think about that.

Caroline 33:19

Not only that, but Grant actually one of my first notes is also like, congratulations. You terrified a kid. in the very beginning when he's talking shit to that kid. I was very turned off by that as well. I have to say.

Anne 33:29

I love that scene when he scares the shit outta that kid that he had it coming, the quote, Annie, from speed, why aren't you at school? Right? Like, what are you doing there? then to stand up to an adult like that with this entirely unjustified, childlike opinion.

Caroline 33:48

I mean, tell that to that kid's parents who are gonna have to deal with his nightmares and him needing to sleep in their bedroom for the next month.

Anne 33:54

I was thinking about like what were the parents thinking as

Caroline 33:57

I know,

Anne 33:57

Dr. Grant eviscerate their child. literally slashing at the abdomen with the plus er Raptor claw.

Caroline 34:04

I know.

Anne 34:05

Would you be like, um, Dr. Gray, that's enough. Like

Caroline 34:07

Yeah. I mean, he'd probably get sued today. I don't know.

Anne 34:11

Yeah, but it's such a good scene because it gives us character development, It gives us some information about the dinosaurs. We'll be meeting, it's foreshadowing the Velociraptor attack pattern. And think it's funny all in a minute, right? And we get that dinosaur bird connection, which wasn't completely accepted

Caroline 34:30

Yeah, I remember when it became like officially, or at least I don't know what, something endorsed the theory and I remember being like, oh wow. didn't they say that in Jurassic Park?

Anne 34:41

Just like Dr. Grant said. Yeah, so Jack Horner was a, was a theory he happened to believe in. I think I'm quoting Hooper there. but yeah, it wasn't accepted yet. I love Dr. Grant's arc. And Samuel Neil. I love Samuel Neil.

Caroline 34:54

Yeah. I,

Anne 34:54

you a Sam Neil fan? pausing like you're not.

Caroline 34:58

I just dunno when to mention the ages of these actors.

Anne 35:01

Okay. Go.

Caroline 35:02

Did you look it up or do you have any sense?

Anne 35:04

uh, thirties, forties. He, Ellie. Oh, Ellie, settler's, like 27, right?

Caroline 35:08

Laura Dern was 25 and he was 45.

Anne 35:11

Okay. He looks younger.

Caroline 35:13

He does look younger. Jeff Goldblum was like 39 40. during filming.

Anne 35:18

to become a chaos mathematician.

Caroline 35:20

Yes, it probably would.

Anne 35:21

Well, in, the Jurassic Park book, Dr. Settler's even younger, she's like 22, but they're not together. there's no romance.

Caroline 35:28

didn't dig the romance because I was like, what are their ages? Like I started wondering.

Anne 35:33

I feel like it looks like about a decade difference,

Caroline 35:36

It does look more like a decade. I think she looks a little older because back then we all dressed the adults of the time.

Anne 35:43

wasted pleated, khaki shorts. Not great.

Caroline 35:46

fashion didn't do anyone any youth favors back then, so she, she looks aged up and he looks good for his age, so I hear that.

Anne 35:53

I mean, their relationship is really only hinted at it like we never see them kiss or anything, right?

Caroline 35:58

But he does say to Jeff Goldblum that they're like a thing, which I thought was weird

Anne 36:03

Well, he's a cantankerous grump,

Caroline 36:05

Mm-hmm.

Anne 36:06

traditionalist, a digger. He hates computers. I love what, he can't even touch one without messing it up.

Caroline 36:11

Yeah.

Anne 36:11

establishing himself as a dinosaur early on. I like what he says about kids being noisy, messy, and expensive. He's dropping lots of truth bombs there.

Caroline 36:20

Yeah. Facts.

Anne 36:21

Facts. Lexi tries to hold his hand early on and he like shakes it off. But I'm kind of like, Lexi, do you have boundary issues? Why are you trying to hold this strange man's hand?

Caroline 36:27

Yeah. Yeah.

Anne 36:30

In the book, their parents are getting divorced, so maybe she's kind of feeling abandoned.

Caroline 36:34

Can I speak on behalf of children with divorced parents? I wouldn't have just held the strangers.

Anne 36:40

Okay.

Caroline 36:41

My daddy moved out. Will you be my daddy? No,

Anne 36:44

I know. Okay.

Caroline 36:45

I don't think so. No?

Anne 36:47

Yeah, it's, it's a weird thing for her to do.

Caroline 36:50

Yeah.

Anne 36:50

I did fall a little bit in love with Dr. Grant when Lexi's like freaking out and she's like, he left us, he left us. He left us. he says in the most solid, dependable way,

Caroline 36:59

I, yeah,

Anne 36:59

what I'm gonna do. love that moment.

Caroline 37:01

I agree.

Anne 37:02

cry.

Caroline 37:02

As, as a person with divorced parents, same.

Anne 37:08

I'm sorry. I should not have said that about divorce kids.

Caroline 37:12

No.

Anne 37:12

parent kids. I love that scene where Tim is circling and he's like moving from

Caroline 37:19

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Anne 37:21

he's like, which one are you gonna be in? And he's like, whichever, wherever you sit.

Caroline 37:23

Yeah.

Anne 37:24

But then by the end he's carrying Tim like a baby. And they're falling asleep on his shoulders in the helicopter, like, Ellie and Grant share this look and it's so sweet.

Caroline 37:32

But he doesn't lose that impulse to scare the shit outta them because he does that like fake shock on the electric fence.

Anne 37:39

I have

Caroline 37:39

You know? It's like,

Anne 37:40

I,

Caroline 37:40

don't.

Anne 37:41

to scare my kids.

Caroline 37:42

Yeah. But I was like, don't you think they've been through kind of a lot today? Like it's unnecessary.

Anne 37:48

it's pretty relatable for me. Uh, I was just camping with my kids in another family, and the youngest daughter who's, I don't know, like nine or 10 or something, she was obsessed with my scary stories. And every night she was like, tell me another, tell me another, tell me another.

Caroline 38:02

I like to scare my kids, like jump scare them,

Anne 38:05

That's

Caroline 38:06

Like a quick boo, but not like I'm dying.

Anne 38:10

Not like I could actually be electrocuted here.

Caroline 38:12

Yeah.

Anne 38:14

I always felt like they could have fit through that fence rather than climbing,

Caroline 38:17

I felt that way as well. Yeah. But he couldn't have, I don't think

Anne 38:22

I do love the panic in his voice when it's during the tour and he's like, but how do you interrupt the cellular mitosis? Good

Caroline 38:29

Yeah. Yeah.

Anne 38:30

His tone there reminded me of Luke being like, but I was going to Tashi station to pick up some power converters.

Caroline 38:35

Have you ever seen that meme when he goes to the gas station that's called Tashi?

Anne 38:38

Uh, yes. I love that.

Caroline 38:40

He's like, I finally made it. Oh, I had a thought I wrote down about when they lift the ride bar.

Anne 38:45

oh, I love when they lift the red bar, you know, in, in movies when people, pull out their when

Caroline 38:51

Yeah.

Anne 38:51

up from a coma, I'm always like, would you do that? Wouldn't you be like, should I have this in, there's a reason this is in. Right. Like, why would you pull it out?

Caroline 38:57

Oh my God. There's this amazing scene, sorry, it's a quick tangent. There's an amazing scene from one of the Fast and Furious movies where, the rock tries to get a cast off by just like flexing his muscles and it bursts. It's so cool.

Anne 39:10

Who is your next favorite character,

Caroline 39:12

My favorite characters are really like those, Jeff Goldblum and Dr. Grant., I think I tend to just favor the characters who are the funniest This is only my third time watching it, so I can't remember any of the characters names.

Anne 39:24

well I wanna give Ellie, you know, just being a badass some more shout out the way she

Caroline 39:28

Mm-hmm.

Anne 39:29

in the triceratops poop,

Caroline 39:30

Mm-hmm.

Anne 39:31

which also doesn't make sense to me. Like what organisms species are like the same size as it.

Caroline 39:34

Yeah. yeah. And I like, you know, she's trying to figure out the source of the tummy ache or whatever and she's definitely like, doesn't take shit. but she doesn't, I mean,

Anne 39:45

take shit.

Caroline 39:46

exactly.

Anne 39:47

I love her all. Jean outfit at the Dig too. I always wanted to dress up as Ellie and Grant for Halloween. Like that would be a good costume

Caroline 39:53

Mm-hmm.

Anne 39:54

like little Red Bandana, his like slutty

Caroline 39:56

Yeah. I actually thought like, well, my husband could probably be Jeff Copeland.

Anne 40:01

He could just open up that color a

Caroline 40:05

Yeah.

Anne 40:07

well we should talk about, John Hammond.

Caroline 40:08

Ugh. I hate him. I can't believe you think he's likable.

Anne 40:11

Well, I mean, he looks like Santa Claus.

Caroline 40:13

He looks like Santa Claus, but like, I mean, right at the beginning they're talking about like, he only shows up when he feels like it or he, when things are important or whatever. He knows where he wants to be. He comes into the dig swinging his dick around. I give you$50,000 a year, which in today's money would be a year.

Anne 40:31

doesn't seem like a lot for scientific research.

Caroline 40:33

No, it doesn't. and then taking out their champagne, like for that, bring your own champagne asshole, you know,

Anne 40:41

Yeah.

Caroline 40:42

and he's also just like, tries to manipulate every situation. I hate when he comes into and he's like, I'm here for every single birth. I dunno how that would be possible. But BD Wong also might have been annoyed by that, which

Anne 40:53

Yes.

Caroline 40:54

out BD Wong's in this, Dr. Henry Wu.

Anne 40:57

how is he going to be present for every round of that little arena where like he has to get his finger pricked by his image? how

Caroline 41:03

Yeah.

Anne 41:04

through universal studios? That would get old very quickly.

Caroline 41:06

Seriously. I mean, I understand that ultimately he wants this thing to be successful, but you shouldn't bring children to your test run.

Anne 41:13

It was dumb.

Caroline 41:14

Very dumb. And then he is like, eating ice cream. I wrote how can you be eating I don't think I would be able to stomach anything.

Anne 41:20

Well, some people are stress eaters don't judge people for their reactions to stress.

Caroline 41:24

Okay. I can I judge him though.

Anne 41:26

You can judge him. Yeah.

Caroline 41:28

Okay.

Anne 41:29

I mean, daughter is highly empathetic and when he seems so disappointed when the tour is going badly and like no dinosaurs are showing up, she's like, I can't watch this. cause she's so

Caroline 41:38

I mean, it is like stressful, when something isn't going well, but you know, shouldn't have been fucking with this in the first place.

Anne 41:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Didn't stop to think about whether or not you should. I do have some sympathy for him and because of the way he's played Richard Attenborough, David

Caroline 41:52

Yeah,

Anne 41:53

One of the

Caroline 41:53

Richard. Yeah,

Anne 41:54

Richard. But yeah, I do think if you take a step back from the way he is played, he's basically like an Elon Musk, right? Like a billionaire throwing around money to get their way. And I think it's good that people fund research, but is their ultimate goal? Is it gaining power? You know, Epstein funded a lot of research and a lot of scientists are paying now for that association with him.

Caroline 42:17

Well, and I always hated this when I worked at nonprofits and people would be like, I deserve X, Y, Z for my donation. Did you give it to give it or did you give it to be thanked? cause giving it to be thanked is not actually something you should be proud of. that's a selfish gift. And it's what's the word I'm looking for? Conditional, it's a conditional gift, and that's not generosity,

Anne 42:37

Did did you ever see that Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Ted Danson makes an anonymous gift to like a gallery is, I can't remember what it was, but makes an anonymous gift but like everybody knows he did it Larry David is so mad that he's like pretending it's anonymous because he gets more credit because it's anonymous, but everyone still knows

Caroline 42:53

Yeah,

Anne 42:54

It's very

Caroline 42:55

if you really wanted something to be anonymous, you can make that be anonymous. You know?

Anne 42:59

You know who gives anonymous? People did find out eventually, but Stephen King has donated anonymously a lot of money to prison libraries.

Caroline 43:07

You know who else gave anonymously a ton that nobody figured out until after he died was George Michael. He gave so much all the time. Constantly and it,

Anne 43:17

anonymous.

Caroline 43:17

it didn't come out until after he died.

Anne 43:19

Oh, that's nice.

Caroline 43:20

Yeah.

Anne 43:21

Well, think Hammond's fatal flaw is hubris, as you said, inviting his kids while they're still, or his grandkids, but I think he's a villain who isn't cognizant that he's doing wrong, which is my favorite kind of villain. Like the glee in his voice when he's like, we've got a T-Rex. He seems genuinely excited about what he's accomplished, but he doesn't realize how wrong it's,

Caroline 43:42

and I think that's more realistic. people always talk about like, why don't, why doesn't Disney make movies like they used to, where like the villain is a clear villain and it's you know, I actually prefer the way they do now'cause it's more real life. a lot of people aren't intentionally inflicting pain just'cause they wake up and they're like, I wanna skin dalmatians. You know? They're like, I really need a warm coat. I don't know, I don't know what, how you would justify that. other thing I wanted to mention.

Anne 44:06

backtrack, he

Caroline 44:07

Yes.

Anne 44:08

with his dream destroyed and he's like, you're right.

Caroline 44:09

Yeah. at the beginning of that they mentioned, We got Richard, Kylie. We spared no expense for the voice actor. And I thought it was funny. that they're talking about this stage actor I've never even heard of. Meanwhile, this actor's brother is like the voice actor of a generation, you know, David Attenborough, you know, like Rich Richard Ember's brother. It's like,

Anne 44:30

they should have said they got Attenborough spared. No expense. Maybe a little too on the nose.

Caroline 44:36

yeah,

Anne 44:37

no expense, why is he underpaying the IT guy then?

Caroline 44:41

yeah. Newman.

Anne 44:43

I mean, is he? I don't know. But he's clearly disgruntled, And if you're truly sparing no expense, why expense Why are you putting your IT system in the hands of one guy? Why not hire a second IT guy, a

Caroline 44:53

Yeah,

Anne 44:54

no expense.

Caroline 44:55

you definitely need a team. But I also kind of wonder like,, is he paying him enough? But he spends all the money on who knows what. he definitely took a lot of snacks outta the vending machine. Like, pack your lunch.

Anne 45:05

Well, we don't know the backstory here,

Caroline 45:06

No, we don't.

Anne 45:07

Hammond was already paying him a ridiculous amount and had bailed him out before. Or maybe he was cheaping out on him. I don't know.

Caroline 45:13

Yeah.

Anne 45:13

I don't blame people for their mistakes, but I expect them to pay for them, that is not developed. So I, I don't know, I thought maybe there was a gambling or a debt problem or something like that with Ry.

Caroline 45:22

I thought so too. A debt problem.

Anne 45:24

But Newman, it's, he's great.

Caroline 45:27

He is great.

Anne 45:27

One of my favorite moments is when he's like, turned it off and he's gonna go steal the, embryos. And he's acting so suss like normally he's sassing everyone and sniping, and then he is like sputtering and offering to get people stuff from the vending machine. And it's

Caroline 45:39

I know.

Anne 45:40

this is outta character.

Caroline 45:41

I think I would've been suspicious.

Anne 45:44

I was very impressed by that shaving cream can as a kid,

Caroline 45:46

me too. And then I think in high school there were people that used that exact mechanism to hide their weed.

Anne 45:54

Oh yeah. I think I remember that too.

Caroline 45:57

Yeah.

Anne 45:58

It's very clever. I think when he wipes it on the pie, because it's this quick moment that reflects his character. Like he doesn't give a shit about anyone. someone's going to bite into that shaving cream pie and he turns off the electric fences when he knows people are out there. Do you think he understood what he was doing or he was, he just so concerned about stealing that he didn't think about the collateral damage that he was murdering people?

Caroline 46:18

I think he understood what he was doing.

Anne 46:20

Like so many other characters, he's guilty of that central sin of underestimating the danger, he treats that spitty one like a dog. He's like, no wonder you're extinct.

Caroline 46:27

I know what an idiot.

Anne 46:28

if you saw a crocodile that size, you wouldn't treat it like a dog. You would be appropriately terrified,

Caroline 46:34

Yeah.

Anne 46:35

That dinosaur goes from like kind of cute and curious with this little dog-like head tilt, tooth threatening so quickly and

Caroline 46:41

Yeah.

Anne 46:41

effective.

Caroline 46:42

Very

Anne 46:43

Well, the next character I wanna discuss is Samuel L. Jackson as Arnold. his famous line, hold onto your butts. I

Caroline 46:49

Mm-hmm.

Anne 46:49

from Robert s Meki on the set of death Becomes her, because he would say that and that's one of your favorites, right?

Caroline 46:54

I love death becomes her.

Anne 46:56

so.

Caroline 46:57

Yeah.

Anne 46:57

I thought that was a favorite of yours.

Caroline 46:59

Yes.

Anne 46:59

he's pretty understated here compared to the Samuel L. Jackson we see in like pulp Fiction and snakes on a plane and deep loose sea.

Caroline 47:06

Mm-hmm.

Anne 47:06

and I thought Arnold's cigarette would be a good gay Halloween costume.

Caroline 47:10

that dangling cigarette really bothered me. I was like, that Ash is gonna go right into that keyboard and how are you gonna get it out? They don't have that spray, those spray cans yet. I don't think.

Anne 47:18

they don't. Then there's Janero, the blood sucking lawyer who doesn't give a shit about safety. He cares about liability because liability means paying out money. But when he sees those dollar signs, all that safety stuff is out the window.

Caroline 47:28

I love when he's like, is it heavy? Then it's expensive. that's a good rule.

Anne 47:35

ignores

Caroline 47:35

Yeah.

Anne 47:36

That is a good rule. And Tim's like whatever. And keeps doing it. Yeah. a very realistic dialogue. Right.

Caroline 47:41

Yeah.

Anne 47:41

Very satisfying though, when he gets snatched off the toilet.

Caroline 47:44

yeah.

Anne 47:45

moments as a child, and what was he talking about with Otto Erotica? What is he doing in his spare time? He's like, are these characters auto erotica?

Caroline 47:54

speaking of, I think I was talking about in Goodfella as like wearing a dress shirt and stuff to like shovel a grave. Why did you come in those shoes in the beginning?

Anne 48:02

why does he need to go into the cave?

Caroline 48:04

I know.

Anne 48:04

is that his job? just to show us the amber. Right.

Caroline 48:07

Yeah,

Anne 48:07

But it doesn't make sense that he would need to go there. Dr. Wu, was upset that spoiler alert for later movies, he becomes evil.'cause I love BD Wong

Caroline 48:17

me too.

Anne 48:17

to think of him as evil'cause he's the good, what is it? Medical Examiner in SVU

Caroline 48:22

No, he's, he's, like a, the

Anne 48:24

psychologist.

Caroline 48:25

psychologist. Yeah,

Anne 48:26

Yeah. I knew he was an SVU and I couldn't remember what, but

Caroline 48:28

yeah,

Anne 48:29

But he's also representing the hubris here talking about chromosomes, and we simply deny them that playing God. Great line

Caroline 48:37

yeah.

Anne 48:37

Scoffing at Dr. Malcolm's concerns. But he does go on to become one of the bigger baddies modifying dinosaurs in the later movies.

Caroline 48:44

Oh,

Anne 48:45

That scene reminded me of the La LaBrea Tar Pits in la. Have you ever been there?

Caroline 48:48

no. I've only seen them in my girl two.

Anne 48:51

They're great. I loved it. You can see the researchers at work excavating fossils. You can walk into like an active excavation site. You can see them like cleaning things. It's very Jurassic Park there. I I wonder if they're based it on that. Of course, they are excavating things that are like a mere 30,000 years old and stuff like that. Not 66 million plus. All right. oh, Robert Muldoon giving Crocodile Dundee there

Caroline 49:16

Mm, totally.

Anne 49:17

with his piercing blue eyes,

Caroline 49:19

Mm-hmm.

Anne 49:20

he's like Carter and deeply see

Caroline 49:21

Totally agree.

Anne 49:23

Who says you've taken God's oldest killing machine and given it will and desire, what you've done has knocked us all the way down to the bottom of the goddamn food chain.

Caroline 49:30

We are definitely gonna have to do Deep Lucy.

Anne 49:32

Yeah. So Muldoon says they should all be destroyed. And we quote him all the time, as I said, the clever girl,

Caroline 49:39

Mm-hmm.

Anne 49:40

remember

Caroline 49:41

Mm-hmm.

Anne 49:41

ominous tone. Anything else we wanna say about the kids? L and Timmy? I think they're my last characters on my list.

Caroline 49:48

no, I don't think so.

Anne 49:49

saves the day a coding occurs. She's a hacker,

Caroline 49:52

Yeah, a coding of Kurt.

Anne 49:54

A coating occurs

Caroline 49:56

I did like that because actually, when I was watching it, I was sort of like, oh, does she have to be like a Mesosaurus or whatever, you know, they come up with this terminology for her. and then at the end when she saves the day, I was like, oh, good. She's not just like, a ditz. Yeah, exactly.

Anne 50:12

and she gets one of my favorite moments when they're, you know, going die hard in the ducks and she nearly falls and the velociraptor is so close to getting her. I remember. Yeah Like pulling my feet up apparently that's a stunt double. And if you actually look at her closely, you can see that she's super buff

Caroline 50:27

Oh yeah,

Anne 50:28

CGI I'D her face.

Caroline 50:29

and I guess they foreshadowed her having the coding thing because when she first gets in the car, she's a cool interactive CD rom, which, which I just wanted to mention that I had the common app on CD Rom, and I had three different friends like come over to my house to apply to college using my CD ROM combat.

Anne 50:48

app. Yeah. I remember we had End Carta on CD Rom. I feel like that was interactive

Caroline 50:53

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Anne 50:54

post real encyclopedia pre Wikipedia for you kids out there. yeah, Timmy is adorable, as you said, lots of realistic kid moments like, the night vision goggles and being like, I threw up

Caroline 51:05

Him having

Anne 51:06

about that,

Caroline 51:07

the bandana

Anne 51:08

Yeah. And when Timmy's on the fence on the electric fence and Ellie's like pressing the buttons and getting lower and lower and lower and lower, that is a very tense scene. And for anyone who's watched Jaws, we know that, uh Spielberg's not above killing a kid. Right.

Caroline 51:20

Totally.

Anne 51:21

He does it in a really scary way. Like he's still on it. another director might've been like, okay, he, he, lets go one second early. Right. And he doesn't actually get shocked,

Caroline 51:29

No, he, he gets shocked. And I don't think you could survive 10,000 volts.

Anne 51:34

Nah, no. There's many things that are not realistic here. Did you have a favorite scene that we haven't discussed yet?

Caroline 51:41

I don't think so. Did you?

Anne 51:43

I mean, we haven't talked about, just the first dinosaur scene that CGI moment where, they see the B brachiosaur or the brontosaurus and, you know, I think it kind of parallels Brody first seeing. Alex Kitner get killed

Caroline 51:55

Mm-hmm.

Anne 51:56

but it's this moment of awe rather than horror. I just think it's, again, Spielbergian genius to show the characters reacting first. And I love the way Ellie's focused on the leaf. Right. and Grant

Caroline 52:07

Yeah.

Anne 52:08

her head. My husband will send me that, of him like taking off the sunglasses and standing up if he's

Caroline 52:12

Mm-hmm.

Anne 52:13

something. So, One of my other favorite moments, which we are briefly talked about is getting Dr. Wu's explanation, and he's being so cavalier and Hammond wants them to imprint on him. And that reminds me of, I think, a deeper horror, of people who think, they have connections with wild animals. did you ever watch Grizzly Man with Timothy Tread Wall?

Caroline 52:33

I did watch Grizzly Man and Tiger King and there's a new chimp. Crazy, like there's a lot of these documentaries of these people who are delusional and abusing animals. No.

Anne 52:47

swimming with sharks?

Caroline 52:48

Ugh.

Anne 52:49

gorgeous. So she looks really sexy when she swims with sharks, but she's like swimming with great whites and stuff, and she recognizes the danger and she's like, if I get eaten, I get eaten. But like, I don't know. I'm just like, you're lucky until you're not. You have a connection until you don't. It only takes one animal coming across you in a moment when they're hungry and all that's gone. Right. You know what I would love to see, have you seen many of the later movies?

Caroline 53:09

None.

Anne 53:10

Okay. Well, Chris Pratt has a connection with one of the Velociraptors and it's like his buddy cause he like raised it and it kind of listens to him. I would love to see through, I don't know, however many just Jurassic World movies. He's maintained this connection. Like at some point it's just hungry and it just eats him. I would love to see Chris Pratt die that way.

Caroline 53:25

Me too. I would love that too. Also, I never really understood why. I'm sure this is explained, but it's like, clearly the first time went wrong. Why would you do this again? So it was confusing to me that there would even be a second, Yeah, I get, I guess, It's confusing to me that they would even have this happen a second time, let alone however many there's been. my son loves these movies and he actually very recently just decided to watch everything in timeline order or whatever, So he's just binged them all. I remember when he first started watching them that I walked in and I saw Bryce Ellis Howard running in high heels with her hair down. both of those things are wrong.

Anne 54:03

Yeah.

Caroline 54:03

put your hair back in a ponytail and take those fucking shoes off. what are we even doing here?

Anne 54:08

I also get annoyed with her character because arc is like, don't be a workaholic. And I'm so tired of that arc. Like every Jim Carrey nineties movie is like, don't be a workaholic. And I'm just kind of like, give me a better arc.

Caroline 54:20

Yeah.

Anne 54:20

What do you think is the scariest moment?

Caroline 54:22

when they're, in the car in the beginning and the moonroof, I guess you would call it now, which was not a term, them comes down and, and the T-Rex is like trying to eat them and then, that whole bit is the scariest for me.

Anne 54:36

I think it's so good and this is why I think it's horror. Like we've got rain obscuring what's happening. We see the goat. The goat is gone.

Caroline 54:42

Mm-hmm.

Anne 54:42

get the gory leg landing on the window, and then we hear the snapping of wires and we see that one claw, like slowly pulling it down like it's so effective.

Caroline 54:50

Yeah. I don't like that she has yeah, exactly. The whole process. But like, I hate the flashlight bit cause I'm just like, are you kidding me? Like,

Anne 55:00

down. Yeah. one of my greatest fears and movie problems is people getting crushed. And I think it probably goes back to seeing Lu Kahn and land the garbage compactor. It's a major fear

Caroline 55:11

Mm.

Anne 55:11

So the idea of like, you know, seeing it slowly pushing them down into the mud is very scary. another I think scary scene is Ellie getting the electricity back on in the maintenance shed. and again, it doesn't really make sense. Like she's in this maintenance shed for a while making a ton of noise, pressing buttons, talking to the walkie-talkie, what was that raptor waiting for?

Caroline 55:31

Yeah.

Anne 55:31

And my kids were like, why, how did Samuel l Jackson's hand get there? And I'm like, the jump scare. That's how

Caroline 55:36

Yeah. Yeah.

Anne 55:37

sense. It's a great scare.

Caroline 55:38

And then obviously also like the kitchen scene, which is like

Anne 55:42

the kitchen

Caroline 55:43

the, the kitchen from the Shining basically. And, and, and her like trying to move the thing down, and then he runs into the mirror.

Anne 55:51

that reflection doesn't make sense either, from the angle. But it's great if you've watched Stranger Things season five, there's an homage to it, but with de mcg

Caroline 55:58

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Anne 56:00

And I remember being very impressed by that dessert buffet as a kid.

Caroline 56:03

Oh, yeah.

Anne 56:04

I want that. Okay. hard beneath the surface, prices at theme parks.

Caroline 56:10

Mm.

Anne 56:10

As someone who I know just got back from visiting a few theme parks, I'm sure you are very aware of how unreasonably expensive they are.

Caroline 56:17

Yes. I'm,

Anne 56:18

we can charge anything we want. He wasn't kidding.

Caroline 56:20

I have been telling everyone that I am essentially Tiger came being like, I am never gonna financially recover from this.

Anne 56:28

Yeah. The rush to capitalize, clearly this is being rushed to make money. He's cutting corners despite what he's saying. which ties into our old villain of unfettered capitalism.

Caroline 56:38

the related, deeper horror is you don't know when the place you've decided to attend through ridiculous prices has done that. So like these kids don't know what they've walked into,

Anne 56:51

it's very unfair to them. and it all makes me wonder what ethical lines are being crossed today? What scientists and researchers are doing, what billionaires are funding, and whether or not they're stopping to think about the consequences.

Caroline 57:03

Mm-hmm.

Anne 57:04

Obviously playing God with genetics. I love that advances in genetics are putting people like the Golden State Killer in prison and freeing the innocent from death row. But it also makes me nervous. Gatica had a real impact on me, like whether genetics could be used to create a caste system in the future. it's all very interesting. But kind of scary in terms of what they might be able to do in the future. billionaires fucking around. you know that Titan Submersible disaster. Ai. This is a Frankenstein story. Making something without considering the consequences. Ai, which is listening. I sympathize with Grant feeling extinct as new technology comes into play. I am an English teacher. In an era where AI now exists, are we going extinct the way paleontologists digging up bones would be if cloning was actually possible. cause it's impacting teaching a lot. And I don't think any of those creating it care what it is doing to the brains of young people who are taking the easy way out.

Caroline 57:56

No, they don't care.

Anne 57:57

Maybe

Caroline 57:57

I,

Anne 57:58

because an uneducated population is easier to manipulate.

Caroline 58:01

yes, but how did they make money? Because if they can't make any money, they can't spend any money. Obviously this is also relevant. My husband's an architect. It's a big issue in that industry as well. but I think we have gone, as humans, we have gone through several instances of a technological advance, making a skill irrelevant or no longer necessary, and we have figured out a way to come up with a new skill that is still necessary and relevant. so I, I don't think all, like all is lost, but obviously it's gonna be important to be paying attention and honing your skills so that you can adapt, instead of clinging to an old thing. when signs are there.

Anne 58:39

Like English teaching.

Caroline 58:40

No, like the way, like ways, you know, like AI's never gonna come up with your cool, incorporating pop culture into your English classes.

Anne 58:50

No, it wouldn't. I've told students, Hey, while you're writing that creative writing thing, ask AI what it would write and make sure you write the opposite. Because what it has come up with is the most generic cliched thing out there.

Caroline 59:00

Well, what has come up with already exists, like it's working off of what's there already. it's not coming up with new things. It's sourcing from information available. So you gotta like, take it a step further, you know?

Anne 59:13

Any other deeper horrors? Do you have any questions?

Caroline 59:16

I don't even know how to answer that.

Anne 59:20

I'm wondering if John Hammond told Lex and Tim's parents about what they were doing that weekend,

Caroline 59:25

Well, L and Tim told their parents,

Anne 59:28

like it's a Thursday. at a bowling alley. Right? It's

Caroline 59:31

I know.

Anne 59:32

I wonder if Ellie and Alan got their funding, if Hammond was potentially ruined by this. And this is a scientific question, but did dinosaurs make noises like that? Because there's all sorts of interesting things about how the sound design like took real animal noises like walruses and birds and stuff and meshed it together to make these roars. But I remember once I had this baby board book and it had 10 pages and on each page was a different dinosaur and you could press the button for how that dinosaur roared. this is thete of sour roar and this is a T-Rex roar. And I remember being like, don't know that. Like,

Caroline 1:00:04

No.

Anne 1:00:04

know how they roared differently. And I looked it up and I think that, paleontologist has an a podcast episode about it. probably didn't roar, like when we think about their most. linked species, it's birds,

Caroline 1:00:15

Right.

Anne 1:00:16

don't roar.

Caroline 1:00:16

No, they don't. I,

Anne 1:00:18

don't roar.

Caroline 1:00:18

I've thought about that too, also I've thought about like when you see the skeletons of cute, fluffy creatures and what their skeletons look like, we only know what the skeleton looks like. We don't really have any sense of muscle mass around it. You know,

Anne 1:00:31

Yes.

Caroline 1:00:32

I really wonder how far off we are from what they actually look like.

Anne 1:00:36

invisible episode on this, they talk about how we have drawn dinosaurs in art and how much, you speculation. That is, we

Caroline 1:00:44

Totally.

Anne 1:00:44

when you think about so many animals, they're not just shrink wrapped skin over bones.

Caroline 1:00:49

Totally.

Anne 1:00:50

cartilage isn't preserved. Right. So there

Caroline 1:00:52

Right.

Anne 1:00:53

of stuff going on that So, yeah, 99% invisible. Listen to that. According to paleontologist, Julia Clark, they likely cooed, but a cooing T-Rex is not scary.

Caroline 1:01:02

Co like a baby.

Anne 1:01:03

like a pigeon.

Caroline 1:01:04

Oh, ooh.

Anne 1:01:06

Yeah.

Caroline 1:01:06

Don't be mad at the pretty lady. Sorry. I was thinking Phoebe would be when friends, when Phoebe drops all of the, um, lottery tickets off the balcony. cause the pigeon comes down

Anne 1:01:17

was mad at her then. Okay.

Caroline 1:01:20

and the pigeon, she, she leaves those voicemails like, ooh, don't be mad at, mad at the pretty lady.

Anne 1:01:26

I was, I think I was just too focused on how angry I was at her for dropping the lottery tickets. okay. Any criticism.

Caroline 1:01:32

that we haven't discussed.

Anne 1:01:33

Some continuity errors, the part where Ellie investigates the Jeep that fell off the edge into the tree, and then like a second later, she's back up with the other Jeep.

Caroline 1:01:40

Yeah.

Anne 1:01:41

Spielberg had a five take rule.

Caroline 1:01:43

Oh,

Anne 1:01:43

it in five and we take what we get. And so there's that other scene where, she's running and she's got like a flashlight hanging off her leg

Caroline 1:01:50

mm-hmm.

Anne 1:01:50

and we don't see how that flashlight got there. So they must have cut something

Caroline 1:01:55

Mm-hmm.

Anne 1:01:55

if you look into it, there's quite a few continuity areas. I didn't really notice them myself, so I don't care. But

Caroline 1:02:00

I didn't either. I don't have a great sense of the layout. I guess to your point, the layout of the park and how they're getting from one place to another, no, I can't think of any that aren't just things we've discussed about have not realistic.

Anne 1:02:12

The scientific nitpicking that

Caroline 1:02:14

Yeah. And the age thing. was odd to me just for the romantic linking aspect of it, and also just didn't, I couldn't tell how much she was reciprocating any of it, so that felt uncomfortable to me.

Anne 1:02:26

Uh, one more scientific nitpicking. a predator kills something, usually it chills for a bit,

Caroline 1:02:31

Hmm.

Anne 1:02:32

will like wait like a week between kills, right? And we see that the T-Rex has eaten the goat, it's eaten janero, it's gone hunting after that herd, and it's still in the powl when it comes across the velociraptors. I know it's a big animal, but how realistic is that when we think about the the predators of today? Why is it still hungry?

Caroline 1:02:45

Yeah. I did actually think it was bizarre that the Velociraptor attacked the T-Rex for eating, it's. Fellow Velociraptor, do they have emotions? but I,

Anne 1:02:58

like

Caroline 1:02:58

but it's like,

Anne 1:02:59

after Muldoon, right?

Caroline 1:03:01

I just felt like that was really bizarre because you would know that you're not gonna survive that. You're tiny. That thing is enormous. Like if you're so smart, you should go hide and cut your losses,

Anne 1:03:11

well the herd thing is very much debated because, so for example, you might find, okay, here's this dinosaur fossil with this other species, dinosaur fossil. They must have been attacking each other, right? But often it's like, okay, a dinosaur died by the water and then they got washed together and they were found together. Doesn't mean they were actually interacting.

Caroline 1:03:28

right?

Anne 1:03:29

so much we don't know.

Caroline 1:03:30

Mm-hmm.

Anne 1:03:31

if you are interested, you could read that book. I mentioned the shortest history ever of dinosaurs or something. so you haven't seen the other movies, but one criticism I have of the other movies is the overdoing of CGI, the overdoing it in general, like more dinosaurs, bigger dinosaurs, genetically modified to be scarier and deadlier dinosaurs. Like there's always this need to up the ante. I think Jurassic Park is just so perfect because it is restrained survival. What do we learn?

Caroline 1:03:57

Hey, you're engineers,

Anne 1:03:58

Don't build a system that only one person can run.

Caroline 1:04:01

right?

Anne 1:04:01

on that

Caroline 1:04:02

Have some backups.

Anne 1:04:04

wild animals. Seriously? You're not special. I'm looking at you. Ocean Ramsey and Timothy Treadwell. And scientists, please consider the consequences of your research and discoveries.

Caroline 1:04:14

And funders fund because you care about the issue. And don't try to like manipulate, I mean

Anne 1:04:19

your weight

Caroline 1:04:20

Yeah, exactly. That's not really a survival thing. It's just like a lecture.

Anne 1:04:24

It's a how to be a better person thing.

Caroline 1:04:26

Yeah.

Anne 1:04:27

do we learn, I think is really

Caroline 1:04:28

Yeah.

Anne 1:04:28

by

Caroline 1:04:29

Don't be a dick.

Anne 1:04:30

Survival of the species. Billionaires should stop being dicks.

Caroline 1:04:34

Mm-hmm.

Anne 1:04:35

All right. this is a palate cleanser for me. I love this movie. I don't need one. It's been really fun reading the book with my daughter and rewatching it for the millionth time. Do you have a palate, cleanser or something that's brought you a bit of joy?

Caroline 1:04:46

I do. So I had two. One is TikTok related, so it's gonna be irrelevant by the time this comes out, or it'll just have gotten to reels where you'll find it,

Anne 1:04:54

I'll see it then.

Caroline 1:04:56

but this past week there was a guy on a business trip at the Courtyard Marriott in Westbury, New York, and he was being served these enormous glasses of wine. And it was just one of those moments, TikTok users will know what I'm saying when I say it was like, a couch guy, moment where everyone is enjoying the same thing at the same like Snooky was commenting on it. It, it was very fun. So I recommend that series. It's like five nights. and then also Big Mistakes is a new series on Netflix that, has, Daniel, levy and, aunt Jackie, Lori Metcalfe. it's a dark comedy, dark true crime comedy.

Anne 1:05:32

What's better than that?

Caroline 1:05:33

I mean, it's not true crime. It's a dark crime comedy. Sorry,

Anne 1:05:36

Okay.

Caroline 1:05:37

true. Just comes outta my mouth.

Anne 1:05:39

Not all crime is true, Carolyn.

Caroline 1:05:40

No.

Anne 1:05:41

All right. What's our homework?

Caroline 1:05:42

so we're finally gonna get around to Devil in the White City next time.

Anne 1:05:46

I'm enjoying my reread so much. It's so good.

Caroline 1:05:48

it is good. I enjoy some parts of it more than others, but we'll talk about that next time.

Anne 1:05:53

Also, the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair had a hydrosaur fossil connection.

Caroline 1:05:58

What is a hydro sour? Is that or a leaf of sour?

Anne 1:06:02

it's, it's a veggie source,

Caroline 1:06:04

Veggie. Sour, yeah. Sorry.

Anne 1:06:05

by the way. Survival. Not all veggie. Souses would be harmless herbivores can be dangerous, like elephants, rhinos, hippos, they kill more people than sharks

Caroline 1:06:14

Yeah.

Anne 1:06:15

anyway. What recommendations do you have?

Caroline 1:06:16

okay. So, you know, just like Spielberg's catalog, I thought about Goonies and ET obviously. I thought about Deep Blue Sea a bunch as well for Jeff Goldblum. This might be the eighth or ninth time. I've recommended Magna Rock, also love the, yeah, I also love The Big Chill. That's another place where I love him being, kind of a, greasy slime ball that's also quite lovable.

Anne 1:06:38

Lovable. Greasy? Yeah.

Caroline 1:06:39

yeah. Laura Dern, I loved her in Big Little Lies and she's like, I will not, not be rich. She's so good in that. We've already talked about law and order for BD Wong. I also wrote down Class Action Park.'cause I was thinking about rich people cutting corners to make a profit in a theme park environment. So that's a good documentary to watch Or of course TCO has covered it, so you could just listen to their episode. that's it.

Anne 1:07:02

I'm gonna say hitchcock's the birds because birds descended from dinosaurs. and actually they say birds are dinosaurs and birds can be very scary.

Caroline 1:07:10

Good call.

Anne 1:07:11

if you ever go to la. Florida, go to Universal Studios, pay a lot go on the Jurassic Park Flume ride, and check out the LaBrea Tar Pits It's one of my favorite things I've done in LA because you are seeing those scientists at work. there's a dinosaurs documentary on Netflix, narrate it by Morgan Friedman, I think for tech and creations out of control, there's the horror movie, Meghan Guillermo del Tores, Frankenstein, for creation. Without considering the consequences, Westworld has similar themes. I love season one. Rogue is another kind of monster horror adjacent movie that made me pull my feet up on the couch. King Kong is another hubris of man story about, able to control a creature who who's been brought into our civilization and will react aggressively. For a more literary pick, Clara and the Sun, and never let me go. Also about, you know, scientific that are harming people. for the kids night at the museum because it's got a T-Rex skeleton that chases Ben still around. And for little kids, dinosaur trained. Did you ever watch Dinosaur Train with your kids? Dinosaur Train. Dinosaur Train.

Caroline 1:08:14

No, I watched like Dino trucks or something like that. It was like dinosaurs that were car, because my like kids are into cars. That's their thing.

Anne 1:08:23

train is great and it's actually got like paleontologists on it, so it's actually educational. we mentioned Stranger Things season five with the demic organs, toy Story the T-Rex arms Rex. Yeah. And I would deeply see, of course, because of genetic modification and underestimating the creatures you're playing God with and friends because Ross is a paleontologist.

Caroline 1:08:44

Right.

Anne 1:08:44

it for me.

Caroline 1:08:45

Toy Story two bloopers. Again, because I think there's like, he's trying to throw the thing at him and he can't catch it because it's,

Anne 1:08:52

Awesome. do you have anything else?

Caroline 1:08:54

Actually, I just remembered it was really funny to hear people calling each other like, Mr. You know, like that's not a thing we do it. Anymore.

Anne 1:09:02

I used to call my friends parents, like

Caroline 1:09:04

Same.

Anne 1:09:05

Whatever. Not anymore. No.

Caroline 1:09:06

No. My kids' friends call me Caroline. Like they don't even say Miss,

Anne 1:09:11

I remember when your kid called me mom. Because I was like, your mom's not in the room. And he kept calling up mom, mom, he wanted like a sandwich or something. And I was like, she's not here. And he's like, I meant a mom. He was little.

Caroline 1:09:26

I need to work on that. That's sexist parent, parent.

Anne 1:09:29

a mom to make him a sandwich. Yeah. All right. Thank you for listening. If you have anything you'd like to add to our discussion of this,, please contact us. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and threads. please tell a like-minded friend. And if like Shirley Jackson, you delight in what you fear. Join us again in a week or two on Drawn To Darkness.

Caroline 1:09:49

I like that in a week or two.

Anne 1:09:51

Yeah,

Caroline 1:09:52

That's good.

Anne 1:09:52

don't know what we're gonna do.

Caroline 1:09:53

Yeah.

Anne 1:10:05

feel like I'm not saying it right.

Caroline 1:10:06

Oh, you are. Please do all the things podcasters ask you to do.

Anne 1:10:10

please do all the things podcasters ask us to do. Please do all. do all the things. Bloopers. Please do all the things. Podcast, I can't say it. Special shout out to Nancy Ano who painted our cover art. You can find her on Instagram at Nancy ano and to Harry Kidd for our intro and outro music. You can find him on Instagram at Harry J. Kidd and on Spotify.