Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Ruffles Some Feathers (Part 2)

Complaints about Jurassic Park’s scientific accuracy proceed from a couple of false assumptions.  The first, and by far the most important issue for this discussion is scientific accuracy was never the avowed goal of Ingen, Masrani, Lockwood’s flunky or anyone else involved with the physical creation of these animals.  The other assumption deals with the dollar value attached to these animals.  John Hammond tells us they: “spared no expense,” but, this is clearly not the case. 

All the way back in the dark ages of the early 1990s when the novel Jurassic Park was released the text pointed out that the characters had a clear understanding of the “nature” of their creations even if they did not have control over them.  The chapter titled Version 4.4 records a lengthy philosophical discussion between Dr. Henry Wu, and John Hammond.  Dr. Wu argues that people do not want real dinosaurs, they “want to see their expectation.”  He goes on to point out that “[Jurassic] Park is entertainment” and “entertainment has nothing to do with reality.”  When Hammond protests that changing the dinosaur would make them less real, Wu responds “They’re not real now […] there isn’t any reality here.”  The take away point here is that even before the creation of the Jurassic films the franchise was predicated on the knowledge that the dinosaurs did not reflect reality.  

Like the steady drum beat of the Roman legions this concept is reinforced ad nauseum in each Jurassic film, right down to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.  The degenerate CEO of InGen insinuates the artificial construct of the dinosaurs in The Lost World saying: “an extinct animal brought back to lie has no rights.  It exists because we made it.  We patented it.  We own it.”  In the following film in 2001, an exasperated Dr. Alan Grant explained: “What John Hammond and InGen did at Jurassic Park [was] create genetically engineered theme park monster, nothing more, and nothing less.  When Dr. Wu is confronted by Simon Masrani in 2015’s Jurassic World he defends himself saying: “Bigger, scarier, cooler, [are] the word[s] that you used in your memo. You cannot have an animal with exaggerated predator features without the corresponding behavioral traits. […] You are acting like we're engaged in some kind of mad science, but we are doing what we have done from the beginning. Nothing in Jurassic World is natural. We have always filled gaps in the genome with the DNA of other animals and, if their genetic code was pure, many of them would look quite different, but you didn't ask for reality. You asked for more teeth.”  The take away point here is that explicitly, since the beginning, the dinosaurs were never meant to be real in the paleontological science sense of the term.

So, what does this tell us about the great feather schism?  Sticking feathers in your butt does not make you a chicken.  Yet, some folks will still need explaining.  If you view the Jurassic Park dinosaurs in the historical context of cloning it is very easy to understand why the animals we know to have feathers do not appear with feathers in the films.  Quite a few very smart people have worked on the science of cloning.  Beginning in the 1920s and 1930s German scientists experimenting with genetics set the bedrock for what would evolve into modern cloning research.  Frogs were cloned in 1952, carp in 1963, and a mouse in 1986.  By far the most famous clone, Dolly the sheep, was created in 1997.  

The scientists that created Dolly have stated that it took 277 attempts to achieve success.  What the geneticists have steadfastly refused to release is the total dollar value of the effort to clone Dolly.  The best guess from other British scientists put the total at or near £500,000.  Converting currency that comes to $659,630.50 to clone one sheep.  If you do a little bit of math you can see the financial forces at work in cloning.  If an average sheep weighs 180 pounds and costs $659,630 and some change how much would a full-size dinosaur run?  An adult Tyrannosaurus weighed 9 tons, or 180,000 pounds, 100x larger than Dolly the sheep.  Per pound, that makes a Tyrannosaurus $65,963,050 before shipping. 

The great feather schism is really centered on the Velociraptor though.  If you read Velociraptor’s 1980’s Roots then you know that the film Velociraptor is actually built to the dimensions of Deinonychus, about 200 pounds each.  Therefore, each of the film Velociraptors cost somewhere around $733,000 each.  Clones of sheep, cows, cats, dogs have all been created since 1997, but, the limiting factor has been, and will continue to be the cost of production.  It is true the price per unit of everything drops in relation to the scale of production.  But, unless you are talking about producing millions, or even tens of thousands of Velociraptors reduced unit cost is not going to help you.

We know that irrefutable fossil evidence found in 1996 proves that non-avian dinosaurs like Velociraptor had feathers.  The problem for our beloved Jurassic Park franchise is that the initial Velociraptors were created prior to this.  None of the original three Velociraptors survived the Isla Nublar Incident in 1993.  The Velociraptors in The Lost World, and Jurassic Park III were created concurrently with the nine animals that were transported to Isla Nublar before the failure of the first park.  There is a commonality of genetic material among the Isla Sorna, and Nublar Velociraptors.  Therefore, even though we discover non-avian feathered dinosaurs before the second and third film, the animals in those films are already alive, or direct genetic descendants of animals that were already alive.  It is very unlikely that anyone on the board at InGen, or Masrani would say “go out there and shoot those $733,000 Velociraptors so we can make some new ones with feathers.”  A constant shown in the films is the concern that InGen has about preserving their financial investment – the bottom line.  Lest we forget, that is why Drs. Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, and Ian Malcolm travel to Jurassic Park in the first place. 

Waste Not, Want Not.

The above facts and timeline even explain the lack of feathers on the four Velociraptors living in Jurassic World ca. 2015.  Remember that the obnoxious little boy traps a Velociraptor in the walk-in freezer during the 1993 Incident.  After the fall of the first park, Dr. Wu is still employed by InGen.  Dr. Wu is also, not an idiot.  He is not going to reinvent the wheel of dinosaur DNA when he has a full grown adult Velociraptor on ice in the Visitor Center Kitchen.  Waste not, want not.  In both Jurassic World, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom we see scenes of Dr. Wu, and other nefarious InGen goblins grabbing DNA samples as they flee like Hood leaving Atlanta. 

Therefore, the Velociraptors, and by extension all the other dinosaurs in Jurassic Park from 1993 to 2018 have clear and logical explanations for their lack of feathers.  When Dr. Wu creates something “new,” or is hired by the AMNH, or Smithsonian then we can revisit the dinosaurs sans feathers argument.  Naked dinosaurs are just fine if the franchise is working from the 1993 DNA, and the descendants of the original animals.  Who knows what will happen now that the dinosaurs are with us on the mainland.  Part 2 V1.N3 

Next episode: Wonder Woman, and History.