A Palaeontologist Reacts to the Jurassic Park Series

Does Hollywood get a passing grade for its dinosaur recreations in the Jurassic Park series? Canadian Museum of Nature palaeobiologist Jordan Mallon, Ph.D., views and reacts to scenes from the very first "Jurassic Park" (1993), "The Lost World" (1997), "Jurassic Park III" (2001) and a trailer for the new "Jurassic World Dominion" (2022).
0:34 “Jurassic Park”
4:26 “The Lost World”
6:26 “Jurassic Park III”
9:44 Trailer for the new “Jurassic World Dominion”
Still haven't subscribed to the Canadian Museum of Nature on KZbin? ►► bit.ly/3LBjIgw
Want to stay in the know? Follow the Canadian Museum of Nature on social media! 
Facebook ►► bit.ly/2uIL53w
Instagram ►► bit.ly/3yItSZP
Twitter ►► bit.ly/3wpqhhI
LinkedIn ►► bit.ly/3wsOCmF
French version: • Un paléontologue réagi...
Canadian Museum of Nature- nature.ca

[@ahtea725]

Loved this thank you! I was in a class in Queen's eons ago. Someone asked the professor what he thought of the movie. (only one movie back then) He looked around the lecture hall and said, 'The scene where they see the brachiosaurs for the first time? I had tears in my eyes' We all cheered.

[@chasehodgmo5537]

why is this so underated??

[@Sinsmoke_]

Who said that?

[@HitchcockBrunette]

Need more of this guy and dinosaur content, please! This was wonderful! Same here… seeing Jurassic park as a child at age 8 changed the course of my entire life. I’m 36 now! Our whole generation feels this!

[@nightstrike90]

I don't think Dr. Grants comments about the Brachiosaurus being like a "Big Cow" was about its similarities to a cow, rather reassuring her that it's basically as dangerous and threatening as a cow. It's just a big lug that isn't going to hurt you.

[@Jayson_Tatum]

Cows are fucking dangerous

[@ShilohSmith]

Cows are most certainly dangerous and threatening in the right (or in this case, wrong) situations 😅 they have a lot of mass and the power of numbers and by god…I’ve seen them wield that power. It’s quite terrifying 😂

[@ShilohSmith]

I think that was most peoples problems with the movies tbh, they made herbivores out to be peace loving pacifists but herbivores today can and will hurt you if they feel they have a good enough reason to. Like herbivores are actually considered to be more aggressive and unpredictable because of the generational trauma of being hunted and eaten.

[@sydney6698]

@@ShilohSmithconsidering that they kill about around 20 people a year, which is more than wolves and sharks, cows are definitely not as benign as people think.

[@ShilohSmith]

@@sydney6698 fuckin aye, I definitely wouldn’t fuck with a cow. Nope 😂

[@RavenclawFtW3295]

The biggest difference between the Jurassic Park and World series, I've noticed is this: When the T. Rex is first introduced, she explored the new environment she got into. When the Indominus is introduced it gets straight to killing and eating people.

[@HitchcockBrunette]

There is truly nothing quite like the original… love seeing her explore and be curious as an animal would in that first scene she’s in JP!

[@scottb3034]

@Triassic World I mean, that's completely wrong but sure. Also, how'd you spell Jurassic wrong but correctly spelled Triassic in your name? LOL

[@scottb3034]

Yes, they explored the animals as animals in the first two movies. JP/// started to shift them to monster territory and the JW trilogy finished that transition off. Spielberg lost his way because of his obsession with certain ideas he wanted to explore with JW.

[@duitk]

While Jurassic world is inferior to Jurassic park I remember they explain the Indominus reacts that way because she's been badly treated and has no socialization. It's basically an animal version of a psychopath.

[@timjaeger6589]

Owen explains that when he says that “she’s experiencing all of this for the first time.” Since the I-Rex has been isolated and without any significant contact with others or even having to hunt, plus the implied existential crisis of not really having a grasp of what it even is, effectively caused her, as one commenter said, to become a psychopath.

[@terrytyrannosaurus7354]

I did love that Dr. Jordan Mallon shared thoughts about the Tyrannosaurus Rex (T. rex) and Spinosaurus. But I was also hoping to see him tell his thoughts on the Giganotosaurus.

[@MaxHohenstaufen]

The guliganotosaurus is a fabrication by mainstream media

[@ramiucla]

Good point, I hadn't thought about Rexy being full after eating Genaro, especially after having eaten the goat too. Much have been more hungry than usual.

[@scottb3034]

the Rex didn't eat gennaro. it "played" with him like a dog plays with a chew toy. Since the rex is way more powerful than a human body he was ripped apart. this was touched on by Muldoon and Ellie later when searching the wreckage. they find gennaro in two pieces (originally spielberg was going to show his leg but figured it was too graphic for the movie he was making and decided not to). Anyway, the rex was not hunting on the main road sequence, it was exploring. You can see its more aggressive, decisive hunting techniques later in the film when it is hunting the gallimimus and the raptors. Differs greatly from the more cautious, curious approach during the breakout.

[@ginniem9779]

Dr. Mallon says he likes peaceful scenes in Jurassic series and not the scenes of people getting eaten. I totally agree with him. It makes me feel uneasy every time to watch people being eaten alive, although that is what adds suspense to the movie.

[@thomasembleton1467]

The Jurassic world series is basically call of duty with dinosaurs. Definitely preferred the more implied threat and danger of the first 2 films where the predators were used sparingly.

[@scottb3034]

i wouldn't say they were used sparingly in the original two movies, just used more intelligently/expertly and in more diverse ways. instead of just bloodthirsty, destructive forces of nature they exhibited animal behaviors along the entire gamut such as curiosity, parental concern/care, hunting, territorial protection, playfulness, etc. Nowadays it just murder, eat, destroy and a token shot here or there of herbivores living placidly.

[@stopiminmyroom4890]

I like videos like this because other interviews look for the most dated and out there depictions of the animals while this one isn't just looking for negative things and that is nice!

[@theangrycheeto]

Awesome. One of the best paleontologist reacts videos out there. Hope to see more!

[@alphanimetv]

If I'm not mistaken, Jurassic Park III was an unwitting precursor. The aquatic spinosaurus scene is there to echo the similar scene with the T-rex in Crichton's novel, and wasn't intended to depict a scientific theory in the first place. But as luck would have it, the film depicts an aquatic Spinosaurus 13 years before Dr. Nasir Ibrahim's neotype. It's funny to see it with a silhouette close to Stromer's version, but with a behavior close to Ibrahim's one lol.

[@JosLuisOfficial]

“Velociraptors aren’t scary anymore. They’re pets, basically”. Yeah, that’s how I felt when I saw all Jurassic World Movies

[@cinnakincat4260]

can I just say, I was *ecstatic* when Therizinosaurus showed up in Jurassic World: Dominion, that's been one of my favorite dinosaurs since I was a kid.

[@skwisgarskwigelf7191]

2:59 the way Rexy violently shook the lawyer back and forth in its jaws reminded me of a crocodile doing a death roll

[@yellowishyoutubechannel3900]

I love to go Museum and love to learn about things in Museum 👍✨ Especially about nature and animals

[@vandarik5766]

the Spinosaurus always seemed like a crocodilian species, saltwater crocodiles of today do quite well on the sea but a creature of that size would have a larger habitat and even compete with larger predators of the oceans, the less weight from it's bone mass would make it more buoyant giving it a habitat near any body of water and it would migrate between them just on an over behavioral profile of what a predator of it's size and capabilities should hold, it's an apex predator.

[@CarlosFontes]

Sounds weird but I would love to see the Jurassic World toys get an overview. There are so many cool dinosaurs not featured in the films that get toys. I would love to see how accurate they are.

[@RobinusPrime]

"Moving on to Jurassic Park 3, this is one of the opening scenes" Sorry bud.. But this scene takes place about 2/3ds in, after they leave the birdcage..

[@kurvos]

I love how painfully obvious it is that he hates the Jurassic World movies and doesn't give a shit about them. But he also isn't allowed to say that in the video, so he claims he's going to watch it... but look at his face after saying that. XD He looks like he's dead inside.

[@justintrimpey8862]

I grew up with the Jurassic Park series and I enjoy watching them to this day

[@alainamacdonald1621]

You should also react to the series "Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous" it has more peaceful moments showing most of the dinosaurs as just animals instead of monsters. Along with some interesting educational details included about dinosaurs, that I'd love to know whether it's more accurate or not. For example that: there's a field of study called "behavioural paleo neuro biology," a watering hole can be neutral ground for predator & prey dinosaurs under the right conditions, stegosaurs shed their plates the same as deer shed antlers, carnotaurus was fast but not on turns, dinosaurs sometimes competed over geothermal vents to use as incubation chambers for their eggs, compsognathus had traces of venom in it's bite and were crepuscular. Etcetera

[@DT-hp8de]

Now, he didn't actually eat the entire lawyer. Later on, in the movie, when Dr. Sadler and the Game Warden arrive, Sadler states "I think this was Gennaro." The game warden says "I think this was too." (or vice versa).

[@volkerball85]

8:30 - Actually, if you watch the whole film, Grant observes a Raptor earlier on that is trapped behind a door, which lets out a very specific cry, to call out to the other members of its pack for help. When Grant uses the printed chamber to scare off the Raptors, he simply does his best to mimic what he heard earlier. Immediately after, the Raptors hear the approaching helicopters and such, recognizing that as the sound of more humans approaching, and seem to figure "Okay, he called the rest of their pack, time to grab the eggs and skedaddle." It's not really a case of Grant just magically being able to frighten off the Raptors by blowing through a piece of plastic.

[@creativekaiju7572]

Regarding the Brachiosaurs and the Parasaurolophus scene, did Alamosaurus and Parasaurolophus live at the same time and same region? If so I imagine the Brachiosaurus makes a pretty good stand in for what those two species might have been like in real life when passing each other by.

[@catpoke9557]

I think my favorite scene is the barchiosaurus scene. I always imagine that after a dinosaur reaches a certain size they just won't care about something as small as us, and I like that idea purely because the thought of interacting with a gentle giant sauropod makes me very happy. Accurate? Who knows, but I love it

[@Nightout88]

from what I remember on one of the sites for JW way back when it was still in talks and an un-named movie, it mentions pyroraptor having "penguin dna", much like I-rex having "puffer fish and chameleon". If anyone has the "site link" or can remember the name of the site please let me know because for now I'm just going off of memory and the site is from like 2011.

[@Nightout88]

but that explains why it can swim like that, because they used "penguin dna" rather then frog or fish or anything else.

[@Kubakaiser]

"Eats the entire lawyer"

[@bagginssupercat]

"Only needs 1 lawyer a day".. hahaha

[@melmalade-2255]

A lawyer a day, keeps the doctor away. XD

[@NextToToddliness]

I like this presentation. It's fun, fair, but also trying to course correct towards reality. The first Jurassic Park is what inspired my love for biology, which eventually led me into a career in Sociology & Cultural Psychology. As much as I love the entertainment value some of these films can present, they do feature an abundance of misinformation and mischaracterization in regards to dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. I don't think the newer ones carry as much wonder concerning science, but they definitely help keep these long gone organisms fresh in the public's mind. I hope people never get bored with things that inspire learning.

[@jabbarmuhammad8804]

Good accurate words from the paleontologist

[@crzykerns]

Crazy that the spino in the film is only 2 years old and 43 feet long so giga isnt the biggest like they say in dominion if the spino from jp3 is still alive

[@andrew_nosal]

Great reaction video! Jurassic Park is my favorite movie of all time. And not only that, it's one of my favorite books. I actually just made a video on my channel going through a lot of the books, movies, and games that make up the franchise. Sound off in the comments section! Would love to hear what your favorites are.

[@pinder262]

Loved his commentary on the movies, but one thing i got to say I get what hes saying about Alan Grant using a resonating chamber to "scare" the raptors away, and hes right about thenfact Grant shouldnt know how to communicate, and if you watch the scene i dont think he was actually communicating, given the raptors obvious confusion as they reacted They only ran after hearing the loud rumbling noise in the background which led to the group finding that guy shouting on a megaphone before the military shows up in dramatic fashion

[@lup2891]

Earlier in the movie the group was chased by one of the raptors and managed to lock him up. The raptor started making noises, Grant stopped, looked at the raptor and mumbled smth like "he's calling for help". In the scene that was shown in this video Alan first tried the resonance chamber and the sound seemd to make the raptors more angry. One of the group members told Alan to "call for help" so Alan imitates the sound he heard before when they locked the raptor up and the raptors changed from aggressive to confused probably because they wondered who the raptor calling for help was since their whole family was there circling the humans. In the end they got scared away by the sounds of the helicopter. Long story short: Alan simply imitated the sound he heard before and hoped that his guess that it was a cry for help was correct

[@pinder262]

@@lup2891 then i stand corrected... i think

[@KyleHJ]

The raptors in Jurassic Park arn’t based on Velociraptors. Michael Crichton said they’re actually based on Deinonychus, velociraptor just sounded cooler so he gave them that name. The movies followed suit.

[@Jarod-vg9wq]

Could velociraptor communicate with complex vocals an work in family unit like wolves?

[@azzura5427]

Is it true that the old films contain hypotheses that were widely discussed among paleontologists at the time?

[@vanheerdenseoservices1716]

Is it just me or would they take a very long time to get to those big sizes longer than Jerasic park was said to have existed at the time?

[@jasonpeacock9735]

In the book, it’s mentioned that the park has been growing the dinosaurs for years before they were revealed. But, Dominion is horrible. Somehow full adult dinosaurs are all over the world just a couple years after the tech was released.

[@thegeop5906]

Besides to mention that the "Velociraptors" in these movies are actually Deinonychus!

[@hamodhossain4261]

ohh come on how u didn't say any thing about Dilophosaurus ? it was totally messed up in the first movie :(

[@TyrantRex22]

to respectfully counter you remark on a Tyrannosaur's metabolism: isn't also theoriesd that Tyrannosaurs were Gorge Feeders? i doubt a single lawer and 3/4 a goat would be enough to sate that kind of appitite

[@Tareltonlives]

My only objection would be that T.rex probably had a higher metabolism than an endothermic reptile. I do speculate that two goats/people (400 lbs for a 10 ton predator) would be enough for a day. Add in that gallimimus the next morning and Rexy's doing fine.

[@Ambular333]

🦖🦕

[@kodidane5824]

I would like to point out that the T-rex didnt eat the lawyer. She just bit him in half. They fnd his body halves later in the movie.

[@ICDAWORLD]

I love these type of videos, but this guy put me to sleep very quickly.

[@Number1TiredArtist]

He barely talked about the appearance of the animals

[@meganjones1184]

Every paleontologist commenting on jurassic park talk about the fact that the dinosaurs lived at different times and wouldn't interact...but they were gemeticly engineered so it's not applicable!!! Ic I could go back, I would have chosen to be a paleontologist!!! So fascinating to me!!!!

[@VicariousReality7]

Fix your audio levels

[@kennakellon8852]

I like this guy. I watched one dude who said that the velociraptors were completely unreal and that’s false. They’re accurate, at least halfway, just not an accurate name. Real velociraptors are smaller and feathered but there is a raptor (i forget which one) that looks like the one in Jurassic park. I miss my old dinosaur books.

[@msjrockqueen2011]

Not a big fan of the audio in this video; I can barely hear him & when I turn the volume up, the movie clips are too loud.

[@catpoke9557]

JP definitely wasn't accurate even for its time but it got really close to it with some of the designs. Others... were almost as bad as JW, haha. Actually in some ways JW is more accurate while in others it's less. For example now whenever it introduces a feathered species it usually actually puts feathers on it, complete with wing feathers and everything. But if I'm being honest, the part that's the most important for recognizing a species is the skeletal structure, not the integument. So it's sad that the skeletal structures they're putting out tend to be even more inaccurate than JP, which wasn't exactly known for having accurate skeletons. Not that I think dinosaur movies need to be accurate. Not at all. I just prefer when the dinosaurs are close enough you can immediately tell what species they are. It would be amazing if JW improved upon the mistakes of JP with their new designs (keeping the old inaccurate ones is fine to avoid ret-conning) instead of forming their own problems when it comes to being able to identify the animals. I would've loved to see JW doing the classic JP style but with more up to date reconstructions of new species. Nothing huge, doesn't need to be accurate, just get the basics down really. That said, that wouldn't really save the poor writing. When I watched JW I didn't care that much about how the dinosaurs looked and honestly I still don't. I just hated the writing. In a way this may be why I care about the designs at all to begin with. Maybe if JP was poorly written I'd be overly critical with their designs, too.

[@RickStoneTravels]

Paleobiologist*

[@wheelmanstan]

such a magical film.. waaaaaay too much theropod in the franchise..what a shame

[@NubbyDubby]

read the jurassic park book, its a bit more realistic aparently

[@MadmanDKDK]

2:53 Rexy also ate a sheep earlier, so yeah - Rexy would've been stuffed after a fatty hot air filled lawyer if that was the case. But that's not a good movie though. :P

[@somacruz7759]

It was a goat, not a sheep.

[@crystalheart9]

Enjoyed your thoughts on the animals. I never saw the movie and don't care for a movie full of killing each other.

[@timothyarmstrong9351]

Actually the feather Raptor like creature is a Deinonychus

[@jasonpeacock9735]

Pyroraptor

[@TheMightyN]

This guy was not the best choice to lecture paleoaccuracy in Jurassic Park films. I surmise these people grab the first "expert" curator they see cause the real Paleontologists they can't afford to interview.

[@minislayer2010]

Dominium was a load of shit

[@rj1982ii]

With all due respect, but there's no way you can say Jurassic Park dinosaurs are inacurrate due to their genetically engineered. I agree some of the stuff is not possible, or no evidence of it being that way, but these are genetically engineered. The animals that was used in their DNA might have had these possiblilities.

[@christophersmardz8196]

He is boring wake me up when done thks

[@morganangel340]

get a life...

[@jessquinn6106]

Jordan, you really must be like that one person whose friends does not invite to movies. These are MOVIES. you know, fake, fun entertainment. One being for little kids. People watch them to get away from the RL, laugh, cry and just relax. If we want REAL dinos we will go to the museum or watch a documentary. Stop pushing your ADHD into other people's fun. Most of us know the difference from real and fake.

[@therosrex5488]

Man, you are the living embodiment of a buzzkill

[@katesperinck1401]

Literally the point of the video is for the specialist to point out the realism in the film and how close it is or isn't. If you're mad about the premise, it's fascinating that you decided to watch it anyway for no reason.