JURASSIC PARK

[Scar]

Another lesson learned...

Never EVER get your heart set on a license/brand at Sideshow.

Not even "Star Wars". There is a very real possibility that the SSC 1:6 SW line will end before we see a Chewie, R2, or 3P0.

And that we'll see six or more stormtrooper/clonetrooper repaint variants in that time span.

 

[HdoubleD]

I just picked up the banner exclusive version and i must say WOWWWWWW. Great detail, awsome colors, looks amazing in person, perfect size and weight and the BANNER MAKES THIS PIECE.

As for the bad news, i really hope the guys at sideshow read this post and reconsider thier future plans on this licence, as i suspect that myself and many other people will be extremly dissapointed due to the EXTREME POTENTIAL this line has........

Dinosauria is alright, but the main reason we spend big money on sideshow products in essence are the LICENCES!!! and the fact that we love cinema and the way sideshow gives us a chance to collect pieces of great quality based on our favorite characters, scenes, and people. I dont uspect that many people will have the same connection and desire to the Dinosauria line that they will have to the JP line, especially with the great start we had with the diorama....

 

[lerath666]

so.. is this line dead, or simply "on-hold" dead?

 

[Kyuzo]

Dinosauria is alright, but the main reason we spend big money on sideshow products in essence are the LICENCES!!! and the fact that we love cinema and the way sideshow gives us a chance to collect pieces of great quality based on our favorite characters, scenes, and people. I dont uspect that many people will have the same connection and desire to the Dinosauria line that they will have to the JP line, especially with the great start we had with the diorama....

I for one have tired of licenses in general and prefer SS's new Dinosauria line. As much as a JP fan that I am (and amateur paleontologist), I prefer to see my dinos portrayed as animals vs. hollywood monsters. The whole licensing process has so many creative licensing strings attached that it often just leaves collectors disappointed when they can't get the character(s) they love. Maybe I'm just being realistic and see SS's new direction as one free of
of such restrictions and allows them to be more openly creative; as a former collector of licensed character lines, I know too well the frustration of getting my hopes too high. OTOH, Sideshow still tops most others when it comes to meeting demand and listening to its customers. My .02

 

[Scar]

I just picked up the banner exclusive version and i must say WOWWWWWW. Great detail, awsome colors, looks amazing in person, perfect size and weight and the BANNER MAKES THIS PIECE.

As for the bad news, i really hope the guys at sideshow read this post and reconsider thier future plans on this licence, as i suspect that myself and many other people will be extremly dissapointed due to the EXTREME POTENTIAL this line has........

Dinosauria is alright, but the main reason we spend big money on sideshow products in essence are the LICENCES!!! and the fact that we love cinema and the way sideshow gives us a chance to collect pieces of great quality based on our favorite characters, scenes, and people. I dont uspect that many people will have the same connection and desire to the Dinosauria line that they will have to the JP line, especially with the great start we had with the diorama....

Glad you're happy with the piece! A great number of people were pleased with it just as it was, but the sharpie spots were simply too much for me to handle, which is the reason I got the repaint.

I have to say I disagree regarding Dinosauria, though. My hope would be ton continue both lines. With the JP line, we can have the Stan Winston dinos we know and love, portrayed either in iconic poses with maquettes or memorable scenes with dioramas; both work for me. With Dinosauria, there can be attention not to the designs made for a specific film but with a closer eye to paleontological accuracy up to date with today's theories. When JP was made, while some of their designs took creative liberties, the science in the movie is positively staggering. Going on the paleontology of the day, it was magnificently well-rendered. That said, we have learned things in the nearly 16 years since JP hit theaters, and I for one find it refreshing when artisans take the time to not only create pieces in line with modern knowledge, but to render dinosaurs with personality. The Inside Look says it very well. No two animals in the wild look exactly the same, and this is perhaps the most prevalent in carnivores. I can't ever remember seeing Great Whites that were identical; there are always qualifying characters, be they size, gender, bite marks, gashes, damaged fins. This is just one example of course, but the same can be said of all extant large carnivorous fauna. The Dinosauria pieces keep an eye to accuracy while infusing the dinosaurs with personality so that you feel you have a sense of the life journey this given animal has taken. I adore both the JP and Dinosauria lines.

I for one have tired of licenses in general and prefer SS's new Dinosauria line. As much as a JP fan that I am (and amateur paleontologist), I prefer to see my dinos portrayed as animals vs. hollywood monsters. The whole licensing process has so many creative licensing strings attached that it often just leaves collectors disappointed when they can't get the character(s) they love. Maybe I'm just being realistic and see SS's new direction as one free of
of such restrictions and allows them to be more openly creative; as a former collector of licensed character lines, I know too well the frustration of getting my hopes too high. OTOH, Sideshow still tops most others when it comes to meeting demand and listening to its customers. My .02

The licensing restrictions I'm sure are the main issue. Rather than having to shell out vast moneys to Universal they can produce dynamic pieces that catch the eyes of collectors with full creative latitude. JP was such a brilliant film because it portrayed the dinosaurs not just as mindless killing machines, but as thinking, breathing animals. From an ethological perspective alone it is a masterpiece. I would like more JP pieces, and I'm saddened we won't be seeing any for at least a while, but the upcoming Dinosauria pieces have me stoked. I can't wait for the T.rex maquette. Initially a side view of the skull from an odd angle made me think it could be a Tarbosaurus given the bifurcated dermal ridge overlying the orbit. Tough call because about half of our T.rex skeletons share that trait. Seeing the maquette more thoroughly in the Inside Look shows the truly heavy built of both the skull and the animal. Definitely T.rex, and it's beautiful.

 

[HdoubleD]

I for one have tired of licenses in general and prefer SS's new Dinosauria line. As much as a JP fan that I am (and amateur paleontologist), I prefer to see my dinos portrayed as animals vs. hollywood monsters. The whole licensing process has so many creative licensing strings attached that it often just leaves collectors disappointed when they can't get the character(s) they love. Maybe I'm just being realistic and see SS's new direction as one free of
of such restrictions and allows them to be more openly creative; as a former collector of licensed character lines, I know too well the frustration of getting my hopes too high. OTOH, Sideshow still tops most others when it comes to meeting demand and listening to its customers. My .02

I def see your point, as i said before i think the Dinosauria line is cool, i just would be more inclined to buy a JP peice. Its just one of those "to each his own" type deals, so hopefully they can continue both lines...

I also get your point about the "hollywood monsters vs real animals" deal. But its important to note that in the book, as well as sevreal characters in the movie franchise (ian and grant), saw the animals not as "factually accurate recreated dinosaurs" but as "money generating, god playing scientific feats". Diloposaurous (butchered the spelling) was known not to have a frill, and definetly known not to spit venom at the time, but spielberg added this in and Michael added this extra stuff in the book to add to the "unjustly playing god" theme, as well as to make him more distinct from the raptors and make it a more memorable character. So i see the differenced as fitting into the whole "JP canon" of humans doing things they shouldnt, so as a dinosaur lover myself, I reconcile the differences between real science and the movies, once again its a real tomato toomahto thing.

 

[Scar]

I def see your point, as i said before i think the Dinosauria line is cool, i just would be more inclined to buy a JP peice. Its just one of those "to each his own" type deals, so hopefully they can continue both lines...

I also get your point about the "hollywood monsters vs real animals" deal. But its important to note that in the book, as well as sevreal characters in the movie franchise (ian and grant), saw the animals not as "factually accurate recreated dinosaurs" but as "money generating, god playing scientific feats". Diloposaurous (butchered the spelling) was known not to have a frill, and definetly known not to spit venom at the time, but spielberg added this in and Michael added this extra stuff in the book to add to the "unjustly playing god" theme, as well as to make him more distinct from the raptors and make it a more memorable character. So i see the differenced as fitting into the whole "JP canon" of humans doing things they shouldnt, so as a dinosaur lover myself, I reconcile the differences between real science and the movies, once again its a real tomato toomahto thing.

Interestingly enough, in the book there is absolutely no mention of the Dilophosaurus having a frill. That was a construct of SWS to make the creature distinct from the film's other star small theropod - Velociraptor. The venom-spitting element in the Dilophosaurus in both the books and movie was NOT intended to be genetic manipulation on the part of the Ingen technicians. In point of fact, the JP staff did every possible thing that they could to remove the venomous component from the Dilos, even going to such lengths as to locate the venom-generating gland and surgically removing it. They were chagrined time and again to find that their efforts were all fruitless and that the Dilos would continue to generate their venomous excretions in their saliva.

The Dilos are a very interesting case. I don't know if anyone here has a subscription to Prehistoric Times, but they had an excellent piece on Dilophosaurus last month, citing a dinosaur tooth of which little is known, including its present whereabouts. The aforementioned tooth had a groove, similar to that seen in the Spitting cobra. This "primitive groove" could possibly have been a forebear to the hollowed fangs of the cobras. The groove leads one to believe it could potentially have been a primitive delivery system for some sort of toxin created by the organism. Whether or not the dinosaur tooth was rifled is not known, as such spiral grooves are not found prevalently in the fossil record. However, it could have been the case, and while JP takes it to a severe degree, it certainly makes for an entertaining read.

 

[HdoubleD]

Interestingly enough, in the book there is absolutely no mention of the Dilophosaurus having a frill. That was a construct of SWS to make the creature distinct from the film's other star small theropod - Velociraptor. The venom-spitting element in the Dilophosaurus in both the books and movie was NOT intended to be genetic manipulation on the part of the Ingen technicians. In point of fact, the JP staff did every possible thing that they could to remove the venomous component from the Dilos, even going to such lengths as to locate the venom-generating gland and surgically removing it. They were chagrined time and again to find that their efforts were all fruitless and that the Dilos would continue to generate their venomous excretions in their saliva.

The Dilos are a very interesting case. I don't know if anyone here has a subscription to Prehistoric Times, but they had an excellent piece on Dilophosaurus last month, citing a dinosaur tooth of which little is known, including its present whereabouts. The aforementioned tooth had a groove, similar to that seen in the Spitting cobra. This "primitive groove" could possibly have been a forebear to the hollowed fangs of the cobras. The groove leads one to believe it could potentially have been a primitive delivery system for some sort of toxin created by the organism. Whether or not the dinosaur tooth was rifled is not known, as such spiral grooves are not found prevalently in the fossil record. However, it could have been the case, and while JP takes it to a severe degree, it certainly makes for an entertaining read.

wow i just realized what i wrote is very confusing haha, sorry bout that. i know that the dilopo in the book was much more realistic than the movie version and that was all spielberg trying to create a memorable caracter,and i know michael didnt do that, what i meant to say is that he put other things in the book that we have absoulutley no proof of actually being true, such as all the dinosaurs having motion based vision cause of the frog dna. Once again, completly not true of real dinos, but once again these were not the dinos that were walking around 65 million year ago. these were created for our enjoyment, and since science is never perfect, some things just happened to be different ( be it to make the story more beliveable, plot devices or for commercial effect), and to me thats fine because jp is a work of fiction.

Is it 100 percent accurate, of course not, but to me, i think of it like this, liking the JP dilipo is alot like having an a admiration towards Vito Corleone, does he have things incommen with a real mafia don of the 40's, sure, but at the end of the day he is highly romanticized for the sake of enjoyable fiction.

anyways great freaking convo this board rocks !!!!!

 

[Scar]

wow i just realized what i wrote is very confusing haha, sorry bout that. i know that the dilopo in the book was much more realistic than the movie version and that was all spielberg trying to create a memorable caracter,and i know michael didnt do that, what i meant to say is that he put other things in the book that we have absoulutley no proof of actually being true, such as all the dinosaurs having motion based vision cause of the frog dna. Once again, completly not true of real dinos, but once again these were not the dinos that were walking around 65 million year ago. these were created for our enjoyment, and since science is never perfect, some things just happened to be different ( be it to make the story more beliveable, plot devices or for commercial effect), and to me thats fine because jp is a work of fiction.

Is it 100 percent accurate, of course not, but to me, i think of it like this, liking the JP dilipo is alot like having an a admiration towards Vito Corleone, does he have things incommen with a real mafia don of the 40's, sure, but at the end of the day he is highly romanticized for the sake of enjoyable fiction.

anyways great freaking convo this board rocks !!!!!

Always glad to have a fellow JP/dino fan! Crichton did clarify that business about visual accuity being based on movement with Tyrannosaurs... as George Basleton found out in TLW when he tried to help Dogdson and King steal eggs from the T.rex nest... one of my favorite scenes in either novel. There are things in the JP books which still grate on my nerves: the forked tongue in the T.rex in JP; the female T.rex being larger than the male, and the alpha Velociraptor in the pack being a male in TLW.

Obviously, to suggest T.rex had a forked tongue would be indicative of it having a sensory component there, which just by analyzing its brain case you can see is greatly divergent in that respect from modern lizards and snakes demonstrating that feature.

As to the common misconception that females were the larger Tyrannosaur sex, to be frank we still have little or no evidence to support that, and new evidence regarding the anterior-most chevron behind the femur in the T.rex 'Sue' actually suggests the largest-known T.rex fossil may well have been male. Personally, based on ecological factors that influence sexual demorphism in modern raptors, it makes scant and dubious sense to argue for the female Tyrannosaur to be the larger sex. I have on file a paper of mine taking into account the weights of male and female extant avian raptors, as well as their prey types for each species. What you find is in species (such as falcons and small hawks) with fast, more nimble, acrobatic, aerial prey, males are exponentially smaller. In such species, it has been found that females inevitably choose smaller males, which, being lighter in weight are better capable of chasing down, say, songbirds that bob and weave dynamically; larger and heavier males would not be able to give chase as well and consequently obtain kills as frequently. With birds of prey that kill larger prey which do not require them to give chase, the difference in sexual dimorphism can be negligible, nonexistent, or result in larger males, as in some species of owl.

The fact of the matter is, the smaller and faster the prey, the more likely a female is going to be to choose a male who is small and fast. With Dromaeosaurids (extinct therpod raptors) this makes a great deal of sense in that they were lightly built and chased hadrosaurs that ran at a gallop and other small herbivores. T.rex, the large theropod with the most heavily-built skull, and possibly the most overall heavily fortified skeleton among theropods, hunted prey considerably slower than itself... commonly Triceratops, and if Edmontosaurs and other hadrosaurs were dietary components it is likely Tyrannosaurs were in a family unit where the much faster young (juveniles with longer tibias and fibulas relative to their femurs) herded the prey towards the slower parents for the kill. The point of all this is that Dromaeosaurs were built for speed, Tyrannosaurs were built for strength. It makes sense for female dromaeosaurs to select lightly built males that can chase down victims. Female Tyrannosaurs would be looking for the largest, most heavily-built males that are best capable of dispatching a Triceratops. The Cretaceous was an evolutionary arms race, and if female Tyrannosaurs naturally selected smaller males, they would be disadvantaging themselves against prey which is increasingly large and dangerous. The existence of T.rex is evidence enough that these animals were increasingly selected to be large and powerful. There's my paleo-rant.

 

[HdoubleD]

awsome info man....

i had to watch jp again just now because of this post haha...

 

[Scar]

awsome info man....

i had to watch jp again just now because of this post haha...

Nothing wrong with that. It's never a bad time to watch JP!

 

[Starkiller]

The book is better than the movie, but I love both equally.

 

[Scar]

The book is better than the movie, but I love both equally.

They are both extraordinary in their own rights, presenting how both Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg, as storytellers, weave verisimilitude with unparalleled deftness. Some of my favorite scenes in the novel were omitted from the movie, but some unbelievably awesome scenes were left in. Muldoon's fate in the movie, while greatly divergent from the book, was my favorite death for any character in any movie. Ever. That said, for how action-packed and gruesome the movie could be at times, the book was that to a ludicrously high exponential degree. I don't think you can compare the two by nature of their genres. They are both magnificent.

 

[UTtoyfan]

I received the exclusive banner version today (181/400) and am totally impressed. I am so glad I got Sideshow's one and only Jurassic Park piece. On the other hand, I'm sad now that this will be Sideshow's only Jurassic Park piece.

 

[Sachiel]

Muldoon's fate in the movie, while greatly divergent from the book, was my favorite death for any character in any movie. Ever.

Actually he was pretty stupid doing what he did.

 

[FelMar]

 

[Scar]

Actually he was pretty stupid doing what he did.

I could not possibly disagree more. Muldoon not only knew he was likely sacrificing himself to save Ellie, but resigned himself to either the most lucky break in his life or the most gruesome fate imaginable.

If you think his actions foolish, read up on man-eating leopards, in particular The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag by Jim Corbett. The reason I bring this particular case up is because leopards are known for their ability to sneak within literally less than a foot of their victims before dealing the killing blow. In the tale mentioned above, Corbett (The author of The Man-Eaters of Kumaon regarding man-eating tigers in India) recounts his several-year-long quest to dispatch the leopard. During its reign of terror, the leopard killed and ate in excess of 125 people, many of whom were seasoned hunters, not just of big cats, but of leopards and even Indian man-eaters. Despite their talents, they were dispatched in the end and proved little more than hearty meals for the skilled hunter.

That's an instance when a man-eating predator is capable of getting within close proximity of its victims, many of whom are trying to hunt it.

Most people are familiar with The Man-Eaters of Tsavo by Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson, the pair of male lions who harried the builders of the British railway and bridge over the River Tsavo in Africa. The lions had a combined total of kills close to that of the Rudraprayag leopard who still holds the high total for human kills by a solitary man-eater. These lions not only killed a great number of skilled hunters from numerous continents, but outwitted and cowed a tribe of Masai warriors, the Masai boys who had a traditional right of passage of killing a lion with only a spear, brought in to help hunt the man-eaters (they deemed the creatures to be demons incapable of dying by human hands and abandoned the hunt). The terrain of Tsavo is unforgiving and maligned for its hardship. Its thick bushes composed of thorns in excess of an inch and often used to make boma, are believed to be a contributory factor for the male lions in Tsavo to have evolved manelessness. Point being here that a number of skilled hunters, extremely talented killers, entered thick brush with a pair of cooperating man-eaters and were slain. Patterson hunted and successfully killed one of the man-eaters in thick brush (subsequently killing the other in a rather open area surrounding the main railway work station). Corbett hunted the leopard nightly in the very trees that the leopard excelled in hunting from and in the thickest parts of the Indian jungle, eventually firing the killing shot from one such tree.

In order to hunt a predator which predates upon man, it's often necessary to delve into situations where one would not necessarily like to find oneself; but that is the price of successfully dispatching a skillful man-eater. Man-eaters are a hobby, and if I had my way I would probably be studying them for a living but to my great regret my loved ones wouldn't have allowed it.

 

[MaulFan]

There's some mental things set up by the movie that make it hard to think Muldoon's actions intelligent. The whole speech by Grant explaining to the little boy how Velociraptors hunt sets your mind up to assume once they're out, they're hunting in a pack and you watch Muldoon thinking, what are you stupid, it's not just the one. Yet, the established knowledge of Muldoon is that the one female is the dominant, calculating one but he doesn't quite understand the pack hunting concept until the one sneaks up on him. As a viewer, you know so when you're there with the character, it looks one way. If you cut out Grant's speech and were not informed as a viewer that raptors are pack hunters, you'd totally feel like it was a one on one situation and that Muldoon was smart to take a chance.

 

[samueljd]

I received the exclusive banner version today (181/400) and am totally impressed. I am so glad I got Sideshow's one and only Jurassic Park piece. On the other hand, I'm sad now that this will be Sideshow's only Jurassic Park piece.

Great! Post some pics in celebration.

 

[samueljd]

Nothing wrong with that. It's never a bad time to watch JP!

I'ts always a good time to watch JP. Day or night.