Whatever Happened to Dilophosaurus?

With its twenty-fifth birthday and its latest sequel both coming up this summer, I recently went back and rewatched the film Jurassic Park. It's obviously a beloved classic, and because of its success and popularity, all of its sequels have derived heavily from it. This includes featuring a lot of the same dinosaur species that appeared in the first film,  but there's one species in particular that's been curiously absent in the sequels. That species is the Dilophosaurus.

I can understand if a docile, barely involved species like Triceratops or Gallimimus never made a comeback after the first film (which they have, by the way), but why would one as memorable as the frilled, venom-spitting Dilophosaurus be left out? It's one of the most iconic looking dinosaurs in the whole movie, and it's the only species besides the T-Rex and the Velociraptors that actually kills someone. Heck, it's one of the only dinosaur species in the film that actually lived during the Jurassic Period. What's especially odd is that Dilophosaurus has appeared in several Jurassic Park video games and even had a cameo as a hologram in the fourth film, so it's not like the franchise has disowned it.

The only thing I can figure is that the filmmakers were leery about featuring the species in the sequels. I have two theories for why that is.

1. Too Overpowering

The central conflict in the Jurassic Park series is Man versus Nature. It's about mankind having to use all of its technology and intellect in a struggle for control over forces of nature that it was never meant to exist alongside. If the writers routinely feature a dinosaur species that can launch projectile weapons from its mouth, then they're essentially giving the dinosaurs guns. That's pretty much the end of the story; evasion has always been the human characters' strongest survival tactic against the dinosaurs, and pitting them against a predator that can cause harm from a distance would rub out that advantage and probably take a lot of the tension and thrill out of those scenes.

You wouldn't get as many of those exciting chases or harrowing moments where the predator's teeth or claws narrowly miss a character. If a Dilophosaurus sees someone and they're in spitting distance of it, then that person's dead. End of scene. One of the most entertaining parts of a Jurassic Park film is seeing the dinosaurs throw their weight around and cause physical damage, and a dinosaur that can spit venom at its opponents just wouldn't do something like that. I think the screenwriters were aware of this and found Dilophosaurus a lot less interesting to write about than the other dinosaur species as a result.

Speaking of other species, you could argue that its abilities actually make Dilophosaurus more dangerous than the T-Rex or the Velociraptors. Once again, those species are only as deadly as their ability to catch people, and Dilophosaurus doesn't share that limitation. If the movies threw it into the mix more often, I think there'd be a real risk of it eventually overshadowing T-Rex and Velociraptor as the biggest threat in the narrative. In fact, one of the reasons why it had such a small role in the first film was so viewers wouldn't confuse it with the Velociraptors due to their similar size. Dilophosaurus was only meant to be a side attraction with a gimmick in the story, not a major player, so the screenwriters may have felt they were better off not using it anymore.

2. Too Inaccurate

I'm sure this is news to no one, but the Dilophosaurus in real life didn't have any of the frills of its movie counterpart -- so to speak. It didn't have a neck frill that it flashed to scare enemies, and it didn't spit venom. That was all creative licensing on the part of author Michael Crichton and the filmmakers behind Jurassic Park. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but because of the timing of the first film's release and its cultural impact, it shaped the way that a lot of people viewed dinosaurs back then. Unfortunately, this also meant that it gave those people a lot of misconceptions about dinosaurs, and paleontologists have been trying to set the record straight ever since.

We've all heard the criticisms about the movie. "T-Rex's eyesight wasn't really based on movement," "Velociraptors weren't really that big," "Brachiosaurus couldn't really stand on its hind legs," etc. People rightly pointed out the inaccuracy of the Dilophosaurus's neck frill and venom as well, but unlike with the other dinosaur species, this one's inaccuracies were the most memorable things about it in the movie. Because of that, Dilophosaurus's biggest claim to fame for a while seemed to be that it was That Dinosaur That Jurassic Park Got Wrong. I actually remember reading children's books about dinosaurs that specifically called out the movie for this false depiction. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

To its credit, the series has tried to make its dinosaur designs a little more true to science since the first film. Most notably, it gave the Velociraptors feathers in the third film to reflect the discovery that raptors did have plumage in real life. It's possible that since a more realistic makeover for Dilophosaurus would involve stripping away all of the trademarks that the series gave it, the filmmakers may have just decided to not bring it back.

Whether or not these theories are correct, neither one seems to be the case anymore. Not only do we see a hologram of Dilophosaurus in the fourth film, but a tour video in that film mentions that the glass of the visitor vehicles is impervious to the predator's venom. This all seems to suggest that there is a Dilophosaurus exhibit in the newer park, or at least a Dilophosaurus population somewhere on the island. As if that isn't enough, it's now been confirmed that the species is supposed to finally make its comeback in the flesh in the upcoming fifth film.

Again, if my theories are correct, then why is it coming back now? I think it's because the Jurassic Park franchise has, for lack of a better word, evolved since its debut twenty-five years ago. Instead of being more ominous and philosophical, the films are now more lighthearted and adventurous. They don't take themselves as seriously anymore, so audiences today see them as something that's just trying to be entertaining, not as something that's trying to change the face of paleontology. And of course, the series carries a lot of nostalgia behind it now which the newer films clearly enjoy playing to. This could mean that the creative team behind the fourth film always planned to bring back the Dilophosaurus at some point, but maybe wanted to tease or even gauge the audience with a few nods to it first.

It would be interesting to see if the new film addresses Dilophosaurus's absence up to this point. It might even be able to make an in-joke or two about the species, saying perhaps that their frills and venom came from an early gene splicing experiment and that the old park had actually lied about scientists believing that the species had those features. I have a feeling we won't get any explanation, but really, just getting to see Dilophosaurus onscreen again after a quarter of a century would be more than enough for a lot of Jurassic Park fans.

And if its comeback should turn out to be disappointing, don't worry. It will always have that one terrific moment in the film that started it all.

Goodbye, Newman. That's one magic loogie.

What Is the Difference Between Villains and Antagonists?

Well, it's December. Normally I would spend this time of year rambling about the new Hobbit movie (and trust me, that time will come), but I thought of trying something a little different this year. I sort of had a fanfiction-themed month back in April, and since that lent itself to a few interesting literary topics, I figured why not do another theme month? That's why I'm officially declaring this December my Villain Month.

Discussions about writing villains, lectures on the elements of villains, case-studies on famous villains from fiction -- I'm going to cover as much as I can before the end of the year. There's a lot to blog about, and seeing how we're already a week into December, let's dive in! I'll start with a fairly basic question that's been in my head for a while:

What is the difference between villains and antagonists?

We all know essentially what both of those terms mean, and they're often used interchangeably when discussing movies, books, and other storytelling mediums. The thing is though, there are certain instances where the term "villain" doesn't seem appropriate to say. People don't normally refer to the tornado in Twister or the asteroid in Armageddon as the "villains" of those films, despite both being the things that the heroes have to overcome in order to resolve the conflicts in their stories. The same goes for the iceberg in Titanic, the lava in Volcano, or the dilemma-causing element in any other given disaster movie.

But why is that? A common explanation is that the word "villain" refers to an individual character; it's a title specifically given to a personified living being who competes with the hero of a story. By that logic, things like icebergs and tornadoes can't be called villains because they don't have personalities and are not alive. They can instead be called antagonists, which many people consider to be the more generalized term for opposing forces in a story.

Another explanation can be found right in Webster's Dictionary. That book defines the word "villain" as "a cruelly malicious person," and the word "antagonist," in terms of drama and literature, as "the opponent of the hero or protagonist." Much like in the first explanation, it seems here that the difference between the terms is that "antagonist" is more general while "villain" refers to a specific type of antagonist. Every villain is an antagonist, but not every antagonist is a villain. To sum up, natural disasters are also not villains because they lack that defining "cruelly malicious" quality.

That leads to another issue though. If cruelty and malice are what determine whether an opposing force is a villain or a general antagonist, then it really all comes down to the motivation behind that opposition's actions. The idea of all personified living characters automatically being villains suddenly doesn't hold together anymore.

Take the shark in Jaws for instance. He doesn't kill people because he wants to cause pain and suffering. He kills people because he's hungry. He gives dogs, boats, and compressed air tanks the same treatment because as far as his simple shark brain is concerned, these things are all the same. There is nothing personal behind it when he attacks humans. In fact, the only reason he pursues the main characters at all is because they keep luring him to their boat with gallons of chopped-up bloody fish. He would just as soon leave them alone if another, more plentiful food source presented itself to him.

This is also the case for the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park and the titular creatures in the Alien series. It doesn't matter that they were cloned from fossils or bred on another planet. At their cores, they're both basic predatory animals fulfilling their needs, and therefore they're incapable of malice.

An antagonist who is capable of malice is the hunter from Predator. He's clearly shown to be a sentient being with a sense of morality who is deliberately carrying out his actions with the knowledge that he's hurting other sentient beings -- and in extremely cruel ways, no less. He may have a sense of honor at times, like when he refrains from killing people who are unarmed and discards his armor to fight the protagonist hand-to-hand, but that doesn't stop him from cackling maniacally when he thinks he's going to take the protagonist down with him at the end by activating a bomb. He only spares someone's life because a rule somewhere decrees that he has to spare them for that time being. As soon as he determines that the person can adequately defend themselves again, he goes right back to attacking them. There is meditation and an intention to inflict personal harm behind his actions. The Predator and every antagonist like him is a villain.

I started Villain Month with this topic because it's important to understand what villains really are before you can properly discuss them. It's the reason for their behavior more so than the behavior itself that creates them, and what that reason is will determine how good, bad, likeable, despicable, or mystifying they can be. But that's another blog entry for another day. Welcome to Villain Month, folks!

"Well, in the book it says..."

Blowing off the dust after my longest hiatus to date...

I want to begin today's entry by talking about the movie The Hobbit. No surprise there, but I promise I have a point this time.

You see, there's a scene roughly 2/3 of the way through the film where Bilbo decides that he wants to turn back and go home. He tries to sneak away from the dwarves while they're sleeping, but one of them, a character named Bofur, catches him in the act and tries to talk him out of leaving. Bofur says that Bilbo is just homesick and that he understands that feeling, to which Bilbo snaps that none of the dwarves understand because they're used to "not belonging anywhere." Bilbo immediately apologizes for this insult, but Bofur sadly admits that it's true; "We don't belong anywhere." He then wishes the hobbit well and allows him to leave -- only for them and the rest of the group to be captured by goblins a second later. It's a well done scene and a very nice moment for both characters, and it's one of my favorite parts in the whole film. However, there is one little issue that I may or may not have with it. I say "may or may not" because there's actually another, bigger issue with the film that kind of cancels out the first issue.

I'll explain.

According to all of the movie guides, visual companion books, and online character profiles for The Hobbit, Bofur and his relatives Bifur and Bombur aren't from Erebor, the dwarf kingdom that was taken over by the dragon in the story. They're actually from the Blue Mountains, which is also where the dwarves from Erebor ended up settling. In short, I can literally draw a map of what's wrong with the above mentioned scene:




So yeah, the "We don't belong anywhere" line kind of falls apart coming from Bofur. He's one of the only dwarves in the whole group that it doesn't work for, in fact. If the screenwriters had put just about anyone else in that scene with Bilbo, there would be no issue.

With that said, here's the other, bigger issue that kind of cancels it out: we never learn Bofur's personal backstory in the movie. The dialogue never explains where he's from, why he joined the quest, or what sort of relationship he has with any of the other dwarves. This is the case for most of the dwarves in the movie, minus their leader Thorin, and since their backstories don't exist in any of Tolkien's works, the supplementary guide books for the film are the only places where you can read up on that information. So if you don't bother with any of those extra materials and just watch the film by itself, that scene will play out just fine.

This finally leads me to today's topic: required reading for movies. There are entire websites and bookstore shelves filled with literature about characters, locations, chronologies, and so on from popular film franchises. Their purpose is to enrich the films by giving juicy inside information about what's happening onscreen. In some cases, they also divulge a few very important tidbits of information that pertain to the plot, which for some reason aren't spelled out nearly as well in the movies themselves. As a result, many of these "enriching" materials become necessary ones that you won't be able to follow the movies without.

Take the Star Wars prequels for instance -- the worst offenders of this, in my opinion. Virtually no one has ever been able to make sense of the villains' plans in any of those films without first consulting the billions of outside materials that Lucasfilm is happy to sell. I'm not condemning anyone for reading or buying those materials, seeing how I own several myself, but I've come to realize from them just how poorly and lazily written those movies are. You should never have to do research in order to understand a film. If the filmmakers do their jobs well, you won't have any questions by the time the end credits roll, at least not about the plot or the characters' motivations.

The same goes for movies that have been adapted from novels or comic books. Just because the audience for an adapted movie has most likely read the source material beforehand doesn't mean the screenwriters have an excuse to phone in their script and skimp on the exposition. Movies are meant to be accessible to everyone, not just to one group of people, but you can tell that a lot of popular movie adaptations out there are mainly written for people who've already read the source material. Try going into these movies cold, and you will be very confused by what you're watching. I know as an aspiring author that I should be encouraging people to read the books in addition to seeing the films, but as an aspiring filmmaker, I 'm saying that it shouldn't be necessary to do so. Movies like The Godfather, Jurassic Park, and even 2013's The Great Gatsby prove that a discernible stand-alone adaptation can be made.

So my question after all this ranting is, what makes the supplementary/source material for a movie required reading? At what point does it cross that line and start to do the screenwriters' jobs for them? Ultimately, I think it comes down to how essential to the story the information in question is. You don't need to know every aspect of how the Galactic Republic operates, but you do need to know why it's having trouble operating and why the Separatists are declaring war on it. You don't need to know how or why Sirius Black and Remus Lupin created the Marauder's Map in Harry Potter, but you do need to know that they created it so you won't be puzzled when they randomly start explaining how it works.

And then there's The Hobbit. As much as some of us may enjoy reading about Bofur the dwarf's personal background, he's a peripheral character, and thus we don't need to know anything about him in order to follow the plot. However, we do need to know a lot about Thorin, the dwarves' leader who sets the whole plot in motion. We need to learn that two of the other dwarves in the group are his nephews so we'll understand [something that happens near the end of the story]. We need to know how Gandalf managed to get the key to Erebor from Thorin's presumably dead father so we won't be questioning the logic of it the entire time. Those things haven't been made clear yet in the Hobbit trilogy, and if they never are, then we'll have issues. If they're made clear by the end of the second film, then smooth sailing. And who knows? Maybe the second film will even reveal Bofur's background after all and it'll turn out that his "We don't belong anywhere" line was just a big sad act to put Bilbo on a guilt trip. The possibilities are still endless.

So that's my two cents about extra reading materials. They're still a ton of fun to dive into, but they should remain in the shadows of the movies that they're about. Keep collecting them if you like them, and if you don't like them, then hopefully you'll never need to.

And if it's not too much to ask, Peter Jackson, could you please explain why the characters in The Hobbit can't just fly those giant eagles to their destination? I know it says in the book, but I think you finally have the opportunity you need to state it on film and put that issue to rest.