Remember in 1993 when Jurassic Park was like…the end all, be all of special effects?
not gonna lie that still looks intimately real
I’m still somewhat convinced that someone sold their soul to create the special effects in Jurassic Park because that shit is over 20 years old and it still really, really holds up, better than the stuff in a lot of current movies, even.
Fucking witchcraft, man.
fucking look at this shit though
Literally see this post flying around with a few different responses added to the bottom each time so I’ll say it for this one myself:
THEY ACTUALLY BUILT A GIANT MASSIVELY DETAILED FUCKING ANIMATRONIC T-REX FOR ALL OF THIS THAT’S WHY THE EFFECTS ARE SO GOOD. CAUSE IT AIN’T CGI. AND IT AIN’T GUY IN A COSTUME. IT’S A BIG FUCKING ROBOT DINOSAUR. AND EVERY PART IS DESIGNED TO MOVE. IT COST LIKE HALF THE BUDGET OF THE FILM.
amazing
And they had the film it in small increments, especially in the outdoor scenes, because the rain fall kept soaking into the ‘skin’ of the rex and would slow down and mess up its movements. So they would stop filming and have a crew out there drying off this massive, fake dinosaur, and then they’d start filming again until it was too wet. Repeat until the end of the scene.
They used animatronics and detailed costumes for most if not all of the dinosaurs in the first movie.
The triceratops for instance, was also animatronic.
One of my favorite anecdotes I’ve read on tumblr is how the t-rex robot from Jurassic park would malfunction while it was drying out. How did it malfunction, you might wonder?
Motherfucker randomly started moving.
So apparently if you were on the jp set you would sometimes hear people screaming bloody murder even though they were all well aware that it was a giant animatronic puppet and wouldn’t actually, you know, eat them.
Did not know this, had to reblog for awesome movie history insights.
So, I knew about the animatronics bit but I did not know the raptors were guys in suits and the malfunctioning t-rex sounds terrifying.
And i just googled malfunctioning t-rexand was not disappointed. Apparently in order to put the skin on over the steel frame a guy had to crawl inside thet-rex while it was turned on and glue the skin down. And if somebody turned the t-rex off or the power went out the guy in the t-rex stood a very real chance of getting mangled and killed by the hydraulics.
So of course, the power goes out.
And this guy is still in there gluing the skin down.
Apparently the way to survive getting sheered to death by huge sheets of metal while you’re inside a giant t-rex robot is to curl into a ball and hope for the best.
And this guy hoped for the best and got it.
Some other people on stage pried open the t-rex jaws and glue guy crawled out of its mouth and was totally okay.
This is getting better and better.
I think they only had like 6 minutes of CGI
I’m just waiting for the T-Rex to come to life and leave its stand.
The thing about this that gets my special effects nerd going is the fact that EVERY single dinosaur was sculpted by artists based on the current existent archeological evidence of the time.
Even better than that, this movie ADVANCED our best understanding of dinosaurs at the time. They were blowing out a budget bigger than anything Hollywood had ever seen, and along with employing almost the last hurrah of incredible physical FX, they had a bank of those newfangled digital SFX computers. Nobody’d ever really created convincing dinosaurs in a movie before. It’d all been stop-motion animation, and even when the models were exquisitely crafted, you could just tell there was something OFF about them. Spielberg wanted THE BEST DINOSAURS EVER, and he figured on using the cutting edge of digital modeling and animation technology to build them for him.
So they got hold of some of the best paleontologists they could find and said, “We want you guys to take this tech that your labs could pretty much never afford and use it to build us the most realistic, accurate dinosaur models the world has ever seen.”
The paleontologists knew an opportunity when it bit them in the ass. They plugged in everything they knew about dinosaurs, all the skeletons and their best guesses about soft tissue and all that. And when they’d created those dinosaur models, they had the computer start moving them as they realistically would with anatomy like that. One guy took a look at those walking t-rexes and velociraptors (really utahraptors, but whatevs, fam), and he said, “Wait a minute, I’ve seen movement like that before.”
He called up film of a chicken walking. Everyone in the room said, “Holy shit.”
Prior to 1989, the idea that birds were descended from dinosaurs existed–we knew about archaeopteryx, we knew there was some minor connection there–but the idea that DINOSAURS LIVE IN THE MODERN WORLD AND THEY ARE CALLED BIRDS was not pre-eminent. Jurassic Park changed our scientific understanding of dinosaurs.
That paleontologists’d be Kevin Padian. Who is awesome.
The answer is apparently “because we’re actually able to eat it”
Fun fact: white people (specifically Northern European white people) have a genetic mutation that allows them to digest lactose even after weaning, which is abnormal for all mammals and also most humans. It’s theorized that because Northern Europe doesn’t get a lot of sun, an alternative source of vitamin D (like milk) would be a useful trait. It’s a very recent mutation that would only have happened after humans started domesticating animals like cows and goats.
it is pretty hard to find solid statistics on wolf attacks, but as far as i can tell, wolves in north america kill way way way less than one person a year, which means that forces more deadly to us than wolves include: dogs, ice fishing, and getting crushed by a falling flat screen tv.
…further complications to trying to write non-ridiculous angst into a werewolf story
“you don’t understand…i’ve done things under the full moon that i can never take back…one time i ate a squirrel”
“I SNIFFED MY OWN BUTT. THE INDIGNITY HAUNTS ME STILL.”
“i have pooped in the woods and now must go brood about it. don’t try to follow me.
…and seriously, be careful around your flatscreen, it is probably heavier that you think.”
European wolves (before they were hunted into extinction in most areas) attacked humans purposefully a lot; it’s in the historical record.
North American gray wolves have a natural fear of humans and attack people very rarely, really only when threatened or starving.
So like, imagine, like, a divide between people who got infected with Old World and New World lycanthropy. One makes you this dangerous beast that sees humans as a viable food source an another makes you perceive humans as a threat. Imagine people getting it wrong!
Some shady paranormal group capturing a werewolf to use as security but it just runs away when people trespass.
Some hunters go deep into the woods to murder a werewolf clan for their pelts but it turns out they’ve isolated themselves so deeply because they have the European strain and none of the hunters survive.
New werewolves are so confused because the websites give conflicting advice: get yourself to your nearest national park when you’re about to turn and just let yourself run free; if you try to cage yourself the claustrophobia and the smell of people will make you panic and you could really hurt yourself or someone else.
vs
If you’re anywhere near human civilization you must make sure you turn in a closed space that you can’t escape from in wolf form or you’ll definitely kill someone. Just try to take a nap during the full moon, OK.
And they’re like, WHAT DO I DO WHICH ONE DO I HAVE?
case in point, the global werewolf cultural divide!
on the subject of the global werewolf cultural divide, another update, per wikipedia:
Wolves from different geographic locations may howl in different fashions: the howls of European wolves are much more protracted and melodious than those of North American wolves, whose howls are louder and have a stronger emphasis on the first syllable. The two are however mutually intelligible, as North American wolves have been recorded to respond to European-style howls made by biologists (x)
Traveling with your spice rack is not ideal. This is why Japanese company, Muji, has made a book of spices to make flavoring your food while away from home a little bit easier.
This book from Muji is full of pages that are made of spiced paper, which dissolve from the heat and moisture of cooking. Now that kick of white pepper or red chili is just a tear away. And, since it is compact and perfectly portable, the Muji spice book is ideal for when you’re traveling!
Random Toughts 