PAX Preview and Interview with Nick Herman
GamingLives.com just posted their Jurassic Park Preview and Interview with Cinematic Artist, Nick Herman, recorded at PAX East these past few days.
Really cool of him to take the time to talk to the site so a mega thanks to Nick
Read the Preview and watch the Interview here:
http://gliv.es/gO5reX
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Comments
First off, the new nocturnal dinosaur that was officially revealed: Troodon. Personally, I am "strongly" opposed to this decision and I believe it falls outside of the acceptable parameters of the known facts of the JP universe. I've mentioned this before in previous posts, but to those of us who know the JP universe "very" well, it is a well known bit of info that there is suppose to be exactly and only "15 species of dinosaur on Isla Nublar". In the JP film universe, these fifteen species are:
1. Tyrannosaurus Rex (*)
2. Baryonyx
3. Velociraptor (*)
4. Herrerasaurus
5. Metriacanthosaurus
6. Proceratosaurus
7. Dilophosaurus (*)
8. Segisaurus
9. Compsognathus (**)
10. Brachiosaurus (*)
11. Parasaurolophus (*)
12. Triceratops (*)
13. Stegosaurus (**)
14. Gallimimus (*)
15. Pteranodon (**)
All of these species are verified and accredited by numerous sources of JP merchandise and brief moments in the original film. The dinosaurs marked with (*) means these dinosaurs were clearly visible and seen in the first JP movie; the (**) means these dinosaurs were clearly visible and seen in the other two JP movies. While the others are confirmed by the brochure map in the movie, and other random accredited sources.
When I first heard about the introduction of a new dinosaur, I was fine with that when I heard it and was excited because I was thinking it would be one of the dinosaurs we know about to be on Isla Nublar but haven't ever seen yet in the JP films. Thus leaving us with "five" dinosaurs:
- Baryonyx
- Herrerasaurus
- Metriacanthosaurus
- Proceratosaurus
- Segisaurus
Now, if Telltale wants to use one of these "five" dinosaurs as the new dinosaur, great and perfect. Otherwise, there is a serious mistake being made here in my opinion that the host of past JP video game developers and children's books have also committed that I don't want to see repeated. That mistake being, that developers think they can randomly pick any old dinosaur they feel like throwing into the JP universe and its all good. I could accept random new dinosaurs on "Isla Sorna" aka Site B, but "not" Isla Nublar. As the mythology goes, Site B was the "research" island where development and production occurred. Isla Nublar was the "resort" island 87 miles northeast from Site B. It stands to reason that the resort island was being planned very carefully and methodically; including an "opening" line of a fixed number of dinosaur species when the park was planned to open; i.e. 15 species. It stands to reason therefore that the bulk of the population of dinosaurs that InGen produced natively resided on Site B. The time and cost to transport dinosaurs from Site B to Nublar I'm sure was very time consuming and costly. It would not be cost-effective to bother with any degree of serious R&D on Nublar because that was not what was intended for Nublar. Therefore, it stands to reason that the "only" species of dinosaurs that existed on Nublar are those species InGen "planned" and "intended" to be on Nublar according to their intended schedule.
With this whole "Troodon" business, I think some careless strings are being pulled that are so cliche in storytelling that suggests complete disregard for any parameters of a fictional universe. For example, countlessly bringing back to life characters that common sense would otherwise suggest, their dead. On that note, Robert Muldoon the park game warden, as far as I am concerned, was killed by a Velociraptor, end of story. In more relevant context to the "Troodon" concern at hand, as I said previously, you can't just throw in any dinosaur into JP you feel like throwing in. Not without breaching common sense and going off on these "wild" tangents that again, completely disregards parameters. So for the "Troodon" for example, TT can make up some "wild" explanation I'm sure like, InGen was performing secret R&D on Nublar "or" Troodons managed to sneak onto the transport ships traveling between Nublar and Sorna. If TT wants to pull of these wild sorts of breaches in consistent storytelling, "whatever" I suppose. It does not strike me, however, as professional, methodical, or considerate to the careful parameters of JP franchise.
I would personally suggest scrapping the Troodon dinosaur altogether and replacing it with one of the "five" dinosaurs mentioned previously. In the interest of time and deadlines, I would suggest replacing the Troodon model with either a "Herrerasaurus" or a "Proceratosaurus" dinosaur model. These specific "two" dinosaurs because they are closest in size and dimension to the size of Troodon. Just change the dinosaur model and maintain all the same intended motion captured animations and whatnot. You could still even maintain the whole "nocturnal" attribute.
Which brings me to my last and final point that I observed in this interview. That is, the brief discussion that went into the "scientific accuracy" and credibility of the dinosaurs and what they learned. However, as many should hopefully agree, the dinosaurs of the JP universe are not and never were intended to be "scientifically" accurate. These are "genetically" engineered dinosaurs. There are a number of interesting and cool attributes about each dinosaur in the JP universe that is not backed by any scientific evidence whatsoever. For example, the Dilophosaurus having a collapsable crest and spitting venom, or Velociraptors being slightly larger than an adult human, or Compsognathus being the dung beetles of the dinosaur world, etc. Virtually all the dinosaurs of JP are like this and all these attributes are forms of creative inspiration that is drawn from the real animal world of today. I think that's part of what makes JP really special and great. I personally think that in the universe of JP, scientific credibility should just be tossed out. You want a "nocturnal" type dinosaur with glowing, reflective eyes or whatever, just pick a dinosaur, consider it nocturnal, and done.
I know this might all seem terribly nit-picky, but when it comes to introducing a so-called "new" dinosaur into the JP universe, I personally think that ranks as one of the "biggest" details of JP to not disregard. There may be other little details like vehicle numbers and badges and things that are pretty small details, but this is a "big" one you can't overlook in my opinion.
Again, I am grateful that TT actively participates in these forums and listens to the feedback of the fans. Your doing a great job TT, really.
Funny ones, Scary ones and Big ones? ^_^
Correct, on "Isla Sorna". But "Isla Nublar" is a completely different story as I explained.
Really great of you to take the time Nick and everyone at GamingLives.com thanks you for it
Actually it's not...
who's to say ingen, didn't breed troodon's on sorna, and brought them into nublar, thinking these would work as attractions?
Then decided...no..simply not these are just as Dangerous as velociraptors and didn't have time or some escaped capture and breed on Nublar?
Either way, I'm fine with Troodon. LIke you said, it's not on the list and there are other dinosaurs that could have been chosen but I'm sure it'll be fine. Troodon is a cool looking dinosaur and he said they change the image a bit to make it a bit more interesting looking which means they're not keeping it too scientifically accurate.
Jeff Goldblum does it all the time. lol
He's Jeff Goldblum, he could start a rap career and I'd still listen to him :guybrush:
To clarify, of course "all" the dinosaurs that InGen ever produced or planned to produce would have eventually made their way onto Nublar from Sorna at some point during the park's existence on a "planned" schedule in due accordance to marketing strategies and whatnot. Isla Sorna can have any dinosaurs on it, that's fine, but not Nublar with regard to the specific time the events of the original JP took place. As I stated and implied in my initial post, the time and cost into transporting dinosaurs from Sorna to Nublar would have been very costly and not something done "casually". If Troodons were produced on Sorna, they obviously would have existed for a fairly long and decent amount of time on Sorna for researchers to know their behavior very intimately. I find it hard to believe that InGen wouldn't know well beforehand about how dangerous Troodons would be "before" wasting time and money to transport them to Nublar until they continued to plan for the eventual transport of Troodons much later. Although we do know of course that they were transporting Velociraptors to Nublar apparently as part of the "opening" line of dinosaurs on Nublar. The small holding pen on Nublar suggests that they were experimenting on getting Raptors to Nublar in small quantities to perhaps see how well it would go over in getting something as dangerous as a Raptor to acclimate to Nublar. As to why InGen picked the larger and consequently more dangerous Velociraptor over the proposed Troodon to begin early transport to Nublar, I would simply propose it was a skillful marketing decision. If Troodon was nocturnal, compared to a larger more exciting dinosaur in the daylight like Velociraptor, it therefore does make a bit of sense they would pick Velociraptor for the opening lineup and not Troodon to appease audiences at the grand opening. Therefore, the likelihood of Troodons "accidentally" being on Nublar seems absurd.
Correct. This statement is entirely correct, although in the TLW:JP movie, Hammond does clearly make this same statement when he is talking to Malcolm in the beginning of the film. So it is consistent with the film universe.
As I have already stated numerous times, yes, I agree there are many, many dinosaur species on Sorna, and developers in the JP franchise can do whatever they want "on Sorna" with new dinosaur species. "All" the dinosaurs that exist on Nublar were "incorporated" species from Sorna. Excluding dinosaurs that naturally breed on Nublar "after their own species", not new ones. So yes, of course "Sorna" had tons of dinosaur species that were not on the "Nublar" list ... yet! That's key. The whole "15 species" condition is the "opening lineup" that is precisely what existed on Nublar "at the time" of the events of the first JP film.
If they got on Nublar from Sorna through boats then it is just one more example that they didn't know what they're doing in the first place. It isn't really reason to rage about by what we currently know.
That we know of. There were 15 species that were part of the "tour". Who's to say that there wasn't an extra padlock on the island that wasn't part of the main tour which held other animals they were looking after but had not added to the main tour yet.
I'm sure TT will have to make up some flakey, sloppy explanation if the Troodon is staying in. It's pushing the guidelines of the franchise into stories that would be as ridiculous as saying, InGen was secretly making inteliigent dinosaur soldiers for the US Army, or InGen was secretly producing human-dinosaur-alien hybrids or something that's "way" out there and laughable. As for Dr. Harding, he's more likely not aware of what caused Nima's injury because I doubt he's experienced with identifying dinosaur wounds on a human being to a "specific" species of dinosaur unless each dinosaur species in a population is very different from each other. Going back to the 15 species list, a number of those dinosaurs are theropods, and some are about the same size as each other or could be depending on age.
As for the possibility of dinosaurs "sneaking" onto the transport boats from Sorna and "sneaking" off the boats in Nublar, that's extremely hard to believe. You've got tons of barriers and eyewitnesses that make such an attempt by a mere "animal" virtually impossible.
Possible, but does not seem likely. It defeats the purpose of why Site B exists. Isla Sorna is considerably larger than Nublar and again is the "production" island. It's not cost-effective to casually transport over new dinosaur species "unless" their was to be a projected profit in the very near future to do so. The fifteen species implies a fixed, set opening lineup for the first phase of the park that would open "one year" from the time the events in JP took place. To put a dinosaur species on Nublar that would not premiere for much longer than year, seems to me like a waste of value time and money. Product, i.e. the dinosaurs, has to be able to pay for itself within a reasonable timeframe.
A similar situation happened on the novel with raptors and compys sneaking to boats on Nublar and getting on Costa Rica villages. Hardly hard to believe since it happened in another "version" of the same story.
And don't forget what Hammond said in the second movie. He spoke about "dozens of species" living on the second island.
I see why Telltale has chosen this one. A pretty tough, and intelligent adversary (even more than velociraptor. Don't you think?
Also give TTG a break.. they are working with the rights to the movie only... not the books... I want them to make the game interesting.. If adding a Troodon and not one of those others help make the game more enjoyable I'm all for it... Besides... we have no real way of knowing what dinosaurs where transferred from Isla Sorna to Isla Nublar just prior to the events of the first movie... Especially if they were trying to WOW the guests they may have added some new attractions.... so some of those records may not have been up to date....
Im also a little disappointed that they didn't address if there would be an ice cream eating scene in the game..... I mean come on this is important stuff
Correction, no Jurassic Park game is complete without one of those lol:p.
What if you think the other way round. No "sneaking" Troodons on a transport ship to Nublar and no "missmatching with Nublar's dinosaur list" BUT:
They cloned Troodons as every other species on Isla Sorna.
After hatching and observing the first time in the labs on Sorna they set all the dinosaurs free on the island to see how they are developing. They watch them growing and those which seem to fit to Jurassic Park for merchandise reasons and (more or less) save and adaequate animal housing were then transported to Isla Nublar.
Some were put in paddocks along the tour with the electrified explorers, some maybe should be seen at the jungle-river ride.
Eventually they had a big raptor paddock but due to the "big one" which killed all but two other raptors and started to test the fence for flaws the park staff was forced to put the 3 remaining raptors into the special raptor pen. This transportation is the opening scene of the first movie.
What IF that weren't the only problems they were faced? What if other species made problems too? What if the Troodons turned out to be too dangerous to be held in a zoo-like environment? A fact that only occurred on Isla Nublar but not on Isla Sorna because this island had other conditions. Plus due to the fact that they were only hunting at night and primary hiding and sleeping during the day it was for merchandise reasons as well a rather bad performing animal which just cost too much to maintain and secure.
Finally they decided to put the Troodons back on Sorna unless further scientific progress, optimizing the DNA (version 4.4... etc.) would bring a better result. This decision was taken rather late but early enough that the official dinosaur list of Isla Nublar could be updated to finally 15 remaining species which will be the main attraction after the opening of the park for the first time.
Meanwhile the fact of expensively produced dinosaurs which didn't perform well in the park and the incident with the worker during the raptor transportation worried the investors which was the reason why Hammond was seeking for expert opinions to recommend the park and led to the happenings of JP I. But as work wasn't surely done on Isla Nublar the transportation of the Troodons back to Isla Sorna wasn't either.
So the Troodons weren't hiding on a transportation ship which was coming from Sorna BUT it was the other way round: THEY WERE MEAN'T TO BE BROUGHT BACK. The power failure then led to a terrible disaster at the harbour were the Troodons got free and escaped into the jungle.
I like your explanation. Pretty good idea, and a bit creepy.
and now the ancient ancestors of that creepy thing are free on the island? >> "they should all be destroyed!" new threat is definately threatening enough to me :P
Can't wait to hear it in a complete form!
Good theory...dinosaurs that were too "dangerous" or resistant to integration into a Park setting has seemed like a good way to introduce new species bred by InGen for a while, so I'd be happy to see this if Telltale used it in their approach...
BTW, since the Troodons are said to be poisonous, I think it's a safe bet that's what bit Nima and lead to her condition in the demo, (although Harding doesn't know this and stipulates it from plants that the animals are eating)...
Exactly.
I understand the point being brought, but I consider this:
InGen is practically cloning blind when they start the Jurassic Park project, they really dont know what species they are making until they hatch and slowly the surviving hatchlings grow and are able to be identified. SO they must've had dozens of species cloned. Amongst them the Spinos, Ceratosaurus, Troodons, etc. All this on Site B. Those 15 are the final species that InGen decides to keep open the park with, but who's to say that initially they didn't have different lists?? Who's to say they didn't test different species on the park environment to see how they fared? I dont think transportation is an issue for a company as well funded as InGen (at that time) if it means better understanding of dino performance as an attraction. To them the ends justify the means, and as Hammond would say, "We spared no expense". And if they could keep a huge "behind the scenes" project like site B a secret to tons of InGen employees, they certainly could test those secret species in Isla Nublar before deciding the final 15. That's even if cloning different species was such a huge secret to people outside InGen scientists...
You know what I find even more perplexing than that? How InGen could keep JP silent so many years, when so many people were working on it. I guess they simply spared no expense and were filthy rich to do whatever they wanted...
Either that or if you tried talking about it Ingens hired goons fed you to the raptors or the rex nomnomnomnomnom
Jeff Goldblum is somehow involved I KNOW IT !!!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zEjWK4EUiE
Don't worry, you said "like", like, a lot more!
Anyhoo, seeing as the Troodon is shaped like and the same general size as one species we already have, (Velicoraptor), and has the attributes of another, (it's poisonous like the Dilophosaurus), I'm interested in how this will turn out to be a "new" character...