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Jurassic Park: Why no "Spitters" in sequels?

W

Whofan

Fleet Captain
In Jurassic Park (both the novel and the film) feature a scene where Nedry is killed off while trying to escape the island by a venom-spitting Dilophosaurus (code-named "Spitter" in the film's marketing). Although the Dilophosaurus was considerably taller (Although the one in the film might've not have been an adult) and didn't have any venom/frills in 'real life' (Something that's been used in several non-Universal licensed Dino toys, sadly), I've always wondered why it never appeared in TLW or Jurassic Park III.

I suppose because the sequels wanted to focus on newer Dinosaurs (Spinosaurus, Compsonathus) or related prehistoric animals (Pterandon), or mainly just the big bads from the first film, T-rex and Velociraptors.

Another reason of course could be the element of surprise was gone-in the film at least the Dilophosaur initially appears to be benign , only for it to reveal it's true 'colors'. The compsonathus kind of fulfilled that role in TLW.

I also felt the Triceratops could've done more in all the films apart from be sick and have a cameo ramming into Ludow's tent-and reportedly a deleted scene would've focused more on them-and a T-rex/Triceratops battle would've been fantastic. Oh well, maybe in the new film that Spielberg is reportedly getting ready.
 
I suspect it was a realisation that the Dilophosaurus as depicted was pretty lame and gimmicky.

I really don't understand why the sizes for this and the Velociraptor where so wrong when there are other animals that could have been used with the correct sizes. Having a Deinonychus or Utahraptor instead of Velociraptor would have been just fine; you could have had a Troodon or Ornitholestes for the Dilophosaurus just as well. I mean in the third film there's a brief appearance by a Ceratosaurus so why not? You don't need to name all the animals as they appear!

I agree I would like to have seen more of Triceratops and the Ankylosaurs, but what can you do?
 
I think the reason Crichton chose Velociraptor because it sounded cool. It's interesting that it kind of usurped Deinonychus as the popular sickle-clawed dinosaur (Dromaeosaur). Deinos featured in a lot of 80's Dino stuff, such as Phil Tippet's animation for the Christopher Reeve Dinosaurs! special and the Dino-Riders toon and figure line. The Velocirator, until JP was mainly known for being discovered in a death duel with a Proceratops. It also didn't help that the film Raptors were pretty much Deinonychus in all but name...
 
Whofan said:
I think the reason Crichton chose Velociraptor because it sounded cool.
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Oh, no doubt. Of course they could have used properly-sized velociraptors - I mean they'd be just as lethal to humans and the same height as the kids they were chasing.

Ah well, you can't really expect better from Hollywood, can you?
 
Why no "Spitters" in sequels?

They wanted too much money. The producers considered hiring Crispin Glover as a replacement, but that proved to be a dead-end road.
 
Like Whofan said, I have always suspected that Crichton used Velociraptors because the name simply sounds cooler than Deinonychus. As for Utahraptors, they weren't named until 1993, so they were a little late to be used in Crichton's original book.

As for why the venom-spitting Dilophosaurs never made return appearances, perhaps it was to make room for other types of dinosaurs. The sequels had to bring back T-Rex and the raptors, because it wouldn't feel like Jurassic Park without them, but with so many other fascinating known types of prehistoric animals it would have been a shame to focus on the same ones in every movie.
 
another weird thing is the movies have always been dinosaurs only(well & the pteranodons) but the toy lines had non-dino early reptiles like lycanops & dimetrodon. I would have loved to have seen lycanops in some scene as I love mammal-reptiles!
 
More triceratops would certainly have been nice (for the simple reason that these were by far my favourite dinosaurs as a kid) but given the emphasis on carnivores that'll cause problems for our heroes I can get why they're not a big deal film-wise.

Sean Aaron said:
You don't need to name all the animals as they appear!
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Oh yes you do. Little something called toys.

Whofan said:
I think the reason Crichton chose Velociraptor because it sounded cool.
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True, and I think this is also a major part of Tyrannosaurus Rex's continuing popularity. You'd better believe if the Ceratosaurus had a name half that spectacular it'd be in a lot more movies.
 
There seem to be a lot of Ceratosaurs in older, stop-motion FXed Dinosaur movies.


Regarding the Triceratops scene that was deleted: It actually was going to use a small triceratops that Lex would ride or something like that. It's included in some of the merchandise, and also can be seen briefly in Lost World. Given that the BRs will include some deleted material, I think we might finally see that scene (As well as the gizzard stone part of the Triceratops scene, which was cut but is present in the comic adaptation and of course the original novel).
 
I want them to use the Ultraraptor in the next flick. Have that Spinosaur jump out and act all badass and then get eviscerated by a pack of Ultraraptors (raptor close to T-Rex in size).

As for the spitters, they needed some variety to the baddies film to film, simple as that.

Didn't the raptors have head feathers in the third one? That was pretty cool.
 
Whofan said:
I think the reason Crichton chose Velociraptor because it sounded cool. It's interesting that it kind of usurped Deinonychus as the popular sickle-clawed dinosaur (Dromaeosaur). Deinos featured in a lot of 80's Dino stuff, such as Phil Tippet's animation for the Christopher Reeve Dinosaurs! special and the Dino-Riders toon and figure line. The Velocirator, until JP was mainly known for being discovered in a death duel with a Proceratops. It also didn't help that the film Raptors were pretty much Deinonychus in all but name...
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I remember after the JP movie doing some reading about Velociraptors and was a bit disappointed to discover that in true the dinos depicted in the film were more like Deinonychus.

With JP 4 coming out in a few years I wonder if they will depict the raptors having feathers?
 
Sean Aaron said:
I suspect it was a realisation that the Dilophosaurus as depicted was pretty lame and gimmicky.
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What??? You don't buy that a dinosaur would be able to enter a vehicle and ambush a person, after correctly predicting that said person would be in the vehicle? I don't see the issue. :lol:

By the way, this was handled much better in the book. Bloodier too.
 
Space Therapist said:
With JP 4 coming out in a few years I wonder if they will depict the raptors having feathers?
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JP3 gave them some slight feathers. But the Raptors were stupid for many other reasons, so I don't really give them much for that.

Anyway, the Dilophosaurus was fairly one-note in the movie. I have no problem not bringing it back. No reason the thing should've been that short either, but I suppose that's a minor point all things considered.
 
I need a Stegosaurus in the next one. An angry, rabid Stegosaurus that clubs people to death with its tail.
 
melancholymecha said:
another weird thing is the movies have always been dinosaurs only(well & the pteranodons) but the toy lines had non-dino early reptiles like lycanops & dimetrodon. I would have loved to have seen lycanops in some scene as I love mammal-reptiles!
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well they want to dram as many movie related toys as possible even if its not in the film. They're happy as long as thy're bought.
 
Argus Skyhawk said:
Like Whofan said, I have always suspected that Crichton used Velociraptors because the name simply sounds cooler than Deinonychus. As for Utahraptors, they weren't named until 1993, so they were a little late to be used in Crichton's original book.
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IIRC, the raptors in the book were actually tinier and the correct size; they blew them up for the movie. In fact they had the larger raptors for the movie which didn't exist at the time of production when the Utahraptor was discovered, they realized that they had found the raptor invented for the movie!

Life imitating art and all that.
 
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