So @HerbertHistory I am starting a fresh thread so I do not keep bugging all the folks I mentioned in my lead in. I personally an obsessed with Crichton's books. It was in his book "Timeline" that I first encountered a depiction of a historian of science #HATM

And his unfinished book "Micro" that was finished by Richard Preston has a #STS scholar in it, though that character is super not heroic and the fact that he quotes Foucault and Latour are related to his character flaws lol #HATM

I took an #STS class on grad school called "Science and the Law" and the professor was annoyed that during discussion for pretty much every reading, I was like, "well this is just like in the Michael Crichton book." #HATM

Okay, let's start! #HATM

In the book, there is an interesting theme in the beginning of how the local Costa Rican workers are the ones who get killed and are put in the most danger in the early days of the park, but they all basically vanish once we get into the plot #HATM

Actually, it is pretty clear in the book and movie that this whole venture, both commercial and scientific, are dependent on neo-colonial frameworks and actions #HATM

I went to Montana this summer!!!! #HATM

Sorry kids, most of paleontology, just like most of all science, is pretty boring most of the time #HATM

Women paleontologists are not that uncommon in history actually. The most famous is the British Mary Anning, and there is a movie coming out soon about her #HATM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonite_(film)

The dinosaurs having feathers vs. scales debate is one that is still active, though most are on the feather side I think #HATM https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/feathers-fuel-dinosaur-flight-debate-146139689/#:~:text=When%20the%20paleontologists%20examined%20the,top%20of%20the%20flight%20feathers

In the book, Ellie is portrayed as his postdoc, engaged to someone else not in the book and I love the decision to not give her a romantic storyline #HATM

So I love this scene for talking about patronage in science, and how we may think of it as an Early Modern thing, but it is still really a big thing #HATM

To self-promote shamelessly, I am write now revising an article on a woman paleobotanist, Edna Plumstead, who used fern fossils to make a biogeographical argument for continental drift theory in the early 1960s #HATM

So Crichton often includes a character that is his voice to explain his critics of science or authority or what have you and in this story it is Ian Malcolm #HATM

Geoscientists (of all sorts) are more like historians I think than other scientists because they study an archive in order to better understand the past. They are just looking back millions of years rather than hundreds #HATM

Jurassic Park the book actually came out the same year that Sue the TRex was discovered. Some nice free public for Crichton! #HATM

There is some nice commentary to be had about how this story connects to the new-ish field of Zoo Studies #HATM
https://www.mqup.ca/zoo-studies-products-9780773556911.php

Dern is also a woman of science in "October Sky" when she is Homer Hickham's physics teacher #HATM

Crichton is really critical of reckless use of genetics and privacy issues and such in "Next" which came out in 2006 #HATM

So, the funny thing here is that just because these two are paleontologists, it suggests that they would also be extremely well-versed in micro-biology. That is...unlikely. I mean consider Grant having a hard time with computers. All subjects require their own training #HATM

His mention of Chilean Sea Bass is really interesting! Chilean Sea Bass is an Antarctic fish, the Patagonian toothfish, and the name was changed to make it more palatable for American consumers #HATM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patagonian_toothfish

In the book Hammond is not such a genial character. I am not sure if I prefer him being such a nice, but naive guy, or a pretty ruthless capitalist #HATM

"rape of the natural world", the idea that earth is female and that man (the male scientist typically) conquers it with discoveries. Come Classic ecofeminism stuff #HATM

The idea of the dinosaurs going extinct because of a meteor, the Alvarez hypothesis, was formulated by father-son, Luis and Walter Alvarez, a physicists and geologist respectively, in 1980, to explain the high Iridium concentration at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary #HATM

So all of the people who watch this and think that the message is that we should always trust experts/scientists are missing the point. Remember, it is also experts who built the park! #HATM

If fact, it argues that one should not put too much faith in expertise because nature is to some degree unknowable and that we can never be experts on the way things behave in nature #HATM

Again, a paleobotanist would not be an expert on dinosaur pathology! Well it is unlikely anyway #HATM

One thing I do not like about science in movies is that it assumes science is a monolith, not like these extremely different disciplines with different training and stuff. Like saying that as a British historian, I am also extremely qualified to talk on economics in Togo #HATM

So one thing I like is that Nedry's actions provoke all this, but really any single other thing, like the storm or whatever could have done this-the idea of non-human agency as an actor in knowledge production or in history more generally #HATM

TRexes can't see you if you do not move. Lol, how did he find that out? #HATM

If I am remembering correctly, in the book Grant actually likes kids, because kids tend to be into dinosaurs, but I guess it gives Grant a nice character arc to have to spend half the movie protecting kids if he doesn't like them #HATM

I think that this movie was the first time I had ever seen people of color that were scientists/engineers on film with the characters of Wu and Arnold #HATM

Random musing, but I think the reason that the raptors are so scary in this movie is that Spielberg treats them like the shark from Jaws and doesn't really show them much the entire movie, but implies their scariness by what we don't see #HATM

SPOILER!
I understand the decision to keep Hammond and Malcolm alive because it lets Malcolm show up in the sequel without the clumsy way it is handled in the Lost World book, but I like the symbolism of the voice of reason dying in the end #HATM

SPOILER
I also like the idea of Hammond being consumed by his own creation #HATM

In the book Tim is older and Lex is such a drag. She has pretty much no redeeming characteristics. I prefer that they rounded her out and made her the one good at computers and not Tim good at both computers and dinosaurs #HATM

I'm a paleobotanist so that means I am comfortable administering morphine :( #HATM

I just notice that the only women in this movie are the ones that are getting covered in bodily fluids (and Nedry, as an unmasculine male). Teach them to be interested in science! #HATM

oooh I think his Kiwi accent slipped out there with "the power's off"
#HATM

Such a good jump shot! I have seen this like a dozen times and I was startled #HATM

That reflection shot was also super cool #HATM

Another random musing, but studying the history of paleontology in the US is a interesting way to look at issues of American Indian sovereignty because during the Bone Wars right up through today with the discovery of Sue and more, many fossils are found on reservations #HATM

So the music is uplifting, here but this is actually a horrifying moment, knowing that the dinosaurs migrate and can therefore escape the island-it is how the book both starts and ends #HATM

OMG @HerbertHistory, thank you so much for letting me cohost-it has been a blast! I loved chatting with everyone about the #STS and #histsci issues in this movie and I hope it prompts everything to think about science on screen! #HATM

Please take the time to follow @JoannaRadin @ingrid_rocket @AmyCChambers @king_gwangi @lrieppel and others working on these issues! #HATM