Lex Fridman: evaluation

Transcript context

…I mean, I just want to preface my answer, because I always get asked about this, understandably, and it’s like I get that it’s a movie, but if someone’s gonna ask me, “What does it get wrong?” I’m gonna give them an answer, but I do get people going, “Ah, you’re just nitpicking. Ah, you know it’s fiction. Ah, you know it’s made up.” Yeah, I do know, but someone asked the question, so here’s the answer. I should say that some of the things that I’ve heard you describe, I feel like it’s the responsibility of those folks to get it right. I think there’s something I really deeply admire. There’s a show called Chernobyl. It’s like they don’t need to be that accurate, but they really… it’s like the detail of the kitchenware- in a room, just to get the tiniest detail right. Who’s that for? I don’t know who that’s for, but that’s great art. That’s the spirit of the thing. If you focus on getting those tiny details right, some magical thing happens about the bigger story. If you don’t care about the details, the story gets corrupted. So, I just wanted to say that some of the things you describe, like how many fingers, um- … it’s like that’s important to get that right, because if you do, some magical stuff can really emerge. And it could become a legendary film as opposed to just a- … a summer hit. … that’s my take. Again, I’ve worked on documentaries where they’re claiming that accuracy is absolutely critical and 100% important, and they won’t put anything on screen that I haven’t told them to, and- …then many of those things turn out not to be quite as true as advertised, once you get around to it. So, I’m aware that when even documentaries will take massive liberties, you can’t be too harsh on what is popular fiction. On the other hand, I am also aware that it is by far, by a ludicrous degree, the most popular bit of any kind of media that includes my work… …as it were, or something that I’m actively engaged in and know about. So, whether or not it should have that influence or whether or not the filmmakers should have responsibility, it does. It does have that knock-on. So, I mean, it’s simple as stuff as T-rex can’t see if you can’t move. Yeah, it could. I don’t know where that came from. As far as I can tell, Crichton just dreamed it up. In The Lost World, his sequel book, he hints that there’s a research paper that says it, and that’s kind of where he got it from. There’s a second paleontologist character who’s advising Dodgson, the evil InGen guy, and he says, “Oh, no, well, that’s from such-and-such’s research.” And, like, I tried looking it up. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t exist and never did. So, I think it’s just straight fiction. It works for the book and it works for the movie, but it’s… as far as I can tell, it’s straight fiction, and Crichton just made it up. If it’s buried in some bit of literature, he’s done better finding it than I have, and I’ve had a really good look, and I know how to look. And I’ve never come across anyone who’s found it either. But it does, it just warps the perception, you know. Velociraptor, cheetah speed, pack hunters, super intelligent, giant-sized animals, and, okay, 1993 it’s a bit more forgivable, but even then we were pretty confident they had feathers.…

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