A lot of people don’t realize the due process of the Encyclopedia and how it actually works for the community. If you were to joined the community in the year 2000 and asked for a list of dinosaurs that were located on Isla Nublar you would have been simply given the novel list and said simply “Well, that’s all we have.” or some people would chime in saying the toys represented the accurate count of the animals on Isla Nublar, to this it was met with a face palm representing frustration as I was a mere aspiring Fan Fiction writer along with my friends.
The concept of canon, although clearly indicated by Rick Carter (Production Designer) and Michael Crichton (Author of the original works) were briefly elaborated with admittedly vague, but confirming quotes. The problem was, these quotes – like a lot of the information represented in the Jurassic Franchise were buried and forgotten. You can see more information about these quotes here. Out of a flowering ambition and a lack of a social life in High School I took it upon myself to organize a group of individuals to lead a research effort into determining what was canon and what was not in the Jurassic Franchise. The result, well, after ten years is what you see as the Jurassic Park Legacy website.
A lot of questions are asked about the due process involved in the Encyclopedia, a lot of accusations have been made in regards to the validity of our information. There is a lot of stuff we keep out of the public eye because, some of it, is boring and a lot of it gets into philosophical fights on occasion surrounding what is/was canon and what is just us getting into semantics regarding what we see. In other words, boring crap. The fact is we see ourselves like digital paleontologists in a way mulling over a trilogy of film, two novels, countless comics, numerous video games, and a couple lines of toys scraping every detail we can from them in order to establish the boundaries of continuity and lastly canon to make it easy for Fan Fiction writers and fans a nice something to read through. Fan Encyclopedias are quite popular, in fact there are very many people – with nothing to do at times, that love going over and reading them to “attain” knowledge. Jurassic Park is different in a way, we’ve had to stay up on current paleontology research in order to point out the interpretations in the dinosaurs concerning how “true” to science they are. Very recently, we indicated that even if InGen had cloned a feathered Velociraptor they would still – likely – modify it to match public perception of dinosaurs at the time to make it seem a real. A concept indicated in the novels, and can be inferred over to the films due to the appearance of the JP3 Velociraptors being different from the previous two film’s Velociraptor. We also indicated that the JP Velociraptor is not actually a Velociraptor, but a Deinonychus based on size and the ontological aspects of the animal’s skull that we see in the film. Ergo on the taxonomic aspect, it is a Deinonychus. Among this, we’ve made much progress, for one we now know there are varying species lists between the continuities that add up as, again, different media.
How about the maps? We have different methods with those, some of us look at the filming locations and how the topography seemingly blends in together on what we see with the film and the island layout provided by the Production Design department. The issue is, always with JP, continuity. Because of changes in filming or changes in perspective from concept to filming a lot of the maps involve our best educated guesses. The problem with this is that we are having to make inferences or educated guesses on scant information. A lot of our work recently has been involving map making and ergo, therefore, a lot of educated guesses and inferences from what we see on film, from the Making of Books, and other sources. The problem is, occasionally, we are wrong and we work hard to fix that in light of new evidence. The other issue is a lot of people go “Well I can do better.” to this I respond, atypically and maverick like “You are certainly welcome to try, but it’s going to be wrong.” Why do I tell them it’s going to be wrong? A lot of naysayers, hecklers I call them as well, come in without learning all the facts themselves and say “I feel it should be this because it just looks right. So you should change it.” this is honestly the worse thing anyone can say/do. We don’t simply put something because we *feel* it should be there. We put something to its location on the map because of educated guesses. If you want something changed, present evidence – strong evidence, to indicate it needs to be changed. Some people have unfortunately gone as far as presenting pictures with little to know evidence regarding a change. They accompanied dubious evidence which only confuses the argument.
The process behind the Encyclopedia is slow, if you have seen our current Sorna map some have realized the scale is off, this is true. We are currently re-working it and a lot of work involved in it is admittedly overwhelming, but this is our biggest project in a while. The aim of JPLegacy and it’s team is very simple. Provide accurate information to the fans of Jurassic Park. Give Jurassic Park the treatment and highlight that it should have always received from the beginning and not the negligence and “step child treatment” it has received by so much from Hollywood. In addition to this we provide a friendly community, as much as we can at least, for the fandom to come and discuss all things JP.