Steven Spielberg returns to executive produce the long-awaited next installment of his groundbreaking Jurassic Park series, Jurassic World.
Jurassic Park's consultant palaeontologist Jack Horner has defended the decision to include fictitious dinosaurs in the franchise's latest installment following criticism from scientists.
The man-eating movie monsters of Steven Spielberg's 1993 sci-fi classic, based on the hit novel by Michael Crichton, are heading back to the big screen for afourth time in new blockbuster Jurassic World, set 22 years after the events of the original.
A number of fictitious creatures are featured in the fourth film and the decision to stray from reality has riled dinosaur experts, but Horner, the palaeontologist who has worked as a consultant on all four films, is adamant stuffy scientists should not pass judgement because they know nothing about making a good movie.
A scene from the movie Jurassic World.
"In the new movie you'll see some genetic hybrids - there are some that are fun, and some that are scary," he tells Britain's The Independent newspaper.
"The premise behind the movie is that the park has been open now for 10 years or so and people have come to visit it and got kind of bored looking at the same dinosaurs over and over again, so the park managers have decided to make some hybrid dinosaurs.
Horner described it as "a sort of Frankenstein movie".
"If you make something new, they usually eat you... The basic premise of a Jurassic Park movie is that dinosaurs chase people and they eat them. So that is going to be the same...
"(Spielberg) made them (the dinosaurs) go faster than they would normally go and do things that they wouldn't normally be able to do. The tyrannosaurs pick up people (in the films), but there is no way they could do that.
A scene from the movie Jurassic World.
"But it makes for a good movie. That's what I keep reminding my colleagues. If we had made a documentary, no-one would have gone to see it... Most of the people who get upset about certain things are, well, I guess they just don't go to movies."
Horner is believed to have partly-inspired Sam Neill's portrayal of grouchy palaeontologist Dr Alan Grant, who featured in the first and third films.
• Jurrasic World opens in New Zealand cinemas June 11.
