When Jurassic Park first came out in 1993, it was a pretty ground-breaking depiction of dinosaurs.
《侏罗纪公园》于1993年首次上映时,对恐龙的刻画相当具有开创性。
Steven Spielberg certainly took plenty of artistic liberties,
虽然毋庸置疑,导演斯皮尔伯格在电影中做了很大程度的自由发挥,
but overall, the movie was so much better than what had come before,
然而,从总体来看,这部电影还是比之前的同类电影好得多,
in terms of recreating what scientists knew about how dinosaurs looked and how they moved.
该电影复活了当时科学家们了解到的恐龙的形象与行动方式。
The character Alan Grant was actually a bit ahead of his time.
老实说,电影中的阿兰·格兰特是走在时代前列的。
“Look at the half-moon shaped bones in the wrists. No wonder these guys learned how to fly…Seriously!”
“看腕关节的半月形骨头,难怪这些家伙会飞了……我是说真的!”
Back then, the claim that birds evolved from dinosaurs was still controversial. Now it’s widely accepted.
那时,鸟类是由恐龙进化而来的说法还有很大的争议。尽管现在已经被广泛接受了。
But in the late 1990s, the science started speeding ahead and the movies just didn’t keep up.
然而,九十年代晚期,科学开始得到迅猛发展,电影的发展却没能跟上节奏。
Even the latest installment, Jurassic World, shot in ultra high-definition 3D,
尽管最新的电影《侏罗纪公园》采用了超高清3D技术,
it features dinosaurs that are out of date.
电影题材还是停留在远古时代的恐龙身上。
Three years after the first Jurassic Park movie was released,
首部《侏罗纪公园》上映三年后,
scientists in China uncovered a feathered dinosaur for the first time -- Sinosauropteryx.
中国科学家首次出土了一具羽毛恐龙——中华龙鸟的化石。
It takes very specific conditions for the earth to record soft tissues like these primitive feathers.
土壤要具备非常特殊的条件,才能留住早期羽毛这类软组织。
The animals had to buried quickly, before decomposing, in fine-grained sediment.
即将变成化石的动物必须是瞬间被掩埋,而且是在腐烂之前,在细密的泥沙下的。
It turned out that this part of China, Liaoning Province,
发掘出这一化石的地方,也就是中国的辽宁省,
saw major volcanic eruptions around 120 million years ago, which provided these very conditions.
在大约1.2亿年前经历了大型火山爆发,恰好提供了这样的条件。
And more than 30 feathered dinosaur species have been unearthed there and in some other places since 1996.
从1996年至今,当地及其他地方已经出土了30多种羽毛恐龙的化石。
These fuzzy dinosaurs were mostly 2-legged meat eaters, part of a group that’s closely related to birds in the dinosaur family tree.
这些毛茸茸的恐龙大多是两条腿的肉食动物,在恐龙家族中,算是鸟类的近亲。
That group includes many of the dinosaurs featured in the Jurassic Park movies. “Gallimimus”
《侏罗纪公园》系列电影中的很多恐龙都属于这一类。“鸡龙”
These guys probably had feathers of some sort for insulation or decoration.
这些恐龙的羽毛具有隔热、装饰等作用。
And that includes the raptors.
迅猛龙也是其中的一种。
Jurassic Park III sort of nodded to the new research by giving them a little bit of a hairdo.
《侏罗纪公园3》给电影中的恐龙设计了“发式”,从侧面肯定了这一新发现。
But their feathers probably looked more like this.
然而,事实上,这些恐龙的羽毛可能更接近这种样子。
A velociraptor fossil from the Gobi desert revealed bumps on the fore-arm similar to the wing attachments on modern birds.
从戈壁沙漠中挖掘出来的迅猛龙前臂化石上有凸起,这一点跟现代鸟类羽毛根部的结构有点像。
That means raptors had wings. And what about T-Rex?
这就意味着迅猛龙有翅膀。那霸王龙呢?
There’s no direct evidence, but a few years ago, scientists found a 30-foot dinosaur with some feathers- the biggest so far.
目前还没有直接的证据表明霸王龙有翅膀,然而几年前,科学家们发现了一具长达30英尺的羽毛恐龙化石,是目前为止最大的羽毛恐龙化石。
Yutyrannus is thought to be closely related to T-Rex, so it’s possible that the most famous and feared dinosaur might have been sort of fluffy.
羽暴龙被认为是霸王龙的近亲,所以,最为著名的同时也是最为人们恐惧的霸王龙也可能是个毛茸茸的东西呢。
It’s not clear how universal feathers were among dinosaurs.
到底有多少恐龙有羽毛这一点目前尚不明朗。
But while most of the specimens are theropods,
然而,尽管大多数恐龙都是兽脚类的肉食恐龙,
there have been a few interesting findings from way over on the otherside of the family tree.
恐龙家族的另一大分支上却出现了一些有趣的现象。
These two have bristles of some sort, which may or may not be related to bird feathers.
这两种恐龙有鬃毛一样的结构,可能跟鸟类的羽毛有关,也可能没有。
And this one, found last year, has even more complex feather-like filaments.
这种恐龙,去年才刚刚被发现,身上的细丝更为复杂,也更接近羽毛。
These fossils may indicate that feather precursors date back to some of the dinosaurs’ earliest common ancestors.
这些化石证据表明,羽毛动物的祖先或许可以追溯到最初的某些恐龙身上。
Jurassic World could have introduced feathered dinosaurs to a huge audience this year. But it didn’t.
《侏罗纪世界》原本可以把这些羽毛恐龙介绍给大量观众,但事与愿违。
According to Jack Horner, a paleontologist that worked on all four films, the decision was made for the sake of consistency.
参与四部《侏罗纪电影》拍摄的古生物学者杰克·霍纳解释到,这一决定是为了保证四部电影的连贯性。
But you have to assume they also just weren’t up for the task of making feathers into something scary.
但大家也可以认为,他们是不赞成把带羽毛的东西做成很恐怖的东西,才没给那些恐龙添上羽毛的。