Ever get the feeling someone was looking over your shoulder while you were reading a book?
Well, these days I’m getting that feeling as I WRITE my books. I have a sneaking suspicion that some of the people writing the scripts for the Jurassic Park movie series have been keeping an eye on my Dinosaur Wars stories for some time now. That would explain how they keep using scenes I published years earlier in one or another of my books.
Want proof, so you can get into my not-so-paranoid view of things? Have a look at the image above, an out-take from Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, now playing at a theater near you. Wait a minute! That’s an exact copy of a scene I published six years ago in Dinosaur Wars: Blood on the Moon, the third novel in my Dinosaur Wars trilogy. Imagine my surprise when I went to a theater and saw something I came up with years ago appearing on the silver screen!
For comparison, here is the scene as it appeared in my novel:
They watched two wet-suited young men ride on the face of a huge North Pacific swell as it rose in the shallows between two sea stacks. “They’ve gotta be crazy to surf in that cold water,” Hebert said.
“They’ve gotta be crazy to surf in the middle of dinosaur territory,” Suarez corrected. Just then, one of the surfers hooked his board hard in an effort to miss an obstacle hidden beneath the surface while the other raced on. Before the first could complete his kick-out, the water near him frothed up and the snout of a big sea creature emerged. The man dove to one side as the beast’s head rose from the water. It was covered with dark green reptilian scales and possessed long jaws lined with savage-looking crocodile teeth.
“Hoo-wee!” Hebert exclaimed. The surfer vanished beneath the water and the tylosaur bit the surfboard at its center, snapping it in two. The monstrous, snakelike creature swirled around in the water and came back to seize, not the surfer, who remained underwater, but the front half of the board. It gulped the mouthful down in a single swallow and then slid smoothly beneath the blue-green surface of the ocean.
A moment later, the surfer came to the surface and swam toward shore at what looked like an Olympic-record pace. And wisely so. The huge sea reptile rose again, riding up and over a swell. It did not, however, go after the unlucky surfer. Instead, it made several convulsive retching motions and coughed up the half surfboard. Meanwhile, the surfer caught a wave and body surfed to shore where his partner awaited him with his board tucked under an arm.
The drama wasn’t over yet, however. As the unlucky surfer stood up and splashed toward the beach, struggling against the undertow, his buddy shouted and pointed beyond him. The man turned in time to see the tylosaur also surfing a big wave to shore. Its jaws were wide open and its thrashing, snake-like body propelled it straight at him!
The man splashed up-beach in the wave wash but went down in the shallows. Then he stood and high-stepped in the shallows like a football player avoiding a tackler, angling slightly to avoid the onrushing jaws, which snapped shut just behind his buttocks.
“Nice moves!” cried Suarez.
“Gah!” Tlatalko agreed.
When the tylosaur plowed into the sand and came to a halt, both surfers retreated up the beach, no doubt thanking their lucky stars to be alive.
“Now it’s stranded,” said Hebert, watching the tylosaur thrash in the shallow water.
“I don’t know,” Suarez replied as the animal carved its long serpentine tail across the face of an incoming wave and deftly leveraged itself off the sand and back toward the sea. “That thing’s got some good moves of its own!” One more tail slash and the immense reptile vanished into the surf as swiftly as it had appeared.
“Wow!” Hebert exclaimed as the two surfers made for the safety of the driftwood and dunes above the wave-wash. “I guess surfers have a whole new animal to worry about besides great white sharks.”
“Yeah,” Suarez agreed. “And I’d say great white sharks have a whole new animal to worry about too—great green lizards!”
***
Now, as Oscar Wilde once said, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But I’m starting to get annoyed by the frequency with which Steven Spielberg and his team tap my ideas without so much as a byline in the credits at the end of the movie. Not only have they grabbed my Mosasaur vs surfer scene, but there are more instances, and I get the feeling the rate of tapping my ideas is escalating.
In the previous Jurassic World movie, back in 2015, they did their first grab of Dinosaur Wars by introducing their Mosasaur. Also in that movie, they introduced Chris Pratt’s character, Owen Grady, who is a dinosaur trainer. Well, excuse me, but you should read my Tyrannosaur-training scene right up front at the beginning of Dinosaur Wars: Blood on the Moon (2012), if you want some real heart-pounding, life-or-death dino-training drama. Here it is. Try it on for size, Steven:
The tyrannosaurus was a big one. It stalked across the brushy grassland of the Montana high plains smoothly on two towering legs that somehow moved gracefully despite their tree-like size. The huge carnivore placed one three-clawed foot on the ground almost gently, followed slowly by the other foot in a stealthy fluid motion. The immense tawny-furred animal blended into the tan colors of the grasslands so well as to be almost unnoticeable despite its size. Keeping its head low and its long tail stretched out behind, it was stalking something it smelled on the warm morning air currents. The brown and tan zebra-striped mane along the crest of its neck stood tall with anticipation of a kill. Its nose came up slightly each time it sniffed the light breeze. Then it would adjust its course a little to follow the scent it was homing in on.
That scent was far too faint for a human nose to detect but was easily traced by the powerful sensory system within the rex’s snout, one that rivaled or surpassed that of a wolf’s nose. After a few more paces into the wind the rex sniffed again, adjusted its direction once more—and caught sight of its quarry. Now the big beast accelerated its pace, tracking visually but still moving fluidly and silently on its well-padded feet. It obviously hoped to reach its prey without causing it to flee.
That prey, Chase Armstrong, adjusted the bill of his green National Park Service ball cap to keep the sun out of his eyes. “He’s seen us,” he murmured with just the hint of an edge on his voice. “Here he comes!”
“Oh my God,” Kit Daniels whispered from just behind Chase’s shoulder. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“I guess we’ll see.” Chase rose from his exposed driver’s seat to face the oncoming rex. “Hey you!” he shouted at it. “Want some of this?” He waved his arms to be certain the rex was fixated on him. It was.
As the rex accelerated to a full charge with its feet thundering on the ground, Chase turned around, bent over, and slapped a butt cheek provocatively. “Nice and meaty!” he shouted. “Come and get it!”
“Chase!” Kit cried, watching the rex loom larger with each stride. “I don’t think you should be doing that!” She peered around Chase from where she sat behind him in the second seat of the Kra walking machine. She had planned to stand up with Chase when this moment came, but something about a tyrannosaurus charging in her direction made her too shaky to rise without her knees buckling. After all, it had been she, not Chase, who had escaped the jaws of one of these huge carnivores twice in a single day. And those memories were recent enough that their terror hadn’t faded.
When the rex was within twenty paces, it let out a piercing shriek like the battle cry of a titanic eagle.
“Enough is enough, Chase!” Kit cried. “I’ve been here, done this!”
“He’s gotta get closer.” Chase’s voice remained calm somehow, though Kit’s heart was racing crazily. Maybe Chase’s years as a park ranger dealing with angry grizzly bears had prepared him for this challenge. “Gar says we need to give him a good look at us and make sure he knows it’s humans he’s trying to eat.”
“It’ll be humans he does eat if you don’t do something, quick!”
“Just let him get a bit closer.”
***
And you might have noticed another story element that Jurassic World lifted from me. In contrast to the older, dry and loveless Jurassic Park movies, Jurassic World introduces a budding romance between two characters, Owen Grady and Claire Dearing, played by Bryce Dallas Howard. Yeah. Uh-huh. That would be like harkening back to my original Dinosaur Wars story from 2000. In Earthfall, I immediately introduced both Chase Armstrong and Kit Daniels right up front as the lead characters, who very quickly became romantically involved. A little slow on that one, Jurassic World, but okay, you’re catching on.
And finally, there’s that bit toward the end of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, showing dinosaurs escaping Isla Nublar and invading the mainland. Jeez, JP. What took you so long? As I sat in the theater watching Jeff Goldblum speak Ian Malcolm’s last line, “Welcome to Jurassic World,” I felt a strong sense of irony and just a little irritation. My whole concept for my Dinosaur Wars series has been “Dinosaurs in your backyard!” And now we see the velociraptor, Blue, overlooking the glittering lights of Los Angeles.
So, I guess Mr. Spielberg and his buddies are making me a promise. After twenty-five years of dallying around on a tropical island, they are finally going to come ashore and take over the space my dinosaurs have been occupying since 2000. The least they could do is recognize the source of their idea. Or better yet, engage my services to help them do a really good job of it!
Hey, Steven Spielberg! Why don’t you just go ahead and hire me as one of your writers? That way you won’t have to bring up the rear anymore. You won’t have to eat my tyrannosaur dust. You can stay up to date with my latest ideas. I wouldn’t mind. Especially at YOUR pay scale!
