You responded while I was editing, so for good measure:
"The 'dinosaurs in the original were accurate for its time' is hogwash. That line is only true comparative to contemporary dinosaur fiction. Yes, it was one of the first movies to follow the dinosaur rennaisance, but that still puts it decades behind."
Let's count judging only by stuff known at the time. Brachiosaurus, skull and size inaccurate, broke its own legs doing impossible stunts, S-neck. Triceratops suffering from dwarfism with a compressed skull. Raptors, oversized evil monsters with pronated limbs. T. Rex, worst skull reconstruction in the series, oversized, running 32 miles per hour and can't see you if you stand still but also can't smell you apparently. Dilophosaurus, let's not even start. Which of the supposedly accurate at the time dinos from the first film did I miss?
Jurassic Park tries to make the dinosaurs believable to make them more interesting monsters, it never made them accurate. Christ, Horner could *barely* stop them from giving the raptors flicking snake tongues. Don't take my word for it. In- universe:
"Genetically engineered theme park monsters. Nothing more, nothing less."
You could look at it that way. But it's a very cynical and not very nuanced way of looking at it.
Some of your points, sure, but generally speaking many inaccuracies are to serve the story.
So yeah lets break it down.
- Brachiosaur
I don't see what you mean with the skull being inaccurate. The nostrils are in the wrong place and it could use some fattening up. But this type of shrink-wrapped reconstruction was common a the time. This was fixed with the Apatosaurus in JW. Fatter head and nostrils in the correct place. Changing the Brachiosaur after all those years would be a bit weird in terms of continuity. The brachiosaur even had lips, like the raptors, which was pretty new for it's time.
The scene of the brachiosaur raising up onto it's hind legs is very obviously to tell the story to make it more dramatic. The size is obviously also to make it more dramatic.
- Triceratops
Dwarfism? Not really. Sure it's not the biggest, but it could possibly be a subadult. It's about the size of the subadult trike fossils I deal with every other week, And considering what we now now about ontogeny we can say that the hornlets/episquamosals and epiparietals on the frill indicate a subadult as well since they are so pointy. The size is really fine all around.
It's probably still one of the most accurate dinosaurs in the first film. I don't see any thing big wrong with the skull as there's a LOT of variation in trike skulls. The only real issue with this reconstruction is the outer toes that have nails when they shouldn't. It's by no means perfect, but overall it's a pretty nice reconstruction.
- Raptors
Oversized, yes. about 3 meters long when they should be much smaller compared to the real Velociraptor. Even too large for the Deinonychus they were mostly based on, even though they kept the name of Velociraptor because they thought it was cooler. So yeah, the name and size is wrong. But we do have evidence of Dromaeosaurids of that size and even larger. So it's not completely fantasy. While a few liberties were taken, those were still based on real science.
The pronated hands, yeah they can be quite bad at times. And though I'm not sure, I think the understanding of how theropods held their wrists came later. At least I can't think of a single example of correct theropod wrists in reconstructions before JP. So this gets a pass as well for it for 1993. Though I have to be honest this is the one thing I had hoped they'd fix in JW since I don't think it's something the casual viewer would pick up on much while the viewer that's more informed would appreciate the fix.
The raptors haven't aged very well. Now they kinda do like naked monsters with broken wrists. But at the time, for the most part, they were pretty okay.
The tongue thing was bad indeed. But the thing is, it never made it into the movie because of just how inaccurate it was. It did not fit with one of the important ideas of the film that dinosaurs are related to birds.
- T.rex
The basics of the skull are fairly accurate. It's mainly the brows and cheeks that have been exaggerated for dramatic effect, again, for telling a story. Speed, yeah, wrong, but again, for telling a story. The vision thing, story, but based on other animals.
- Dilophosaurus
Yeah this is probably the worst offender. And probably the only one that really has big additions that aren't based on anything at all. All the changes were made to make it different from the raptors, again, for the story.
And if you think I'm saying the dinosaurs in JP are accurate, then you are missing the point. They are not. There are many inaccuracies. But my point is that there is good amongst the bad. What JP set out to do was tell a story with dinosaurs and science fiction. While many things are inaccurate they also went out of their way to present these as real animals, not just monsters. They also went out of their way to present a number of scientific ideas about dinosaurs that weren't well known among the public.
With that said. There is no reason we we shouldn't strive for some more accuracy here and there. To get back on topic, this game is of course based on Jurassic World first and Jurassic Park second. So any dinosaur that appears in the films will of course look similar to those and be sized similarly. But for the ones that don't appear in the films, I don't see a good reason why we shouldn't strive for more accuracy unless it harms the game in any way.
So yeah, where appropriate, I think it would be cool if some dinosaurs are more accurately sized.
