The Velociraptors’ escape in Jurassic Park can be confusing to some audiences, but the way these lethal dinosaurs leave their holding pen is quite simple. Early on in the film, the raptors are shown to be predators of incredible wit and aggressiveness. Their dangerous characteristics are so concerning that John Hammond is forced to bring in experts to ensure the park’s safety after a raptor causes the death of an employee. When the raptors reappear at the climax of Jurassic Park, it’s easy to overlook how they get out when so many other things are happening in the story.
After Alan Grant, Ian Malcolm, and Ellie Sattler arrive on the island of Isla Nubar, Jurassic Park becomes a snowballing narrative of great thrills and critical circumstances. While the potential threat of the Velociraptors looms in the background, the audience is distracted by many major events including the exciting displays of the park’s dinosaurs, the characters having serious doubts about its integrity, and Dennis Nedry’s nefarious but nonsensical plan. Nedry serves as one of Jurassic Park‘s main antagonists, as his scheme to steal dinosaur embryos for a competing bioengineering company ends up placing everyone in jeopardy.
Shutting Down The System Turned Off The Raptor Fences
In order to flee Isla Nubar with the stolen eggs quickly and under the cover of chaos, Nedry deactivates much of the park’s security system and disables some of the electric fencing holding dinosaurs in their pens. However, he carefully ensures that some of the dinosaur enclosures remain secure. He needs to escape the island without getting caught or killed in the chaos himself, so his methodical decision to secure some pens holding especially aggressive predators, particularly the Velociraptors, was clever and practical. It is only in Hammond’s desperation to regain control of the park’s entire system that every possible threat becomes part of the mix.
The system requires a full restart for Hammond and his crew to take back control of Jurassic Park, so in order to get everything up and running again, he makes the call to shut down the grid completely. This turns off even those electric fences that Nedry had left operational, including the one around the Velociraptor pen. The procedure could be presumed brief enough to avoid any additional dangers. Yet there ends up being more required to get the system back online after they reboot the system. They have to travel to another building to reset the circuit breakers. During this time, the raptors are able to escape their pen.
Everyone Forgot About The Raptors
Despite it being the wrong call, Hammond’s decision was egged on by everyone’s oversight. The group that was back at Jurassic Park headquarters — Hammond, Arnold, Muldoon, Ian, and Ellie — were so eager to get the mayhem under control that none of them took the time to think through or mention whether the system shutdown would turn off everything, even the Velociraptor pen. As it turns out, it did and left those characters, and the rest of the survivors when they finally returned, at the mercy of the raptors. Muldoon’s realization as he and Ellie pass the raptor pen that they’ve gotten out confirms their oversight.
Shutting down the park’s system may have led to several more tragic Jurassic Park deaths, but it was also integral to the pacing of the movie. While everyone was distracted by more obvious thrills and perils, the threat of the raptors lurked in the background until emerging at the worst possible time. The raptors’ escape initially comes across as confusing for this reason, but by the end of Jurassic Park, it is realized to be another compounding element that makes it a perfectly suspenseful adventure film.
