CMU School of Drama


Thursday, November 10, 2016

Westworld meets Jurassic Park as Japan show off plans for robotic dinosaur theme park

Mirror Online: A Japanese company has unveiled plans to build a massive robot dinosaur theme park as it showed off the world's biggest moving dinosaur for the first time.

In a cross between new hit American TV show Westworld and Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park the "Dino-a-Park" was the brainchild of Kazuya Kanemaru, the CEO of ON-ART Corp.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

This article is so intriguing for two reasons: 1.) Why are robotic dinosaurs such a craze?! and 2.) How come this Japanesse company can make this one so life like?! I feel like every time I turn on the car radio these days its a new museum opening with automated dinosaurs, or a new fair with a robotic dinosaur exhibit or maybe a commercial for a circus which guess what HAS DINOSAURS! So what is it with all the dinosaurs?? I have a theory that it is either people loved Jurassic Park way to much for the quality of the film it was or that as humans we are obsessed with the things we cant have (ie. a creature destroyed by a huge meteor years ago!) None the less where there are dinosaurs there will be a crowd, which this Japanese company is benefitting from. their dinosaurs in one word are amazing!! The detail and quality are amazing. They have definitely done their job with entertaining people as I thoroughly LOVED this article.

Monica Skrzypczak said...

The quality of this robot is extremely high. Like I keep thinking back to really early animatronics that are just plain terrifying because they look like wide eyed scary robots not like whatever they are trying to look like like a bear or other animal. These dinosaurs on the other hand look have skin that looks really realistic, and while you can tell that there are human legs in the dino legs because they don’t bend like they should, that (and the scale disparity) is the only reason they don’t look real. You would think that creating lifelike robots is a thing of the past considering how far we have progressed with CGI, but this article shows that we are still making amazing things. My big question is why is this at a hotel. I get the reference to Jurassic Park, but what were the series of events that made someone want to do this and where did they get all the money to support the creation of these dinosaurs?

Vanessa Ramon said...

This is pretty cool! The idea itself is one that can capture large audiences of all ages and interests in the project. Since the idea is similar to that of Jurassic Park (but with robots instead of genetic manipulation thank goodness!), a lot of adults and millennials will have an interest in life like dinosaurs and the natural curiosity that comes from kids will make up the large interest group. I think it is really cool how the are using new technology to create lighter, more realistic versions of these dinosaurs. A din-o-park sounds really cool but I think they will have to be careful with how they design the park and how they market it. There could be a possibility that the park can turn more scary than fun and that would take away a lot of their audience. Overall, I think it is always amazing when the mixture of technology and artistic creativity come together to create innovative things like realistic dinosaurs.

Jamie Phanekham said...

Why does no one ever listen to Michael Chricton!?? He's rolling in his grave RIGHT NOW thinking about how he warned us all about robots, chaos theory and A.I., taking over! Sure it's cool and all to have massive robotic dinosaurs running around, but in the words of Dr. Ian Malcolm, played by Jeff Goldblum in the Jurassic Park film, "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should." And these Japanese scientists didn't stop either. Yeah, right now those robot dinosaurs are pretending to eat them, but what about when the dinosaur passes the Turing test? Did you think about that. I'm sure that the fake robot park full of dinosaurs would be fun for a while, but what about when these eager park-goers want more? I don't know, but it sure seems like these scientists are really asking for disaster with the combo they've created.

Tahirah K Agbamuche said...

Wow. I imagined that these dinosaurs would look cheesy, unreal, and be very clunky. I was pleasantly surprised that all creatures were very realistic and moved well. I am a big jurassic park fan, but the violence always got to me. However, I do appreciate that they incorporated carnivorous instincts into the creatures such as the biting and throwing the wranglers across the stage. I wonder if they could engineer a stomach wide and cushioned enough to actually swallow a full sized human. That being said, the violence is somewhat questionable depending on what audience they are shooting for. Typically, theme parks are family friendly, and I doubt the violent dinosaurs will attract many families. It will be interesting to see how they further develop the park, and what sort of turn out it will get.

Kat Landry said...

I can't actually figure out what my feelings are on this. On the one hand, they look great, it seems like the technology is very advanced, and folks appear to be very excited about them. I think this is a really cool step toward an actual Jurassic Park! But on the other hand, I personally find dinosaurs to not be very exciting for long. Don't get me wrong, I love the Jurassic Park ride at Universal and I was a die-hard Land Before Time fan as a child, but I don't really see the appeal in a park consisting of robot dinosaurs. I also am just a little freaked out by them, honestly. When you get to a certain point of realism, it just becomes scary, not admirable. Also, isn't the park in Egypt doing something similar right now? I feel like everyone is gravitating toward this dinosaur fad and I just don't see how it's relevant.

Unknown said...

This costuming is incredible. I've seen viral videos of dinosaur costumes lately and I've been amazed at how real these creatures look and move. I wonder how they weighted these to move in such primal, animalistic way. This is absolutely something I would be into because that jeff goldblum scene with the toilets in jurassic park was always hilariously thrilling to me and reliving that in augmented reality would be fun. I also owner how they are going to scale the costumes to mimic the dinosaurs actual size. The texture of the skin also intrigued me. it probably costs quite a lot to make one of these suits but it was worth the effort they out in.