Did the original film give an idea where the helipad was located on the island?

For my version 8 of my isla nublar map, I am struggling to decide where I should place the helipad. I know that it was close to a fence and a river, but does the film give any other clues as to where it was located?

Any constructive criticism/advice for my incomplete map below is welcome.

Just place it near a random waterfall, problem solved lol.

This really is an issue of contention. The problem is there's multiple maps out there (official at least) that place the helipad in a few varying locations. Most generic maps place it at the southern point of the island, take this one for instance:



The brochure map you'd find in the tour cars and the Visitors Center place it in a similar place:

http://www.jurassic-pedia.com/encyc/maps/jptourmap.jpg

Topographically it's hard to tell with a lot of the maps, but the center river is where I ended up placing it on my map since that's supposedly where the waterfall is:

http://www.jurassic-pedia.com/encyc/maps/islanublar.gif

This topographical map (created by Titossauro) does a good job of showing the topography and layout of the area where it would most likely have to go to both correspond with it being at the bottom of a waterfall from a mountain and in the southern portion of the island. If you look at the mountainous areas on the CD-ROM map too it corresponds.

http://www.jurassic-pedia.com/encyc/maps/nublartopo.jpg

Hope this helps explain things a bit and provide enough insight in the justification for the location.

...

It's in a mountainous region, at the base of a waterfall. Any further inquiry will result in complete destruction...

CT-1138 wrote:

It's in a mountainous region, at the base of a waterfall. Any further inquiry will result in complete destruction...

XD

I forgot I made that way back when. People always were emotional with their rationale and it made finding the legitimate truth to the matter hard to come by. Too many impassioned replies with the defense being simply because "I don't agree with it because I don't like it" and no defense or explanation as to why in fact just feeling to go off of and nothing more. Even though I did eventually move the Helipad from the crater on that map to place on the updated one we had though, but that was after investigation into things from the topography on down. I always hated when people would drop in and defend their statements with feelings or emotion as a good defense instead of evidence with logic and reason with altogether no analysis. It made finding the truth of the matter difficult and often a million times more frustrating in the end. Often since I wasn't on the proper medication that I am now I would take my frustrations directly out on people, which was wrong.

I think where it is placed in the map I linked to on Pedia now is close or in a ball park estimate range. May need to be tweaked, but again the subject of these locations are approximates at best given how the topography and geography of the islands change multiple times within the film and even a couple more times in both Jurassic World sequels. Often it's a generalized location or approximate for the positions of things.

Thanks for all the replies! I'm still undecided  on where I want to place the helipad, but it is going to be either the same place as TyrannosaurTJ's map or placed in the southern mountains (where I would assume the electric fence is there to protect the helipad and is not part of the perimeter fence).

markymint wrote:

- The arrival is from Costa Rica which is to the West so the chopper approach must be from the West

Hold on I thought Isla Nublar was in the pacific?

Also, TyrannosaurTJ would you mind sending the maps/resources that you used to determine where things are for your map? For example, I had no idea that the brochure map you used existed, so there could be alot of things I could have missed that these sources may provide.

And finally, how do you all feel about where I placed the Gallimimus valley on my map? The other maps do not include it (maybe it's treated as one of the mountains?) but one of the shots during the scene shows the other side, showing it is a valley like in real life. I realise the valley isn't shown on any maps during the film, but is it's inclusion a necessary evil?

Nublar is 120 miles west of Costa Rica, and is in the Pacific Ocean.

EvoTheNerd wrote:

Also, TyrannosaurTJ would you mind sending the maps/resources that you used to determine where things are for your map? For example, I had no idea that the brochure map you used existed, so there could be alot of things I could have missed that these sources may provide.

And finally, how do you all feel about where I placed the Gallimimus valley on my map? The other maps do not include it (maybe it's treated as one of the mountains?) but one of the shots during the scene shows the other side, showing it is a valley like in real life. I realise the valley isn't shown on any maps during the film, but is it's inclusion a necessary evil?

Basically the three maps I linked to already were the maps I used plus other maps from within the control room. The topography map wasn't made by me mind you, but I think the justifications and sources used for that was the CD-ROM Tour map I linked to already as well as the Control Room maps. The rationale behind using maps only with a direct reference or tie in to the film was all other maps are overly exaggerated or just too contradictory to what we get from the film. They either give Nublar a more defined shape and/or end up pushing it to be like a movie/novel hybrid in terms of layout. Case in point would be this one:

http://www.jurassic-pedia.com/encyc/maps/mojpmap.jpg

What's funny is this map does appear in the Making of Jurassic Park book, but the point I'm making this map is basically the jumping off point for the other ones primarily because of how Nublar in the films is more curvy versus this one where it's intricately cut with locations for things stretched out and exaggerated.

Now the only exception to this was the map I showed here:



This one is a brochure tied in I believe you'd pick up as a promotional from a movie theater on the day of release. Except if I'm not mistaken it was handled out at screenings at Universal parks and related? At least that's what I was lead to believe about it. I'll happily retract and adjust where this is originally from. What's special about it though is that it is using the control room map instead of the more exaggerated one from the Making of book that literally appears on everything from school supplies on down.

So I used these maps to make the map you see here in this thread:

Control Room Maps:

http://www.jurassic-pedia.com/encyc/maps/nublarg.jpg

http://www.jurassic-pedia.com/encyc/maps/fence.jpg

http://www.jurassic-pedia.com/encyc/maps/fence2.jpg

http://www.jurassic-pedia.com/encyc/maps/cars.jpg

CD-ROM Tour Map:

http://www.jurassic-pedia.com/encyc/maps/cdrommap2.JPG

Park Brochure Map:

http://www.jurassic-pedia/com/encyc/maps/jptourmap.jpg

So I used the very first image I linked to under the Control Room map listing to get the general shape of the island in my photo editor of choice. From there I carefully traced out the roads. Now one thing I noticed between the first and the second and fourth maps I linked to is the tour road deviates in terms of curves. It's two different styles. There's also some roads that don't show up, for instance the roads Nedry took to get to the dock. So I made a few adjustments to my map template for it. From there I looked at both the brochure and Tour map for an indication of paddock location within the frame of the second Control Room map. I approached the Paddock Shut down sequence like they were power grids failing. In fact they're organized like power grids from what I could tell so I think that was a very reasonable assessment. As for the miscellaneous utility sheds and locations of other things I went off of the Jurassic Newsletters which are sort of an amalgamation of movie and novel lore mixed together. You can find this for download here. In that file you'll find the Newsletters, the movie-tie in brochure I mentioned, as well as the original PDF of the prop brochure from the film.

If you have any other questions let me know. I tried to make educated and reasonable guesses on things. As for the Gallimimus Valley, you'll come to find that like the extra tour road I found from looking between the control room maps, the path Nedry took the docks, and even the place where I put the "Welcome to Jurassic Park" scene and specifically the lake. You'll find a lot of locations are only going to work for certain areas and that the films were never really supposed to be taken as literally as this. The maps provided by the films are meant to give people a general idea where the events happened unfortunately. Jurassic Park isn't as involved as things like Star Wars though, but that's okay. I think with the generalizations and inconsistencies in some of them it might make the series more organic in a sense. If you ever worked at like a store or what have you or even a business the right hand barely knows what the heck the left hand is doing. Often business people are riding by the seat of their pants in order to get things done. In this case Jurassic Park & Jurassic World both are a testament to that fact.

If you have any other questions let me know. I'm happy to share my expertise. Jurassic-Pedia is still being worked on even though new entries are not constantly coming out. We're working to refine a lot of our older articles and enhance them at present to up the quality. It will and does have all the content that made JPLegacy great, but none of the interpersonal issues that existed. I tried to streamline the entire thing as much as possible.

Thanks for all the help! I have one more question and that is has an official size of JP era nublar ever been given? When making my map I used the length of the IRL Kualoa valley to calculate the length and width of the island, being 20.5 km width (12.7 Miles) and 24.5 km tall (15.2 Miles). Do you think these are too big for the island?

Aside from the sizes listed in the novels I've not found a published size of the film islands in any media to date except for rough estimates or sizes based off the islands from the novels unfortunately in things like junior novelizations, comics, and auxiliary sources. Often like I said these sizes are re-iterating the novel's stats for the islands. So it makes knowing the truth of the matter that much more complicated.

I know when we did the Sorna map we intentionally looked for defining features of the land against the topographical map to for the best guess of placing our locations like movie moments as well as structures since so little is known about Sorna. Nublar it's more laid out and we know where most of the things are because of the brochure and various computer maps, but there was a small bit of that in order to place movie moments as well as figuring out approximates for more detailed locations. Again I had to invent a staff road to account for Nedry's route to the dock being the fact that none of the other roads matched up with a viable route.

One thing I had to accept is that no map will ever be 100% seeing how the locations scenes are filmed in will never fully match up with the island since the island is pictured almost separately in the production from these scenes with no mind to the sizes of the actual location they're filming in aside from a generalized approach if even at all. Unfortunately the process for it I don't know, but judging by the discrepancies that exist between the maps and actual filming locations I do not think they're properly accounted for other than a generalized statement that "it'll do" or the assumption no one is paying that close enough attention to things like that.

The canon for Jurassic Park & Jurassic World is by far not perfect by any means and honestly there's a lot of miscommunication and misrepresentation with the things we do get for it because of all the contradictions both intentional and unintentional from what I've seen. I feel the reason for this is more or less due to corporate incompetence and negligence, but you can see that both in and out of universe contexts too.

Sorry this isn't the answer you're looking for here. In fact I don't mean to discourage you from doing what you're doing. I feel it's great what you're doing, but being aware of the difficulties and realities to it is important too at least that's how I feel about it. I keep doing what I do with the encyclopedia because I know there are people that appreciate it. So the best advice is make your best educated guess from the information you do have available and be sure to provide documentation about the discrepancies you found in the process and keep enjoying what you do if even you don't get the answers you were looking or hoping for on these things.

EvoTheNerd wrote:

Thanks for all the help! I have one more question and that is has an official size of JP era nublar ever been given? When making my map I used the length of the IRL Kualoa valley to calculate the length and width of the island, being 20.5 km width (12.7 Miles) and 24.5 km tall (15.2 Miles). Do you think these are too big for the island?

They might be a bit too large, the first DPG report states that Isla Nublar has an area of 30 square miles.