The Geography of Tres Sorna and Movie Sorna

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PsychologicalDevice
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The Geography of Tres Sorna and Movie Sorna

Post by PsychologicalDevice »

I don't know if this has been answered here or not, but I have a question. Since Trespasser is billed as a "digital sequel", or what have you, to the Lost World, I have a question about the geography of the two different versions of Isla Sorna, and just how the fit together. Now keep in mind I'm using the original plans for the game and not the retail version.

In the game, the Hunter's Camp is in the more low elevated area, the estuaries, mangroves, lagoons, tropical forests. It's near Cathy's Beach. But, that would mean the Gatherer's are nearby, because of the short amount of time the Hunter's came to their aid after the Tyrannosaurs wrecked their shit, killed Eddie, and destroyed their trailer and two vehicles. And vice versa, the short amount of time it took the Gatherers to get to the camp and sabotage their equipment.......but that opens a can of worms because the level where the Plantation House is, is only blocked by a rock slide or mudslide or what have you erosion to the operations center they need to get to. I know helicopters are out of the question and so are vehicles, but it took Anne...not too long to get to the same building from there. Roland says it takes a "...day's hike" to get from where they are at the Hunter's Camp to the OP Center. And the Operation's Center seems like the only real "tropical" area outside of Cathy's Beach in the film.

But there's more problems that are giving me a bit of a head ache. Where the Gatherer's are is clearly a pine forest area not to different from Pine Valley in Trespasser (All of that was filmed in nice breezy redwood filled Eureka, California). But that place is supposedly, filled to the brim with Tribe B/Version B Velociraptors. Either Hammond lied about the predators keeping to the exterior or...hmm...

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And that means..................the Hunters walked all the way to "Pine Valley" from "Plantation House" without their sabotaged vehicles relatively quickly, bypassing not only The Operations Center......but the Velociraptors.

But it gets worse because the Hunter's Camp was also filmed in Eureka, California with the pine trees and coastal California flora, unless it was filmed on a sound stage, I'm not really that sure. The point is geographically it isn't that far away from the Gatherer's trailer, which would end up being in Trespasser's Pine Valley

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In an area I can only assume geographically is near "The Plains", The Round Up has the same problem, since I assume it's near the Hunter's Camp because of the short amount of time it took to roll out past the OP center, into an area where there's redwoods, and the Gatherer's could just hop skip along right to where they're at. Again suggesting that the two locations are relatively near. And again, I'll remind you the Plains is filled with Tribe/Version B Velociraptors despite Hammond's insurance there wouldn't be because of monitoring, (I know doubting technology is a well established theme in JP's setting but...)

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So we're left with the idea the Operations Center crucial to their escape back to the mainland, they've already passed multiple times in Trespasser's Sorna by foot and vehicle is. And we're left with this.

1) A day's Hike between Pine Valley to the Town, and god knows from Plantation House to Pine Valley (ignoring The Town completely along the way, despite it being the "only" communications center on the island)
2) Not filled with Velociraptors along the way
3) The Gatherer's Camp are in Pine Valley.
4) The Hunter's Camp is near The Gatherer's Camp which much situate it in or around Pine Valley, and not PH.
5) On the way to rescue the Gatherer's from the Tyrannosaur attack, Hunters went through IJ past The Town they could have radioed for help in (which is infested with raptors), to reach Pine Valley (they should already be near or around or close to), only to make their quest to get to The Town their new priority, warning of Velociraptors, and taking a day's hike. Which wouldn't match up with the Plantation House location at all again.

It would only make sense if the Hunter's Camp was within either the Plains, Ascent, or Pine Valley; late game areas filled with Velociraptors deadlier than the Tribe A/Version A/Movie raptors....despite the Velociraptors only being situated in and around the Town in the film and deep in the island's interior.

I mean Dreamworks Interactive also made Chaos Island which utilizes the movie's map,

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Why did Trespasser have to warp things in such a way that its connection to the film it's licensed about makes no real logical sense in its setting? I mean I understand they had to cut for time, but even in the 1997 walkthrough before the momentum for the game began, things just did not add up. And the Gatherer's site wasn't even mentioned.

So can someone explain to me how all this fits, this is a geographic nightmare that's always bothered me. I know this is a different island's geography for Sorna, but it's also in the same setting as the film. I have no clue how the geography of Cocos and the 1997 Walkthrough mixed together (and the game itself in its retail and various dev time incarnations) can actually fit this all together into a continuity that makes sense in Trespasser that doesn't involve magical plot teleportation.

The idea that the Hunter's Camp is between IJ and Jungle Road with operations nearby, just does not make any sense. Unless the Gatherer's were on the barely fleshed out Mt. Crick in the walkthrough in JR, as opposed to Watson, which MIGHT have had a Pine Forest going up it. But there's no evidence for that as Mt. Watson is just elevated terrain with nothing on it but some tropical jungle billboards. This is seriously has always given me a headache and I was wondering if there was a magic answer that made everything more geographically cohesive. :oops:
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Re: The Geography of Tres Sorna and Movie Sorna

Post by Draconisaurus »

*sigh* Sad to break it to you but the film and game only line up so much, least of all in geography.

Understand that Trespasser Isla Sorna is its own entity, with its own story, layout, and characteristics. Not all film locations will be found therein. The Hunters in Trespasser seem to have their own story...

VH56: The hunters scattered, their pre-arranged hunting routes forgotten. Only a third of their number appeared at the rendezvous.
Rather than the film's events of a sabotage followed by the survivors heading straight to the worker village, we are given a story where they all abandon the camp and (some) meet up at a pre-arranged location. We are also told of pre-arranged hunting routes; the indication is that the hunter vehicles we see scattered around the island are both from hunters who were already out and about hunting/surveying on these routes (which is not represented in the film) and from hunters who fled the incident at the camp. The missing-hunter voiceovers refer to hunters lost in the fray, or who were not there at the time and never returned.

The Gatherers, well... none of their equipment (besides the High Hide) survived the events of the film. There's also a beta voiceover...

VA58: Hammond never mentioned a fire... I wonder how it started?

Seems Hammond left his own team's activities out of the memoir. Net result is, they have almost no presence in Trespasser, sadly.
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Re: The Geography of Tres Sorna and Movie Sorna

Post by MinePass »

I could be wrong because of how long a go this was but didn't someone here show that the costal stretch of pine Valley matched up with the gatheres camp location? I'll edit if I can find it.
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Re: The Geography of Tres Sorna and Movie Sorna

Post by machf »

Draconisaurus wrote:*sigh* Sad to break it to you but the film and game only line up so much, least of all in geography.

Understand that Trespasser Isla Sorna is its own entity, with its own story, layout, and characteristics. Not all film locations will be found therein. The Hunters in Trespasser seem to have their own story...
Maybe they based Trespasser's story on an earlier version of the TLW script...
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Re: The Geography of Tres Sorna and Movie Sorna

Post by Draconisaurus »

Oh undoubtedly. The worker village is all one need look at, to see that.. I fully suspect multiple iterations of the film contributed in some form, over the course of time.
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Re: The Geography of Tres Sorna and Movie Sorna

Post by PsychologicalDevice »

The problem is even in earlier versions of the script, be it raptors, pteranodons, raptors and pteranodons; they still all ended up in The Town/Operations Center just the same to get rescued by Helicopter(s).

So this...kind of doesn't make much sense. The only thing I can think of is that that the only script online that has the "pteranodon" ending present in it really doesn't give good geography to the island. But the problem of how fast they get around to to the Gatherer's on such a large island is still a problem that would exist, regardless. Placing it in Plantation House would still have the trek there, totally just bypass it altogether.

I know this kind of bitching and nitpicking might be annoying to everyone, but I was going to say that, perhaps they didn't have all of it present in the E3 build because at that point they realized that it probably doesn't line up with the movie. It would make more sense to place the two locations somewhere unseen with the limited amount of space the island in Trespasser has....

I'm just wondering if they abandoned the Hunter's Camp idea because of just how many INGEN facilities are in each level, and releasing it after the movie....Some plot holes might arise by making either party present in the game whatsoever a risk of even more ridicule than releasing the game as it was back in 1998. That or, they realized they screwed up the placement of things.

I'm just going to assume this happened on the seen but not heard brother to Mt. Watson, Mt. Crick. Everything is plot logical if we just assume that, I mean after all it is near the ocean. Could have a pine forest and all that (if you warp the geography of Trespasser a bit to the 1997 Walkthrough). The trailers did fall off a cliff into the ocean.
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Re: The Geography of Tres Sorna and Movie Sorna

Post by Draconisaurus »

PD, I understand you want desperately to see how the film and game locations match up, and to believe that the Trespasser devs took pains to sculpt their game around tight film-based accuracy, but I can tell you that this just isn't the case. These connections you speak of are off in the land of "what if"... of alternate, unmanifest reality. Trespasser's geographical make-up seems essentially to be a mix of the Isla Del Cocos terrain they adopted/sculpted, and the linear storyline of Anne's adventure across the island. Film locations are placed here and there as they suit the game's story, not as they connect with the film's story.
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Re: The Geography of Tres Sorna and Movie Sorna

Post by PsychologicalDevice »

Fair enough. I think the word you're looking for is "headcanon" lol. One day I swear I'll make a fan level out of Mount Crick.
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Re: The Geography of Tres Sorna and Movie Sorna

Post by Draconisaurus »

Go for it... Did a bit of work there, myself, with Hunters Camp.
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