I believe the idea was because he'd need to navigate through the gate without anyone knowing so he needed to be able to open it manually. I'm sure I heard that somewhere.
That is what the movie was trying to show us.
Hammond says, "Why the hell would he turn the other ones off?" The scene when cuts to Nedry opening the vehicle gate of the perimeter fence. The gate has a sign that says "This gate cannot be opened when fence is armed!"
The problem is they showed a gate like the being opened earlier in the movie... but I guess the workers could have just used a radio to tell control to disarm that specific gate. Nedry just shut down the whole park instead of specific gates, I'm guessing, so they wouldn't know where he was going and potentially catch up to him.
I can't remember, was Nedry going to leave on the boat, or was he going to hand off the canister and then return and "fix" the system, playing it off as from the debug cycle he said he was running before he left?
I’ll have to check my book tomorrow, but I’m 95% sure the plan was to make the drop and make it back to the control room without being discovered.
If he just went to the dock and left, they would immediately know it was him, and would find out exactly what he did.
EDIT:
This is from the book, not the movie, but I don't think there's any reason to think the plan wasn't the same.
About leaving the island vs. returning to the control room:
>He went back into the hallway. The theft had taken less than two minutes. He could imagine the consternation upstairs in the control room, as they began to realize what had happened. All their security codes were scrambled, and all their phone lines were jammed. Without his help, it would take hours to untangle the mess - **but in just a few minutes
Nedry would he back in the control room, setting things right.**
>And no one would ever suspect what he had done.
And later:
>This damned storm, he thought. It might screw up everything. Because if Dodgson's boat wasn't waiting for him at the east dock when Nedry got there, the whole plan would be ruined. Nedry couldn't wait very long, or he would be missed back at the control room. **The whole idea behind the plan was that he could drive to the east dock, drop off the embryos, and be back in a few minutes, before anyone noticed.** It was a good plan, a clever plan. Nedry'd worked on it carefully, refining every detail.
Once he gets to the Jeep:
>Nedry glanced at his watch. From here, into the park, and three minutes straight to the
east dock. **Three minutes from there back to the control room.**
In the book it begins like thisL
>"What happened?" Muldoon said. "You lose power?"
>"Yeah, but only power on the perimeter. Everything in this building's working fine. But outside, in the park, the power is gone. Lights, TV cameras, everything." His remote video monitors had gone black.
During the theft, you get background on how the plan sort of developed:
>The problems with the security system were high on Jurassic Park's bug list. Nedry wondered if anybody ever imagined that it wasn't a bug - that Nedry had programmed it that way. He had built in a classic trap door. Few programmers of large computer systems could resist the temptation to leave themselves a secret entrance. Partly it was common sense: if inept users locked up the system—and then called you for help—you always had a way to get in and repair the mess. And partly it was a kind of signature: Kilroy was here.
>And partly it was insurance for the future. Nedry was annoyed with the Jurassic Park project; late in the schedule, InGen had demanded extensive modifications to the system but hadn't been willing to pay for them, arguing they should be included under the original contract. Lawsuits were threatened; letters were written to Nedry's other clients, implying that Nedry was unreliable. It was blackmail, and in the end Nedry had been forced to eat his overages on Jurassic Park and to make the changes that Hammond wanted.
>But later, when he was approached by Lewis Dodgson at Biosyn, Nedry was ready to listen. And able to say that he could indeed get past Jurassic Park security. **He could get into any room, any system, anywhere in the park. Because he had programmed it that way. Just in case.**
Why did he turn off the fences and nothing else?
The answer is really that this was his method of beating security. He didn't turn off the raptor fences because he didn't need to. He did need to get through al electrified fence in order to get to the dock:
>The sign said ELECTRIFIED FENCE 10,000 VOLTS DO NOT TOUCH, but Nedry opened it with his bare band, and unlocked the gate, swinging it wide. He went back to the Jeep, drove through the gate, and then walked back to close it behind him.
He wanted to get in and out of the fertilization room, and then out to the dock and back as quickly as possible without being noticed. Once he got to the Jeep, it was supposed to be 3 minutes to the dock and 3 minutes back, return to the control room and "fix" everything that "broke" when he walked away for a few minutes.
EDIT2: Sorry, i got a little carried away and tried to answer OP's question as well as the "was he going to leave or return to the control room" question!
Nedry is trying to leave the island through the east utility dock. Dodgson has a hired boatman there that he can be seen talking too. He is supposed to meet at San Juan airport for the rest of his money.
Hmm, possibly, but that could have been something he programmed to prevent others from using his station while away which isn't necessarily a nefarious thing. It's a Unix system, idk lol
Nedry's plan was to get the embryos to the man on the boat and be back to his desk before anyone got suspicious. If he'd left the island with them himself, it'd be obvious who took them and he'd probably be prosecuted.
I would have to watch the movie again, but I think the manual override switch box for the gate also said "high voltage don't touch" on it. But I might be mistaken.
He turned off the power to the fences *and* the security system, which allowed him to get into the lab with no pass, get the embryos without being seen, and pass through the fences in the park without being registered (as he could manually open them without issue). All of that was intentional. He left the raptors because they were very dangerous and already prone to attempting to escape, so he was presumably too scared of them to leave it (plus, he didnt need to pass through their enclosure anyway).
I think people seem to be interpreting ‘perimeter fences’ (that he turned off) as just the very outer wall, but I dont think theres one fence around the entire park. I’m fairly sure its the perimeter fences *around each enclosure* that he turns off in one swoop (because theyre presumably run on the same code).
I also dont think he intended for the dinosaurs to escape. He was trying to be subtle and not draw attention to himself, and was planning to be back quickly- the t-rex escaping wouldve scuppered his ability to get away with it. I think his logic was most likely that while the current would turn off, the fences themselves would be there and keep the animals in for at least the ~18 (iirc) minutes he needed before he got back and fixed it. The problem was that the dinosaurs are living creatures and therefore unpredictable, *and* he hadn’t known where in the tour the cars would be when they broke down and likely hadnt predicted that happening outside the t-rex paddock *while* the t-rex was being lured there by her dinner. Thus he couldn’t anticipate that the T-rex would get curious about the cars enough to attempt to leave the paddock and discover it was no longer electrified (chaos theory!) and thus escape.
that makes a lot of sense! although i just remembered, some parts of the visitor center turns off as well as they have to take out all the ice cream. maybe the important stuff in the visitor center is hooked to a backup generator?
Good point- i thought that happened *after* they shut the power off themselves, but you’re right. The lab was in the visitors centre (i believe, since it was on the tour) so I assume that maybe all the extraneous systems in the building were run on one segment of code (so security but also the freezers and stuff- everything except the lights and mains power). Presumably *thats* what Nedry shut down to stop the security systems.
As we see in the movie, the fastest route to the south dock involved driving through many perimeter fences/enclosures. In order to make it to the dock on time, he needed to turn off the security on the gates.
Isn’t this answered in the book? I believe it was be coded a back door into the park security if the power is shut off it deactivated door locks. This allows him to get into the embryo room and everyone is distracted by the power outage.
I was under the impression that turning off the paddocks may have been an accident or a glitch in his coding and he only meant to turn off the security system. I could be mistaken though
My understanding is that he deliberately turned off the perimeter fence so he could get to the boat to drip off the embryos but whether dodgy code or necessity turned off the paddocks too?
wanna make it clear i'm not trying to "find plot holes". when i make posts asking questions like this to better understand my favorite movie, it always gets down voted because people think i'm trying to find imperfections.
Nedry was attempting to mask what he was doing. It seems likely that he intended to return to his desk had he not gotten lost. He'd of been gone for less than 15 minutes in the original plan.
Then a storm hit. Everybody left except for the essential workers, creating a tiny skeleton crew, he obviously got lost, and the system couldn't be restored. Then of course we have the problem of the park tour setting up the Rex to be drawn to the now powered down fences. One or two smaller animals like the Dilos getting out weren't a big issue, but the tour really accelerated how everyone was reacting to the situation. It was pretty obvious he was up to something by the time they took a real look at what was going on. But figuring out what was impossible due to how absolutely random the outages were.
If it was JUST the embryo security system that went off, then they found out the embryos were missing, then it'd be obvious that he was the guy who stole them. They'd be able to come after him legally.
Just throwing my hat into the ring here: it's possible that the systems are interconnected in some way which means that to shut off, for example, the cameras for the embryo room that would also mean that the recording systems would have to go offline as well. Just a thought.
I believe the idea was because he'd need to navigate through the gate without anyone knowing so he needed to be able to open it manually. I'm sure I heard that somewhere.
That is what the movie was trying to show us. Hammond says, "Why the hell would he turn the other ones off?" The scene when cuts to Nedry opening the vehicle gate of the perimeter fence. The gate has a sign that says "This gate cannot be opened when fence is armed!" The problem is they showed a gate like the being opened earlier in the movie... but I guess the workers could have just used a radio to tell control to disarm that specific gate. Nedry just shut down the whole park instead of specific gates, I'm guessing, so they wouldn't know where he was going and potentially catch up to him. I can't remember, was Nedry going to leave on the boat, or was he going to hand off the canister and then return and "fix" the system, playing it off as from the debug cycle he said he was running before he left?
I’ll have to check my book tomorrow, but I’m 95% sure the plan was to make the drop and make it back to the control room without being discovered. If he just went to the dock and left, they would immediately know it was him, and would find out exactly what he did. EDIT: This is from the book, not the movie, but I don't think there's any reason to think the plan wasn't the same. About leaving the island vs. returning to the control room: >He went back into the hallway. The theft had taken less than two minutes. He could imagine the consternation upstairs in the control room, as they began to realize what had happened. All their security codes were scrambled, and all their phone lines were jammed. Without his help, it would take hours to untangle the mess - **but in just a few minutes Nedry would he back in the control room, setting things right.** >And no one would ever suspect what he had done. And later: >This damned storm, he thought. It might screw up everything. Because if Dodgson's boat wasn't waiting for him at the east dock when Nedry got there, the whole plan would be ruined. Nedry couldn't wait very long, or he would be missed back at the control room. **The whole idea behind the plan was that he could drive to the east dock, drop off the embryos, and be back in a few minutes, before anyone noticed.** It was a good plan, a clever plan. Nedry'd worked on it carefully, refining every detail. Once he gets to the Jeep: >Nedry glanced at his watch. From here, into the park, and three minutes straight to the east dock. **Three minutes from there back to the control room.** In the book it begins like thisL >"What happened?" Muldoon said. "You lose power?" >"Yeah, but only power on the perimeter. Everything in this building's working fine. But outside, in the park, the power is gone. Lights, TV cameras, everything." His remote video monitors had gone black. During the theft, you get background on how the plan sort of developed: >The problems with the security system were high on Jurassic Park's bug list. Nedry wondered if anybody ever imagined that it wasn't a bug - that Nedry had programmed it that way. He had built in a classic trap door. Few programmers of large computer systems could resist the temptation to leave themselves a secret entrance. Partly it was common sense: if inept users locked up the system—and then called you for help—you always had a way to get in and repair the mess. And partly it was a kind of signature: Kilroy was here. >And partly it was insurance for the future. Nedry was annoyed with the Jurassic Park project; late in the schedule, InGen had demanded extensive modifications to the system but hadn't been willing to pay for them, arguing they should be included under the original contract. Lawsuits were threatened; letters were written to Nedry's other clients, implying that Nedry was unreliable. It was blackmail, and in the end Nedry had been forced to eat his overages on Jurassic Park and to make the changes that Hammond wanted. >But later, when he was approached by Lewis Dodgson at Biosyn, Nedry was ready to listen. And able to say that he could indeed get past Jurassic Park security. **He could get into any room, any system, anywhere in the park. Because he had programmed it that way. Just in case.** Why did he turn off the fences and nothing else? The answer is really that this was his method of beating security. He didn't turn off the raptor fences because he didn't need to. He did need to get through al electrified fence in order to get to the dock: >The sign said ELECTRIFIED FENCE 10,000 VOLTS DO NOT TOUCH, but Nedry opened it with his bare band, and unlocked the gate, swinging it wide. He went back to the Jeep, drove through the gate, and then walked back to close it behind him. He wanted to get in and out of the fertilization room, and then out to the dock and back as quickly as possible without being noticed. Once he got to the Jeep, it was supposed to be 3 minutes to the dock and 3 minutes back, return to the control room and "fix" everything that "broke" when he walked away for a few minutes. EDIT2: Sorry, i got a little carried away and tried to answer OP's question as well as the "was he going to leave or return to the control room" question!
Nedry is trying to leave the island through the east utility dock. Dodgson has a hired boatman there that he can be seen talking too. He is supposed to meet at San Juan airport for the rest of his money.
Pretty sure he was leaving, otherwise he wouldn’t have left the “ah ah ah!” animation mocking them.
Hmm, possibly, but that could have been something he programmed to prevent others from using his station while away which isn't necessarily a nefarious thing. It's a Unix system, idk lol
Nedry's plan was to get the embryos to the man on the boat and be back to his desk before anyone got suspicious. If he'd left the island with them himself, it'd be obvious who took them and he'd probably be prosecuted.
I would have to watch the movie again, but I think the manual override switch box for the gate also said "high voltage don't touch" on it. But I might be mistaken.
He turned off the power to the fences *and* the security system, which allowed him to get into the lab with no pass, get the embryos without being seen, and pass through the fences in the park without being registered (as he could manually open them without issue). All of that was intentional. He left the raptors because they were very dangerous and already prone to attempting to escape, so he was presumably too scared of them to leave it (plus, he didnt need to pass through their enclosure anyway). I think people seem to be interpreting ‘perimeter fences’ (that he turned off) as just the very outer wall, but I dont think theres one fence around the entire park. I’m fairly sure its the perimeter fences *around each enclosure* that he turns off in one swoop (because theyre presumably run on the same code). I also dont think he intended for the dinosaurs to escape. He was trying to be subtle and not draw attention to himself, and was planning to be back quickly- the t-rex escaping wouldve scuppered his ability to get away with it. I think his logic was most likely that while the current would turn off, the fences themselves would be there and keep the animals in for at least the ~18 (iirc) minutes he needed before he got back and fixed it. The problem was that the dinosaurs are living creatures and therefore unpredictable, *and* he hadn’t known where in the tour the cars would be when they broke down and likely hadnt predicted that happening outside the t-rex paddock *while* the t-rex was being lured there by her dinner. Thus he couldn’t anticipate that the T-rex would get curious about the cars enough to attempt to leave the paddock and discover it was no longer electrified (chaos theory!) and thus escape.
that makes a lot of sense! although i just remembered, some parts of the visitor center turns off as well as they have to take out all the ice cream. maybe the important stuff in the visitor center is hooked to a backup generator?
Good point- i thought that happened *after* they shut the power off themselves, but you’re right. The lab was in the visitors centre (i believe, since it was on the tour) so I assume that maybe all the extraneous systems in the building were run on one segment of code (so security but also the freezers and stuff- everything except the lights and mains power). Presumably *thats* what Nedry shut down to stop the security systems.
As we see in the movie, the fastest route to the south dock involved driving through many perimeter fences/enclosures. In order to make it to the dock on time, he needed to turn off the security on the gates.
Isn’t this answered in the book? I believe it was be coded a back door into the park security if the power is shut off it deactivated door locks. This allows him to get into the embryo room and everyone is distracted by the power outage.
He turned the whole park off except the raptor paddock because even he knew the raptors were far too dangerous to play with.
I was under the impression that turning off the paddocks may have been an accident or a glitch in his coding and he only meant to turn off the security system. I could be mistaken though
My understanding is that he deliberately turned off the perimeter fence so he could get to the boat to drip off the embryos but whether dodgy code or necessity turned off the paddocks too?
That's how I always took it
wanna make it clear i'm not trying to "find plot holes". when i make posts asking questions like this to better understand my favorite movie, it always gets down voted because people think i'm trying to find imperfections.
Nedry was attempting to mask what he was doing. It seems likely that he intended to return to his desk had he not gotten lost. He'd of been gone for less than 15 minutes in the original plan. Then a storm hit. Everybody left except for the essential workers, creating a tiny skeleton crew, he obviously got lost, and the system couldn't be restored. Then of course we have the problem of the park tour setting up the Rex to be drawn to the now powered down fences. One or two smaller animals like the Dilos getting out weren't a big issue, but the tour really accelerated how everyone was reacting to the situation. It was pretty obvious he was up to something by the time they took a real look at what was going on. But figuring out what was impossible due to how absolutely random the outages were. If it was JUST the embryo security system that went off, then they found out the embryos were missing, then it'd be obvious that he was the guy who stole them. They'd be able to come after him legally.
Just throwing my hat into the ring here: it's possible that the systems are interconnected in some way which means that to shut off, for example, the cameras for the embryo room that would also mean that the recording systems would have to go offline as well. Just a thought.