Velociraptors
by submission
Image text: You're probably thinking, 'has it been over a decade?' It's been over thirteen years, buddy.
This comic provided by Rik 't Hoff. http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=516678350
Background is easily provided by highlighting Jurassic Park. For the youngsters, I will explain the reference. Jurassic Park is a 1993 movie based on the 1990 novel by Micheal Crichton (who went on to provide all of epic tv-series ER's background). The movie deals about a mad billionaire opening a animal zoo. No so bad, but the animals in question are not your ordinary lions or elephants, but dinosaurs and the like, brought back to life by said billionaire through his DNA-cloning company.
Of course, everything goes haywire, and several of the meat-eating creatures, among which the velociraptors mentioned in the image, try to devour every human in the theme park. In the closing of the movie, all heroes are franticly chased by the velociraptors, which seem to be quite intelligent and keen to get their meal. Hence, Randall still worries how a certain building would stand up against these smart creatures. The drawn house mainly poses a risk by the large window in the living room, through which a velociraptor could break-and-enter.
The image text takes a jab at the reader over 25, who imagines it cannot be more then 10 years since seeing the original movie, while actually it was released 13 years ago.
January 5th, 2012
Garage door: Secure until they FIGURE OUT HOW TO TURN THE LEVER!
January 9th, 2012
Just a few points from my own submission on this one:
I believe this comic marks the first reference to Velociraptors. Randall’s fear of or interest in them will become a running joke in the series (almost worth having a tag here for “raptors”. Randall, having seen the film, apparently has been perpetually scared and fears a real raptor attack. Comics such as 135, 155, 522 (note: Randall lived in Sommerville, MA at the time), in which, Randall makes clear that it is he himself who has this raptor “obsession”. They are also mentioned in 758, 292, and perhaps more…
According to Wikipedia, the Velociraptors (often shortened to “raptors”) in the film were erroneously based on the Deinonychus species of dinosaur. Unlike the movie, in which they are depicted as having a reptilian skin, both species of dinosaur in reality are theorized to have been feathered. This makes sense, as the word ‘raptor’ also refers to modern birds of prey. The name of the the Toronto Raptors baseketball team, which joined the NBA in 1995, was influenced by the popularity of this film.
The image text points out what it presumes is the reader’s disbelief that Jurassic Park had (as of 2006) been released 13 years prior. This is another classic xkcd premise which will later be the subject of a least one comic outright: #891 five years later, which includes Jurassic Park again.