Jurassic Park Facts

Good morning, everyone. I hope you are all doing well. It has been one hell of a couple of weeks, towards the end of the first week my dad’s car 🚙 (which he hadn’t had that long) broke down whilst he was working, and when he called the AA, they checked the car over and couldn’t find anything wrong with it (even though the engine wouldn’t start), they managed to get it into the garage close by who took all weekend and a specialist to come to the conclusion that it was probably due to engine failure that needed to be fixed, the only problem was – they don’t do that sort of thing 😫, my dad then had to ring around to other mechanics but they all told him it would be at the start of July at the earliest it would get done, which wasn’t helpful to my dad as he needs his car for work, so I got straight onto my computer and thankfully managed to find him a new car to pick up (which funnily enough wasn’t too far from where we live 😀), so that was quite stressful. Then with all that going on, we had to go to a couple of appointments as my parents are both going through some health issues at the minute, hopefully, they’re easily treatable.

Anyway, on to today’s post… Thirty-two years ago, Jurassic Park changed the face of cinema. Its groundbreaking special effects paved the way for future advancements in CGI technology and its tight script co-written by the novel’s author, Michael Crichton, told a compelling narrative about the dangers of a man trying to control nature. It has since spawned a lucrative franchise consisting of sequels, video games, and a Netflix series. Its impact lingers not just because of the nostalgia, but because it was—and still is—a masterclass in storytelling, innovation, and pure cinematic magic.

The story of how the film came to be is a fascinating one, with plenty of interesting facts and behind-the-scenes stories that show the complexity of filmmaking. Life finds a way, after all, and adversity often results in stronger products and creative solutions. If you’re as fascinated by Jurassic Park as I am, you’ll love these interesting facts about the movie that you can sink your teeth into.

Run Time: 2 hours 7 Minutes
Directed By: Steven Spielberg

Summary:

On Isla Nublar, a new park has just been built with genetically engineered dinosaurs. While the park’s founder, billionaire John Hammond, assures everyone that the facility is safe, they soon discover the truth when various ferocious predators break free and go on the hunt. Hammond requests that paleontologists Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler, along with mathematician Ian Malcolm from a select group, and Hammond’s lawyer, Donald Gennaro, tour the island theme park. They are amazed to discover that it is now populated by dinosaurs created from prehistoric DNA. Hammond’s grandchildren Lex and Tim also join the group on the tour, but soon come to realize the park has been shut down, and the paddocks have been opened releasing all the dinosaurs by computer systems geek Dennis Nedry, who wishes to steal embryos from the park to sell to a secret buyer. To retrieve the dinosaurs and escape the island, the group must battle through numerous obstacles if they want to return to any kind of normalcy. Will they manage to regain power again to the park and escape or are they stuck on a dinosaur-infested island forever??

Main Cast:

Sam Neill — Alan Grant
Laura Dern — Ellie Sattler
Jeff Goldblum — Ian Malcolm
Richard Attenborough — John Hammond
Bob Peck — Robert Muldoon
Martin Ferrero — Donald Gennaro
Joseph Mazzello — Tim Murphy
Ariana Richards — Lex Murphy
Samuel L. Jackson — Ray Arnold
Wayne Knight — Dennis Nedry
B.D. Wong — Henry Wu
Jerry Molen — Doctor Harding

Facts About Jurassic Park

• Jurassic Park coming out generated a bunch of interest amongst young people who wanted to become paleontologists and get into the field. As a result, numerous new dinosaur species have been discovered since then, at roughly the rate of 50 new discoveries per year, or about one per week. 

• Michael Crichton wrote the novel because he was concerned for the rise of scientism, and the exploration of biogenetics for the sake of profit. 

• Despite being called “Jurassic Park”, the dinosaurs only have around fifteen minutes of screen time: nine minutes are Stan Winston’s animatronics, and six minutes of it is Industrial Light & Magic CGI. This means only around 11% of the film is dedicated to dinosaur scenes. 

• Steven Spielberg delayed the beginning of filming by several weeks to get the cast he wanted. First, he allowed Sir Richard Attenborough to finish post-production on Chaplin (1992) before committing to this movie. He also waited until Sir Sam Neill could finish filming Family Pictures (1993). Neill ended up only having a weekend off between finishing that movie and starting this one. 

• Dr. Alan Grant was modeled after paleontologist Jack Horner who, like Grant, digs and teaches in Montana, and was also a technical advisor on this movie. 

• The novel was published in 1990. However, pre-production of the film began in 1989, using only Michael Crichton’s manuscript as the source material. It was widely believed that the book would be so popular that it would make an outstanding movie. It turns out that assumption was correct. 

• The casting process was easy. Sir Richard Attenborough was the last to be cast, but he immediately agreed to be in the movie. Attenborough hadn’t acted since 1979, but he knew Steven Spielberg was the perfect director for the material after reading the novel. 

• Any shot of a full dinosaur was computer-generated, but shots of parts of dinosaurs were of animatronics. 

• Compositing dinosaurs onto live-action scenes took up to an hour. Rendering them took from two to four hours per frame, but the T. Rex in the rain took up to six hours. 

• The most difficult effect to pull off was the vibrating rings of water. Steven Spielberg wanted the T. Rex to announce its presence somehow before the audience saw it and got the idea from watching the mirror in his car vibrate from the bass effects whilst listening to Earth, Wind, and Fire. 

• The crew had to have safety meetings about the T. Rex. It weighed 12,000 pounds and was extremely powerful. They used flashing lights to announce when it was about to come on, to alert the crew because if you stood next to it and the head went by at speed, it felt like a bus going by. 

• The T. Rex model was controlled with a Waldo, a very small replica to manipulate it to get it to respond exactly. They weren’t supposed to get it wet, because it was fine-tuned into how much it weighed, but once they shot the rain scene, it stopped responding. 

• The sound of the T. Rex’s footsteps was created by cut sequoias crashing to the ground. 

• The Tyrannosaurus’s Roars Were A Combination Of Dog, Penguin, Tiger, Alligator, And Elephant Sounds 

• The roar of the Tyrannosaurus Rex has been used for most monsters ever since this movie’s release, as it signifies a large animal’s large lungs. 

• Plenty of big-name stars were considered for the characters. Among these included Harrison Ford as Grant, Jim Carrey as Malcolm, and Robin Wright as Sattler. Perhaps the biggest was Sean Connery, who passed on the chance to play Hammond for a part in Rising Sun, which became another feather in his cap of missed opportunities. 

• Michael Keaton, Bruce Campbell, Johnny Depp, Ted Danson, Steve Guttenberg, and Michael J. Fox were screen-tested for the part of Malcolm. Campbell ended up starring in another Michael Crichton adaptation, Congo (1995). 

• Sandra Bullock, Gwyneth Paltrow, Julianne Moore, Helen Hunt, Teri Hatcher, Elizabeth Hurley, and Sherilyn Fenn tested for the role of Ellie Sattler. 

• The T. Rex occasionally malfunctioned, due to the rain. Producer Kathleen Kennedy recalls, “The T. Rex went into the heebie-jeebies sometimes. Scared the crap out of us. We’d be, like, eating lunch, and suddenly, a T. Rex would come alive. 

• At around 1h 3 mins, When the audience first sees the T. Rex, director Steven Spielberg wanted it from inside the SUVs, so the audience feels like they’re experiencing it right there with the characters and feeling their fear. 

• Dinosaurs shown in the film: Brachiosaurus, Parasaurolophus, Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Dilophosaurus, Gallimimus, and Velociraptor. 

• The sounds made by the Dilophosaurus were a combination of the sounds of howler monkeys, hawks, rattlesnakes, and swans. The main cry of the Velicoraptors was a combination of the sounds of elephant seal pups, dolphins, and walruses. The elephant seal sounds were recorded at The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California, a marine mammal hospital that rehabilitates and releases sick and injured seals and sea lions. 

• A rattlesnake made the noise of the Dilophosaurus neck rattle because it was scary to listen to. The cute Dilophosaurus sound was made by the hopping chirps of a swan. 

• The sounds made by the Brachiosaurs were a combination of whale and donkey sounds. 

• No one knew what the Raptors sounded like, so to get an interesting sound, they recorded a young dolphin in heat, recorded underwater; it put him in a certain mood and made a wonderful scream, not at all like a dolphin. When Muldoon was hissed at, that was an agitated goose. 

• Dilophosaurus measured around seven meters (twenty-three feet) long and weighed close to five hundred kilograms (one thousand one hundred pounds). In addition to making, it venomous, and adding a neck frill, Steven Spielberg also reduced the size of Dilophosaurus to .91 meters (three feet) tall, and one and a half meters (five feet) long, so viewers wouldn’t confuse it with the Velociraptors. 

• Raptors are close-knit, smart, fast, and maneuverable in their choreography more than any dinosaur. They could manipulate things with their fingers, as shown in the movie where they learn to open a door. 

• The kitchen scene was Ariana Richards’ favorite scene. It was filmed in two weeks with Raptors there most of the time, and a man in a suit some of the time. Anyone in a Raptor suit could only do it for up to fifteen minutes because they were bent over in a downhill skiing position, which is very physical. The Raptor clicking its toenails was done with a puppeteer walking on Raptor’s legs. 

• There’s a great sight gag when the T. Rex is bearing down on the Jeep. The beast shows up in the rear-view mirror above this statement on the glass: “Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear.” 

• Steven Spielberg liked the ending for having the dinosaur bone exhibit getting demolished by the real deal and took the irony further by having the T. rex behind a banner that read “When the Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth”. 

• Ariana Richards’s audition consisted of standing in front of a camera and screaming wildly. Steven Spielberg “wanted to see how she could show fear.” Richards remembers, “I heard later on that Steven had watched a few girls on tape that day, and I was the only one who ended up waking his sleeping wife off the couch, and she came running through the hallway to see if the kids were all right.”

• After making this movie, Ariana Richards developed a great interest in dinosaurs and assisted Jack Horner, paleontologist, advisor for this movie, and the inspiration for the character of Dr. Grant, on an actual dinosaur dig in Montana the following summer. 

• All the cast were given a Raptor model, signed by director Steven Spielberg as a gift. It looked very frightening, and Ariana Richards has it in her house to shock anyone coming in, like a guard at the gate. Jeff Goldblum’s model has a prime spot in his house and is a cherished object. Laura Dern put her Raptor model in her son’s room near his crib. When he was older and saw it, he screamed like never before. She had to put it in storage but hopes one day, the two will be friends. 

• Steven Spielberg studied the effects sequences on Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), The Abyss (1989), and Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) to help prepare him for work on this movie. 

• It was while supervising post-production on this movie that George Lucas decided that technology was good enough to begin work on the Star Wars prequels. 

• In 2005, paleontologist Dr. Mary Schweitzer discovered red blood cells and soft tissue in the fossilized bones of a T. Rex, meaning dinosaur cloning may someday become a reality. 

• Michael Crichton wrote the novel when he and his wife were expecting their first child, and it is dedicated to the two of them (“For A-M and T” refers to Anne-Marie Martin and Taylor Crichton). 

• This movie won all three Oscars for which it was nominated: Best Sound, Best Sound Effects Editing, and Best Visual Effects. 

• When Steven Spielberg first started working for Universal Pictures, he was asked to give a tour to a special guest who had just sold the rights to one of his books to the studio. The guest turned out to be Michael Crichton, who later sold the film rights for another novel to Universal that Spielberg wound up directing, Jurassic Park. The two later became friends, because he claimed Crichton knew how to blend science with big theatrical concepts. 

• Real Velociraptors were barely 1.6 feet tall, much smaller than the ones depicted in the movie. Shortly after the movie’s release, a dinosaur was discovered in Utah that was almost identical to the Velociraptor in the movie. Although the idea was finally scrapped, one of the proposed names for the new species was “Utahraptor spielbergi”. 

• Was followed by two sequels within ten years after its release. There were plans for a fourth movie, but they were immediately scrapped in late 2008, after the death of Michael Crichton. However, in 2012, they eventually decided to set things into motion, and Jurassic World (2015) was finally released in 2015. 

• Merely three years after the movie wrapped, it was discovered that many carnivorous dinosaurs were mostly or fully feathered, and some had actual wings rather than arms, implying that Dr. Grant was right, they shared a common ancestor with birds. 

• “Welcome to Jurassic Park,” said at around 22 mins was Sir Richard Attenborough’s favourite line. 

• The film differs significantly from the book on which it’s based: 

1. John Hammond is a cold and heartless businessman. When everything goes wrong, and his grandchildren are in danger, Hammond still thinks the Park can be salvaged. 
2. The book’s Ian Malcolm dies from injuries incurred by a T-Rex. His death is retconned to enable his appearance in the sequel “The Lost World”. 
3. Dr. Grant was a widower. Both he and Ellie Sattler have no romantic relationship because Sattler is married to another character who does not appear in the film. 
4. Lawyer Gennaro survives the book, only to die of dysentery during a business trip in ‘The Lost World’ novel. 
5. Robert Muldoon hunts raptors with a rocket launcher and survives the book. 
6. John Arnold, in both film and book, is killed by a Velociraptor. The reason it wasn’t shown in the film, a real tropical storm destroyed the set before it could be filmed. 
7. Genetics engineer Henry Wu is eaten by the Velociraptors in the book. 
8. The novel also has many secondary characters, employees of the park, being killed by the escaping dinosaurs. Whereas in the film, the rest of the staff are removed to the mainland ahead of the storm. 

When Jurassic Park roared into theaters in 1993, it had an unshakable grip on audiences everywhere. It wasn’t just a movie; it was a cultural event. The groundbreaking special effects, the thrilling suspense, the towering dinosaurs—it was like nothing anyone had ever seen. Even more than 30 years later, and despite numerous sequels, the original Jurassic Park still holds up as one of the best sci-fi thrillers ever made.

Thank you for visiting my blog and reading today’s post. I hope you enjoyed learning about this iconic classic film as much as I enjoyed writing it! Have a lovely day, and enjoy the rest of your week, and I shall see you again in two weeks!