As we all know Jurassic Park is one of the most memorable movies for a generation of cinema fans. I remember it as being the first movie I ever saw in theaters, being absolutely terrified by the surround sound, thinking a dinosaur was waiting behind me to take a bite. It also sparked a ever-lasting love of films and filmmaking in me that I will cherish forever. In honor of the upcoming blockbuster Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom coming to theaters on June 22, 2018, I’ve put together a list of some little known fact about the Marking of the first Jurassic Park. Enjoy!
1. The T-Rex would often unexpectedly turn on without warning, Terrifying the crew!
Producer Kathleen Kennedy recalled, “The T. rex went into the heebie-jeebies sometimes. Scared the crap out of us. We’d be, like, eating lunch, and all of a sudden a T. rex would come alive. At first we didn’t know what was happening, and then we realized it was the rain. You’d hear people start screaming.”
2. The T-Rex wasn’t suppose to break through the glass roof of the Jeep while trying to eat the kids.
In the original script, the T-Rex was suppose to bump into the glass, frightening the kids, and then pull away. What actually happened was the T-Rex broke right through the glass causing to fall on the kids inside. If you watch the movie again, note how realistic the screams are!
3. Every film in the Jurassic Franchise has a reference to another Spielberg movie.
Jurassic Park: Shortly after Nedry makes his first appearance in the control room, during his argument with Hammond, one can clearly see Jaws playing in a small video window on one of Nedry’s computer screens. That movie was, of course, also directed by Steven Spielberg.
The Lost World: When the bus crashes into the front of the video rental store, a poster can be seen for Hook, which Spielberg also directed.
Jurassic Park III: When the paleontologists enter the bar for dinner with the Kirbys, you can see a Jurassic Park (1993) pinball machine in the background.
Jurassic World: The great white shark being eaten in Jurassic World is a clear homage to Jaws
5. The Dinosaurs in the First Jurassic Park Were the First Fully CG Flesh and Blood Creatures Ever on Screen
For the animatronic dinosaurs, Spielberg hired Stan Winston (because of his amazing work on Aliens). Winston built the life-size lizards, including the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops. Spielberg also hired stop-motion puppeteer Phil Tippett to animate model dinosaurs that would be superimposed in post-production, and Dennis Muren (fresh from creating the molten-metal morphing effects for Terminator 2: Judgment Day) to see if dinosaurs could be created using computer-generated imagery.
The dinosaurs Muren created on the computer were the first major flesh-and-blood CGI creatures in movie history. When he screened an early test of wire-frame dinosaurs in motion for the rest of the filmmakers, Tippett realized he was out of a job. “I think I’m extinct,” he told Spielberg, who liked the quip so much that he put it in the movie. In reality, Tippett stayed on as an adviser to the computer animators, using his knowledge of paleontology and pantomime to instruct the effects artists in how dinosaurs should move.
