190 Jurassic Park (1993)
Description
This article is from the Movie Trivia, by Murray Chapman muzzle@cs.uq.oz.au with numerous contributions by others.
190 Jurassic Park (1993)
- 'William Hurt' (qv) was offered the role of Dr Grant, but turned it down
without reading the book or the script.
- The park software is written in Pascal; a program is clearly visible in one
of the monitor close-ups on the UNIX system. The graphical interface
recognized as a UNIX system is Silicon Graphics' ``3D File System
Navigator''.
- Director 'Steven Spielberg' (qv) was worried that ``computer graphics'' meant
``Nintendo'' type cartoon quality. He originally only wanted the herd of
gallimimus dinosaurs to be computer generated, but upon seeing ILM's
demo animation of a T-Rex chasing a herd of Galamides across his ranch, he
decided to shoot nearly all the dinosaur scenes using this method. The
animation was first plotted on an Amiga Toaster, and rendered for the film
by Silicon Graphics' Indigo workstations.
- The full-sized animatron of the Tyrannosaurus Rex weighed about 13,000 to
15,000 pounds. During the shooting of the initial T-Rex attack scene which
took place in a downpour and was shot on a soundstage, the latex that
covered the T-Rex puppet absorbed great amounts of water making it much
heavier and harder to control. Technicians worked throughout the night with
blow driers trying to dry the latex out. Eventually, they suspended a
platform above the T-Rex, out of camera range, to keep the water off of it
during filming.
- A baby triceratops was built for a scene where one of the kids rides it.
Special effects technicians worked on this effect for a year but the scene
was cut at the last minute as Spielberg thought it would ruin the pacing of
the film.
- ``Dennis Nedry'' is an anagram of ``Nerdy Sinned''.
- Ellie Sattler says ``Something went wrong'' to Dr Malcolm
('Jeff Goldblum' (qv)). In "The Fly (1986)" (qv), Veronica Quaife said
this to Seth Brundle (Goldblum).
- In the egg-hatching scene, a new-born baby Triceratops was originally
supposed to come out of the egg, but it was changed to a velociraptor.
- The film's original ending had Grant left behind on the island.
- Scenes of the T-Rex attacking Horner and the kids while they ride down a
river and through a running waterfall were cut before filming.
- Generally speaking, any shot of a full dinosaur was computer generated,
but shots of parts of dinosaurs were of animatronics.
- There was so many wires and rigging to control the velociraptor animatrons
in the kitchen stalking scene that the child actors had to literally step
over and around them while the scene was being filmed. The kitchen set was
greatly expanded from the original design to accommodate the velociraptors.
Some reports say that all of the dinosaurs in the kitchen scene were
computer generated.
- Many errors were corrected digitally: some stunt people were made to look
like the actors, and in one scene an entire Ford Explorer jeep was digitally
generated.
- Spielberg wanted the velociraptors to be about 10 feet tall, which was taller
than they were known to be. During filming, scientists discovered 10 feet
tall velociraptors.
- The ending where the T-Rex saves the day was added when the production
team and 'John (II) Williams' (qv) decided that it was the hero of the film.
- A scene of Ellie pulling the leaf off an extinct plant appeared in the
film trailers but not the film itself.
- 'Fred Sorenson' (qv) was the pilot who flew the crew off Kaui when the
hurricane hit during production. He played ``Jock'', the pilot who flew
Indiana Jones away in the opening scene of
"Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)" (qv), also directed by Spielberg.
- Spielberg was so confident with this film that he started making his next
film ("Schindler's List (1993)" (qv)), placing post-production in the hands
of 'George Lucas' (qv). Computer animation was still being done in the week
that the movie was released.
- DIRTRADE(Steven Spielberg): [music]
- DIRTRADE(Steven Spielberg): [stars]
- DIRTRADE(Steven Spielberg): [father]: Grant hates the idea of being a father.
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