There is never going to be a decade where we’re done with Jurassic Park. It just won’t happen! We’re featuring Jurassic Park all over June’s COLOSSAL Loot Crate themes and so with that said, let’s dig into some Jurassic trivia! Let’s go be clever, shall we?
1. Michael Crichton wrote the character of John Hammond to represent a somewhat ‘darker‘ and more ‘chaotic‘ version of Walt Disney. Pretty sure he nailed it.
2. During the film, you see a tour being lead that shows a sick Triceratops with pretty much no explanation as to what happened to the poor dinosaur. Fans of Crichton’s book, however, could tell you it was explained! Triceratops didn’t have the best teeth among dinosaur species, and because of that, they would swallow rocks that would grind food together in their stomach (gizzard stones) to help them digest it. When the rocks were buffed down in the stomach and no longer useful, the Triceratops would regurgitate them up and seek new rocks. This also meant they sometimes swallowed harmful flora such as poisonous berries that were making them sick by the hundreds. So, there you go, some context!
3. There were mandatory safety meetings in regards to the 12,000 pound practical effect Tyrannosaurus Rex in the film. Sirens, flashing lights and safety cones were set up to warn cast and crew that they were wheeling the huge T-Rex in and it was said that, when his head moved at full speed, it was as if a bus was speeding past you.
(Universal Pictures)
4. The droppings from a T-Rex may actually seem appealing if you knew what they smelled and tasted like on set. While the model of it was clay, straw and mud – it was covered in papaya and honey to make flies and bugs be drawn closer. I mean, who wouldn’t want a bit of honey and papaya as a snack, right?
5. Michael Crichton estimated that, though the film is rather fully fleshed out, it only contains about a quarter of the contents of the novel. Which goes for most film adaptations, but we guess now’s the time to go grab that book if you haven’t read it.
6. Speaking of the novel, film exects hadn’t actually necessarily read the book before deciding starting production. Universal Pictures had bought the rights to the film adaptation based merely upon a manuscript, knowing the story was good enough to make a blockbuster without any best-seller figures to precede it. Man, were they ever right. Can you imagine that kind of gamble though!?
(Universal Pictures)
7. The film’s young male star Joseph Mazzello actually came from an earlier audition that he did for Jack Banning in Stephen Spielberg’s Hook. Spielberg loved him but felt he was possibly far too young for the role of Peter’s son in the former, but remembered him when the casting for Jurassic Park began. Auditions matter, folks!
8. Every piece of merchandise within the film that you saw in gift shops and with patrons of the park were actually prototypes and test products of actual merchandise they were creating during the pre-production of the film. This is why the toys, t-shirts, lunchboxes and such you saw in the film were identical to what you could buy in stores once the film came out.
9. Jurassic Park had both a mixture of practical (real life effects) and CGI. Full-body shots of dinosaurs, from snout to tail, were computer generated scene; however close-ups of a dinosaur or parts of it, including their head, were given life by practical animatronics. Please tell me we can find the people who own even ONE of those dinosaur animatronic pieces!
(Universal Pictures)
10. The joke about Grant and Sattler’s jobs being ‘extinct‘ comes from film maven Phil Tippett telling Steven Spielberg the exact same thing when he found out Spielberg wouldn’t be requiring Go-Motion effects for his film but instead would be using computers. Spielberg was so amused by the comment that he included it in the script to come straight from John Hammond’s mouth.
