The Case 65 Million Years in the Making (1993)

This week we are wrapping up the month of June. Our original plan was to have three episodes featuring some big movie reptiles, but up to now, it's been about all things dragon. This week is a little different but in a way still related. Historians say that dragons could have been inspired by the discovery of bones of long-forgotten beasts: The dinosaurs.   

Dinosaurs are now a mainstream staple thanks to many depictions over the years: comics, novels, films, and more. There is one film, however, that stands above the rest that truly put dinosaurs on the map. Not only did this movie inspire a love of dinosaurs across generations of fans, but it also changed filmmaking forever. You all know what movie that is. 

Hold onto your butts. Welcome to the case of Jurassic Park! 

SUMMARY

  • On a remote island off the coast of Costa Rica, there exists a sort of biological preserve. Paleontologists Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler along with mathematician Ian Malcolm are among a select group chosen to tour this park populated by dinosaurs created from prehistoric DNA. While the park's creator, billionaire John Hammond, assures everyone that he spared no expense and the facility is safe, they soon find out otherwise when ferocious predators break free and go on the hunt.

THE BOOK

  • When Michael Crichton first began considering a story about dinosaurs returning to earth, he reportedly discussed the idea with some friends of his that were MIT scientists. Crichton said that when they heard the idea, they all quietly nodded their head and said, “it could be done.” 

  • In the early 80s, he began a screenplay about a graduate student who recreated a dinosaur. In Crichton’s mind, the reasoning for this would have to come from a desire to entertain. He thought that genetic research is very expensive and there is no real need to create dinosaurs, so logically, a sort of wildlife park of extinct animals made the most sense.

  • Originally the story had a child’s perspective, but everyone who read the draft felt that an adult perspective would be better. So, as additions and changes were made, Crichton decided to convert the story into a novel. It became a cautionary story about the power of genetic engineering and the dangerous minds of those who might wield that power. It presents the collapse of an amusement park full of re-created dinosaurs to illustrate the concept of chaos theory and its real-world implications. The character Malcolm, a mathematician that believes in chaos theory, is the conscience that reminds John Hammond, the owner of the park, of the immoral and unnatural decision to “play God”.

  • The book was eventually published in 1990 and became an immediate bestseller and became Michael Crichton's signature novel to many. Critics loved it as well, with New York Times’ Christopher Lehmann-Haupt saying it was "a superior specimen of the [Frankenstein] myth" and "easily the best of Mr. Crichton's novels to date". And of course, the novel became even more popular following the release of the 1993 film adaptation.

MAKING OF

  • By the time Michael Crichton began writing Jurassic Park, he was already an accomplished author and screenwriter. As he was collaborating with Steven Spielberg on a screenplay in the 1980s, Spielberg casually asked Crichton about his book projects. Crichton replied that he was writing some story about dinosaurs and DNA. Spielberg, a longtime lover of dinosaurs, was immediately interested. He encouraged Crichton to tell him the story, and thus was the beginning of Jurassic Park. 

  • Even before there was a screenplay, Spielberg began storyboarding scenes of the book that he intended to bring to the screen. He had never done anything like that before. 

  • The screenplay based on Crichton’s novel was written by David Koepp, who was behind many popular films like Spider-Man (2001) and Death Becomes her (1992). 

  • Spielberg had a fascination with dinosaurs from a young age and even had a triceratops toy when he was a kid. He knew that seeing the giant skeletons in museums always made people want to know more about what they looked like and how they behaved. So, when he got the opportunity to make Jurassic Park it was important to get the dinosaurs right. The production set out with the idea that they would truly bring the dinosaurs to life. 

    • Spielberg didn’t want to create Godzilla or some other movie monster. He wanted the audience to see the dinosaurs as animals. And, he wanted them to look as real as possible. So, he assembled the best team of special effects artists he could find. 

    • One of the biggest details that Spielberg stuck to in the script and in the design of the dinosaurs was their bird-like features. The team consulted real paleontologists, like Jack Horner, who thought it was important to do away with the stereotype that dinosaurs were very reptilian. As a film, Jurassic Park changed the public’s perception of dinosaurs in this way.  

  • One film that truly inspired Spielberg to make Jurassic Park was King Kong (1933). As we’ve talked about on our show before, this film blew audiences away with its realistic special effects. In the early 90s, Universal had a King Kong animatronic created by famed amusement park designer Bob Gurr. This made Spielberg want a complete set of full-sized dinosaurs for the film, a dream that he would soon realize would not work. 

  • Spielberg consulted Stan Winston, Phill Tippett, Dennis Muren, and Michael Antieri to see if it were possible to make creatures that a modern audience would accept as reality. 

    • Phill Tippett created a series of robotic miniatures, while Stan Winston designed some full-sized models. Michael Antieri was tasked with managing the interactions between cast and crew with the live-action dinosaurs, while Denis Muren would have the all-important task of working with the animators at Industrial Light and Magic. 

      • Tippett used his miniatures to create 3D animatic storyboards, which allowed them to block out the scene in terms of timing. 

    • Winston and his artists began working on models in 1991. First, they created a sculpture of the animal. Then, they casted a mold and used that to create a skin to put over the robotic skeleton. 

    • When the first shots of Tippett’s dinosaurs were filmed, he used a go-motion technique that captured motion blur. Go-motion is different from stop-motion in that the photos are taken while the subject is moving, creating blur. While Spielberg loved Tippett’s work (and his kids actually believed the dinosaurs were real), he couldn’t help but notice the slight imperfections in the movement. 

    • Dennis Muren was working on Terminator 2: Judgment Day with artists at ILM when he suggested that Spielberg consider using CGI in shots of full-size dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. Spielberg was not completely new to CGI, since he produced Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) which depicted one of the first-ever CGI creatures on screen. 

    • ILM had never brought realistic creatures to life in this scale, and in fact no one had ever done it before. So, they created a test to show Spielberg, depicting dinosaur skeletons and how they would move. 

      • The preliminary tests were promising, and after ILM was able to show Spielberg what a full-size T-Rex would look like in harsh daylight, he prepared to tell Phill Tippett that they would replace his work with CGI. When he showed the tests to Tippett, Tippett replied, “I think I’m extinct.” 

  • Of course, Phill Tippett wasn’t exactly extinct, he just evolved! He became the director of the CG animation, teaching the animators how exactly the creatures would move. Spielberg called him the “Alan Grant of ILM.” 

    • To be a good animator, you need to be a pretty decent actor as well. Tippett instituted mime classes that taught the animators how their own bodies moved, and how to act and think like dinosaurs. They would even act as if they were gallimimus and other dinosaurs and used that as reference footage. 

    • Tippett’s animators were used to working in 3D and they needed to bridge the gap between miniatures and computer animation. So, they developed a “dinosaur input device.” This allowed them to move a physical model of the dinosaur, and have it translated to computer data. 

    • Besides consulting paleontologists, animators also assured accuracy by studying live animals of today, like elephants and giraffes. 

    • To make their jobs even more difficult, Spielberg insisted on being able to move the camera during CG sequences. This was incredibly difficult, but it added a lot of depth to the film. Imagine watching the scene with a gallimimus herd from a static shot. It would be boring and difficult to watch. But because Spielberg was able to move with the actors as they ran across the field, the audience feels like they are also running with the herd.   

    • The animators at ILM were the stars of post-production, adding creatures into entire sequences. Over 50 CG shots were added to the film. Today that sounds like nothing. But back then? Back then it was astounding. 

  • Whenever a creature (whether practical or CG) interacted with an object on set, someone off-screen was manipulating those objects to make it appear that the dinosaur is interacting with the real world. Special effects artists like Michael Lantieri were in charge of the destruction of power lines, the smashing of bones, the denting of kitchen cabinets, and whatever else. 

    • Lantieri was responsible for the iconic vibrating water that signaled the arrival of the T-Rex. Spielberg had the idea for the scene while listening to loud music on his way to work. He liked how the music made his mirror vibrate, and he tasked the special effects team with finding a way to make a glass of water vibrate in perfect circles. The team tried everything they could think of, until Lantieri finally tested the effect with his guitar. It actually worked, so he brought guitar strings into work, and the crew fed them through the car. During the scene, a man is lying under the car, plucking a guitar string. 

  • Dean Cundy was the director of photography for Jurassic Park. He and the cast and crew spent months filming on location in Hawaii and in the Mojave desert before moving onto sound stages for the final parts of the shoot. Spielberg wanted the park itself to look as real as possible, so the crew built the sets on the Hawaiian islands of Kauai (Ka-why-ee) and Oahu (Oh-Waa-hu). 

    • The first dinosaur to be filmed was Stan Winston’s full-size Triceratops. It was the first day of shooting, and the crew knew that if the scene didn’t work with the animal, that the film would have to be re-worked. Of course, the scene went perfectly. 

    • Once shooting was completed, Spielberg and editor Michael Kahn sat down to cut the entire film together. It was a difficult job (as editing always is) but this was especially difficult because there were so many scenes that appeared empty. 

  • The real star of the film, of course, was the T-Rex. Stan Winston referred to the dinosaur’s debut scene as one of the best moments of his career. 

    • Spielberg wanted to film Winston’s T-Rex in a downpour to add visual tension to the scene. Winston warned him that the animatronic could malfunction due to its electronic make-up and the fact that the team had calculated her movement based on her exact weight and size. The giant animatronic soaked up the water like a sponge, making the head too heavy to operate properly. The team had to slap her with towels between takes to remove some of the excess water. 

    • The dinosaur was about 9,000 pounds and was forty feet long. 

    • When the artists at ILM asked paleontologists about how the T-Rex would move, they didn’t even agree amongst themselves. They had almost no reference to work with. 

  • All of the work that the special effects team did to make the dinosaurs come to life was impressive work. But, it would all fall apart without the crucial detail of sound design. Gary Rydstrom was the sound director tasked with creating the voices of the dinosaurs, even though no one–not even paleontologists–knows what they sounded like. 

    • He and his team went out and gathered raw audio of several different animals, layering their sounds. Every sound needed to be fresh and never heard before by audiences. Spielberg’s only direction was to make a sound that sounded like a giant animal, but that didn’t sound like Godzilla or Rodan. The raptor’s scream was a combination of a dolphin and a walrus. 

    • The sound and the visuals worked incredibly well together, creating a level of believability that audiences could get on board with. 

  • Making Jurassic Park feel as real as possible meant that the actors had to convince the audience that what they were experiencing was real as well. Spielberg was adamant that they not hire big stars, but instead very naturalistic and believable actors. 

    • Sam Neill plays Dr. Alan Grant, one of the paleontologists asked to review the park. Spielberg specifically loved Neill for the part because he found his acting to be very honest and perfect for the role. 

    • Laura Dern was in her early 20s when she landed the role of Dr. Ellie Statler. The character has long been adored as a feminist icon. 

    • Steven Spielberg was blown away by Jeff Goldblum’s naturalistic approach to acting. He noted that when Goldbloom delivers a line, it seems as if she just thought of those words in the moment. 

  • Beyond the central cast of three main characters, the supporting cast of Jurassic Park really helped ground the film in reality. 

    • Veteran actor Lord Richard Attenborough played the eccentric billionaire John Hammond, the owner of the park and the grandfather to the two children Tim and Lex, played by Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards respectively.

      • Richard Attenborough came out of retirement for Jurassic Park. Spielberg approached him after he had been away from acting for 15 years. But he agreed, saying that Spielberg “had the charm of the devil.”

      • In one scene, Lex (played by Ariana Richards) falls through a grate. Her stunt double accidentally looked up while shooting the scene and the computer artists composited Ariana’s face over the face of the double. 

    • Bob Peck played Robert Muldoon, the game warden that utters the classic line, “clever girl,” before getting mauled by a raptor. He was a British actor and toured with the Royal Shakespeare Company. 

    • Wayne Knight played the diabolical Nedry, the man responsible for shutting down the park’s electricity so he could smuggle out dinosaur embryos. When Nedry gets killed during the rainstorm, the Barbosol can containing the embryos washes away. This shot was meant to set up a sequel because The Lost World had not been published yet. 

      • Knight has had a few iconic roles as a character actor, including Newman from Seinfeld

    • Actor BD Wong played Dr. Henry Wu, one of the main scientists featured in the lab. 

      • Wong reprised his role in subsequent Jurassic Park films. He is a prominent film and TV actor that voiced Shang in Mulan. 

    • Martin Ferrero played Gennaro, the lawyer with the first on-screen death in the film. During his death scene, part of him had to be animated the moment he was in the T-Rex’s mouth. 

    • Samuel L Jackson made a short but memorable appearance as Arnold, a Jurassic Park employee that desperately tries to get the electricity back online. Jackson had already appeared in several films, but his acting career really took off after Jurassic Park. He is the man that utters the iconic line: “Hold on to your butts!” 

MUSIC

  • The one and only John Williams scored the film. Williams began writing the Jurassic Park score at the end of February 1993, and it was conducted a month later. According to the behind-the-scenes book The Making of Jurassic Park: An Adventure 65 Million Years in the Making, unfortunately, Williams sustained a back injury during one of the scoring sessions. That means that Artie Kane, a music conductor known for films such as Men in Black and Mission Impossible, conducted several cues. Kane is uncredited in the movie but receives special thanks in the soundtrack album's credits. 

  • While writing, Williams felt similarly to his work on another Spielberg film he scored, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the music would need to create “pieces that would convey a sense of 'awe' and fascination" as well as convey "overwhelming happiness and excitement" that someone would feel when seeing a living dinosaur. On the other hand, more intense scenes such as the Tyrannosaur breakout would require much more suspenseful and frightening themes.  

  • During JP, Spielberg was unable to attend any of the recording sessions for one of his movies for the first time. As was the case for much of the production of JP, he was in Poland filming Schindler's List. Luckily Williams had given Spielberg demo tapes with piano versions of the main themes before Spielberg left for Poland, and he would listen to them daily and send feedback.

AWARDS/ RECEPTION

  • Jurassic Park is one of those movies that people bring up when they talk about the most influential films of all time. It’s no surprise that the movie received many awards. Out of the 34 awards it was nominated for in 1994, it won 20 of them. Many of which were for special effects and sound. 

    • Among the awards were three Oscars at the 66th Academy Awards for Best Sound, Sound Editing, and Visual Effects. Four Saturn awards for Best Director, special effects, writing, and Best Science Fiction Film. And many more!

  • Rotten Tomatoes retroactively scores the movie at 92% and is certified fresh. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone described the film as "colossal entertainment—the eye-popping, mind-bending, kick-out-the-jams thrill ride of summer and probably the year.” And one critic we always must check, Roger Ebert, gave the film three out of four stars saying, "The movie delivers all too well on its promise to show us dinosaurs. We see them early and often, and they are indeed a triumph of special effects artistry, but the movie is lacking other qualities that it needs even more, such as a sense of awe and wonderment, and strong human story values"

IMPACT

  • There is no beating around the bush about it, Jurassic Park changed the movie industry. With a budget of $63 million, it took the world by storm and brought in a whopping $978 million worldwide. One bestselling book turned blockbuster film became a billion-dollar IP all on its own and has since become the 60th highest-grossing multimedia franchise of all time. The film has generated so much interest in dinosaurs that in the 90s, there was a record increase in students interested in the study of paleontology. It even led to the creation of a professional basketball team in Toronto Canada in 1995 called the Raptors. 

  • Jurassic Park's biggest impact though, was on future filmmaking and the computer-generated visual effects that we see so often now. Film historian Tom Shone commented on the film's influence, saying that "in its way, Jurassic Park heralded a revolution in movies as profound as the coming of sound in 1927". Jurassic Park has also brought about a dinosaur revolution with films and documentaries such as the American adaptation of Godzilla, Dinosaur from the Deep, Carnosaur, Dinosaur Island, and the Walking with Dinosaurs series. Many aspiring filmmakers saw Jurassic Park and realized that their visions were finally possible. From George Lucas to Peter Jackson to a young director that we don’t even know yet, Jurassic Park inspired many to create new films and revisit existing ones, and bring them to a new audience with new effects that were akin to magic. 

FUN FACTS

  • Originally, Samuel L Jackson’s character, Mr. Arnold was supposed to have an on-screen death. He was to be found by the raptors while trying to restart the power to the park. However, due to Hurricane Iniki hitting Hawaii, Jackson could not make it to the set for the shoot. 

  • Spielberg changed the ending of the movie while on set shooting the original ending. In the original, the hanging dinosaur skeletons were going to simply fall on the raptors, killing them. But Spielberg felt that the T-Rex was the true star of the movie and needed to make a return one more time to save the day. 

  • When the actors were filming on set, Spielberg would make dinosaur sounds in the megaphone as a stand-in for the real sounds added later. 

  • Fay Wray, who appeared in the 1933 King Kong, visited the set of Jurassic Park. There is footage of Spielberg complimenting her on having the greatest movie scream. 

On June 11th, 1993, the world witnessed dinosaurs as they had never been seen before. Audiences everywhere were delighted and terrified as characters that they had come to know and love desperately tried to escape Jurassic Park. It wouldn’t take long to realize the absolute magnitude of the film. Producers, directors, writers, special effects artists, and everyone else involved in the movie industry took notice, re-working projects to incorporate a level of CGI that no one thought possible. 

Jurassic Park is monstrously entertaining. It takes the cautionary lessons and horror of Science Fiction classics like Frankenstein and adds dinosaurs. What more can you ask for? We can’t say it enough; this film changed cinema forever. It reclaimed the magic that audiences experienced when met with fearsome classics like The Lost World and King Kong, and that is a feat as enormous as a T-Rex itself. 

Adam Osburn