14 little-known facts that will make you love the Jurassic Park movies even more
A classic 90's blockbuster and precursor to Jurassic World, the first movie saw people queueing around the block as the world went dinosaur crazy! But despite the franchise's huge success, there are some little-known facts that might well surprise even the most devoted of Jurassic Park fans!
Here are 14 snippets of information that will make you love Steven Spielberg's creations even more!
1. Jurassic Park was almost ditched, as making the dinosaurs appear alive and real was an incredibly complex challenge
2. The T-Rex was unbelievably heavy when it rained
The latex used to make the T-Rex wasn't waterproof, so when it rained the dinosaur was further weighed down and hard to control. It had to be fully dried off by huge fans so that it could be moved!
3. Spielberg got the velociraptors' size right!
In the movie, the velociraptors are around 10 feet tall, despite the fact that skeletons unearthed on digs are smaller. During filming, archaeologists contacted the director to say that they'd discovered a 10 foot-tall skeleton!
4. Scientists found T-Rex blood in 2005
In other words producing dinosaurs from DNA samples could one day become a reality!
5. Jurassic Park: The Lost World paid homage to another reptilian movie
Godzilla got a subtle mention during the San Diego attack scene where two Japanese men find themselves confronted by the T-Rex and one turns to the other saying "I left Japan to get away from this!"
6. The scene where the car gets away from the T-Rex is a realistic scenario
A T-Rex's maximum speed was around 18mph as large animals accelerate slowly, so a car could easily escape the oncoming dinosaur!
7. The T-Rex model was almost as dangerous as the real thing!
The crew had to take extra special care when the model T-Rex was on the move. Everyone on set attended safety courses so as to avoid injury during the reptile's stampeding scenes!
8. Universal paid a high price
Universal paid 2 million dollars for the rights to Michael Crichton's book
9. The spinosaurus in Jurassic Park 3 is the largest animatronic robot to have ever been made
At a hefty 12 tons, hydraulic motors compressed no less than 230 liters per minute and the model had a 1,000 horsepower engine, making this Spinosaurus the largest animatronic robot ever made!
10. Jurassic Park in numbers
Budget: $63,000,000
Box office takings: $920,100,000
Profit: $397,050,000
11. The dinosaurs' cries where made by mixing different animal noises
The collared Dilophosaurus' cries were a mix of howler monkey, rattlesnake swan and falcon cries. T-Rex's voice was a mix of barks, roaring tigers, alligator cries, trumpeting elephants and penguin cries!
12. T-Rex wasn't supposed to break the windscreen
When the T-Rex smashes the windscreen in Jurassic Park it was completely by accident, but combined with the kids screaming their heads off, the crew got an unexpectedly awesome take!
13. Velociraptor could have been a feathered reptile, as suggested by Grant
A feathered close relative to the velociraptor was unearthed in China, making this a plausible theory!
14. Jurassic Park was the highest grossing movie of all time for several years
Jurassic Park made more than E.T and was the highest grossing movie until it was later beaten by Titanic, followed by Avatar!
By Straker Julia
Writer
Passionate about writing, I write articles on the subjects that I love. Creativity and Animals themes are my favorites!
