4 Times The Making Of ‘Jurassic Park’ Was Pure Chaos

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The Animatronic T-Rex Nearly Ate a Crew Member

Jurassic Park is, of course, based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton, author of The Andromeda Strain and that book in which climate change is a hoax cooked up by eco-terrorists. Crichton originally envisioned the story as a screenplay about a grad student who "clones a pterodactyl from fossil DNA." After realizing that a theme park is a better location for a sci-fi epic than an academic's bachelor apartment, Crichton instead wrote Jurassic Park. While the list of potential directors studios pitched for the movie adaptation included everyone from James Cameron to Joe Dante to Tim Burton; eventually, Steven Spielberg and Universal landed the project.

To the confusion of Crichton, Spielberg seemed more concerned with fleshing out the story's characters than with figuring out how the hell he was going to make a movie filled with giant prehistoric monsters – which was no small task at the time, considering that other dinosaur movies of the era were … less than convincing. 

For much of the creature work, Spielberg turned to legendary effects wiz Stan Winston, who was tasked with building a full-scale animatronic Tyrannosaurus rex – which is presumably only slightly easier than just getting your hands on fossilized mosquitoes and frog DNA and just making your own. The hydraulically-powered puppet was "36 feet long and 18 feet tall" and weighed a whopping 9000 pounds! It was so lifelike that the T-Rex even "scared the crap" out of the crew on set.

Unfortunately, the T-Rex's big scene takes place in the rain – and while the puppet was supposed to be strategically placed to avoid any "direct downpour" it ended up getting wet anyway. This was a problem once the fake beast's foam rubber skin started soaking up the rain, and despite the crew's best attempts to towel it off between takes, the T-Rex began "shuddering and doing everything you wouldn't want it to do." Also, controlling the T-Rex wasn't an exact science; sometimes, its head would slam into the Jeep way too hard, knocking out several of its teeth as if it were a giant reptilian hockey player. 

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The Groundbreaking CGI Was Allegedly The Result of an "Ambush"

For the wider dinosaur shots that couldn't utilize auto-erotica – or rather, animatronics – the plan was to employ the same technique that brought the Pillsbury Doughboy, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Lucifer to life: stop-motion animation. The production hired industry great Phil Tippett, who had previously worked on films like The Empire Strikes Back and Robocop (and would later direct 2022's craziest movie), to create Jurassic Park's miniature dinosaurs – which, judging from test footage, were pretty damn impressive.

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The Cast and Crew Were Nearly Killed by a Hurricane

Then there were the tragic events of September 11 … 1992. Since John Hammond "spared no expense" and built his theme park on a Costa Rican island and not, say, the suburbs of Pittsburgh, much of Jurassic Park was shot on location in scenic Kauaʻi, Hawaii. Towards the end of the shoot, Kathleen Kennedy learned of a nearby hurricane that was "forming around four hundred miles from the island," telling Spielberg that it would only be a problem because they "might have some clouds" that day.

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There Were Multiple Controversies Once it was Released

Even after Jurassic Park came out, its troubles weren't totally over. For one thing, author Geoffrey T. Williams sued Spielberg, Crichton, Universal, and everyone involved with the project short of Mr. DNA. Why? Because in the mid-'80s, he published a series of children's books about a "futuristic dinosaur amusement park, fraught with danger and thrills." One of the young protagonists was even named Tim, as in Crichton's story. Perhaps not coincidentally, these books were also turned into a movie in 1993 – albeit a shorter one with a slightly more modest budget …