This page is for trivia about the first Jurassic Park film specifically. For trivia about the franchise as a whole, go here.
- Ability over Appearance: Alan Grant is described in the novel as a bearded, barrel-chested man. Which doesn't sound like Sam Neill at all.
- Accidentally Correct Zoology:
- The velociraptors are nothing like and much larger than real-life Velociraptor, and are based on Deinonychus instead (at the time of the book's writing, it was briefly hypothesized that the two were species of the same genus). However, after filming had started an even larger species than the movie raptors called Utahraptor was discovered. In the years since then, another dromaeosaur has been found matching Jurassic Park's raptors for size, and it lived in roughly the same time and place as the raptor Grant was digging up. It's called Dakotaraptor
. Both are still not complete matches, since Utahraptor and Dakotaraptor had feathers (the arm bones of Dakotaraptor even have quill knobs to prove it) unlike the raptors in the book and movie. Also, Utahraptor turned out to be more bizarre-looking than JP's raptors. - Some of the dinosaurs have changed from female to male, which Grant theorizes to be the result of having amphibian DNA. Sex change have since been observed in birds, which are dinosaurs’ direct evolutionary descendants.
- The Dilophosaurus was depicted with a more robust skull and lips covering the teeth, long thought to be one of the main inaccuracies of the film's animal along with the venom and frill. Later in 2020, it would turn out Dilophosaurus actually did have a head more like that of the film version.
- Though Alan Grant describes the Velociraptor to use its sickle-shaped claw to disembowel prey, the raptors in the film never actually get to do so. The most visible kill with Muldoon shows the raptor using her jaws to bite his head and throat, with the legs being static as if she's pinning him down rather than slashing him. This turns out to be closer to how real Velociraptors use their sickle claws, as studies in 2005 reveal that the oversized claw was poorly designed for disemboweling and instead was more likely used for stabbing or pinning down prey.
- The velociraptors are nothing like and much larger than real-life Velociraptor, and are based on Deinonychus instead (at the time of the book's writing, it was briefly hypothesized that the two were species of the same genus). However, after filming had started an even larger species than the movie raptors called Utahraptor was discovered. In the years since then, another dromaeosaur has been found matching Jurassic Park's raptors for size, and it lived in roughly the same time and place as the raptor Grant was digging up. It's called Dakotaraptor
- Actor-Inspired Heroism:
- Shaped more by the director than the actor, but John Hammond went from being a Manipulative Bastard who wants his park open and making money no matter what problems there may be to a kindly, grandfatherly Author Avatar as played by Richard Attenborough. Downplayed since Hammond is still portrayed as a cost-cutter who's willfully blind to the flaws in the park's setup.
- Malcolm distracting the dinosaur with a flare was included at Jeff Goldblum's suggestion, as he felt a heroic action was better than going by the script, where like Gennaro, Malcolm would get scared and run away.
- Alternate DVD Commentary: There's a RiffTrax for the first movie featuring "Weird Al" Yankovic. This also doubles as a Shout-Out to Weird Al's "MacArthur Park" Filk Song parody, "Jurassic Park".
- Awesome, Dear Boy: Samuel L. Jackson and Wayne Knight signed on to the film because they liked the idea of playing characters who get eaten alive by dinosaurs. Unfortunately though, both actors were disappointed that their characters' deaths were not shown in the finished film. Knight's character Nedry's death doesn't happen directly on-camera, and the scene where Jackson's character Arnold gets killed never got filmed (see What Could Have Been).
- Blooper: Some of the labels for the dinosaur embryos are spelled incorrectly.
- Career Resurrection: This movie gave a much-needed boost to Michael Crichton's flagging career. After the global success of this movie, Crichton became a hot commodity in Hollywood, with many of his novels adapted into movies.
- Cast the Runner-Up: Cameron Thor initially auditioned for the role of Ian Malcolm, before trying out for the role of Dodgson.
- Colbert Bump: A demand for Chilean sea bass (the dish served during the lunch scene) rose after the movie premiered. It was so big that the Patagonian toothfish that made up the dish nearly went extinct and a campaign was needed to stem the demand.
- The Danza: Jophery, the worker who gets pulled into the raptor pen at the beginning, is played by Jophery C. Brown.
- Deleted Scene: There was originally going to be a scene explaining that all the dinosaurs on the island had short, painful lives, due to how they were made.
- Descended Creator: Dr. Harding, the veterinarian in the Triceratops scene is played by producer Jerry Molen. The making ofs even say his first name is Gerry.
- Development Gag: One exchange between Grant and Malcolm ("We're out of a job", "Don't you mean extinct?") was first said by Phil Tippett and Spielberg when the latter showed him ILM's demo of computer-generated dinos that would make his Go-Motion expertise unnecessary.
- Dueling Dubs:
- The film has been dubbed in Hindi twice. The first dub was produced by Sound & Vision India. In 2006, a second dub was produced by Treasure Tower International for STAR Gold.
- There are three Brazilian Portuguese dubs: Alamo (home video, TV, and Netflix), Herbert Richers (Rede Globo), and Delart (3D theatrical re-release/Blu-Ray). Delart's dub kept much of the Herbert Richers cast.
- Dueling Movies:
- With Carnosaur and Raptor. Everyone remembers them... right?!
- Jurassic Park also went up against Last Action Hero at the box office. Last Action Hero was already scheduled to June 1993 when Jurassic Park got the week before, and Arnold Schwarzenegger eventually pressed Columbia Pictures to move it to later knowing how hyped the dinosaurs were. The studio refused, thinking it was not a threat, resulting in a Box Office Bomb.
- Enforced Method Acting:
- Laura Dern was crying for real and was genuinely frightened in the scene in which Ellie (Dern) encounters the raptor in the maintenance shed scene.
- Likewise she was also crying real Tears of Joy when she saw the Triceratops for the first time as the actors hadn't had a chance to see the huge animatronic before interacting with it.
- According to rumors, the T. rex robot was not supposed to smash through the roof window of the jeep, merely bump into it. The reaction from the kids as they raise their hands to block the window was apparently genuine.
- Fake American: Grant is played by (Northern Irish-born) Kiwi actor Sam Neill.
- Fake Scot: John Hammond is played by Cambridgeshire-born Richard Attenborough.
- Genre-Killer: A rare example where the film was such a smash hit and iconic that it became impossible for subsequent films to live up to it. Its own franchise notwithstanding, almost no one has bothered to make a serious live-action dinosaur movie afterward; and all films and video games that have happened to feature dinosaurs have, almost without exception, contained conscious nods to the franchise.
- I Am Not Spock: Even though Joseph Mazzello has acted well into his adult years, including major roles in popular works like The Pacific, The Social Network, and Bohemian Rhapsody, he's still known by the press and public as "the kid from Jurassic Park".
- Meme Acknowledgment: Phil Tippet is fully aware of the meme as a "Dinosaur Supervisor" and getting backlash for having dinosaurs escape, especially the raptors in the kitchen. He ran with it, and posted "I have one job" on his Facebook account involving Jurassic World.
- One for the Money; One for the Art: Universal greenlit Schindler's List on the condition that Spielberg made Jurassic Park (which Spielberg learned of even before publication, as he and Michael Crichton discussed the script that would become ER) first. As soon as Jurassic Park wrapped he travelled to Poland to start the other film, along the way supervising (with the help of his friend, George Lucas) post-production in an experience described as using "every ounce of intuition on Schindler's List and every ounce of craft on Jurassic Park".
- One-Take Wonder: Jeff Goldblum claimed that his reaction to seeing a Brachiosaurus for the first time was captured in one take ("you crazy son-of-a-bitch, you did it"), with Steven Spielberg dictating to him off-camera what expression he wanted.
- Playing Against Type:
- The chief engineer of Jurassic Park was one of Samuel L. Jackson's earlier roles before he became known as the Memetic Badass he is today from films like Pulp Fiction and The Avengers (2012). It can be a little odd for a viewer used to his other roles to see Mr. Muthafuckin Snakes play a nerdy computer programmer (although he certainly has the hard-assed demeanor typical of those later roles).
- Sam Neill's Dr. Alan Grant is probably the coolest headed member of the cast, in stark contrast with Neill's other roles, who tend to be varying levels of crazy, such as his role as Jonathan Trent only a year later.
- Production Nickname:
- The T. rex was nicknamed "Roberta" by Phil Tippett. Still, the fandom prefers "Rexy", which Muldoon uses in the novel.
- The two raptors during the kitchen sequence were nicknamed "Randy" and "Kim" according to the storyboards made for the scene. "Randy" was the raptor who got locked in the freezer, while "Kim" was the one who followed Lex and Tim to the control room.
- Reality Subtext: An underlying subplot of the movie came to be where Grant and Elle had to contemplate that with REAL dinosaurs to look at their original profession has been changed forever and may have to start looking for a new job. The film was originally going to depict the dinosaurs with Stop Motion Animation done by the legendary Phil Tippett, but in early production some computer animators showed what they can accomplish and Steven Spielberg immediately signed them on to drive the VFX. Tippett was very saddened knowing that this was going to be the start of a major VFX revolution (he was quickly re-hired as an animation director, since his experience there was still unrivaled). When Spielberg asked him how he felt he said "I feel like I've gone extinct" and Spielberg replied "I'm using that line."
- Romance on the Set: Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern began a romantic relationship and were engaged for two years before breaking up.
- Science Marches On: Ironically enough. Jurassic Park was a standard-bearer of the Dinosaur Renaissance in the public consciousness, and much press was made that it would be the most scientifically up-to-date dinosaurs on film. And it certainly was...for 1993. However, a considerable number of discoveries, such as the fact that dromaeosaurs such as Velociraptor (and many other dinosaurs, including — perhaps — T. rex) either had feathers or feather precursors, has left the film nearly as dated as the swamp-dwelling lumbering reptiles Jurassic Park's dinosaurs supplanted. Plus it was eventually estimated that DNA has a half life of 521 years, meaning it would be in no kind of salvageable state after 65 million years.
- Self-Adaptation: Michael Crichton was the first screenwriter and is one of the two credited writers, noting his script had "10 to 20 percent of the novel's content" for both toning down the violence and cutting what couldn't be done for budgetary and practical reasons.
- Star-Making Role: The second of two for Jeff Goldblum. He wasn't exactly unknown before this film, having had roles in hits like The Big Chill and his first example of the trope, The Fly (1986). However, this is the one that made him a household name, especially overseas.
- Technology Marches On:
- It's a little strange seeing Timmy and Lex flip out at the sight of the CD-ROM inside the Jeeps.Lex: Wow! An interactive CD-ROM!
- The bizarre 3D interface was a real file-browsing tool made for a custom UNIX distro that shipped with Silicon Graphics workstations.
- When Nedry's seemingly talking on a videoconference call, he's actually just talking to some QuickTime movies. Moviegoers these days are more likely to detect and understand the scrollbars on the bottom of the screen.
- It's now very striking that no one in the movie has a cell phone. Admittedly, it wouldn't change the plot too much since cell service would presumably disappear after the island lost power. Really, the part that seems dated is that when the characters say, "the phones are out," they're talking about landlines.
- It's a little strange seeing Timmy and Lex flip out at the sight of the CD-ROM inside the Jeeps.
- Throw It In!:
- The shot of waves breaking over a pier in the storm is actual footage of Hurricane Iniki making landfall in Hawaii that Spielberg filmed outside the crew's hotel.
- While ILM's artists jumped off plastic tubes to give footage reference for the Gallimimus leaping over a fallen tree, one ended crashing to the ground. As a result, one of the dinos falls on the scene too, as the animators felt that "If it happened to Ty, it would likely have happened in the wild."
- During filming of the scene of Lex falling through the ceiling while fleeing a raptor the stunt woman accidentally looked up at the camera for a split-second. ILM were able to replace her face with that of Ariana Richards, allowing them to keep the shot in the movie and adding to the tension of the moment.
- When Gennaro runs into the bathroom, and backs up and lands on the toilet, Martin Ferraro actually did land on the toilet which Spielberg kept in due to its authenticity.
- When Muldoon and Ellie arrive at the T. rex paddock, Bob Peck slips in the mud in the background while rounding the corner of the remaining Explorer before catching himself and continuing the scene like nothing happened.
- Troubled Production: While production went mostly right, even with all the complex effects, a hurricane destroyed all sets (as listed above, the storm in the film includes footage of that) which led to some scenes being left unfilmed. Of note is the puppet of the T. rex, which soaked up water from the rain in its first scene, stressing the internal mechanism until it started shaking, and the crew would need to literally towel off all the excess water before resuming filming.
- Uncredited Role: Malia Scotch Marmo did some re-writes on the final script, but remains uncredited.
- What Could Have Been: Shares part of a page.
