Acting in the Dark: Vanessa Lee Chester knew very little about what the movie would be about, and didn't even find out Jeff Goldblum was playing her father until she overheard someone at a wardrobe fitting. She never got the full script either.
Although Steven Spielberg was forced to make the film and dislikes doing sequels that aren't about Indiana Jones, he liked the opportunity to film a T. rex rampaging through a city like a modernized Godzilla.
Beam Me Up, Scotty!: During the T-Rex’s rampage, it's been famously believed that Japanese tourists are yelling "I left Japan to get away from this." In truth, they aren't saying anything besides screaming in fear. The misconception comes from Inspector Gadget (1999), which has a Japanese man in a crowd scream "This is why I left Tokyo!"
The Cast Show Off: Vanessa Lee Chester had done gymnastics in the past, making her quite adept at doing the infamous scene where Kelly fights off a raptor with a gymnastics routine.
Creator Backlash: Steven Spielberg admitted that, even while making the film, he came to see it as "this big silent-roar movie" that failed to inspire his enthusiasm. Later, his view of the film softened: he has said, "It wasn't as good as the first one but it was very successful".
Steven Spielberg had to attend an early screening for Swingers in order to give approval for the use of the Jaws theme. He was so impressed by Vince Vaughn that he offered him the part of Nick Van Owen.
Spielberg cast Julianne Moore after being impressed with her small part in The Fugitive. She had also previously tested for the prior film's role of Ellie.
Several scenes were deleted from the theatrical cut. Two are included as special features on the DVD and Blu-ray: Peter Ludlow talking to the InGen committee, and Roland and Ajay talking in a Mombasa bar. A shot of Sarah running from the Stegosaurs saying "Isn't it great?" with Malcolm, Nick, and Eddie was cut, but can be seen in the trailer. Much more footage is on the cutting room floor, but has not yet been made available outside of stills, adaptations, and scripts: More footage of Malcolm, Nick, and Eddie arriving on the island and setting up base-camp; more dialogue with Sarah and Malcolm on their way back to base-camp, adding background about the time between the films and their relationship; Ludlow drunkenly stumbling and breaking the baby Rex's leg (which explains why there is a bottle next to the baby rex when Nick Van Owen runs to the baby); Kelly telling Malcolm he should marry Sarah. Certain puppets and animatronics created by Stan Winston during filming were later omitted, including several Velociraptors (whose tiger-stripes were far more visible in stills than in the finished film).
The script lists a deleted sequence that would have shown more footage of the Raptor attack in the long grass, with Ajay seeing the Hunters fall around him and closing his eyes as the pack moves in to finish him off. The scream Ian, Sarah and Kelly would have heard as they arrived at the edge of the long grass was reportedly supposed to be Ajay's. Still shots exist of Ajay standing alone in the field of grass and a full-size animatronic tiger-striped Raptor being prepared for filming, but the footage of said sequence has never been released to date.
Dueling Dubs: The movie came out as Brazil's dubbing went on strike, hence the VHS release had a dub made in Los Angeles with a mostly unknown cast (along with an actual dubber that was in the city, the best known voice was the local announcer for TNT!). A second dub made in Rio de Janeiro for the broadcast TV debut has since supplanted that one, that has barely resurfaced outside some pay TV broadcasts.
Also Camilla Belle who's half American and Brazilian playing Little Cathy.
Money, Dear Boy: Julianne Moore did the film because mainly because she had to pay off the exorbitant divorce settlement that had been awarded to her ex-husband.
Orphaned Reference: Nick and Sarah find the baby rex with a broken leg, next to a bottle. A Deleted Scene showed Ludlow drunkenly falling over the baby rex and leaving the bottle next to it, also making his demise into a Karmic Death where the male rex bites Ludlow's leg and allows the baby to kill him as hunting practice.
Both compy attack scenes (the opening sequence and Dieter's death) are adapted from the first Jurassic Park book (with the former taking place on Isla Sorna instead of mainland Costa Rica, while the latter has Stark filling in for the Spared by the Adaptation John Hammond, as well as the "stuck behind a waterfall being licked by a T. rex" scene (involving Tim and Lex in the novel), and a scene of a T. rex being hit with a tranquilizer (with the Suspiciously Similar Substitute Tembo filling in for Robert Muldoon after his Death by Adaptation).
The also Original Character Peter Ludlow greatly resembles the greedy, jerkish, and incompetent John Hammond of the first book, without the Adaptational Heroism given to his uncle in the adaptation. Like the former and unlike the latter, he gets eaten by dinosaurs.
The movie features dinosaurs going to the continent on a ship, which again was something that happened in the first book.
Referenced by...: In Dear Evan Hansen (also starring Julianne Moore), during an Imagine Spot musical number that sees Evan and Connor in an arcade, the arcade game adaptation of The Lost World: Jurassic Park is visible in the background.
The Compsognathus are portrayed with two fingers, but it is now believed to have possessed the usual three.
Later fossil discoveries have shown tyrannosaurs had very slender proportions and long snouts as juveniles, rather than the pug-like skull of the baby in the film.
Spared by the Cut: In the scripted end, Hammond dies and Malcolm attends the scattering of his ashes into the sea. The very final scene is of him using a pair of binoculars to watch a flock of Pteranodons leaving the island. The latter scene was incorporated into the third movie.
Wag the Director: Vanessa Lee Chester jokes that she kept begging the filmmakers to give her a stunt to do, and she thinks that may have been where the gymnastics scene came from:
"I just was like, ‘Please give me a stunt scene. Please give me something crazy to do. I don’t want to just be a kid in this film. I want to do something badass.’ I remember begging them to let me fall. I was like, ‘I don’t need any stunt gear. I fall all the time! Just let me do it. I’m 13!’ And so when I saw that, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. This is amazing,’ because I actually used to do gymnastics. So I was like, ‘This is so dope.’ I think it’s incredible. I think it’s really fun.”
Follow the Leader: The arcade game Savage Quest is pretty much the events of the film concerning the baby T. rex plus this game's play-as-the-T.rex levels.
What Could Have Been: The unlockable concept art shows scenes and creatures that didn't make it into the final game, such as a Dimetrodon and an underwater level for the T. rex.
that would have shown more footage of the Raptor attack in the long grass, with Ajay seeing the Hunters fall around him and closing his eyes as the pack moves in to finish him off. The scream Ian, Sarah and Kelly would have heard as they arrived at the edge of the long grass was reportedly supposed to be Ajay's. Still shots exist of Ajay standing alone in the field of grass and a full-size animatronic tiger-striped Raptor being prepared for filming, but the footage of said sequence has never been released to date.