99 Fun Facts About Jurassic Park

Which phrase does John Hammond keep repeating as he shows off Jurassic Park?

Spared no expense. The boast turns ironic as the film goes on, because the corners Hammond cut are what bring the park down.

Which author wrote the original novel 'Jurassic Park'?

Michael Crichton sold the film rights before the book was even published, then wrote the first draft of the screenplay himself.

In Jurassic Park, which animal's DNA do the scientists use to fill gaps in the dinosaur genome?

Frog DNA completes the fragmented genomes, and because some frogs can change sex, the all-female park does not stay that way.

On which fictional island off Costa Rica does John Hammond build the original Jurassic Park?

Isla Nublar's first park never opens to the public, but two decades later the working Jurassic World resort stands on the same island.

Which character famously states the line 'Life, uh, finds a way' in 'Jurassic Park'?

Dr. Ian Malcolm says it on hearing that the park's dinosaurs are all female and cannot breed; hatched eggs found in the wild later prove him right.

Which model of car carries visitors on the automated tour in the 1993 film Jurassic Park?

Ford Explorer. In the novel the tour cars are electric Toyota Land Cruisers; the film swapped them for Explorers guided along a track.

Which dinosaur is first seen attacking a park worker at the beginning of the 1993 'Jurassic Park' film?

A Velociraptor kills the handler as it is moved into its pen, and the death makes the park's investors demand that outside experts inspect the island.

What is the bioengineering company, founded by John Hammond, that clones the dinosaurs for Jurassic Park?

InGen, short for International Genetic Technologies, slips from Hammond's grasp in the sequel, when his own nephew takes over as its boss.

Which actor played paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant in the 1993 Jurassic Park after Harrison Ford turned the role down?

Sam Neill and his co-stars later lent their surnames to a real dinosaur: the species name of Tianchisaurus nedegoapeferima is stitched together from them.

What is Dr. Ellie Sattler's scientific specialization in the 1993 'Jurassic Park' film?

Paleobotanist Ellie Sattler studies fossil plants, so she is the one who spots poisonous West Indian lilac growing where a sick animal grazes.

The film makes Ellie Sattler and Alan Grant a couple, but what is she to him in the Jurassic Park novel?

His graduate student. The romance the film gave them does not last: by Jurassic Park III they have split up and she has married someone else.

Which effects house created Jurassic Park's groundbreaking computer-generated dinosaurs?

Industrial Light & Magic won the job with a test: the dinosaurs were to be stop-motion puppets until its computer-animated demo changed Spielberg's mind.

Which 1997 film ended Jurassic Park's reign as the highest-grossing film ever made?

Titanic took the record, and its director James Cameron had wanted to make Jurassic Park himself, only to find Spielberg already had the rights.

Which animal is tethered as live bait to tempt the T. rex out during the Jurassic Park tour?

A goat. The T. rex ignores it while the visitors are watching, and only takes it that night, once the power has failed.

In which country have Velociraptor fossils been found?

Mongolia's Gobi Desert yielded the famous 'Fighting Dinosaurs' fossil: a Velociraptor and a Protoceratops buried while still locked in combat.

Jurassic Park's raptors tower over the real Velociraptor, which was roughly the size of which animal?

A turkey. A heckler at Alan Grant's dig sneers that the raptor looks like 'a six-foot turkey', which is closer to the truth than he knows, since the man-sized hunters are fiction.

Which real dinosaur were Jurassic Park's raptors actually modelled on?

Deinonychus was the novel's raptor 'in almost every detail', its author said; he changed only the name, picking one he thought sounded more dramatic.

Which giant raptor, named in 1993, proved that raptors even bigger than Jurassic Park's really existed?

Utahraptor was nearly named after the film's director: its finders planned to call the species spielbergi, but the name was dropped.

Which US institution chose Jurassic Park for its National Film Registry in 2018?

The Library of Congress adds 25 films a year to the registry; anyone can nominate a title, but its Librarian makes the final choice.

A 2013 re-release in which format carried Jurassic Park's box office past $1 billion?

A 3D conversion suited it, Spielberg said: he had always pictured Jurassic Park in 3D, and in 2011 he called it the only film of his he would consider converting.

Jurassic Park became the world's highest-grossing film by overtaking which earlier Steven Spielberg hit?

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial lost its worldwide crown but kept its home one: in the US and Canada, Jurassic Park's original run finished second to it.

Which animal's cry, slowed down, forms the core of Jurassic Park's T. rex roar?

A baby elephant's scream, slowed down, is the key layer of the roar; Gary Rydstrom, who built it, mixed that over a low growl like a tiger's.

Which talk-show host appears as himself in the gyrosphere safety video in Jurassic World?

Jimmy Fallon. Soon after his briefing, two boys take their gyrosphere into a restricted area, where the escaped hybrid dinosaur smashes it.

Which two features of Jurassic Park's Dilophosaurus have no basis in the fossil record?

Its frill and venom were made up for drama; the story also shrank the animal, which in life was far bigger than the one on screen.

In Jurassic Park, a taunting lockout screen scolds the control-room staff for not saying what?

The magic word. A cartoon of the saboteur wags its finger and repeats the taunt, and with no way past it the staff must reboot the whole park.

Which operating system does young Lex recognise on a control-room computer in Jurassic Park?

Unix. 'It's a UNIX system, I know this!' she says, then uses it to get the door locks working while a raptor pushes at the door.

Which screenwriter, later of Mission: Impossible and Spider-Man, wrote the final Jurassic Park script?

David Koepp softened the novel: his final draft cut much of its violence and turned its ruthless Hammond into a sympathetic showman.

Which Jurassic Park character says 'Clever girl' just before the raptors kill him?

Robert Muldoon, the park's expert hunter, is taking aim at one raptor when a second ambushes him from the side.

Which brand of shaving cream is on the can used to smuggle embryos in the 1993 film Jurassic Park?

Barbasol. The can is lost in the mud when its smuggler is killed, then resurfaces three decades later in Jurassic World Dominion.

In Jurassic World, the two brothers escape by repairing which vehicle left in the ruins of the original park?

A Jeep Wrangler. The pair find it in the wrecked visitor centre, get it running and drive it back to the resort, where they are reunited with their aunt.

In Jurassic Park III, which holiday activity leaves young Eric Kirby stranded on a dinosaur island?

Parasailing. Eric survives alone for eight weeks before his parents trick Alan Grant into flying there to help find him.

On which Mediterranean island do raptors chase Owen and Claire through city streets in Jurassic World Dominion?

Malta. The pair come on the trail of the kidnapped girl in their care and find a dinosaur black market, where a raptor pack hunts Claire over the rooftops and Owen through the streets.

Who directed Jurassic World, the 2015 relaunch of the series?

Colin Trevorrow also co-wrote the script and gave himself a voice cameo as Mr. DNA, the cartoon guide from the 1993 film.

Which line does chief engineer Ray Arnold mutter before risky moves in Jurassic Park?

Hold on to your butts. One of those risky moves is cutting the power to reboot the park, which lets the raptors out of their pen.

In Jurassic Park, what is Tim playing with in the tour car just before the T. rex breaks out?

Night-vision goggles. Tim scares his sister with them, then turns them on the paddock when the ground starts to shake.

Which hurricane struck Kauaʻi on the last scheduled day of Jurassic Park's location shoot there in 1992?

Hurricane Iniki trapped the cast and crew in their hotel; Spielberg still went out to film the storm, and that footage is in the finished film.

Listening to which band in his car gave Spielberg the idea for Jurassic Park's rippling water glass?

Earth, Wind & Fire's bass made his mirror shake; on set, the effects crew copied the ripples by plucking guitar strings fixed under the dashboard.

In Jurassic Park, what does Alan Grant wave to lure the T. rex away from the wrecked tour car?

A lit flare. Grant throws his and the T. rex follows it; Malcolm copies him but runs, so the animal chases him instead.

Besides Jeff Goldblum, which comic actor was in the running to play Jurassic Park's Ian Malcolm?

Jim Carrey lost out to Jeff Goldblum, who went on to lead the sequel, The Lost World, as the same character.

Which actor, cast after Spielberg saw him in Basic Instinct, plays Jurassic Park's saboteur Dennis Nedry?

Wayne Knight's Nedry never collects his bribe: fleeing with the stolen embryos, he crashes his car in the storm and a dinosaur kills him.

Which British actor ended a 14-year break from acting to play Jurassic Park's John Hammond?

Richard Attenborough had spent those years directing, winning Oscars for Gandhi, until Spielberg talked him back in front of the camera.

Which regular Spielberg collaborator composed the Jurassic Park score?

John Williams scored the first two films, then recommended Don Davis to take over for Jurassic Park III.

Jurassic Park won three Oscars: one for visual effects and two for which other craft?

Sound. The dinosaur voices, built from recordings of real animals, won the film both sound Oscars, for mixing and for effects editing.

In The Lost World: Jurassic Park, what is the second dinosaur island, code-named Site B, called?

Isla Sorna was the factory floor, where dinosaurs were bred before being shipped to the park; staff abandoned it in a hurricane and left the animals to run wild.

In The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Hammond's nephew Peter Ludlow plans a new dinosaur park in which Californian city?

San Diego was where Hammond first planned his park; Ludlow revives the half-built amphitheatre there that Hammond abandoned for an island.

Which dinosaur replaced the T. rex as the lead predator in Jurassic Park III (2001)?

Spinosaurus makes the point early in the film by killing a Tyrannosaurus in a fight, snapping its neck.

Which director of Jumanji took over the series from Steven Spielberg for Jurassic Park III?

Joe Johnston had a rough start: the planned script was scrapped five weeks before the shoot, and filming began without a finished one.

What is the genetically engineered hybrid dinosaur that escapes its paddock in Jurassic World (2015)?

Indominus rex fakes its own escape, hiding from the heat sensors and clawing the wall so that keepers walk into its paddock, then breaks out for real.

Which Spanish director of The Impossible made Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom in 2018?

J. A. Bayona got a home-country launch: the film had its world premiere in Madrid, a month before it opened in the United States.

In Jurassic Park, dinosaur DNA is recovered from which blood-sucking insects found preserved in amber?

Mosquitoes had fed on dinosaurs before being trapped in tree resin, the story goes. John Hammond even carries one inside the amber knob of his walking stick.

Which long-necked giant is the first living dinosaur the visitors see in the 1993 film Jurassic Park?

Brachiosaurus was a swap: the novel's visitors first see an Apatosaurus, but effects artist Phil Tippett suggested the larger animal for the screen.

Which actress, later an Oscar winner for Marriage Story, plays Ellie Sattler in the 1993 film Jurassic Park?

Laura Dern came back as Ellie Sattler in Jurassic Park III and again in Jurassic World Dominion, almost thirty years after the original.

Which actor, a year before Pulp Fiction, plays the chief engineer Ray Arnold in the 1993 film Jurassic Park?

Samuel L. Jackson was meant to film an on-screen death for Ray Arnold, but a hurricane hit the Hawaii shoot first. Only the engineer's severed arm made it to the screen.

Jeff Goldblum's character in the 1993 film Jurassic Park is an expert in which branch of mathematics?

Chaos theory holds that complex systems behave unpredictably, which is why the character insists the park is bound to fail.

Which sick dinosaur, a Stegosaurus in the novel, does Ellie Sattler stop to examine in the film Jurassic Park?

Triceratops was moved up the shooting schedule without warning, which left Stan Winston's crew only four months to build the animatronic.

How is John Hammond related to Tim and Lex, the two youngsters who join the Jurassic Park tour?

Their grandfather is a warm, well-meaning showman on screen. In the novel he is far colder and turns out to have no real love for either of them.

Which film written and directed by the author of Jurassic Park features a theme park whose robots turn on the guests?

Westworld was his debut as a feature director and the first film to use 2D CGI, two decades before the digital dinosaurs.

Which Holocaust drama did the director of Jurassic Park shoot in Poland while the dinosaur film was being finished?

Schindler's List was only approved by the studio on condition that the dinosaur film came first, so its director supervised the effects work from Poland.

In the 1993 film Jurassic Park, which group does Alan Grant dislike before he ends up protecting two of them?

Children annoy him only on screen. The novel's Alan Grant has no such dislike, a change the film made along with giving him an introverted personality.

Which Jurassic Park lawyer, sent by nervous investors, is devoured when the Tyrannosaurus breaks loose?

Donald Gennaro lives through the novel, even joining the final hunt for the nest. The film gave him the cowardice of publicist Ed Regis, a character it dropped.

In which US state are Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler digging for fossils when Jurassic Park's owner recruits them?

Montana is where the dig is set, but the crew skipped the trip to save time and money and filmed the scene at Red Rock Canyon instead.

Which ostrich-like dinosaurs stampede across a Jurassic Park meadow before the Tyrannosaurus snatches one of them?

Gallimimus was animated as a herd, with a design based on ostriches. The stampede was filmed at Kualoa Ranch on Oahu after a hurricane ruled out the first location.

As a fail-safe, Jurassic Park's dinosaurs carry a genetic flaw that leaves them short of which amino acid?

Lysine deficiency was the park's insurance policy: an animal that escaped and missed its supplements was supposed to be unable to survive.

Which rival genetics company bribes Dennis Nedry to smuggle dinosaur embryos out of Jurassic Park?

Biosyn is named in the novel but never in the 1993 film. It finally reached the screen as the corporate villain of Jurassic World Dominion.

What is Dennis Nedry's job at Jurassic Park before a rival firm bribes him to steal dinosaur embryos?

Computer programmer Dennis Nedry locks the staff out with code nobody else can decipher, which forces a full reboot of the park and frees the predators.

In Jurassic Park, what does John Hammond say was the very first attraction he ever ran?

A flea circus, motorised to fake its tiny performers, was pure illusion. Hammond says the dinosaur park is his chance to show visitors something real.

In which room of the Jurassic Park visitor centre do Lex and Tim hide from two predators stalking them?

The kitchen set took its look from the Overlook Hotel kitchen in The Shining, and the scene was one of two from the novel that the film was required to keep.

The Jurassic Park sequel The Lost World borrows its title from a 1912 dinosaur adventure by which British author?

Arthur Conan Doyle also inspired the sequel's boldest cheat: reviving a character who had died in the first book, just as he once revived Sherlock Holmes.

Which actress plays behavioural paleontologist Sarah Harding in the 1997 sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park?

Julianne Moore had impressed the director in The Fugitive, so he asked the screenwriter to write Sarah Harding with her in mind.

Which actor plays Owen Grady, the Navy veteran who trains a pack of predators in Jurassic World?

Chris Pratt had joked in 2010, years before he got the part, that he had already been cast in the next dinosaur film.

Which actress plays Claire Dearing, the operations manager who flees dinosaurs in high heels in Jurassic World?

Bryce Dallas Howard chose the footwear herself and learned to run in heels with tips from a former fighter who was working as her driver.

Which giant marine reptile is fed a shark in front of a stadium crowd in Jurassic World?

Mosasaurus leaps from its lagoon to take a shark dangling over the water. In the finale it drags the escaped hybrid dinosaur under for good.

In Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, which natural disaster threatens to wipe out the dinosaurs left on the island?

A volcanic eruption is looming when a US Senate committee debates whether the animals deserve saving. It votes against a rescue.

Which giant swarming insects, engineered in a lab, devastate American crops in Jurassic World Dominion?

Locusts carrying prehistoric DNA strip the fields, and the hunt for whoever made them is what reunites Ellie Sattler and Alan Grant.

Which actress leads the 2025 film Jurassic World Rebirth as covert operations expert Zora Bennett?

Scarlett Johansson had hoped to join the dinosaur series for more than a decade. Once cast, she turned down the studio's request to join Instagram to promote it.

In Jurassic Park III, which gadget does a giant dinosaur swallow, leaving the survivors to dig it out of dung?

A satellite phone is the group's only way to call for rescue. The dung they fish it out of was really 250 gallons of oatmeal.

Which flying reptiles attack Alan Grant's group inside a giant aviary in Jurassic Park III?

Pteranodons carry off young Eric Kirby to feed him to their chicks. The film's poster hints at them with a huge winged shadow.

Which Jurassic Park geneticist is played by BD Wong, the only actor from the 1993 film to return in Jurassic World?

Henry Wu has a single scene in the 1993 film, yet he grows into the series' recurring schemer, the scientist who engineers its hybrid dinosaurs.

Which actor plays Paul Kirby, who lures Alan Grant onto a dinosaur island with a false offer in Jurassic Park III?

William H. Macy first turned the part down over a scheduling clash, so the whole shoot was pushed back a month to fit him in.

Which Swingers actor plays photojournalist Nick Van Owen in The Lost World: Jurassic Park?

Vince Vaughn was cast without a screen test. The director had watched Swingers only because its makers asked permission to use music from Jaws.

In Jurassic World, which member of Owen Grady's trained pack survives the final battle against the escaped hybrid?

Blue is knocked out while two of her packmates are killed, then recovers in time to help the Tyrannosaurus turn the final fight.

Which real paleontologist, the model for Alan Grant, advised on the first five Jurassic Park films?

Jack Horner had the predators' flicking tongues cut as too reptilian and suggested warm breath fogging a window instead, proof that they were warm-blooded.

Despite the title of Jurassic Park, its star predator Tyrannosaurus rex lived during which geological period?

Cretaceous animals fill most of the park: only two of the dinosaur species in the 1993 film really lived during the Jurassic.

In the Jurassic Park novel, which small scavenging dinosaurs kill John Hammond after he breaks his ankle?

Procompsognathus swarm him after a roar startles him into a fall down a hill. The roar was only a recording, played by the two youngsters he had invited.

How does the Costa Rican air service destroy the island at the end of the Jurassic Park novel?

With napalm bombs, once the survivors are flown out and the dinosaurs declared hazardous. The 1993 film leaves the island and its animals intact.

Jurassic Park backed the then-disputed idea that dinosaurs evolved into which living group of animals?

Birds were treated as the dinosaurs' descendants on the advice of the film's paleontology consultant, at a time when the idea was not widely accepted.

Which hospital drama, created by the author of Jurassic Park, began a fifteen-year television run in 1994?

ER is how the dinosaur novel found its director: he first heard about the book while the two men were discussing the hospital script that later became the show.

Which thriller about a deadly microbe from space was the first bestseller by the author of Jurassic Park?

The Andromeda Strain was the first novel he published under his own name, after a run of thrillers written under pseudonyms.

Which digital cinema sound format made its debut with Jurassic Park, part-funded by the film's own director?

DTS kept the soundtrack on separate CD-ROMs synced to a time code on the film print, and arrived less than a year after its rival Dolby Digital.

Which Broadway star, named in the novel as the tour narrator, was hired to voice the tour in the film Jurassic Park?

Richard Kiley also narrates Universal's Jurassic Park river ride, so the same voice guides visitors in the book, the film and the attraction.

Which producer of Jurassic Park later served as president of Lucasfilm, the company behind Star Wars?

Kathleen Kennedy co-founded Amblin Entertainment with the film's director and went on to produce most of his films for three decades.

Which park-building video game from Frontier Developments puts players in charge of their own dinosaur resort?

Jurassic World Evolution brought Jeff Goldblum and BD Wong back to voice their film characters, who pass comment on how the player runs the park.

In which Caribbean country is the amber mine run for John Hammond in the 1993 film Jurassic Park?

The Dominican Republic was only the setting: the mine scene was actually filmed near Hoʻopiʻi Falls in Hawaii.

Which child actor, later Queen's bassist in Bohemian Rhapsody, plays dinosaur-mad Tim in the 1993 film Jurassic Park?

Joseph Mazzello paid for school with his fee for a brief return in The Lost World, which he joked was a graduation present from the director.

Which book-cover designer created the Tyrannosaurus skeleton artwork that became the Jurassic Park logo?

Chip Kidd designed it for the novel's jacket, and it worked so well that the film's poster artist, after many revisions, simply reused the design.

Which Indian actor plays Simon Masrani, the park owner killed in a helicopter crash in Jurassic World?

Irrfan Khan was a star of Indian cinema who took supporting parts in Life of Pi and The Amazing Spider-Man in the same few years.

Which director of Godzilla and Rogue One made the 2025 film Jurassic World Rebirth?

Gareth Edwards worked from a script by the screenwriter of the 1993 original, who chose all-new characters and an all-new location.

Which giant carnivore is the main dinosaur threat in Jurassic World Dominion, set up as a rival to the Tyrannosaurus?

Giganotosaurus was held back on purpose for the trilogy's final film, to give the long-serving Tyrannosaurus a worthy opponent.

Which actor plays paleontologist Henry Loomis, recruited for a classified mission in Jurassic World Rebirth?

Jonathan Bailey was suggested by studio executives who had been impressed by his performance as Fiyero in the 2024 film Wicked.