Jurassic Park isn’t just a timeless classic film. When it was produced, it was nothing short of a modern marvel. Today, monster films are created with such advanced technology that otherworldly creatures such as Godzilla and King Kong look entirely real.
In 1993, however, such technology didn’t yet exist. So when Steven Spielberg set out to create a film adaptation of the 1990 novel Jurassic Park, he had his work cut out for him.
He had a few choices. Complete CGI, however, would have been too expensive. Stop-motion, another option, was both tedious and presented the risk of an unrealistic finished product. Eventually, he landed on a mixture of animatronics and CGI. This, too, was risky though, as this approach had never been taken before.
Faced with a seemingly impossible mission, Steven Spielberg enlisted the help of Stan Winston, who created the alien queen for Aliens using animatronics. Building a realistic dinosaur, however, was a far more daunting task than a fictional, much smaller, alien.
‘Jurassic Park’s Animatronic Dinosaur Was So Realistic It Scared Clint Eastwood
Unfazed by the challenge, Spielberg and Winston set out to create their dinosaur. And together, they successfully built a full-size T-Rex that was so realistic, so terrifying, that it frightened the Man With No Name himself, Clint Eastwood. In a recent interview with UPROXX, Jurassic Park icon Laura Dern Described the incident.
“I’ve never told this story but I’m just remembering it,” Dern began. “I was so lucky. We were on the lot at Universal. We had been through a level five hurricane. They were juggling an unbelievable crew coming together to rebuild sets now on the lot. And the dinosaur had a tough morning. The T-Rex had slowed down a bit and needed some massaging, if you will.”
“We were waiting and I was going to finish the movie and work with Clint Eastwood [on A Perfect World],” she continued. “And Clint came to the set. We were going to have lunch at the commissary. First of all, I am such a movie lover so to be on the Universal lot, to go to the commissary to have lunch with Clint Eastwood is crazy. Pinch me!”
“And then, because [the T-Rex] broke, Steven [Spielberg] came and joined us,” Dern explained. “And Steven said to Clint, ‘Come back with us and see the T-Rex’. Nobody had seen it. Nobody was allowed in.”
“And this is one of my favorite moments remembering Clint. He is seeing this life-size beast. He was like, ‘That’ll scare the hell out of you!’ I was just like, ‘Oh my God, my life is so amazing.’”
