‘Jurassic Park’s T-Rex Almost Killed a Crew Member — For Real

Movie-making magic allows for the impossible to be brought to life on the silver screen, and no film captures that spirit of fantasy better than Steven Spielberg‘s Jurassic Park. While the limitations of modern science may prevent dinosaurs from ever returning to their full glory, this movie gave the world a look at that dream brought to life.

Though the spectacle of soaring sauropods ultimately descended into disaster as the titular theme park fell into vicious, bloody chaos, the voyeuristic separation from that danger is part of the intrinsic appeal of cinema escapism. Fortunately for the audience, they didn’t have to deal with the cunning velociraptors or acid-spitting dilophosauruses that the Jurassic Park guests and crew had to risk their lives around. However, that didn’t mean that the movie production staff working with the dinosaurs were entirely safe themselves.

Jurassic Park

In Steven Spielberg’s massive blockbuster, paleontologists Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) and mathematician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) are among a select group chosen to tour an island theme park populated by dinosaurs created from prehistoric DNA. While the park’s mastermind, billionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), assures everyone that the facility is safe, they find out otherwise when various ferocious predators break free and go on the hunt.

Release Date

June 11, 1993

Runtime

127

Writers

Michael Crichton , David Koepp

Tagline

An Adventure 65 Million Years In The Making

The T-Rex’s Close-Ups Were a Big Undertaking

Jurassic Park faced its fair share of daunting challenges while in production, including a fearsome fight with nature to make the movie happen, but one particular close call stands out from the rest. The near-fatal accident in question took place in the waning weeks of the film’s principal shoot, as the last three weeks of shots were centered around the iconic T-Rex’s close-ups. The animatronic puppet was created by the incomparable Stan Winston and his team, and was a juggernaut of a puppet that stood roughly 20 feet tall and 40 feet long. The dinosaur, affectionately referred to as “Roberta” by visual effects artist Phil Tippett, was brought to the largest sound stage on the Warner Bros. lot for the more detailed shots.

However, in order to transport the massive rig, Roberta had to be partially disassembled and delivered with its skin removed from its mechanical structure. In order to get the dino ready for her close-ups, the team needed to reapply yards of scaly skin over the towering creature, in one of the most unconventional forms of wardrobe needed for film.

The most difficult step in Roberta’s, well, “skin” and makeup, required a crew member entering the dinosaur’s formidable jaws to glue down the remaining yards of skin. While this initially seemed like a totally non-threatening task, since the dinosaur didn’t acutally have control over its powerful maw, it was still one of the more risky steps in the process. The T-Rex animatronic had to be turned on and engaged in order to effectively attach the remaining parts, putting the person inside several yards in the air within a tight, tooth-filled opening. While the fear of being devoured wasn’t real, the powerful hydraulics and sheets of metal within the puppet were still capable of seriously injuring, or even killing, a person trapped inside, so the job had to be done with precision and maximum safety precautions.

‘Jurassic Park’ Nearly Came to Life

The brave volunteer who went into the jaws of the T-Rex was a man named Alan Scott, one of the mechanical designers working with Winston on the project. Armed with just a bucket of glue and a brush, Scott recalled his words of warning to the person at the electronic controls, saying, “Don’t shut it down, and make sure nobody trips on this cord. I’m going to be inside, and if this thing moves, with all those hydraulics inside, I’m dead.” But those words of warning were an omen to come, because like the movie they were making, when something could go wrong, it did.

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While he was adhering the foam rubber skin of the T-Rex from inside its jaws, Scott heard the hydraulics halt, the power shutting down, and muffled voices from outside. The entire studio experienced a power outage, and the jaws of the Tyrannosaurus Rex began clamping down around him. Thinking quickly, Scott tucked himself into a ball to avoid the incoming mechanical parts and sheets of metal, pulling himself in tightly to keep his limbs from being caught in moving parts. It wasn’t until the dinosaur’s head stopped moving, after descending to the ground, that he trusted he was safe. With the snout of the puppet just a few feet from the ground, several men rushed to Scott’s aid and pried open the maw to pull Scott out.

Thankfully, this terrifying on-set incident ended without any serious injury, becoming an exciting anecdote about the film’s production rather than a bloody memory. But what made this moment even more memorable was just how eerily similar it felt to events from the actual movie, as if life was imitating art. The unexpected accident involving the transportation of a dangerous dinosaur and the nearly trapped crew member inside reads like the iconic opening scene of the movie — a terrifying omen of events to come, as a park worker is knocked off the roof of a container into the cage by the vicious velociraptors. Fortunately, the similarities remained anecdotal, as no crew member got hurt, and no dinosaur had to be shot.

‘Jurassic Park’ Blended Animatronics and VFX Seamlessly

In a film with incredible actors and writing, Jurassic Park‘s meticulously designed and well-crafted dinosaurs remain the stars of the show, even decades after its release. The multidimensional approach of using both animatronics and computer effects blended seamlessly to create a visual spectacle that remains the gold standard in Hollywood. Spielberg entrusted the physical dinosaurs to Stan Winston’s team, who had previously worked on the alien queen in Aliens, giving them the freedom to sculpt life-size and dynamic dinosaur puppetry. On the computer effects side, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), originally founded by George Lucas, created such stunning animated dinosaurs that continue to surpass many other movies’ effects, despite being released roughly 3 decades ago.

The simultaneous awe and wonder of the beautifully terrifying dinosaurs remains one of the pinnacle of movie magic, a true testament to meticulous work by countless workers. And thanks to the bravery and quick-thinking of Alan Scott, Jurassic Park and its iconic T-Rex were sufficiently prepared for their time in the limelight, something they would not be giving up any time soon.

Jurassic Park is available to watch on Netflix in the U.S.

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