How “the dark side of Walt Disney” inspired Steven Spielberg movie ‘Jurassic Park’
In 1993, Steven Spielberg released the film that would spark one of the biggest movie franchises around. It was the same year that cinema fans were treated to the iconic Jurassic Park, starring Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Richard Attenborough, adapted from Michael Crichton’s 1990 novel of the same name.
Famously, the plot tells of a fictional island called Isla Nubar when a businessman and a group of genetic researchers create a safari theme park featuring previously extinct dinosaurs. However, after sabotage causes the park’s defences to shut down, a group of visitors are tasked with surviving against the dangerous creatures. Jurassic Park is simply a cinema experience like no other.
One of the most interesting inspirations for Spielberg in creating his classic film actually came from none other than Walt Disney. The inspiration arrives in the character John Hammond, played by Richard Attenborough, the wealthy business magnate who first comes up with the idea of a live dinosaur theme park.
However, Hammond’s greed and ambition have him move forward with the project while knowing the dangers the park exhibits but ignoring it completely, leading to the disastrous consequences of the narrative. Spielberg once admitted on the Jurassic Park DVD extras that Hammond represents the “dark side of Walt Disney”.
David Koepp, who wrote the screenplay for Jurassic Park with Michael Crichton, also noted the connection during an appearance on the Script Apart podcast. “Steven identified with [Hammond], whether consciously or not,” he said. “And he also knew and understood Walt Disney the man, and wanted [Hammond] to be a bit more like him.”
Koepp continued: “He is darker in the book and, therefore, harder to sympathise with”.
The screenwriter also admitted that the film version of Hammond shares Walt Disney’s grand vision for something that somebody hadn’t seen before and his “entrepreneurial and visionary” character.
Given Disney’s affiliation with theme parks, it’s worth noting that Spielberg was also inspired by a particular theme park ride when it came to making Jurassic Park. After seeing Kongfrontation at Universal Studios, where attendees could come face-to-face with King Kong, Spielberg had an idea.
In the Netflix show The Making of Jurassic Park, Spielberg remembered his time at Universal Studios, saying: “[King Kong] moves with wonderful smoothness. You can actually see muscle tone moving underneath the fur, and I was very impressed with that”.
So, it was initially seeing how animatronics could be used to impress audiences that Spielberg was inspired to use them in his iconic movie and then found inspiration for one of its main characters in one of the biggest figures in cinema history.
Check out the full David Koepp interview below.
