How the T-Rex from ‘Jurassic Park’ nearly killed a crew member
One of the most awe-inspiring moments in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 science fiction action movie Jurassic Park was when we first laid eyes on the behemoth T-Rex. The film is based on Michael Crichton’s 1990 novel of the same name and tells of the titular wildlife park featuring de-extinct dinosaurs created by a wealthy businessman.
Painstaking work went into creating the life-like dinosaurs, especially considering that the film was made before special effects and CGI resembled anything like it does today. Life-sized dinosaurs were considered too expensive for the budget, so Spielberg sought out a team to create the creatures using animatronics.
The final products were outstanding, as shown in the film. The T-Rex model had been transported to Warner Bros Studios without its skin, and once there, the crew would attach the skin and start filming. Crew member Alan Scott explained: “We had to actually pull the skin on, glue it down from the inside, and sew it all up once we were there.”
However, given the sheer size of the T-Rex, the crew had to go to great lengths to get it looking right. “The skins were so long, you could only reach in a couple of feet from either end, and so, there was this whole section in the middle that you could only glue down by crawling into the armature,” Scott added. “It had to be done in the sculpted position, too. The T-rex had to be powered up and held in that pose.”
For Scott, this manoeuvre very nearly cost him his life. “If the power was shut off for some reason,” he added, “The head would move from its powered-up position to its powered-down position — and all of the hydraulic cylinders and sheets of metal inside would move.”
Naturally, this spelt danger for Scott, but he took on the responsibility of the task. Fear must have struck as soon as things took a turn for the worse. He continued: “As I was crawling inside this thing, I said to the guy on the controls: ‘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.'”
“Suddenly, I could hear the hydraulics stop and the power start going down,” Scott remembered. “I could hear a muffled shout from outside, ‘There’s someone inside the T-Rex!’ All I could think of were these big hydraulic cylinders and giant metal sheets shearing across each other, with me in the middle. I pulled my hands and legs in as tightly to my chest as I could and just stayed like that, hoping no part of my body would get caught in all that moving metal.”
Surely, Scott must have thought he was a goner. But thankfully, his foresight to make himself as small as possible inside the T-Rex is most likely what saved his life. He concluded, “It wasn’t until it came to a complete rest that I realised I wasn’t going to get hurt. The head dropped down until the nose was a couple of feet from the ground, and three or four guys pried open the jaw and pulled me out.” Still, it was a close call nonetheless.
