Before the Park: Dinosaurs on the Big Screen
Director Colin Trevorrow on the set of Jurassic World Dominion.
Courtesy of Universal Studios/Amblin Entertainment.
“We have a T-Rex.”
- Jurassic Park (1993)
In 1915, crowds lined up in New York City to see the American Museum of Natural History’s latest exhibition addition — a Tyrannosaurus rex. Discovered in Big Dry Creek, Montana, by the famed fossil hunter Barnum Brown, it marked the first relatively complete skeleton of the T-Rex. Originally arranged so that the dinosaur stood upright, the inaccurate fossil posture played a direct role in pop culture. An early illustration for the museum by the artist Charles Knight copied the upright stance. The stop-motion animation pioneer Willis O'Brien translated the posture to film with the T-Rex’s debut in 1918’s The Ghost of Slumber Mountain. O’Brien carried on the gait in the special effects for notable films such as The Lost World (1925) and King Kong (1933).
The iconic logo, complete with protruding ectopterygoid bone in the centre skull cavity.
The palaeontologist Barnum Brown, the man who discovered the Tyrannosaurus rex, later became the dinosaur consultant for the meticulously researched ‘The Rite of Spring’ sequence in Walt Disney’s Fantasia (1940). For nearly a quarter of a century, Barnum’s T-Rex was the only mounted Tyrannosaurus. It also happens to be the exact skeleton that the graphic designer Chip Kidd would later use as inspiration for the book jacket of Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park. When Steven Spielberg brought the novel to the big screen, Universal licensed Kidd’s design, adapting it into the iconic logo of the film franchise — including one very unique bone. When the Barnum T-Rex fossilised, the ectopterygoid bone (which supports biting force) was shoved out of place, creating a profile entirely unique to the American Museum of Natural History’s specimen 5027. The silhouette has become so recognisable, that it appeared on posters for the epic conclusion of the franchise, sans title.
In celebration of the release of Jurassic World Dominion, we’re taking a look back at the history of dinosaurs on the big screen before Jurassic Park.
CHAD KENNERK
Click on a poster below to enter the gallery and learn more!
