There are a number of great stories about the animatronic wonder that was the T-Rex from Jurassic Park. The massive dinosaur was one of the only ones to be created in this fashion and ended up weight around 1,200 pounds. Just imagine having to stand near this thing when filming and you might understand what terror really is. Even more horrifying was that during a break some of the crew noticed as the scale model ‘came alive’ at one point, shuddering and twitching as though attempting to control itself or free itself from the programming that was put into it. Thankfully that time it was just the effect of the model being rained on that made it go just a bit haywire. It likely spooked the crew to no end.
The T-Rex was built as close to scale as possible as she was meant to be the star attraction of the movie, which she most certainly was. But there were a lot of precautions that had to be taken as well since the weight and girth of the dinosaur had to be taken into consideration. While the operators of the massive prehistoric monster were always in control they still had to alert the cast and crew just when the T-Rex was about to get up and move about. Flashing lights were used to indicate when she was going to move, though thankfully a lot of the cast and crew, if not all of them, were highly attentive when this beast was up and moving. It was said that when the T-Rex got up to speed just being brushed her head would be like getting hit by a bus. That’s a lot of dino coming at a person without much in the way of brakes.
There were some mishaps however on the set, and one of them could have been quite disastrous had it gone any different. During the moment when the T-Rex is burying her snout into the jeep containing Tim and Lex, the glass wasn’t originally supposed to give way like it did. So really, the terror and fright that you see on their faces is more genuine than you might believe. Despite the safety measures and calculations that went into this scene there was no way to know that the T-Rex’s rapidly descending head would pop the glass free. But considering how things went and the fact that nothing bad happened the scene was kept. Something tells me thought that everyone involved in the scene had to take a little breather just to make sure that they were okay and to possibly check their pants after that little incident.
Spielberg went so far as to state that the T-Rex was meant to be a heroine in the show as well, though it might have been hard to see as she was actively hunting those that she perceived as food. But it is hard to deny that she isn’t a heroine for having saved the lot of them at the end by taking out the velociraptors. Plus, in Jurassic World the T-Rex was undoubtedly the hero at the end.
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