Jurassic Park: the T-Rex was created … in secret – Actus Ciné

We are in 1991.

Steven Spielberg, who is already the most popular director of the moment and who has conquered the general public on multiple occasions with The Teeth of the Sea, ET or The Adventurers of the Lost Ark, has decided to do thrill its spectators once again with dinosaurs. Those of Michael Crichton, famous creator of science fiction, and author of a work entitled … Jurassic Park.

For dream and magic creator Spielberg, the biggest challenge of this colossal project is obviously to craft creatures believable and impressive enough that his audience won’t doubt their existence for a single second.

To do this, he decided to call on a true genius of stop motion animation: Phil Tippett, known in particular for having worked on the AT-ATs of The Empire strikes back, on the bipedal machines of Robocop or even on the special effects of the Indiana Jones trilogy.

In order to facilitate the movements of the dinosaurs (and in particular the T-Rex) – which are no longer immense machines as in Star Wars, but many organic creatures with much less precise gestures – the team calls on the company of ILM special effects recently created by George Lucas, and more specifically to an animator by the name of Steve Williams, as the series The Movies That Made Us, available on Netflix, tells it very well.

Even if he is not yet aware of it, this young computer enthusiast who has already worked on the watery creatures of Abyss or on the T-1000 of Terminator 2 is about to upset the fate of Jurassic Park. And consequently, that of the cinema.

Engaged to add “motion blur” to Phil Tippett’s models, alongside his colleague Mark Dippé, Steve Williams realizes that things can be improved. Considerably. Aware of the unlimited potential – although still in its infancy – computer animation, he proposes to animate the T-Rex himself, using his mouse and keyboard.

“We had the opportunity to create a real creature that breathes, that moves, and we were told that it was impossible. Me, I knew they were wrong. That it was possible”, he remembers in The Movies That Made Us on Netflix.

Universal Pictures

Faced with the implacable reluctance of his boss – the legendary Dennis Muren – Steve Williams then decides to withdraw, and to carry out his project on his side, clandestinely:

“I started building T-Rex bones in secret. We had a lot of problems because of it, I got kicked out of ILM 3 times. It’s on my resume.”

Beginning only with the various bones of the dinosaur, Williams studies its movements and the way it moves. After 5 months of strumming on his computer while listening to Bach and Beethoven thoroughly, he obtains a particularly convincing moving T-Rex skeleton.

It remains to show the fruits of his hard work to the team of Jurassic Park and persuade them that he is right. To achieve his ends, he decides to use a test screening in the ILM offices and trap producer Kathleen Kennedy, who works hand in hand with Spielberg:

“I set a trap for them. Nobody knew what I was going to do. I did it because otherwise I knew they wouldn’t give me my chance. (…) I had turned my screen [ndlr : sur lequel le T-Rex était en train de marcher] to the door. Kathleen Kennedy and her team have arrived. Dennis Muren was with them, and the first thing they all saw was my screen. My trap had closed on them. Kathleen Kennedy said, ‘What is this?’ (…) She looked at the screen, everyone looked all over the place, and she patted me on the shoulder and said, ‘You are promised a bright future.’ Word for word.”

Netflix

So the trick is played. Amblin Entertainment agrees to finance the continuation of the project, still carried out with discretion, and which now consists of covering this dinosaur skeleton with skin and scales. 5 months later, Rex is ready for his day of glory, and for his meeting with the maestro.

Presentations with Steven spielberg take place in the studios …