Thirty years after its release, we continue to discover anecdotes about one of the major films of the 90s: and this time, it’s Joseph Mazzello, aka young Tim, who shares his discovery about “Jurassic Park” by Steven Spielberg.
Directed by Steven Spielberg and released in 1993, the original Jurassic Park, starring Sam Neill and Laura Dern, is one of those 90s classics that left its mark on an entire generation. Thirty years later, many people have seen it (many) more than once.
After two sequels, released in 1997 and 2001 respectively, the most famous and terrifying theme park in the world of cinema reopened its doors in 2015 with Jurassic World. This new trilogy starring Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard ended in 2022 with Jurassic World: The World After which brought together the protagonists of the original trilogy and those of the new one.
And if you think you know everything about the saga, some details may still have escaped you, such as a certain Easter egg that we can see in one of the most legendary scenes of the original film…
Indeed, look at this close-up of the mouth of our beloved T-Rex:
Universal Pictures
Yes, the franchise’s most famous dinosaur has one tooth missing! However, what’s really funny is that this detail could be considered a mistake but absolutely isn’t!
As you may remember, in the film, the T-Rex violently attacks the park’s first visitors in a terrifying scene. They eventually make it out alive, but for a moment, only the glass roof of a Jeep separates Lex (Ariana Richards) and Tim (Joseph Mazzello) – the grandchildren of John Hammond (Richard Attenborough). ) – from the terrible jaw of the animal. Before filming this scene, the animatronic model of the T-Rex had its teeth intact, but during filming one of them broke when hitting the plexiglass. An unforeseen event that ultimately became part of the film.
An incident that entered into franchise history
This anecdote is the favorite of Joseph Mazzello (Tim Murphy) who spoke about it duringa live viewing of the film with IGN in 2020.
“[L’animatronique] was supposed to fall on us, and the plexiglass was supposed to come down from the roof of the car. But what wasn’t supposed to happen was that he wasn’t supposed to go down this far or with such force. So, during one of the takes a piece flew away. This was categorically not supposed to happen.”
He adds : “You can see it. If someone is watching at home, you can put [le film] paused on the Blu-ray… The T-Rex lost a tooth, and it took about half an hour to put it back in place. So Spielberg said, ‘To hell with it, we’re going to forget about it and do it without the tooth.’ There is a moment in the film where the T-Rex opens its mouth wide towards us and it is missing a tooth.”
This incident thus entered the history of the franchise and became an Easter egg since during the appearances of the famous dinosaur in Jurassic Worldproduction made sure that this tooth was also missing!
The Jurassic Park and Jurassic World trilogies can be found streaming on Netflix.