Half-Assed Internet Research
The rights auction, production history, scientific details, sound and practical effects, finances, cultural influence, and unused material
In the discussion (17)
Approx. transcript time · 00:30:32Read transcript
- Studios reportedly pursued the property with Burton, Donner and Dante attached; Verhoeven is also recalled as a possibility. — Sean Fennessey
- One response does not want the Burton version; another is particularly interested in seeing it.
- Making this film first was reportedly a condition for greenlighting Schindler’s List. — Sean Fennessey
- Spielberg’s simultaneous work and two landmark releases are proposed as perhaps the greatest single filmmaker year. — Sean Fennessey
- The success reportedly increased interest in studying paleontology, followed by the profitable ER collaboration.
- The reported Jurassic examples are transcribed as brociosaurus, dilaphasaurus, Matriacanathosaurus and Stegosaurus, with spelling uncertainty retained. — Sean Fennessey
- The rights payment is clarified as one-and-a-half million plus half a million for the first script, followed by a rewrite.
- The T. rex roar reportedly layers dog, penguin, tiger, alligator and elephant sounds.
- A Psycho story about selecting a stabbed melon sound illustrates meticulous effects work, with the story’s literal truth explicitly uncertain.
- A guitar string under the dashboard reportedly created the glass-of-water ripple. — Sean Fennessey
- Chip Kidd’s skeleton cover is credited and praised; a childhood memory recalls carrying an advance-release pamphlet because the design was arresting.
- An abandoned idea had the children riding a Tyrannosaur; the speakers are unsure whether the prop was built and say the attempt did not look credible.
- Grant is reportedly modeled on technical adviser Horner; a stated two-hundred-fifty-million-dollar Spielberg payment is judged deserved. — Sean Fennessey
- The Lost World receives both harsh disappointment and a qualified defense as a fine, watchable film despite uneven performances.
- Dante is imagined making a cheaper, fast, fun version and Donner a lower-rent Spielberg-like version. — Sean Fennessey
- A Donner version jokingly gives the too-old-for-this line to Danny Glover as Arnold, or even to the dinosaur.
- The replacement screenwriter is discussed as a recurring Spielberg collaborator with a varied career.