Credit: Universal PicturesMovie mistakes and continuity errors have long been part of what fans enjoy unpacking in blockbuster films. In the Jurassic Park franchise, some of the most debated bloopers involve the appearance of cameramen, and, more notably, set designs that make zero sense.
Among these, one question has persisted for more than three decades: what exactly is going on with the T. rex paddock in the original 1993 film?
In the film, the Tyrannosaurus Rex escapes its enclosure after the park’s power fails. Early in the sequence, the ground behind the paddock fence is completely level with the road, allowing the T. rex to seamlessly lumber toward where the tour vehicles have broken down.
But moments later, after the rex overturns the jeep carrying Lex (Ariana Richards) and Tim Murphy (Joe Mazzello), it’s revealed that there’s suddenly an incredibly deep concrete moat separating the enclosure from the road — a change that has left fans puzzled for decades.
After the initial attack, Lex and Tim’s jeep is pushed over the edge of the moat by the dinosaur. It falls far, landing in a tall tree at the bottom, while Lex and Alan Grant (Sam Neill) abseil down the smooth concrete wall, at the top of which the rex looks down at them.
Related: ‘Jurassic World Rebirth’ Finally Solves 24-Year-Old Franchise Mystery
Naturally, fans have offered a range of explanations. Some point to elements in Michael Crichton’s novel, where paddocks are indeed separated from the road by a concrete moat.
In the film itself, InGen lawyer Donald Gennaro (Martin Ferrero) mentions “the concrete moats” when talking about the park’s defenses with John Hammond (Richard Attenborough).
An official storyboard from the film’s Dinosaur Supervisor Phil Tippet that has also since been released, which details the paddock’s geography and reveals that the rex has to walk up a steep incline to eat the goat, adding that the reason this feeding zone is ground-level with the road is so that guests can see the dinosaur, while also minimizing its time near the fence.
Still, none of this so-called “evidence” helps to actually decipher the scene.
Fans have taken matters into their own hands by reconstructing the area in park builder video games such as “Jurassic World Evolution 3” and fan mods.
These efforts often position the paddock and adjacent terrain in ways that attempt to reconcile the differences between the rex’s initial escape point and the subsequent drop, suggesting an off-screen movement of the vehicle from the ground-level part of the enclosure to the sheer drop. Watch a video below from Jurassic Park YouTube creator Krenautican:
But despite decades of speculation, the simplest explanation is the most obvious.
While the most logical answer is that there is indeed a moat and that the vertical drop is just further up the road, suggesting that the rex pushes the jeep off screen, bringing it adjacent with the drop, the film ultimately fails to make this clear. But there is an official answer.
According to published production materials (reported on Wikipedia’s film page and tied to the Jurassic Park Official Script Book/behind-the-scenes sources), screenwriter David Koepp asked Steven Spielberg about the sudden appearance of the cliff in the T. rex paddock while on the set of the original 1993 film, saying, “Don’t you think people are going to notice that suddenly there’s this cliff?”
But the director simply replied: “There’s a T. rex! They’re not gonna notice anything else!”
So, the mystery of the T. rex paddock has no in-world answer within the movie itself. Spielberg chose spectacle over logic, and we remain eternally grateful, as the terrifying dinosaur attack sequence in question is one of the most iconic moments in cinema history.
With all that said, the upcoming first-person action-adventure video game “Jurassic Park: Survival”, which has “a fully realized Isla Nublar” to explore and is set just 24 hours after the 1993 film, may allow fans to go and visit the T. rex enclosure themselves and find out what’s going on — provided Saber Interactive have managed to make sense of it all, of course.
Does Spielberg’s answer leave you feeling satisfied, or do you think there’s a better explanation behind this Jurassic Park blooper? Let us know in the comments!