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1. Who directed Jurassic Park?
Steven Spielberg
Spielberg shot it and went straight on to Schindler's List, approving the dinosaur effects at night from Poland. Joe Johnston directed the third film.
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2. The novel it's based on was written by...
Michael Crichton
Crichton published it in 1990, and the film rights were sold before the book came out, after a bidding war among several studios. He also co-wrote the screenplay and, the following year, created ER.
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3. Where do the scientists get the dinosaur DNA?
From mosquitoes preserved in amber
The mosquito bit a dinosaur, got stuck in tree sap, and the sap hardened into amber. Mr. DNA explains it all in the cartoon, and the gaps in the code are filled with frog DNA, which turns out to matter.
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4. Who plays John Hammond, the park's owner?
Richard Attenborough
Attenborough hadn't acted in fourteen years, having spent them directing films such as Gandhi. In the book Hammond is a far nastier man; Spielberg turned him into a dreamer.
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5. What's Ian Malcolm's field of study?
Chaos theory
Jeff Goldblum's Malcolm demonstrates it with a drop of water on Ellie's hand and spends the tour predicting disaster. Palaeobotany is Ellie's field.
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6. Which dinosaur attacks the tour cars in the rain?
The Tyrannosaurus rex
The animatronic rex weighed about nine tons, and the rain soaked into its skin and made it shake, so the crew dried it between takes. The ripples in the water cup were made by plucking a guitar string under the dashboard.
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7. What does Dennis Nedry smuggle the embryos in?
A shaving cream can
A Barbasol can with a false bottom, handed to him by Dodgson at the start. He loses it in the mud, and it's still buried there when the film ends.
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8. Which dinosaur kills Nedry?
The Dilophosaurus
It's small, it chirps, it unfurls a frill and it spits venom, none of which the real animal is known to have done. The film shrank it and added the frill so audiences wouldn't confuse it with the raptors.
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9. Which dinosaurs stalk the children in the kitchen?
Velociraptors
Two of them, played by men in suits for the close shots and by puppets for the rest. The real Velociraptor was the size of a turkey; the film's were modelled on the larger Deinonychus, and then Utahraptor was discovered during production, which let everyone off the hook.
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10. Who composed the score?
John Williams
Williams wrote the soaring theme for the first sight of the Brachiosaurus and a darker march for the island. He and Spielberg have worked together since The Sugarland Express in 1974.
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11. Who plays the game warden Muldoon, the one man who respects the raptors?
Bob Peck
Peck was an English stage actor, and his 'Clever girl' became one of the film's best-known lines. Wayne Knight is Nedry, Samuel L. Jackson is Arnold, the chain-smoking engineer, and Martin Ferrero is the lawyer.
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12. Where was most of the island footage shot?
Kauai, Hawaii
Hurricane Iniki hit the island during the last week of filming and the crew sheltered in a hotel ballroom. Some of the storm footage made it into the film.
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13. How many Academy Awards did the film win?
Three
Visual Effects, Sound and Sound Effects Editing, all three it was nominated for. The same night, Spielberg's Schindler's List took Best Picture and Best Director.
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14. Which line does Hammond keep repeating about his park?
"Spared no expense."
He says it about the ice cream, the computers and the dinosaurs themselves, usually just before something fails. The other three belong to Malcolm, Arnold and Muldoon.
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15. What's the island called?
Isla Nublar
It lies about a hundred and twenty miles off the coast of Costa Rica, leased from the government. Isla Sorna, 'Site B', is where the second film goes.
