In 1993, Steven Spielberg unveiled to the world an unprecedented cinematic spectacle: Jurassic Park. Thanks to the combination of innovative animatronics and CGI, this film not only brought dinosaurs back to the big screen in grand fashion, but also laid the foundations for the modern film industry when it comes to visual effects.
The Technical Revolution Behind Bringing Dinosaurs to Life
When Jurassic Park arrived in theaters, few could have imagined that a handful of minutes of computer-generated animation would forever change the visual language of cinema. Before this milestone, dinosaurs were depicted using techniques such as stop-motion, rear projection, scale models, and adapted costumes. However, Steven Spielberg entrusted an even greater challenge to Industrial Light & Magic: to transfer the skeletal test models used in films like The Abyss (1989) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) into a prehistoric world. Under the direction of Dennis Muren, ILM devised an entirely new workflow: first they built a digital skeleton for each creature, then they added musculature, and finally applied photorealistic skin and textures.
The result was so convincing that the traditional animators at Stan Winston Studio—experts in animatronics—had to reinvent themselves as digital animators. The makeup and sculpting team transferred their anatomical knowledge into software, accelerating the learning curve for new artists and setting a precedent: collaboration between hands-on craftsmen and programmers would drive the next generation of big-budget filmmaking. It’s very similar to what AI is now enabling in the creation of content and art for casino games, which is transforming the speed and iteration of these games thanks to the ease of generating new code.
A Lasting Impact on the Film Industry
Only six minutes of Jurassic Park were shot with CGI, but those brief sequences were enough to demonstrate the technology’s potential. The legendary T. rex attack sequence blends mechanical close-ups with full-body computer-generated shots, achieving a seamless and believable visual narrative: the rain, the tense sound design, and the creature’s interaction with its environment integrate naturally with the digital model, transporting the audience to Isla Nublar like never before.
The commercial success was overwhelming: the film shattered box office records and became the highest-grossing movie of its time, while also opening the door to countless productions featuring fantastical creatures. Over the following three decades, the practice of mixing studio shoots with digital environments and animated characters became standard; today, no major blockbuster is conceived without extensive digital post-production work, as it helps immersing the audience in the film.
Thus, Jurassic Park delivered the greatest dinosaur spectacle ever seen, but it also inaugurated the era in which cinema embraced the possibility of creating limitless worlds via computer. Thanks to that technological leap, modern audiences take for granted that the bounds of imagination can be rendered with realism and emotion on the big screen—and every new science-fiction or fantasy saga carries in its DNA the legacy of Spielberg and those ILM pioneers.
