Inspiration
Originally penned by Michael Crichton and published in 1990, Jurassic Park began as a novel and later transformed into a gripping tale of a disastrous attempt to create a dinosaur-filled theme park through the power of cloning. Delving into the concept of cloning, the narrative echoes Crichton’s science fiction origins. Spielberg secured the movie rights before its publication, modifying the source material to intensify the cinematic experience while preserving its essence. The triumph of both the cinematic masterpiece and the literary work spawned a sequel, The Lost World, a title borrowed from (Sir) Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel of the same name. The Lost World is believed to have influenced Jurassic Park as both narratives revolve around dinosaurs. However, in (Sir) Doyle’s novel, the plot unfolds in South America, where the animals’ survival is through anquity. In contrast, Crichton’s version involves the revival of dinosaurs through cloning. Notably, Spielberg also transformed this sequel into a cinematic masterpiece.
Tim Haines, the creator of behind Walking With Dinosaurs, found his inspiration in Jurassic Park when conceiving a documentary centred around dinosaurs. This revelation came to him three years following the film’s premiere. The surge of public fascination with dinosaurs ignited by Jurassic Park served as the impetus. Tim Haines’ brainchild was a wildlife program devoted to prehistoric times, a realm where these magnificent animals roamed. While crafting Walking With Dinosaurs, the creators aimed for authenticity, diverging from Jurassic Park‘s portrayals. Their wellspring of inspiration extended to the 1925 version of (Sir) Doyle’s The Lost World‘s as well. To enrich their vision, they explored Crystal Palace Parks in London, renowned for their captivating albeit inaccurate displays of dinosaurs and prehistoric fauna dating back to the 1850s. Unlike Jurassic Park‘s exclusive focus, Walking With Dinosaurs also embraced the inclusion of contemporaneous reptiles, mammals, and birds, crafting a comprehensive prehistoric panorama.
Both Jurassic Park and Walking With Dinosaurs are produced and distributed by popular companies, the former by Universal Studios and the latter by BBC. However, Jurassic Park, produced by Universal Studios, is a full-length feature film without narration, while Walking With Dinosaurs, produced by BBC, is a six-part television series narrated by Kenneth Branagh. Samuel L. Jackson portrayed Ray ‘John’ Arnold in Jurassic Park, after Morgan Freeman declined the role. Similarly, David Attenborough declined narrating Walking With Dinosaurs and was replaced by Branagh.
In 1990, the publication of Jurassic Park marked the start of a journey that began with its immediate film rights. Steven Spielberg, captivated by the story, acquired these rights even before the book was published. This resulted in him visualizing the tale through storyboarding, while Michael Crichton, the book’s creator, was commissioned to craft a screenplay. Spielberg, well-acquainted with the wizardry of ILM, the team behind Star Wars, approached them for their expertise. A quartet of visionary minds emerged: Stan Winston, tasked with dinosaur design; Phil Tippet, who brought forth models as the foundation; Michael Lantieri, overseeing their lifelike actions; and Dennis Muren, the maestro behind the CGI dinosaurs. ILM’s test footage showcased a thrilling chase – a Tyrannosaurus pursuing Gallimimus – and this spectacle, along with dynamic raptor and other tyrannosaurus scenes, secured their place in the movie. Filming spanned from August to November 1992, followed by post-production in May 1993, culminating in the film’s eagerly awaited release. Spielberg’s absence during post-production was because of his commitment to directing Schindler’s List a cinematic masterpiece depicting German business Oskar Schindler’s valiant efforts to save persecuted Jews during the Nazi era.
Originating in 1996, the brainchild of Walking With Dinosaurs extended its reach over a span of three years. Spearheaded by Tim Haines, the venture saw him and Jasper James at its helm as the executive and primary producer respectively. While the initial consideration of ILM for VFX and CGI proved too costly, the reins were handed to Mike Milne from FrameStore. A tapestry of test footage featuring diverse dinosaurs like Cetiosaurus, Eustreptospondylus, Liopleurodon, and a pterosaur was unveiled. Notably, one of these prehistoric animals failed to secure a spot in the final iteration of the series. The year 1997 witnessed the commencement of filming, paving the way for post-production activities from 1998 to 1999. Finally, in the latter part of 1999, the series debuted.
Jurassic Park was primarily shot on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, along with extra filming at Universal Studios and nearby islands. Regarding Walking With Dinosaurs, it was filmed in various places including Chile, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Bahamas, and California, among others.
Palaeontological Help
Jack Horner, who served as the inspiration for the character Alan Grant in the book that inspired Jurassic Park (where the character was portrayed by Sam Neill in the movie), played a crucial role as a technical advisor during the making of the film. He guided the director and crew to emphasize the idea that dinosaurs are closer to birds than reptiles in reality.
In contrast, Walking With Dinosaurs had several palaeontologists, including Michael Benton, Thomas R. Holtz, Jr., Peter Dodson, Peter Larson, David Martill, and James Farlow, who acted as technical advisors for the show.
CGI and Special Effects
Both Jurassic Park and Walking With Dinosaurs became landmarks in visual effects by blending animatronics with computer‑generated imagery in ways that reshaped how prehistoric life could be portrayed on screen. No records exist of dinosaur movement, so both productions relied on scientific interpretation and modern animal study to construct plausible locomotion, posture, and weight distribution.
Each production began by preparing physical environments that digital animals would later inhabit: trees rigged to sway as bodies passed through, water surfaces designed for splashes, and props engineered to react to unseen performers. These practical interactions were then completed with digital animals, allowing the final shots to feel grounded in real space.
Close‑up moments in both works relied on puppetry and animatronics, while wide shots were handled through CGI. The two productions, however, approached their digital pipelines differently. Jurassic Park scanned its dinosaur maquettes after filming, integrating them into shots that had already been captured. Walking With Dinosaurs scanned its models at the outset, building the digital environment around them from the beginning.
In Jurassic Park, the effects teams developed full‑scale animatronic dinosaurs for scenes requiring physical presence, while digital artists created the large‑scale movements and full‑body action. Early tests using go‑motion puppetry were eventually replaced when CGI proved capable of delivering more convincing motion. The digital dinosaurs were built from laser‑scanned maquettes, animated through a combination of hand‑keyed techniques and motion‑input devices that allowed animators to manipulate wire‑frame models like stop‑motion puppets. The final results were integrated into live‑action plates through match‑moving, digital rotoscoping, and compositing techniques that added film grain, camera shake, and environmental effects so the dinosaurs appeared to have been captured in camera.
Walking With Dinosaurs followed a parallel but distinct path. Its animals also began as clay maquettes, which were scanned with high‑resolution laser systems and then animated frame by frame. To achieve convincing motion, the animation team studied living species to understand muscle behaviour, joint limits, and the rhythm of weight transfer. Elephants, giraffes, rhinos, ostriches, birds, and marine predators provided reference points for movement mechanics. Textures were created through informed scientific interpretation, sometimes adjusted so that fine details would read clearly on screen. The series required several hours of photoreal animation—an unprecedented volume at the time—and its rendering pipeline expanded to accommodate dozens of species.
Although CGI formed the backbone of the series, animatronics remained essential for close‑ups. Crawley Creatures built more than eighty models, often under tight deadlines, to provide tactile detail for heads, limbs, and bodies interacting with real environments. These practical elements were then composited with digital animation using high‑end systems that blended the two seamlessly.
Across both productions, the combination of physical craftsmanship and digital innovation created animals that felt weighty, present, and alive. Their shared techniques—scanning physical models, integrating practical interactions, refining digital motion, and blending CGI with animatronics—established a template for how prehistoric life could be convincingly reconstructed on screen.
Both Jurassic Park and Walking With Dinosaurs drew on modern animals to shape behavioural interpretation. With no direct record of dinosaur behaviour, the creators of Jurassic Park examined living species to inform herd dynamics, alert posture, and predatory presence, while the team behind Walking With Dinosaurs extended this approach into a more documentary‑style framework.
Large herbivores such as elephants and giraffes informed the portrayal of sauropod herd movement, alertness, and body posture. Birds provided guidance for the agility, awareness, and social signalling of smaller theropods. Walking With Dinosaurs also incorporated marine analogues, using the hunting strategies of orca whales to shape the portrayal of large ocean‑dwelling reptiles.
Unlike Jurassic Park, Walking With Dinosaurs avoided using human movement as a behavioural analogue, except when forming footprints on set using scaled toys to represent track impressions.
Through these comparisons, both productions grounded their portrayals of prehistoric life in observable natural behaviour, creating a sense of authenticity that complemented the technical achievements of their visual effects.
References and Parallels Between Jurassic Park and Walking With Dinosaurs
Although Jurassic Park and Walking With Dinosaurs differ in tone, format, and narrative purpose, the two productions share numerous points of connection in species selection, palaeontological influence, and visual storytelling. Some parallels arise from shared scientific sources, while others reflect structural echoes across both works.
1. The Jurassic–Cretaceous Irony
Despite its title, Jurassic Park features only two dinosaurs from the actual Jurassic period: Brachiosaurus and Dilophosaurus. Most of its animals — including Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptor, Gallimimus, Triceratops, and Parasaurolophus — are from the Late Cretaceous, aligning it more closely with the time periods depicted in Walking With Dinosaurs. This overlap naturally leads to several shared species.
2. Species Appearing in Both Franchises
A number of dinosaurs appear in both Jurassic Park (film or novel) and Walking With Dinosaurs:
- Brachiosaurus — a major presence in both works.
- Diplodocids — Jurassic Park uses Apatosaurus in the novel; Walking With Dinosaurs uses Diplodocus, a close relative.
- Stegosaurus — present in the Jurassic Park novel and sequel film; featured in Episode 2 of Walking With Dinosaurs.
- Allosaurus — mentioned in the Jurassic Park novel; a principal predator in Episode 2.
- Tyrannosaurus — central to both franchises.
- Triceratops — active but sick in Jurassic Park; shown as a dead animal in Episode 6 of Walking With Dinosaurs.
- Hadrosaurs — Jurassic Park features Gallimimus and hadrosaur references in the novel; Walking With Dinosaurs features Edmontosaurus.
- Dromaeosaurs — Jurassic Park uses Velociraptor; Walking With Dinosaurs uses Utahraptor and Deinonychus, all members of the same family.
3. Sauropod “Awe Reveal”
Both productions stage their first sauropod appearance as a moment of wonder:
- Jurassic Park: the iconic Brachiosaurus reveal.
- Walking With Dinosaurs: the Diplodocus herd emerging into view in Episode 2.
Both scenes use slow camera movement, a rising sense of scale, and a moment of stillness before the animals move — a shared cinematic grammar.
4. Predator–Herd Framing
Both works use similar visual language when depicting predators stalking herbivores:
- wide shots of grazing animals
- cutaways to a hidden predator
- tension built through silence
- a sudden burst of movement
This appears in the Gallimimus stampede in Jurassic Park and in the Allosaurus–Diplodocus and Tyrannosaurus–Edmontosaurus sequences in Walking With Dinosaurs.
5. Tyrannosaurus Hunting
While Edmontosaurus in Walking With Dinosaurs does not defend itself — hadrosaurs were not capable of meaningful defence — the Tyrannosaurus attacking Edmontosaurus in Episode 6 strongly echoes:
- the Tyrannosaurus attacking Gallimimus in the Jurassic Park film
- the Tyrannosaurus hunting hadrosaurs in the Jurassic Park novel
This is a scientifically grounded parallel, as tyrannosaurs likely preyed on hadrosaurs in real life.
6. Pack‑Hunting Raptors
Both productions portray dromaeosaurs as coordinated pack hunters:
- Jurassic Park: Velociraptor pack behaviour
- Walking With Dinosaurs: Utahraptor and Deinonychus hunting cooperatively
Both draw from 1990s palaeontological interpretations influenced by John Ostrom’s work on Deinonychus.
7. Nesting‑Ground Sequences
Both franchises include major narrative sequences built around predator nesting behaviour, though the species and tone differ:
- Jurassic Park (novel): the Velociraptor nesting ground, a key ecological and plot‑driving discovery.
- Walking With Dinosaurs: the Tyrannosaurus nesting ground in Episode 6, where the adult defends its young and asserts territorial dominance.
The parallel is thematic — both works highlight the reproductive behaviour of apex predators and the vulnerability of their young — while the execution reflects their differing styles: Jurassic Park uses the nesting ground as a narrative revelation, whereas Walking With Dinosaurs presents it as part of naturalistic life‑cycle behaviour.
8. Juveniles in Peril
Both productions use the motif of young dinosaurs in danger:
- Jurassic Park: juvenile dinosaurs threatened in both book and film
- Walking With Dinosaurs: juvenile Diplodocus, Torosaurus, and Edmontosaurus facing predators
This is a shared natural‑history storytelling device.
9. Apex Predator Interruption — With a Key Difference
Both works feature a moment in which the arrival of the Tyrannosaurus abruptly alters the behaviour of other animals, though the outcomes differ sharply:
- Jurassic Park: the T. rex intervenes directly in a raptor attack, resulting in a full battle.
- Walking With Dinosaurs: the T. rex confronts the Deinonychus in a tense standoff, warning them away from its nest rather than engaging in combat.
The similarity lies in the narrative function — the sudden dominance of the top predator — while the difference reflects the contrasting cinematic and documentary styles of the two works.
10. Visual Echo: The Fallen Triceratops
The dead Triceratops in Episode 6 of Walking With Dinosaurs is positioned similarly to the sick Triceratops in the Jurassic Park film — which itself replaced the ailing Stegosaurus from the novel.
No one knows what dinosaurs sounded like, so both Jurassic Park and Walking With Dinosaurs had to invent every vocalisation from modern animals. Their sound teams approached this challenge in different ways, shaped by the goals and identities of their respective productions.
In Jurassic Park, Gary Rydstrom and the team at Skywalker Sound created a cinematic soundscape built from layered recordings of living animals. The tyrannosaurus roar became one of the most recognisable elements of the film, constructed from baby elephant calls, lions, tigers, an alligator, and a whale. Velociraptors were voiced through a blend of dolphin screams, walrus bellows, and various bird calls, with additional hisses and shrieks drawn from geese and cranes. These combinations produced bold, expressive sounds designed to heighten tension and deliver dramatic impact.
Walking With Dinosaurs followed a different philosophy. The sound design was led by the BBC Natural History Unit, with Kate Hopkins and Tim Owens among the principal sound designers responsible for shaping the series’ audio identity. Their aim was documentary realism rather than cinematic spectacle. Instead of theatrical roars, they crafted voices that felt as though they had been recorded in the field alongside living animals.
To avoid echoing the sound palette of Jurassic Park, the BBC team drew from a different range of wildlife recordings. The tyrannosaurus vocalisations were built from bear roars, large‑mammal bellows with bison‑like resonance, and processed bird calls, creating a harsher, more grounded tone. Raptors relied heavily on avian sounds—crane‑like calls, eagle‑like screeches, and other bird‑based elements—reflecting the series’ emphasis on evolutionary links between theropods and modern birds. Marine reptiles were shaped from whale‑like and seal‑like recordings, while pterosaurs used bird calls that were stretched, layered, or pitch‑shifted to produce unfamiliar but biologically plausible voices.
The contrast between the two productions is clear. Jurassic Park crafted heightened, expressive voices suited to a cinematic adventure, while Walking With Dinosaurs pursued a naturalistic soundscape rooted in wildlife‑documentary tradition. Both approaches were shaped by the same absence of evidence, yet each interpreted that absence through a different creative lens, resulting in two distinct auditory visions of prehistoric life.
Music
Music played a defining role in shaping the emotional identity of both Jurassic Park and Walking With Dinosaurs, and the contrast between their scores reflects the differing ambitions of the two productions.
For Jurassic Park, the score was composed by John Williams, a long‑time collaborator of Steven Spielberg. Williams began work in late February 1993, writing themes designed to evoke awe, grandeur, and the sense of reverence a child may feel when standing before a towering dinosaur skeleton in a museum. He created three central themes, each with multiple variations. The first, associated with the herbivorous dinosaurs, carried what Williams described as an almost “religious” quality. The second was an adventurous, unpredictable theme that captured the park’s blend of wonder and danger. The third, built around a four‑note motif, was linked to the tyrannosaurus and the velociraptors, though Spielberg chose not to use it in two major tyrannosaurus—the breakout, which features no music to heighten tension, and the finale, where the adventure theme reframes the tyrannosaurus as a heroic force rather than a threat thanks to inadvertently saving the protagonists from two raptors.
The orchestrations were prepared by Alexander Courage and John Neufeld, and the main recording session took place on March 30, 1993. For the first time in their collaboration, Spielberg was not present at the recording, as he was in Poland filming Schindler’s List. Before leaving, he listened to Williams play the themes on piano, and during production he received the completed score on audio cassettes rather than attending the sessions in person. The soundtrack was released on May 25, 1993, and quickly became one of the most recognisable film scores of the decade.
Walking With Dinosaurs took a different musical approach. Its score was composed by Ben Bartlett, who at the time was working with the BBC and had recently produced themes for BBC Radio 3. Bartlett was invited by Tim Haines and Jasper James, who wanted a musical identity that matched the series’ documentary tone. Unlike Spielberg’s absence from the Jurassic Park recording sessions, Haines and James were physically present with Bartlett, watching unscored episodes together, discussing the emotional direction of each sequence, and shaping the placement and character of the music in real time.
Bartlett wrote distinct leitmotifs for each episode, creating what he described as a “different sound world” for each setting. The first episode was shaped by heat, tension, and predation; the second by pastoral calm and forest symbiosis; and later episodes by their own climates, landscapes, and narrative moods. Because the computer graphics often lagged behind schedule, Bartlett sometimes had to compose music for scenes that were not yet finished, relying on animatics or partial renders while discussing intentions directly with the directors.
The score was recorded at Angel Recording Studios in Islington, with four sessions spread across the early months of 1999. The BBC Concert Orchestra performed the music, and Bartlett later described the project as the largest orchestral undertaking of his career at that time. The BBC was impressed early in the process and requested additional tracks for a commercial soundtrack album released by BBC Records.
Together, the scores of Jurassic Park and Walking With Dinosaurs demonstrate two distinct musical philosophies: one grand, cinematic, and sweeping, shaped in part at a distance from its director; the other atmospheric, episodic, and developed in close, in‑person collaboration between composer and directors.
Release
Jurassic Park first debuted on June 11, 1993, receiving enthusiastic reviews and drawing massive audiences. The film sparked a renewed fascination with ancient history, especially the captivating world of dinosaurs. This resurgence of interest was similarly seen in Walking With Dinosaurs, a television series that aired from October 4, 1999, until November 8 of the same year.
Jurassic Park won three academy awards in the categories of Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, and Best Visual Effects. It achieved the same feat at the BAFTA awards, securing victory in those three categories. Similarly, Walking With Dinosaurs clinched two BAFTA awards and two Emmy Awards, mirroring Jurassic Park‘s Oscar count. Nonetheless, Walking With Dinosaurs stands apart by also earning an Emmy award for its remarkable score.