Jurassic Park Film Goofs

Scene 1: Jungle

 * When the worker is knocked off the crate you can see a hand reaching up to break his fall in the right hand corner of the screen.

Scene 5: The dig

 * When Ellie puts a bandana around Dr. Grant's neck, they appear at the camper and it's gone. (Although if you watch Dr. Grant as he walks down he makes a motion indicating he may be removing the bandana.)
 * When Dr.Grant walks into the camper he opens the door on the right side but when you see him in the camper the door is opened on the left.
 * When Dr. Grant is talking to the little boy about Velociraptor, he states that the six-inch long claw is on the middle toe. It is shown very clearly in the kitchen scene that this is not the case.

Scene 9: Base camp

 * As Alan Grant opens the door of the trailer, the hinges are on the right of the door. But in the next scene, (filmed from the inside) the hinges are still on the right side of the door.

Scene 10: Trailer

 * When Hammond says they'll fund for their dig and site, Grant has dust on his forehead, then it disappears!

Scene 11: Café

 * When it says San Jose, Costa Rica, you can see what appears to be a beach behind Nedry, but San Jose is practically right in the middle of Costa Rica, not near any ocean at all.
 * When Nedry had the $750,000 in a briefcase, it suddenly disappears.
 * When Nedry dropped the briefcase, he twice started wiping his hands with a napkin he never picked up.
 * When Dennis Nedry meets Dodgson at the outdoor cafe, Nedry holds the luggage with him, and as Dodgson gives him the Barbasol, it then mysteriously disappears out of his hands. But maybe he just put it under the table.
 * When Nedry puts down the Barbosol then next a tissue appears mytrieriously in his hand.

Scene 13: Open sea

 * For the first few frames, some part of the camera copter is visible in the upper left portion of the image.

Scene 14: Helicopter

 * In this scene, when Hammond spots the island out the window, it appears as though he's looking the wrong way. He peers out the right side of the chopper, a little toward the rear, when the island would have been directly behind him. He really would be peering down the coastline to the helicopter's right, it may have curved out far enough for him to see.

Scene 14a: Helicopter landing pad

 * Watch the helicopter land. From above, it hits the pad well behind center. But, soon after, the chopper is right on center before the park attendant moons the camera and everyone jumps out.
 * Hammond, getting out first on the right side, has switched from left to right and Grant and Sattler have switched from right to left, as well as front to back.

Scene 15: Hilltop
This line is not incorrect, just unclear. When he refers to "they," it sounds like he means the investors. After all, we usually use a pronoun after introducing the subject. And that doesn't make sense. But the script makes clear that after he says "they" he gestures to Grant, Ellie, and Malcolm. If these scientists are not convinced, he is not convinced.
 * Though the vehicles are seen to be parked and backed up as far as can be, the drivers still manage to throw them in reverse and pull up for wing-to-wheel service.
 * As Gennaro and Hammond ride together in the rear Jeep, Gennaro says the following: "This is not a weekend excursion. This is a serious investigation of the stability of the island. Your investors, whom I represent, are deeply concerned. Forty-eight hours from now, if they're not convinced, I'm not convinced."
 * Sattler, a paleobotanist (that's a person who studies extinct plants), has grabbed a leaf from a plant while riding in the Jeep and proclaims that this Vermiform plant shouldn't be alive today. Strangely InGen has also recreated extinct plants. This is not a goof, because traces of prehistoric plant DNA can also be found in amber, as male mosquitoes feed on plant juices. It is only female mosquitoes who feed on animal blood.
 * When the Brachiosaurus appear the script says: "- - a dinosaur. Chewing the branches. Technically, it's a brachiosaur, of the sauropod family, but we've always called it Brontosaurus." This is incorrect; Brontosaurus is the junior synonym of Apatosaurus (the main sauropod in the novel), not of the Brachiosaurus.
 * Startled by the news that Hammond has a T. rex, Grant becomes woozy. But immediately after that, he went from a position directly in Hammond's face to one-three feet to the left.

Scene 22: In the film

 * The mosquito that is used throughout the movie (in John Hammond's cane, in the amber that the DNA is extracted from, landing on a tree in that tour video, etc.) was actually a Crane Fly, not a mosquito. They only look similar.

Scene 27: Hallway
One explanation is that the safeties probably switched off after the front row was forced open.
 * Hammond cordially grants his guests a ride in a 'ride'. The three scientists, too impatient to wait for their field trip, band together to release themselves from the hydraulic, computer-operated safety rails with all their strength. It makes you think it's hard to do such a thing, however Hammond can do it with one hand.

Another would be that Hammond, as you can see before the 'ride' commences, is holding a remote that begins the 'ride' and levers the safety rail.

Scene 28: Hallway/stairs
However in The Lost World, Isla Nublar (the main island in Jurassic Park) is explained to be just the show room for the tourists, and not the actual hatching ground. This would make the lab just for show and therefore it doesn't matter if rubber shavings are brushed to the floor, as well as letting the group enter without the necessary clothing.
 * Hammond, Gennaro, Grant, Sattler, and Malcolm enter the lab, where they meet Dr. Wu. Now, here they are in what could probably be called a “clean room.” Present are powerful computers, sterile laboratory equipment, and hatching dino eggs. This is a relatively sensitive environment. Every employee is wearing white and dons rubber gloves before touching anything. Yet, without a second thought, Wu erases a mistake on his clipboard and casually brushes the shavings onto the floor. It is also unlikely they would let the group enter without lab coats.


 * When the Raptor egg begins to hatch, the robotic arm grabs it to hold it steady. Keep an eye on it. It disappears entirely and never comes back. The scene cuts from a shot over Grant's left shoulder to a shot over Hammond's right shoulder and that's when it's gone. Also when the crane disappears the raptor's egg is cracked good, then the egg heals itself a little.

Scene 29: Raptor Pen

 * When Robert Muldoon arrives at the Raptor Pen and he makes it up the stairs and begins talking to Grant, we can see that someone has rolled out the red carpet for him.
 * After the cow is lowered into the pen and the raptors attack and eat the cow, the harness is clean of any blood, despite the violence of the scene

Scene 30: Visitor Center Presentation Room

 * As everyone sits down to a lovely meal, they engage in a heated debate. Keep an eye on everyone's hands. They keep switching positions from cut to cut. It's the responsibility of an actor to repeat your motions exactly from take to take.

Scene 31: Visitor's Center

 * Everyone is deciding which car to ride in for the tour as Malcolm waits quietly outside Sattler's passenger-side door. However, just after Lex says to Grant, "She said I should ride with you 'cause it'd be good for you," Malcolm has swiftly disappeared.

Scene 36: Tyrannosaur Paddock

 * A section of fence is missing from the Tyrannosaur paddock when the tour first approaches it.
 * When the tour vehicles reach the T. rex paddock during the tour; the windshields of the vehicles have rain on them. Several times during the scene the windshields will be bone dry and then switch to wet again.
 * The Tyrannosaur Paddock is shown to be the second stop on the tour, but judging from the park map, Baryonyx should have been second. This may not actually be a goof, as the team may have stopped at the Baryonyx paddock on the way, but it was not shown. However, the fact that John Hammond sums up the tour as being "Two no shows and one sick Triceratops" instead of "Three no shows and one sick Triceratops" or "Two no shows, a Baryonyx, and a sick Triceratops" suggests otherwise. Also, it can be assumed that the group would still be discussing it, as the sighting of their first dinosaur would have been a fairly exciting experience, unless, of course, the animals were hiding deeper within the enclosure and remained hidden like the other dinosaurs.

Scene 38: Park

 * When Ellie gets out of the car to chase after Grant, you hear two car doors close. You can also see them close at the far edge of the screen. Of course, you will need the widescreen version and a TV which doesn't cut off too much of the edge to see it. (And even if you don't, you can see the reflection of the antenna in the windshield swing back into place, and it was attached to the driver's door.) So, obviously someone closed them, but who? This is not necessarily a goof, even if no one actually shut them manually, both doors probably swung closed on their own due to the movement of the Explorer.

Scene 40: Park

 * Tim has read the book of Robert Bakker and says: So like I was saying, there's this other book by a guy named Bakker? He definitely didn't say they turned into birds. But Dr. Bakker definitely endorses the theory that dinosaurs evolved into birds; he was the one who proposed to put the dinosaurs and birds into one clade.

Scene 41: Across the room

 * Nedry is supposedly having a live conversation on his computer screen to a guy at the dock, the Mate. Glance down to the bottom of that video window. Plain as day, you can see a little progress bar sliding along there, indicating the playback of a recorded video file.

Scene 49: Fertilization Lab

 * When Dennis Nedry is stealing the dinosaur embryos from the containment tube, the dinosaur Stegosaurus is misspelled as "Stegasaurus". The dinosaur Tyrannosaurus is misspelled too, as "Tyranosaurus".


 * In San José, Dodgson informs Nedry that he will receive a total of "One-point-five million dollars if [he] gets all 15 species off the island." If one takes a closer look at that test tube receptacle it can be seen that there's room for only 10, maybe 11 vials.


 * Nedry grabs 2 tubes, then a close-up on numbers 3 and 4. There should still be room for about 6, if you want to argue that there were no jump cuts. (Short periods of action cut out to increase the feeling of haste) Regardless, you can see at this point the storage unit has only 1 slot left. Even so, he still manages to fit in 4 more vials

Scene 54: Nedry's "Escape"

 * The sign that's pointing to the dock changes direction.
 * If you listen closely, when Nedry falls down the waterfall, you can hear a prop falling as well, but is not shown.
 * There is no clear explanation as to how the dilophosaur got inside Nedry's Jeep, since he shut the door upon re-entering it, But as shown in Jurassic Park: The Game, there are more than one Dilophosaur, So it's possible that while Nedry was being encountered by the first "Dilo" The second one, being curious, hopped in the jeep before Nedry came back up the hill, being an unseen explanation. One thing about the explanation is that as shown in the Game, there were more than two so where were the rest?

Scene 58-68: T-Rex Paddock

 * How did the cars, which already passed the T-Rex Paddock, get back to the paddock in the same direction with no reverser or turntable? This paddock is a large one, however, so could be passed more than once on the tour.
 * When the T-Rex is beside Malcolm and Grant's windshield, the door on the other car that Gennaro opened is closed; but when the Rex appears beside the car, the door is open again.
 * When the T-Rex attacks Lex and Tim, the glass of the roof is broken and repaired several times with no explanation.
 * What's the point of having bathrooms near a ride that is supposed to have "locking mechanisms"? One explanation is that they are for InGen employees.
 * During the T-Rex attack, T-Rex flips the Jeep. If you freeze frame, you can see safety wires on the Jeep. You can also see a potted plant and a set light.
 * The T-Rex is continually shown dry and wet again.(Though this is explained because when the anamatronic gets wet, it starts to absorb water, causing malfunctions)
 * Genarro opens the car's left door to run from the T. rex. Later the door is shown to be closed. Somehow it opened again and Tim closed it again.

Arnold attempting to turn on power

 * While Arnold is trying to gain entry into Nedry's system, he mutters to himself, "Access main program. Access main security. Access main program grid." Meanwhile, as the screen attests, he's typing security stuff only. (Not even the same thing he said)

Scene 70-71

 * The T-Rex's exhibit was clearly at ground level. Where did that cliff come from if the cars didn't move from the point at which they were stopped? (a possible explanation for the geography of these scenes is given on this page.)
 * When the vehicle is tumbling down the tree, its headlight appears damaged in some shots and fixed in others.
 * How was it that the toilet was so easily knocked off its position without any visible pipes or water gushing out? (unless the toilet functioned like a porta-potty).

Muldoon and Ellie to the Rescue!

 * How did Ellie and Muldoon manage to get to the bottom of the cliff in only one step and in the previous scene the cliff seemed really deep.
 * How did the jeep appear at the top when Malcolm first felt the tremors then suddenly was at the bottom?
 * Surely the T-Rex could have grabbed Malcolm during the chase; he was that close to her.
 * During the chase, you can see a car's headlight in the side mirror.
 * In one scene, Ellie is screaming, then the t-rex roars again, and then shows the car for half a second, and if you look close enough, Ellie's expression is calm. This view is from the side and she might have been shocked.
 * At the end of the chase when the T-rex gives up, you can see a light in between the trees if you pause it at the right time.
 * When Malcolm says Do you think they will have that on the tour? you can tell the background behind him is a fake.

Dining Room

 * Why are the fans running if all the power is out?
 * How was Ellie able to reach the Ice Cream if it was halfway across the long table?

Turning off the Power

 * Arnold was turning off all the power so he can then turn it all back on. Then why didn't he turn on breakers C-1, C-2 and C-3? This is explained when a deleted scene reveals that he did, but the scene was cut for unknown reasons.

The T-Rex Attacks...again

 * When the T-Rex comes in for the galimimus, shouldn't the group have felt its footsteps like in the rest of the movie? Although the group was in the middle of a herd of stampeding Galimimus so the herd masked the sound and vibration of the foot steps.

The Plan

 * John Hammond mentions that Disneyland was opened in 1956. However, Disneyland opened in 1955 (He may have been guessing; he had probably forgotten the actual date, he is, after all, an old man)

Run for it!
Movie suspence
 * When Ellie is running to the emergency bunker, look closely: she jumps the same fallen tree 3 times!

Power returning

 * 10,000 volts of electricity should have killed Tim. Maybe not because volts push you away and Tim was letting go anyway. (Note: ranch electrified fences are 10K volts, but current is only periodically sent through the wire.)
 * Tim flew off the wall backwards, but lands sideways in Dr. Grants arm's with Dr. Grant facing the fence.

Ellie flees the raptor

 * Ellie clearly has a lamp tied around her left ankle while she is running. Then, once she closes the door, it's gone!
 * Her orange shirt also mysteriously vanishes.
 * Why was she telling Dr. Grant to run, then all of a sudden is tear-stricken with joy?

Kitchen Scene

 * Look very closely when the raptor opens the door: a studio man's hand is seen grasping it's tail so the animatronic raptor won't fall over!
 * Tim is magically healed from the electric shock without any real medical attention.

Control Room Attack Scene

 * How did Alan not hear the raptor walking down those metal steps which carry a minor echo?
 * When the Velociraptor is breathing on the glass, it is extremely evident that the snort's effect came from below, not from the nostrils of the beast.
 * When Lex discovers the computer is a Unix system, some people have noted that Nedry earlier was using another program. However it is possible they were two different programs for different things.
 * How come Tim didn't grab the gun to give to Grant or Ellie instead of holding his hands over is head and jumping up and down or when he is telling Lex to "Hurry up!"? Even so, Grant or Elie didn't even think of yelling at Tim to get the gun for them.
 * When the group is escaping, the desks in the office disappear.
 * When the power comes on locking the Velociraptor out, the lock doesn't go in the holder.

T. rex Rescue Scene

 * Ellie Sattler's stunt double's face is clearly seen when the bones fall on top of her.
 * How did the T. rex enter the Visitor Center without making a single sound or making any damage to the building because wouldn't a T. rex that big destroy the entire building. However if you look closely behind the rex after it grabs the raptor you will see an entrance that the rex easily got through. Yes, the buliding is still under construction (see this page for more details).
 * When T. rex is eating the first raptor, apparently if you go frame-by-frame, the raptor disappears from the mouth, then reappears! A CGI mistake, but is relatively unseen.
 * How is it that the team didn't notice the T. rex until it grabbed the raptor? In the scene where the dinosaur first breaks out, they are able to hear its footsteps from at least half a kilometre away and yet they can't sense when it's standing right next to them? They probally saw the T-Rex and waited until it grabbed the raptor.

Departure Scene

 * It has been noted that the helicopter is supposed to be heading to Costa Rica. The helicopter is flying towards the sunset. If it was dusk (sun sets in the west), they are going the wrong way. However, if it was still morning (like in the novel and Jurassic Park: The Game) they were going the right way. See here for further discussion of this issue.