The Lost World Trivia

This article includes The Lost World trivia from the second Jurassic Park film.

Pre-Production

• In The Lost World novel, Sarah Harding was originally an animal behaviourologist instead of a paleontologist. The person who Ian Malcolm went to save on Isla Sorna was actually a man called Richard Levine. He was completely removed from the story though some aspects of Sarah’s character are the same.
• Originally, there was going to be fifth member of his team. Dr. Juttson based on the Richard Levine character. His character was dropped as there was already enough characters in the group and his dialogue was given to Sarah Harding.
• In some early drafts of the script, Tim and Lex were going to be in the film for much longer than they were. Some scripts had them going back to Jurassic Park.
• In the original Jurassic Park novel, both John Hammond and Ian Malcolm died though Malcolm was brought back in The Lost World novel thanks to the fast work of the Costa Rican surgeons.
• In the scene where the S.S. Venture crashes into the dock and we find lots of dead crew members, there was a scene in the script where we see Velociraptors board the ship before it leaves Isla Sorna. The Tyranosaur escapes killing the rest of the crew members. This explains how some people were found dead in the cabin, where the T-Rex couldn’t possibly have gotten to them.
• The novel was named The Lost World but Universal thought people would confuse this with the Arthur Conan Doyle classic. They considered changing it to The Lost Island but then decided on appending Jurassic Park to the title so people would know that it’s a sequel.
• When David Koepp was writing The Lost World script, he had a fan letter next to his computer who had complained that he had waited too long for the dinosaurus to appear in the original Jurassic Park.
• David Koepp thought of the names Roland and Van Owen from a Warren Zevon song called “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner”.
• There were a few scenes in the script that borrowed from the original Jurassic Park novel including:
  • The Procompsognathus attacking the girl on the beach.
  • The characters hiding from a Tyrannosaur behind a waterfall.
  • Dieter Stark being killed by Procompsognathus  which echoed the same way Hammond was killed in the novel.
  • Roland Tembo tranquilizing the Tyrannosaur which Robert Muldoon did.
• In The Lost World novel, the other team on Isla Sorna is led by a character called Lewis Dodgson, who runs rival company BioSyn. They paid Dennis Nedry in the previous film to steal the dinosaur embryos. Dodgson hides from the Tyrannosaur under a Jeep with Sarah Harding, who then pushes him out to the T-Rex. The T-Rex then takes Dodgson to its nest to feed to its young. This is similar to what happened to Peter Ludlow in the film.
• Joe Johnston wanted to direct The Lost World but Spielberg desperately wanted to direct the sequel and promised if there was ever to be a third Jurassic Park film, Johnston could direct that. He stayed true to his word and Joe Johnston was the director of Jurassic Park 3.
• Storyboarding began 12 months before filming began.

Casting

• Directed Steven Spielberg went to a screening of Swingers so he could approve their use of the Jaws theme music. He was so impressed with Vince Vaughn that he offered him a part in The Lost World.
• Steven Spielberg approached Juliette Binoche about playing the role of Sarah Harding. She was offered the role of Ellie in Jurassic Park too which she declined. She apparently said that she would appear in the film only if she could “play the dinosaur”.
• The role of Arjay was offered to Art Malik but he declined as he thought the role was too small and the fee was too low.
• Steven Spielberg wanted to have Indian actor M.R. Gopakumar in The Lost World but due to his passport traveling issues, he had to decline the part.

Production

• Both Tyrannosaur models weighed 9 tons so the crew constructed sets around them, instead of moving them onto sets.
• The cliff side set was built onto the side of a parking building at Universal Studios, Hollywood.
• When Dieter Stark is first attacked by the Compsognathus, he starts yelling and throwing stones at them, then he mumbles parts of various swear words in Swedish. Steven Spielberg liked it and kept the take in the final cut.
• The baby Stegosaurus that Sarah Harding interacts with was nicknamed Claire on set.
• Fifty stunt performers were used in The Lost World compared to thirteen in the first movie.
• Originally, three Mercedes ML-320s were modified for the trip to Isla Sorna. The third SUV, built as a “mobile observatory,” can currently be found at the Mercedes-Benz museum in Stuttgart.
• Filming for The Lost World finished ahead of the 74 days schedule.

Post-Production

• At least five scenes were cut from the movie before it was released and some of them can be seen in the trailer:
  • Peter Ludlow talking to the InGen committee about their expenses.
  • Roland and Ajay talking in a bar.
  • The Tyrannosaurus tried to attack Kelly in the High Hide.
  • The Velociraptors and Tyrannosaurus fighting in the T-Rex’s nest.
  • The Pteranodons attacking the rescue helicopter.
• Steven Spielberg and composer John Williams wanted the film’s score needed to be slightly different to the one in Jurassic Park. They added drums and bongos because it was a remote island.

Box Office

•  The Lost World held the record for the biggest opening weekend ever for four and a half years until Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone .

Other

• When the Japanese tourists are running from the Tyrannosaurs in San Diego, they can be heard saying  “I left Japan to get away from this?!” in Japanese.
• There’s a cameo appearance from writer David Koepp who is the man at the video store who’s eaten by the T-Rex.
• The character of Robert Burke is based on paleontologist Robert Bakker who is friends with Jack Horner, also a paleontologist and advisor on the films. Horner believes that the T-Rex was a scavenger while Bakker believes it was a predator so Horner asked to have the character of Burke eaten by a T-Rex.
• When the Tyrannosaur is rampaging through San Diego, it bits a traffic light and you can see a street sign on the right that says “No Dinosaurs”.
• When the T-Rex is wondering through the neighbourhood in San Diego, he looks a basketball hoop and you can see he makes a dribbling motion with his right arm.
• Expensive strobe lights were installed in some cinemas when it was released which would light up the theatre when certain scenes appeared in the film. Unfortunately, there is no flashes in the movie so the lights couldn’t be used correctly. They ended up triggering them on the storm scenes which were cascaded.
• The five islands in Las Cinco Muertes are: Isla Matanceros, Isla Muerte, Isla Sorna, Isla Tacano, and Isla Pena.
• Ian Malcolm says that John Hammond went from “capitalist to naturalist in four years.” Richard Attenborough’s brother, David Attenborough, is a well known naturalist.
• There is around 50% more dinosaur action in this film than in the original Jurassic Park.
• The alpinist that Tembo refers to as the first man to climb the Mt. Everest without oxygen bottles is Reinhold Messner.
• A movie poster on the Blockbuster store appears to be Arnold Schwarzenegger as King Lear.
• Joseph Mazzello and Richard Attenborough had previously worked together on the 1993 film Shadowlands which Attenborough directed. Attenborough also directed Pete Postlethwaite in 2007’s Closing the Ring.
• The snake that crawls into Dr. Robert Burke’s shirt is a milk snake, which are harmless to humans.
• In the final scene of The Lost World showing the dinosaurs living in peace on the island, Pterosaurs can be seen. These creatures were considered for action scenes in both Jurassic Park and The Lost World and were eventually used in the Jurassic Park 3 aviary sequence.
• There are 13 on-screen deaths, 10 on the island and 3 in the city, the most out of all three films.