We are back with another episode of Beyond
the Gates. Welcome to Jurassic June.
We are celebrating Jurassic Park's 30th
anniversary in a number of exciting ways.
There is a ton happening this month, so be
sure to follow Jurassic World on socials for
all the latest updates.
Today on the show, we are taking a look at
the towering Hammond collection
Brachiosaurus, which is exclusive to Target.
The legendary nine time Academy Award
winner, Dennis Muren has joined us to tell
us about how they brought this iconic
dinosaur to life in the original film.
Plus, we are once again joined by Greg
Murphy of Mattel to tell us how this toy
came to be. We just knew that for the 30th
anniversary of Jurassic Park, we had to do
something that was really big and really
special. And of course, there's no bigger
and more special dinosaur than the first
dinosaur you meet in Jurassic Park.
So this is the Hammond collection.
Brachiosaurus. This is the biggest Hammond
collection figure we've ever done, and it's
the most awesome recreation of that Jurassic
Park one brachiosaurus ever created.
The Hammond collection Brachiosaurus has 18
points of discrete articulation as well as
three pivot points in the neck for lifelike
movement. We really wanted to make sure that
could recreate that iconic pose from the
opening of Jurassic Park, where it rears up
and it reaches those tall branches on its
hind legs. This, of course, presents a bit
of a problem when you have a giant scale
figure like this. A lot of time and energy
went into making sure that those leg joints
would hold the weight of the dinosaur, as
well as getting the tail length and angle of
rotation just right so that the dinosaur can
rear up. Just like in the film, we went with
a soft, real feel plastic neck instead of a
segmented neck to preserve that screen
accurate look and give collectors something
that would display perfectly on their
shelves. Inside the neck, there are three
separate modules.
The ball joint articulation.
At first these had a little bit of a long
stem on the joint, but this was creating a
pinching effect with the neck, which didn't
look very natural. So we went back and we
re-engineered these to be more solid blocks,
almost like vertebra providing structure and
also allowing a range of motion under the
soft plastic.
We went to a local animal park and looked at
the rhinos, the hippos, giraffes.
You know, there's a lot of giraffe in that.
Do you think we could think of to to look
and see how the light reflected off of it,
what the texture was like on it, so that
when you saw it in the film, you felt you
could reach out and touch it.
And we really wanted, you know, to do a
little work, you know, to really hopefully
have not been done before and nobody had
ever seen before. The leap to CG put a lot
more stuff in our control.
And to the point I can look at a rough
version of the lighting and the form of the
body and the brachiosaurus look kind of
flat, which represented the lighting When we
were actually in Hawaii shooting it, I had a
model I held up there.
So when we got into the computer graphics
dinosaur, I cheated the light back, so the
light wrapped around with the top, but the
bottom belly was dark.
So now it had depth, you know, and you can
then feel the mass of the character.
I love that scene that that image is so
romanticized and just and it evokes what
must be going on out there that you can't
see, that you just want to see.
But how many movies relish the idea of
discovering beauty and nature and, you know,
the past to scale, you know, things you've
never seen before? I'm really surprised and
I'm very honored that the work seems to hold
up after 30 years. You know, we put a lot of
time into that. And then the performances of
them, I mean, they're aggressive when you
want to be aggressive and they're
wonderfully passive and reminding you of
sort of your pet dog or whatever it is.
At other times, there's a lot of connection.
You know, you're not just looking, you're
feeling stuff as an audience member.
And a lot of films don't put those into the
movie. Steven is such an expert film maker.
You know, he just really kept the whole
thing, you know, in tone to your heart,
either your heart or your muscles to run
away. One of those two are always working.
We went back to the original on screen model
from ILM to capture as much fine detail in
the skin and the musculature as possible.
And for the all new head sculpt.
We went back to the Stan Winston
animatronic, which is so lifelike and so
convincing, and we wanted to capture that
same essence in this figure, including all
that fine detail and the glass eyes to
really bring it to life.
In the film, this dinosaur has a
surprisingly complex color scheme with a lot
of subtle hues and shifts and textures.
We wanted to recreate that as accurately as
possible, and so we used a variety of deco
techniques, including wipe Deco, to really
pop out all of the skin texture details and
spray applications for more natural fades
across different parts of the dinosaur.
This was kind of a holy grail item for us.
It was a dinosaur we never thought we'd
actually get to do in the Hammond
collection. But the 30th anniversary of
Jurassic Park provided the perfect
opportunity for us to get the go ahead and
actually make this figure happen.
And we are so excited about how it turned
out. It is truly a great time to be a fan of
Jurassic Park. Bring home this towering
titan by pre-ordering now only at
Target.com. Those who pre-order will also
receive a very special Brachiosaurus art
card as presented by Mr.
DNA inserted inside of the box.
So don't miss out.