MORE TERRIFYING THAN A T-REX?
Why is there a giant, hairy-chested statue obscuring tourists’ view of Tower Bridge?
Visitors to London were no doubt a bit puzzled this week by the sudden appearance of a giant statue of an open-shirted, hairy-chested man reclining on a lawn close to Tower Bridge. There was, however, a simple explanation. The 150kg statue, 3m tall and 7.6m long, was an effigy of actor Jeff Goldblum, recreating a scene from the original Jurassic Park film, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. The pop-up statue, in Potters Fields Park on the banks of the River Thames, was nicknamed “Jurassic Jeff” and “Tyrannasaurus Pecs”. It was placed there as a publicity stunt by TV channel Sky and was scheduled to be removed this week.
Goldblum played scientist Dr Ian Malcolm in Steven Spielberg’s original dinosaur thriller. The statue references a scene in which he appears — looking inexplicably laid-back — with his shirt unbuttoned following an attack by a T-Rex.
As the film gained cult status over the years, that particular image has done the rounds on the internet as a meme with amusing captions such as “My pick-up line is chaos theory.”
Jurassic World: The Fallen Kingdom, the latest installment in the movie franchise, is currently showing in cinemas.