FAMILY FUN: “Jurassic World Live” comes roaring into town.
Spectacle of “Jurassic World Live” extends movie storyline
John Hammond’s dream is finally a reality. The eccentric millionaire of “Jurassic Park ” endeavored to bring dinosaurs back from extinction. But where both his Ingen Corp. and the Masrani Global Corp. of “Jurassic World” couldn’t safely bring prehistory to life for visitors to Isla Nublar, the real-world Feld Entertainment is bringing life-size dinos and Isla Nublar to the Times Union Center for four days and seven performances of “Jurassic World Live.”
How did Feld succeed where its fictional predecessors have failed?
Well, in the words of Dr. Ian Malcolm, the film series’ famous chaos theorist, “Life, uh, finds a way.”
More specifically, science finds a way. Except in the case of “Jurassic World Live,” it isn’t tampering with reptile DNA to create dinosaurs; it ’s using state-ofthe-art computer technolog y and animatronics to bring pteranodons, raptors and even a T. Rex to vivid life for this arena spectacle.
“We built the dinosaurs to true-to-life scale using the ‘Jurassic World’ CGI models from the films,” said Cooper Groves, the animatronic specialist who operates the show’s T. Rex. “So all of the intricate details, the scars like in the ‘Jurassic World’ movies are there.
“The T. Rex is 42 feet and 8,000 pounds,” he marveled. “She was about a two-year process in the making, from R&D to being built. There’s a lot to it to make her come alive.”
Groves specializes in drones. He remotely f lies the pteranodons. And he’s also the self-described “dino-technician, or dinowrangler” for the T. Rex.
And the king of the dinosaurs requires quite a bit of wrangling. Of the 26 trailers it takes to transport the entire show; two of them are for the T. Rex alone. The setup and takedown of the whole “Jurassic World Live” are both 12 hours. It takes six hours for the T. Rex’s assembly and another six for its disassembling.
To operate the T. Rex during the show, it takes a team of three to four people. There’s a B-stage operator, a “dinoteer”handling facial and limb motions and
It’s not easy to drive an 8,000-pound beast on a pole with animatronic coding. It definitely can be stressful at times. You’re controlling something that, at times, doesn’t really want to be controlled.” —Cooper Groves
Groves handling the remote driving duties.
You may be surprised to know that driving a 4-ton dinosaur around the inside of an arena is difficult. Doing it while working in sync with dino-teers to ensure it looks and moves like a real dinosaur would heightens the degrees of difficulty.
“It ’s not easy to drive an 8,000-pound beast on a pole with animatronic coding,” Groves said. “It definitely can be stressful at times. You’re controlling something that, at times, doesn’t really want to be
controlled.
“The dino-teers were hand-selected
( by Feld) by finding who was the best at emoting through hand puppets,” he explained. “There’s a lot of direction and movement, like ‘the neck needs to move like this.’ They watch the movies and specific scenes to see how the dinosaurs emote, so they can replicate it. It ’s a lot of fine-tuning how to make it look as natural as possible.”
As well as seeing full-sized versions of the dinosaurs we all know and love, “Jurassic World Live” follows the example of the two recent “Jurassic World” f licks by introducing a newly created creature to the mix. For this tour, attendees will be introduced to the trodon.
The trodon isn’t the only new thing folks will see at “Jurassic World Live.” The show features an all-new storyline that fits into the film series’ canon, taking place between “Jurassic World” and “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.”
Using the Jurassic World brand and licenses for a national tour and stage show creates a certain expectation of quality and spectacle for audiences. Of course, that can also lead to cynicism, that this is some sort of easy cash-in on the name.
But rest assured, you don’t have to pull an Ian Malcolm and wonder if just because the team at Feld “was so preoc
cupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” This show comes with the stamp of approval and expectations of the person who created the entire franchise.
“We worked with Steven Spielberg to make this a seamless ( part of the Jurassic universe),” Groves said, noting that the legendary director had to sign off on each aspect of the production. “That definitely puts on pressure to put on the best show possible.”
It ’s that collaborative effort and drive to bring the sense of wonder (and fear) “Jurassic Park ” brought to movie screens in 1993 directly to audiences that is at the core of “Jurassic World Live.”
From the reactions Groves can see and hear during the show, that commitment has paid off.
“I love seeing the reaction of the kids,” he enthused. “I walk behind the T. Rex as it comes out to the stage, and I like to take a minute to look into the audience.
“To see their faces and watch them thinking about the dinosaurs, it ’s satisfying,” Groves continued. “You see the awe, a little bit of terror, but you see that you’re really making an impact on them in that moment. It ’s a really great feeling.”