Exhibition: Jurassic World: The Exhibition

You don’t need to have watched any Jurassic Park movies to appreciate  Jurassic World: The Exhibition at Melbourne Museum but it may save a little homework!

As the name suggests the exhibition is based on Universal Pictures’ Jurassic World, the fourth instalment  in the Jurassic Park franchise. Both the dinosaurs and their settings come from the movie. I haven’t seen any of the movies but still found the exhibition entertaining. My eight year old companion, who saw the first movie, loved the exhibition so much he wants to return!

If you’re a novice like me it’s useful to know Jurassic World is fictional – it even includes make believe dinosaurs. However well-known paleontologist Jack Horner, a consultant to the movie, advised on how the dinosaurs should be realistically depicted in terms of their behaviour, size and shape.

It’s the size, attention to detail and movements of the dinosaurs that makes this exhibition so impressive. The life size animatronic dinosaurs move, roar and generally look very life-like and at times, quite scary! The dinosaurs include a Brachiosaurus, two Pachyrhinosaurus’, a Tyranosaurus Rex and Stegosaurus. There’s also the `made up’  Indominus Rex.

The dinosaurs were developed by the Melbourne based Creature Technology Company, renowned for producing the world’s most technologically sophisticated and realistic animatronics. Their work includes the dinosaurs in Walking with Dinosaurs –The Arena Spectacular and the dragons in How to Train Your Dragon – Live Spectacular.

As well as watching the dinosaurs `do their thing’, the exhibition includes the Hammond Creation Lab, with several hands-on activities for children including designing their own dinosaurs – an activity which proved very popular with my companion.
The exhibition starts with a ferry trip to the Isla Nublar where a short promo is shown about Jurassic World, featuring ranger Deidre. Deidre pops up on TV screens throughout the exhibition talking about the dinosaurs and warning of impending incidents. To fully appreciate her commentary it might have helped to have seen the movie, but even without prior knowledge there’s still much to marvel at, thanks to `stars’ of the exhibition.

Jurassic World: The Exhibition is on at Melbourne Museum until 9 October. It then embarks on a multiple year global tour. For tickets and more information visit the exhibition’s website.

Jenny Burns attended the opening of Jurassic World as a guest of the exhibition.