The idea of Jurassic Park has always intrigued me. After taking the splash on the theme park ride at Universal Studios in Hollywood, I often wondered why a whole theme park couldn’t be created around this idea. And now it is finally happening.
A new $1.1 billion Jurassic theme park called Restless Planet, is being built in Dubai. The park will feature 109 animatronic dinosaurs of over 40 different species in a 500,000 square foot (46,000 square metre) space. The new park will be the star attraction of a large Las Vegas-esque entertainment and business development called City of Arabia.
Restless Planet will mix entertainment with educational content. Managing director Mustafa Galadari promises an “Extremely realistic and scary” but also “scientifically accurate environment.” Palaeontologist Jack Horner, best known as the technical advisor on Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, and the inspiration for the character of Alan Grant in Michael Crichton’s original book, is also on board advising the designers of the park.
Not many details have been revealed, but we do know that the park will use “computer graphics and high-tech special effects to take visitors from the Big Bang through the birth of the Earth, the creation of its mountains and oceans, and on to the age of the dinosaurs.”
The sets are being produced by Impossible Pictures, the same people that created the BBC television series Walking with Dinosaurs. The robotic dinosaurs are being created by animatronics experts, the Tokyo-based Kokoro Company of Japan. The Kokoro Company has prior experience in the Dinosaur realm, having created animatronic creatures for the National History Museum in London. One of the creatures at the Museum, is a T-Rex which targets and tracks visitors who are wearing red as if they were prey.
Watch the promotional animated conceptual video below:
Restless Planet is scheduled to open in late 2008.
via: Cosmo
December 18th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
And now I am going to have to go rent Jurassic Park…
December 18th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Tracks people with red clothing on? That’s insane! And a little disconcerting thinking about potential lawsuits when the animated creature gets too close to them. How much does a ticket to Dubai cost?
December 18th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Oh, Dubai. I wonder how many contracted little kids died in the building process?
It’s only a matter of time before Dubai begins financing blockbuster films and competing head on with Hollywood. I know a few people who have moved there - much more value and as many servants as you can shake a stick at.
December 18th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
Dubai: What your country would look like if you didn’t waste trillions of dollars serving the needs of wealthy oil countries like us.
December 18th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
What an incredible waste of money!
December 18th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
This can only end in out-of-control robot dinosaurs, bloodshed and sorrow.
December 19th, 2007 at 6:21 am
OH MY GOD!!!
A DREAM COME TRUE!!!
December 19th, 2007 at 7:09 am
Hey as long as there not building it in my back yard I don’t give a flying fuck what Dubai wants to build. You guys seem a little overly tensed.
December 19th, 2007 at 7:19 am
Haven’t they seen the film? This Project will end in a very sad tragedy!
;-)
December 19th, 2007 at 8:07 am
all the money has come from you fags in SUVS
December 19th, 2007 at 8:23 am
“all the money has come from you fags in SUVS”
That’s not exactly true. Only 10% of Dubai’s GDP comes from oil. They started running out in the 60’s. Most of their success is due to the foresight and entrepreneurship of Sheikh Muhammad.
December 19th, 2007 at 8:23 am
“”all the money has come from you fags in SUVS”"
Yeah… because only SUVs use gas….
December 19th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Chris L, you are making up facts you sad fuck. Anyway, the park is going to end up bankrupt, cuz although interesting no one will pay for the fare to go to Dubai, then go to the park and even if some do, it still won’t be enough to cover costs.
December 19th, 2007 at 10:08 am
Scientifically accurate eh? Will it have Adam, Eve, Noah, and evidence that the earth is only 6000 years old, etc, etc?
Warning: the previous is sarcasm…
December 19th, 2007 at 10:26 am
The coolest part of all of Dubai’s overly ambitious entertainment projects will be what the sites will look like in 15 years after they’ve been abandoned and overrun by the desert!
December 19th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Clearly Dubai has a post-oil future plan in place and is executing it brilliantly so far. Helps when you have a virtual dictatorship, doesn’t it?
December 19th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
I find this extremely funny. The “backward” people in the middle east get a state of the art museum/amusement park ride that depicts real science and we get the “creationist museum” YAY!!!!
December 19th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
WHOA!!! this is gonna be awesome!!!
December 19th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
SilverJew:
My mistake, oil only makes up 5% of their GDP.
http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=3047
PS Whats up with the hostility? Life’s too short man.
December 19th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Having read the comments above and having lived in The Middle East for around 28 years, 12 in Dubai itself, I have to say that the majority of you Wa-ke-s haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.
Dubai is a better and on the whole safer place to live than many 1st world countries and is destined to be the no. 1 tourist destination worldwide.
The majority of Dubai’s hotels are full, period, and flights here are not expensive, if you think they are you are coming from a LACK mentality and sadly will never be able to afford to come here, thank God.
December 19th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
“The “backward†people in the middle east”
They believe dinosaurs existed as well genius, by scientific accurate they probably mean the dinosaurs will be close to what they once were.
December 19th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Dubai lays on the perks for American citizens who want to relocate there and join the workforce. I have two friends there, and one who left because he worked as a journalist, encountered want amounts to slave labor nearly everywhere he turned and was not allowed to write about it. Dubai lures American companies by boasting that they will not have to pay taxes - this is a perfect example of how Dubai is so lucrative right now. Of course, those companies open up shop there, b/c business is business.
What Dubai amounts to is a grotesque microcosm of the world marktetplace run amok. People are starving all over the world, so if it doesn’t hit you in the gut just a little that Dubai’s sheik would rather flaunt his unmatched wealth by creating man made islands in the shape of the world and build a real life Jurassic Park - both of which will be underattended and lose money, then that is sad.
Of course, America is often no better, I agree. But America has lasted this long for good reason. Dubai is the bling on the wrist of the world, and sooner or later, somebody’s going to make a grab at it.
December 19th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Looks crazy - the $1bn price tag seems outrageous too. Let’s hope it turns out to be something special!
December 19th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
My understanding is that Dubai is running out of oil very soon. And without it, how will the country survive? They don’t produce anything or import/export anything worth mentioning besides oil. And when that runs out…they’re in big trouble. So they’re goal is to entice the world with a world class tourist environment. That’s why all of their projects like the man made islands and Jurassic Park are so lucrative. Whether that is a good idea or not, who knows…if you build it bigger and better than anyone…they will come.
December 19th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
is there really going to be wandering dinos? if so im leaving tomorrow
December 19th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Although I wouldn’t want to lie in Dubai for too long, it IS a fun place to visit. It’s also really great for people in that part of the world to have a great tourist destination so close.
December 19th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
these guys are just buildinga nd building …
one might wonder what they are trying to proove here …
December 19th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
“Looks crazy - the $1bn price tag seems outrageous too. Let’s hope it turns out to be something special!”
Considering President Bush Jr. has cost the US an estimated $32 trillion dollars or $455,000 per american household. What is really outrageous?
And how do you figure the world islands will lose money if there are 300 islands, and the cost of an island is from 25-45 million dollars and it only cost an estimated 13 billion to build?
“By May 2007, 45% of the islands had been sold, 20 of which were bought in the first four months of 2007.” Oh yeah plus that little tidbit…
Jurassic Park will draw the ex-patriots out of the woodwork because it is a Cult Classic among them and they have enough money to spend already.
Sorry if that seemed really retardedly worded but i cant possibly argue with everyone of you at once.
December 19th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
You still couldn’t pay me enough to travel there…
December 20th, 2007 at 2:50 am
@Smartpants,
If you watched the recent ep of 60 Minutes on Dubai, you would see that most of the homes on these islands are purportedly sold according to Dubai officials, and yet, when they took a stroll on them, the houses were vacated and it was a complete ghost town.
Unlike Vegas, which was a gamble but a reasonable gamble, Dubai is an unprecedented and arguably depressing representation of mispent wealth. If a customer actually gets accidentally eaten by a giant robotic T.Rex b/c he/she wore too much red, I think that will prefectly sum up where the world’s priorities are at. It’s almost like something out of a Vonnegut novela or something.
Lastly, this park is clearly not related to the film Jurassic Park. I wonder why Dubai didn’t land the rights?
December 20th, 2007 at 5:46 am
acho uma excelente ideia, melhor seria, se fosse possivel fazer um animal de verdade, atraves de ovos fossilizados, ja pensou os dinossauros de volta?. augusto dantas, dez/2007.
December 20th, 2007 at 9:11 am
Those dinosaurs are my new god…….. and that place is my newest church god bless this place, holy crap!
December 21st, 2007 at 6:30 am
it will take hell of a lot more than just making fancy animations to make the actual park NOT SUCK!
December 21st, 2007 at 8:32 am
MikeDubai Says:
December 19th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Having read the comments above and having lived in The Middle East for around 28 years, 12 in Dubai itself, I have to say that the majority of you Wa-ke-s haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.
Dubai is a better and on the whole safer place to live than many 1st world countries and is destined to be the no. 1 tourist destination worldwide.
The majority of Dubai’s hotels are full, period, and flights here are not expensive, if you think they are you are coming from a LACK mentality and sadly will never be able to afford to come here, thank God.
I agree with you but….not that i’m sure about this but isn’t Dubai a 1st world country? at least it should be in my opinion
December 22nd, 2007 at 6:29 am
ladies and gentlemen, i give you the cause of global warming!
December 22nd, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Man, some of these comments are just silly. Animatronics aren’t going to eat anybody, they’re using special effects not sentient robots.
And I wouldn’t worry about Dubai “running out of oil”
http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=3047
Their economy was made to outlast the oil boom, and should do just fine without SUVs.
And, without taking into account moral problems like using money in the wrong places and slave labor, you can’t say that this park won’t be freaking cool. Seriously.
December 23rd, 2007 at 10:42 pm
isn’t Dubai a 1st world country? at least it should be in my opinion
dubai is a city in the united arab emirates, not a country. derr.
December 24th, 2007 at 7:43 am
this city just keeps getting better&better, a park i really want to visit!
December 24th, 2007 at 11:57 am
Dubai, you are the people that live with wealth, Jurassis Park $1 bil is just a fraction of your Wealth. We hope Allah keep your wealth towards your generation & may your wealth give your people a right path & live in harmonies…Amin.
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Dubai is my fav, and i really the concepts and projects being developed there. Jurassic Park with this much budget…. it will definitely return the investment as this is the only project of its kind.
January 7th, 2008 at 6:33 am
@TheDohDoh
Ghost town? Just because a property is bought and sold six or seven times before the foundation is even laid down and another six or seven times after its completed construction has nothing to do about the state of living their as well as the economy. Why is Dubai home to the worlds only 7-Star hotel?
Oh yeah cause rich people flaunt their dollars there.
March 12th, 2008 at 2:31 am
well .. i would like to draw attention of investors to poor people in the world those hardly can afford one time meal …
can you please also do some project for that too
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Wow people are stupid if they think this is a waste. This for me is seriously a dream come true considering ive been in love with dinosaurs since i was a little kid. i cant wait for this to open and no matter what the cost. i will be there
:]
April 11th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
you know guy’s!Let them do what they wanna do.
April 11th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
good day guys!