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In the first two Jurassic Park films directed by Spielberg, we witness that the Dinosaur always attacks at night with the rainy weather. Particularly if the T-rex is the main dinosaur of the film you know that is going to happen. Is there a reason why the T-rex attack at that specific time and weather? Did the writers or Steven Spielberg explains this in the commentary?

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    Well there was a storm in the first movie, it was integral to the plot.
    – Paulie_D
    Commented Apr 21, 2021 at 17:09

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The scene for the first movie at least is a mixture of Animatronics and CGI. CGI being used for whole body shots.

By setting the scene at night in the rain with few light sources, it made the job of rendering the CGI T-Rex much easier. The movie broke new ground in CGI animation but the used tricks like this to make the end-result look much more realistic than they could have achieved otherwise at the time.

For more information you can read more about it in this Screenrant Article.

As @Flater points out, the lighting conditions and rain also make the Animatronic look more real too.

The storm is both a plot device and fairly inspired artistic and directorial decision. The conditions make the scene tense and claustrophobic as well as making the effects more realistic.

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    It also made it easier for the animatronic to look real. The leather skin has a shine to it that is hard to mask, but if they're supposed to be out in the rain, the shine doesn't stand out as much.
    – Flater
    Commented Apr 21, 2021 at 18:04
  • What about in the second film, The Lost World? The Trex also attacked when it's raining at night.
    – The Witch King of Angmar
    Commented Apr 22, 2021 at 12:48
  • @TheWitchKingofAngmar .... honestly I would suspect for entirely the same reasons. Yes in 4 years CGI improved, but did it improve enough to allow a broad daylight attack from a large Animatronic and CGI T-Rex? In daylight you'd have to get all the movements done perfectly, all the textures right, and have to seamlessly move between animatronic and cgi representations. Night hides a lot of that. CGI was still in its infancy in 1997.
    – iandotkelly ♦
    Commented Apr 22, 2021 at 16:00

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