In June 1993, Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Michael Crichton's novel brought prehistoric monsters to life. Crichton spoke to the BBC about why dinosaurs continue to fascinate us.

One of the most celebrated moments in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park has two scientists, played by Sam Neill and Laura Dern, staring agasp at a Brachiosaurus towering above them – it's the first time these characters and the audience have glimpsed the colossus in all its onscreen glory. As John Williams's iconic overture swells, a wave of childlike wonder washes over their faces. And ever since the film premiered 32 years ago, on 9 June 1993, audiences have felt a similar awe. The franchise now includes animated television series, comics, video games, and seven major films, including the latest instalment, Jurassic World Rebirth, which is released in July. But it all started with Michael Crichton's bestselling novel, published in 1990.

While writing the novel, Crichton visited a museum in the UK which featured a video exhibit on dinosaurs. "Little boys and girls of three [years old] would scream 'Stegosaurus!' and 'Tyrannosaurus!' when they would appear," Crichton told the BBC's The Late Show in 1993. "You wouldn't think they'd know how to pronounce these words, but they do."

Since the discovery of the first dinosaur fossils two centuries ago, and the first official scientific naming of a dinosaur – the Megalosaurus – in 1824, our fascination with these titans of the natural world has never really waned. But it has evolved. "We have in every period some [new] aspect of interest, not so much in our own reinterpretation of the dinosaurs from a scientific standpoint, but from a cultural standpoint," said Crichton.

In 1854, a number of supposedly life-sized model dinosaurs, sculpted by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and cast in cement, were displayed in Crystal Palace Park in south London. At this point, Crichton believed, "the underlying issue soon became whether these were evidence that ought to be employed for or against Darwinian evolution, so after the initial interest in dinosaurs as simply large extinct animals, they came to be viewed from the standpoint of their religious significance."

By the time Crichton wrote Jurassic Park, however, our view of dinosaurs had moved on, both scientifically and philosophically. The podgy beasts sculpted by Hawkins had been replaced in the imagination by fast, agile, birdlike creatures – and the issue of the dinosaurs' extinction was considered of greater philosophical interest than their creation. "The question that we have when we look at dinosaurs is, 'They've become extinct, and are we next,'" Crichton said.

In History

In History is a series which uses the BBC's unique audio and video archive to explore historical events that still resonate today.

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