Trivia: During the "Introduction Ride" when the group sees the scientists working inside the lab (right after the animated film is shown) Martin Ferrero, the ill-fated lawyer who later gets eaten, asks if the scientists are "Auto-Erotica". John Hammond replies that they are real people, that no animatronics are used. "Auto-Erotica" actually means to solo-masturbate.
Trivia: Wayne Knight wishes they had Nedry's death more faithful to the original novel, which saw him getting eviscerated by the Dilophosaurus (which is accurately larger in the novel), with his intestines falling into his hands, and then scooped up by his head and carried off in its mouth, wishing to himself that it will all be over soon. This depiction likely would have led to the film receiving an R-rating.
Trivia: There are only 15 minutes of dinosaur footage in the entire film.
Trivia: Velociraptors were much smaller in real life than as depicted in this film series. The ones in the film are closer in size to Utahraptors, which were discovered by paleontologist Jim Kirkland during pre-production of the film. The dinosaur was nearly called Utahraptor spielbergi in honour of the director, but the company employing Kirkland prevented it due to Universal being overly-litigious around the time of the film's release. Instead it was named Utahraptor ostrommaysi.
Trivia: Wayne Knight actually lives across the street from the crewmember that sprayed him with the Dilophosaurus venom. He claims that crewmember has a much nicer house than him.
Trivia: One of the sounds used to create the velociraptor sounds were turtles mating.
Trivia: A behind-the-scenes photo of Steven Spielberg sitting in front of the animatronic of the sick triceratops became a viral meme, with some people legitimately believing that Spielberg killed a dinosaur and being outraged at the idea.
Trivia: The T-Rex was named Roberta by the dinosaur supervisor Phil Tippett in the original storyboards for the film, and was a nickname for the animatronic amongst the crew. Fans more often call her Rexy.
Trivia: An explanation of why the triceratops was sick is in the Michael Crichton novel and the original screenplay, and a deleted scene - the triceratops swallowed rocks to grind its food as it didn't have teeth that could manage this. Once the rocks were worn down in its stomach it vomited them back up, along with the poisonous lilac berries that it had unintentionally swallowed at the same time as the new rocks. This is why there are no berries or rocks in its mound of poop. Laura Dern briefly picks up some rocks and berries, clearly forming the connection, but the rest of the scene was cut.
Trivia: The dinosaur Tianchisaurus nedegoapeferima was named after the principal cast of the film, with the second part of the name using a letter or two from each surname: NEill, DErn, GOldblum, Attenborough, PEck, FErrero, RIchards, MAzello.
Trivia: The world premiere of "Jurassic Park" in 1993 was organized in Washington, DC (rather than Hollywood), in hopes that newly-elected President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton would attend. Universal Studios was livid when the Clintons were a no-show at the premiere, so much so that the studio refused to provide a copy of the film when the White House later requested it for private viewing. The feud apparently cooled off within a couple of months.
Trivia: Cameron Thor, who plays Dodgson, bought a shaving can to his audition, which the producers used in the film as the embryo transport. At the time, Cameron was so broke that he took the can off set and used it to shave.
Trivia: In the German translation, the producers added an unintentional (and probably mostly unnoticed) meta joke. As an answer to Tim's joke question "What do you call a blind dinosaur?" they used "A See-Nix Saurus" which, unlike the original answer, with trivial spelling differences works just as well in German. (Probably) unbeknownst to them, the spelling of the answer is actually "A Xenix Saurus." It is aimed at aging Unix operators, implying they are old enough to still have used the Xenix OS, and are therefore a fossil. A probably quite small number of Unix geeks (including me) took that as a VERY clever jab at his computer geek sister, and were very disappointed by the fact that it isn't even present in the original dialog.
Answer: They are not paleontologists, just people interested in dinosaurs. It is common for museums and other scientific organizations to offer the general public an opportunity to participate in a real paleontology dig. For a fee, they become an exhibition team member for a period of time, learn about dinosaurs, help excavate fossils, and so on. This is likely how Dr. Grant (or his institution) supplements his research funding.
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