The catastrophic scenario of Jurassic Park is known worldwide and across generations, thanks to two movie trilogies, as well as countless video games, toys, and other derived products inspired by Michael Crichton's 1990 novel. Despite Jurassic Park's originality, stories of genetically engineered dinosaurs on the loose made their debut during the 1970s, when genetic technologies, such as recombinant DNA, were being developed. This article retraces, through a series of examples, the rise of a now classic narrative featuring genetically engineered dinosaurs escaping their creators, from the mid 1970s to the early 1990s. The succeeding variations around this narrative eventually forged a powerful, long-lasting cultural device processing anxieties into entertainment by fictionally predicting the consequences of genetic technologies. The deep past and dinosaurs were fashioned into a screen on which the public learned to read omens about the technological future and the end of a traditional distinction between natural and artificial.

由于两部电影三部曲，以及无数电子游戏、玩具和其他受迈克尔·克莱顿 1990 年小说启发的衍生产品，侏罗纪公园的灾难场景在全世界和几代人中广为人知。尽管侏罗纪公园作为独创性，基因工程恐龙逍遥法外的故事在 20 世纪 70 年代首次亮相，当时正在开发重组 DNA 等基因技术。本文通过一系列示例，回顾了从 20 世纪 70 年代中期到 1990 年代初期，关于基因工程恐龙逃离其创造者的经典叙事的兴起。围绕这种叙事的后续变化最终通过虚构地预测基因技术的后果，形成了一种强大的、持久的文化手段，将焦虑处理成娱乐。深远的过去和恐龙被塑造成一个屏幕，公众在屏幕上学会了阅读关于技术未来的预兆以及自然与人工之间传统区别的终结。