In the summer of 1993, dinosaurs walked through America’s theaters. The first sight of them was breathtaking. There was the anticipation, as Laura Dern and Sam Neill’s helicopter landed and they bumped over green hills in their red Jeep. Then, finally, it came into view: a brachiosaur, plodding among eucalyptus trees, rearing up and stretching its neck to nibble at the treetops like a skyscraper-size giraffe. Neill sank to the ground, doing his best to appear overcome with awe. In reality, Neill was probably looking at a lime-green backdrop, or maybe the film’s director, Steven Spielberg. But in a movie theater in New Orleans, David Breaux Jr.’s eyes filled with tears of real amazement. “When the brachiosaur stands up and picks the branch off the tree and then falls back and hits the ground — boom!” he recalls. “I was like, that’s what I want to do.”

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