Jurassic Park: a roaring trip down memory lane? (movie retrospective)
Jurassic Park, the 1993 blockbuster that taught us all the valuable lesson: just because you can, doesn’t mean you should, especially when it involves resurrecting dinosaurs. Directed by Steven Spielberg, who probably thought, “Dinosaurs are cool, let’s make a movie about them,” this cinematic gem combined action, science fiction, and a touch of “what on Earth were they thinking?”
The film stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum, who apparently decided that being chased by prehistoric creatures was a great career move. And let’s not forget Richard Attenborough as John Hammond, the man whose dream of a dinosaur theme park probably needed a bit more of a risk assessment. Jurassic Park is set on the fictional Isla Nublar, which, spoiler alert, turns out to be a terrible location for a wildlife park filled with extinct animals. The plot is simple: wealthy businessman creates a dinosaur park, things go terribly wrong, and everyone spends the rest of the movie trying not to become dino snacks. It’s like a zoo trip gone horribly, horribly wrong.
Michael Crichton, who wrote the novel, and David Koepp, who penned the screenplay, decided to toss out some of the book’s exposition and violence, probably to make it a tad more family-friendly. After all, nothing says family outing like running from a T-Rex.
Filming took place in California and Hawaii, because where else can you find the perfect backdrop for dinosaur shenanigans? And let’s talk about those dinosaurs. Created with groundbreaking computer-generated imagery by Industrial Light & Magic and life-sized animatronics by Stan Winston’s team, they were so realistic that you might still check your closet at night just to be sure there’s no Velociraptor lurking in there. The film’s sound design was a symphony of animal noises, and Spielberg was so invested in making you hear every roar, growl, and rustling leaf that he helped create DTS, a company specializing in digital surround sound formats. Because if you’re going to hear a dinosaur roar, you’d better feel it in your bones.
Jurassic Park premiered in June 1993 and quickly stomped its way to becoming the highest-grossing film of its time. It was so successful that E.T. phoned home to complain about being knocked off the top spot. The film grossed over $914 million worldwide, proving that people really, really like dinosaurs.
Critics had a field day with this one. Janet Maslin of The New York Times called it a “true movie milestone,” while Peter Travers of Rolling Stone referred to it as colossal entertainment. Roger Ebert, however, felt it was lacking in “awe and wonderment,” but let’s be honest, he was probably just sad he didn’t get his own raptor.
The legacy of Jurassic Park is as massive as the dinosaurs it features. It was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry, spawned five sequels, a TV series, video games, and probably enough merchandise to fill the Smithsonian.
In conclusion, Jurassic Park is more than just a film; it’s a cultural phenomenon that showed us the power of CGI, the importance of not messing with nature, and that Jeff Goldblum can make chaos theory sound cool. It’s a thrilling ride that still holds up, proving that some movies, like dinosaurs, never really go extinct.
