Jurassic Park

The last great Spielberg adventure-classic before he developed his interests and went into more thematically 'mature' territory with films like Amistad, Schindler's List, etc. I was 13 when Jurassic Park first came out, which means I was right in the eye of the tornado - just the right age to be swept up the insane level of marketing and merchandise, and also the right age to appreciate the awe and majesty of real dinosaurs on the big screen.

They weren't real dinosaurs of course. It was special effects... but this was an era when the letters 'CGI' had no business being in an acronym together, and most monsters in films were still men in suits. To 1993's audience, Spielberg had done what the characters in Jurassic Park had done - he'd brought dinosaurs back to life.

A big part of this effect was also achieved thanks to Michael Crichton's inventive script and novel. The idea that dinosaurs were kin to birds was completely new to most people at the time, and this level of revolutionary research put Jurassic Park's dionosaurs into the spotlight. People were fascinated. Velicoraptor became the coolest problem-solving predator ever, Tyrannosaurus Rex was a god, Galimimus moved like a horde of running ostritches, and Dilophosaurus was a weird and creepy little dude who spat deadly venom! I can't emphasise enough how fascinated everyone got with dinosaurs back in 1993. And watching Jurassic Park again for the first time in more 10 years I found myself swept up by that magic once again.

In classic Spielbergian fashion, Jurassic Park mixes this grand adventure with a smaller family-based drama... Alan (Sam Neill) is a crotchety paleotologist who hates kids, though his wife (Laura Dern) wants to have some. Through the film's pressing circumstances, he's forced to look after two wayward childen when everything goes wrong on dino-island, and through this relationship we have familiar referencde points to identify with and characters we invest in. It's not a groundbreaking or particularly amazing narrative trick (in fact, virtualy every 80s and 90s adventure film has this adult-child dynamic in it - usually to the chagrin of hardcore film fans) but Spielberg was the master of it, and almost always managed to cast child-actors that didn't grate on the nerves or suck too much attention away from the more interesting aspects of the film.

I just can't gush about this film enough! Every scene and shot seems perfectly aligned... I'm going to dare say that this film was the height of Spielberg's career. This was when he was at the forefront of film technology, when he was hungry enough and confident enough to make a perfect and energetic piece of mass entertainment, when his penchant for the saccharine had yet to date in contrast with the cynicism of the 1990s. Even the CGI dinosaurs, created at a time when the technology was still new and not quite photorealistic (and some would argue the technology still isn't photorealistic), don't stick stick out as fake. Spielberg wisely only uses 100% CGI for dinosaurs kept in the background, and uses animatronic/CG-composites for the dinosaurs pushed to centrestage. He always shoots them in a way that keeps them real... whenever he has to use purely computer-generated images (such as the galloping Galimimus or the grazing Brachiosaurus) it's in wide shots or kept to scenes where there's enough movement to stop the audience noticing too much.

Just before I finished I'll leave you with some other thoughts about Jurassic Park:

• Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Malcolm. The character is basically the rockstar of the scientific world, the cool antithesis to -sam neill-, and a warning voice of dissent. If you can ever get past the fact that it's a bit weird for an experimental mathematician to even be invited to Jurassic Park, then Goldblum is easily the scene-stealer as far as the actors go.
• The raptors only really turn up in the last half hour. I never really noticed this as a kid, which I guess is part oif Spielberg's talent. Their eventual appearance is foreshadowed throughout the film with ominous dialogue and teaser images.
• Samuel L. Jackson turns up to play a scientist, and doesn't drop a single F-bomb.
• Richard Attenborough (in his first acting role in 14 years) treads a fine line between an annoyingly cute Santa Claus-like performance and a frustratingly slight glimpse into a morally grey characterisation that could've offered more insight into post-80s concerns regarding the uneasy pairing of business and scientific research.
• Owing to the rather lengthy source material, there are several loose ends left dangling throughout the film in an intentionally tantalising manner. Examples include Spielberg's lingering shot on some stolen embryos sinking into mud and the tricerotops with the unspecified illness.
  

DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by David Koepp and Michael Crichton, based on the novel by Michael Crichton.
KEY ACTORS: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Wayne Knight, Samuel L. Jackson, Bob Peck, B. D. Wong, Joseph Mazzelo, Ariana Richards

RELATED TEXTS:- The novel Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton.
- Spielberg directed a sequel, The Lost World, and also produced a third film Jurassic Park III.
- The dinosaur craze sparked by Jurassic Park led to the TV documentary series Walking With Dinosaurs. an American version of Godzilla, and the low budget cash-ins Carnosaur and Raptor.
- Jurassic Park is basically a more realistic re-working of the classic H.G. Wells inspired films Island of Lost Souls and The Island of Dr. Moreau.
- Crichton's success here led to a film adaptation of another of his more way-out novels, Congo.
- For more dinsoaurs see also Peter Jackson's version of King Kong, The Valley of Gwangi, Dinotopia and Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend.
- The success of Jurassic Park is probably also responsible for the adventure film Congo, also based on a Michael Crichton novel.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - won Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Effects and Best Sound.
BAFTAs - won Best Visual Effects. Also nominated for Best Sound Effects.