Jurassic Park Franchise (1993-?)

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EddieLarkin
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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#26 Post by EddieLarkin » Thu Jul 18, 2013 11:18 am

I saw it when I was 5, which I don't really remember, but I'm sure I loved it. I still enjoy it, but
matrixschmatrix wrote:of a kind with Independence Day more than, say, Jaws.
can we all agree that Jaws is the vastly superior Spielberg film?

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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#27 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Jul 18, 2013 11:42 am

To this, yes. I ultimately did see the first one on VHS, and was thrilled by it but not as taken by it as a few others here. Overall I'd probably say no. The best ones he was ever part of of this kind were all 3 Back To The Future movies which I hold near and dear for so many reasons, but he didn't direct or write them.

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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#28 Post by Roger Ryan » Thu Jul 18, 2013 11:51 am

EddieLarkin wrote:...can we all agree that Jaws is the vastly superior Spielberg film?
There are plenty of Spielberg films I find superior to JURASSIC PARK, but given that it followed two of his weakest directorial efforts (ALWAYS and HOOK), I was pleased it was enjoyable to sit through.

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domino harvey
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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#29 Post by domino harvey » Thu Jul 18, 2013 11:54 am

EddieLarkin wrote:can we all agree that Jaws is the vastly superior Spielberg film?
Why does anyone need to do that, even if they believe it so?

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Kirkinson
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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#30 Post by Kirkinson » Thu Jul 18, 2013 12:03 pm

hearthesilence wrote:It was never a real cultural event, not even on the same level of 1989's Batman film (which did far less business at the box office but felt much more ubiquitous in the culture), because nobody, and I mean nobody, I knew, either in school or grown-up, really felt any passion for the movie.
Well, here's a third person who grew up in the Chicago suburbs, and I'm the same age as domino, and I have to say your memory of the film's (lack of) impact seems strange to me. My experience is very much that the film instilled a great deal of passion, both in me and in my friends. We were literally walking around our neighborhoods playing the soundtrack on a boom box, and a small group of us became convinced there were actually dinosaurs alive in the woods by one friend's house. We found "venom" and heard "roars" that sent us running for shelter, and saw what could only be teeth and claw marks in a field of debris, and there was even a younger girl in the neighborhood who swore she saw a dinosaur attack.

The film certainly "captured our imaginations," as they like to say -- enough to seriously warp our perception of reality for at least one summer of our lives!

The last time I watched the film as an adult my reaction was also very similar to domino's. I think it holds up incredibly well, and I found it completely impervious to my adult cynicism (which is most certainly not true of the sequels).

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colinr0380
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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#31 Post by colinr0380 » Thu Jul 18, 2013 12:29 pm

I'll add to the "Jurassic Park was my generation's Star Wars" hyperbole, and I think in my case it helps that it is tied in with a whole host of things going on at that time - I remember going with my father to visit my grandma down in Bristol during the summer holidays from school and was reading Critchon's novel at the same time. Half way through the week my dad said that we were going on a (rare) cinema visit to see the film, so I stopped reading the novel just at the electric fence section, which in retrospect was really the perfect place to have stopped since it is the point of maximum tension (I stopped before finding out if they made it over!) as well as the point after which Crichton's novel diverges slightly into the adventures of Grant and the kids amongst the dinosaurs, which Spielberg's film goes past a little too quickly in order to keep the momentum up.

So I got to see the film on the big screen without the ending being spoiled and then got a more in depth version of the parts of the story that I really liked when I returned to the novel such as the scenes with Grant and the kids encountering the dinosaurs "in the wild" out of their cars and off the prescribed track of events, which is the final, non-violent and dangerous but just as powerful, nail in the coffin of the entire theme park concept being something worth doing, as you could never have those close experiences on a 'ride'; and the scenes with Lex's computer skills which are more effectively and less cheesily described in the novel. I'm trying to remember back but I think those sections also used the Crichton motif of actually producing little illustrative diagrams of the computer screens in the novel, something which he had done much more extensively in The Andromeda Strain, and which I was very happy to see turn up here.

(That actually illustrates the way that both the film and the novel are as much about a fascination with technology as with nature, and in a sense it is inevitable that the climaxes revolve around the dinosaurs escaping from their 'faux-natural' habitats and taking over the seemingly safe, inpenetrable 'behind the scenes' staging area of the human compounds for the final cat and mouse section. It also really shows just how many of these themes were being worked out in Critchton's own directed feature Westworld two decades earlier)
MichaelB wrote:Jurassic Park's title is fundamentally flawed - it should have been called Cretaceous Park. But I dare say it was considered too tough to pronounce.
I've never been the biggest fan of the Rab C. Nesbitt TV show but every time I think of Jurassic Park I always remember the episode where they try to do a cut-price Scottish version of the concept and call it "Jura's Sic Park". I can't remember anything else about the episode but I've never been able to get that awful pun on the title out of my head since then!
Last edited by colinr0380 on Fri Jul 19, 2013 12:02 pm, edited 5 times in total.

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hearthesilence
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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#32 Post by hearthesilence » Thu Jul 18, 2013 12:37 pm

Kirkinson wrote:[We were literally walking around our neighborhoods playing the soundtrack on a boom box...
Wow, I actually remember the soundtrack getting slagged. I even remember one kid who was a bit older and a big George Lucas/Spielberg fan going off on it, saying "That is not John Williams!" I didn't hate it myself but I could see his point, there wasn't any 'stirring' themes like the marches he did for all those other blockbusters.

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Brian C
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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#33 Post by Brian C » Thu Jul 18, 2013 12:49 pm

Mostly what I remember from the initial release was the DTS soundtrack, and especially the aggressive use of the surround speakers. It was so jarring (in a good way) to hear, say, the roars from only the left side. I had never heard anything like it.

I was a little older than most of the posters here, though (I was 15), and I don't remember my age cohort being all that taken with it in general. Something to see, it was fun, etc., but I don't recall any great cultural movement on the film's behalf. Like hearthesilence, I remember Batman being a much bigger deal, but then I was 11 when that came out, which is probably a much better age to be swept up like that.
Last edited by Brian C on Thu Jul 18, 2013 12:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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hearthesilence
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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#34 Post by hearthesilence » Thu Jul 18, 2013 12:51 pm

Yeah, Batman and "Batmania" was nuts. If anything, that was the Star Wars of our generation, Jurassic Park was more like Transf-ingformers.

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colinr0380
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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#35 Post by colinr0380 » Thu Jul 18, 2013 12:54 pm

The main thing I remember from the time around the release of the first Burton Batman film (I was 9 when it came out and it was a 15 certificate, so I didn't see it until it turned up on TV a few Christmases later) was of a lot of the kids in the playground at school trading enormous piles of stickers showing scenes from the film.

Naturally the ones depicting the Joker freaked me out!

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EddieLarkin
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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#36 Post by EddieLarkin » Thu Jul 18, 2013 1:15 pm

domino harvey wrote:
EddieLarkin wrote:can we all agree that Jaws is the vastly superior Spielberg film?
Why does anyone need to do that, even if they believe it so?
Well they are superficially similar, but I mainly ask because I don't know anybody under the age of 30, in person or online, who thinks Jaws is better than JP. It's baffled me for a while now, especially since I don't remember JP having a great "cultural" impact. That's because I was a bit too young, but by the time The Lost World came around I distinctly remember a lack of enthusiasm to see it amongst my fellow 10 year olds.

We did all go gaga for Batman Forever though. I still really enjoy it even today :oops:

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Kirkinson
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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#37 Post by Kirkinson » Thu Jul 18, 2013 1:22 pm

hearthesilence wrote:
Kirkinson wrote:[We were literally walking around our neighborhoods playing the soundtrack on a boom box...
Wow, I actually remember the soundtrack getting slagged. I even remember one kid who was a bit older and a big George Lucas/Spielberg fan going off on it, saying "That is not John Williams!" I didn't hate it myself but I could see his point, there wasn't any 'stirring' themes like the marches he did for all those other blockbusters.
Well, I don't think a film score should be judged based solely on whether or not it contains something that could be effectively played by a marching band. There are plenty of stirring themes in Jurassic Park. That soundtrack was actually the first album I ever owned (the first I recall ever wanting to own) and it was hugely influential on my musical development. It's really what got me listening to film scores, which was the predominant genre of music I listened to up through high school, and that in turn led me to classical music (which is what I listen to the most now) and indeed to "serious" cinema -- I actually heard most of Nino Rota's Fellini scores before I ever saw the films or heard of them in any other context!

Now that I think about it, since a great deal of my enthusiasm about Jurassic Park (the film) stemmed from the fact that as far back as I could remember I had wanted to be a paleontologist, and given the influence John Williams' score had on my musical taste and (eventually) my commitment to cinema, it's actually not too unreasonable to see Jurassic Park as a kind of touchstone for the three greatest passions in my life. The Land Before Time deserves mention there, too, and in a subtler way may have been an even larger influence on my musical taste, given the amount of pre-existing classical music James Horner used for that score.

Incidentally, I don't mean to argue against Batman being a greater cultural milestone. I just don't remember it that way, probably because I was just slightly too young. I'm certain I didn't see it in a theater, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't actually allowed to see it when it first came out on video (my parents were probably a little over-cautious about what I could watch at that time). Batman: The Animated Series is still the first thing I think of when I think of Batman.

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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#38 Post by Sloper » Thu Jul 18, 2013 2:45 pm

I saw this when I was nine, on the first day of release (Friday, July 16th, 1993), and loved it. I was jumping in terror most of the way through, and still remember how scary that first T-Rex sequence was, and how awe-inspiring the CGI effects seemed. I saw it twice more at the cinema (as I remember, it stayed on screens for over a year), and three times on a horrible bootleg VHS. Seeing it again more recently - for instance, when it's the only film everyone can agree on at Christmas, because Groundhog Day isn't on - it still seems to work pretty well. The pacing, in particular, strikes me as one of the keys to the film's success, and I agree with Domino that all the exposition at the start is essential: we don't really need to know any of that stuff, but this part of the film does all the preliminary groundwork that most horror/action films need to do in order to work well. See Jaws, Alien, Ring, Blair Witch, etc for more examples. Watching (rather unwillingly) the remake of Total Recall the other day reminded me how often mindless action movies are also lazy and boring - I wish more of them could be like Jurassic Park. Instead, most of them are like Jurassic Park 3.

I also saw The Lost World when it first came out, and thought it sucked. Yes there's that one quite compelling suspense sequence, but isn't even that just a moderately effective re-working of the T-Rex/tree sequence in the first film? In Jurassic Park, I root for the main characters, every time - in The Lost World, I long for their demise.

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hearthesilence
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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#39 Post by hearthesilence » Thu Jul 18, 2013 2:57 pm

Yeah, maybe four years really makes a huge difference? My older brother is four years older than me, so being around him and his friends may have made me more aware of Batmania. I didn't even see that movie until it came out on VHS (which happened unusually fast - I think it was the first time a studio film was ever put on home video that "fast," simply to cash in on sales, and it probably made a dent in its box office gross). I wanted to go but my parents just refused to take me - nothing against the film itself, they just didn't like taking any of us to a movie theater.

FWIW, Chris Marker was right, everyone loves dinosaurs, and even before Jurassic Park, I remember dinosaurs being universally liked by every generation of first-graders. It was one of the first big lessons in the first grade, and "Calvin & Hobbes"' affection for them always felt like an accurate reflection of what I can remember from childhood.

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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#40 Post by Drucker » Thu Jul 18, 2013 3:00 pm

hearthesilence wrote: FWIW, Chris Marker was right, everyone loves dinosaurs, and even before [iJurassic Park[/i], I remember dinosaurs being universally liked by every generation of first-graders. It was one of the first big lessons in the first grade, and "Calvin & Hobbes"' affection for them always felt like an accurate reflection of what I can remember from childhood.
Funny enough, Jurassic Park came out when I was in first grade and I was obsessed. I learned every dinosaur name, and probably had as good of an idea of dino-trivia as any other first grader. I saw it at the Ziegfeld with my father and made it through most of the movie, though I had to put my head in his lap during the kitchen sequence.

I loved the movie, and still have a soft spot for it, though can't remember the last time I actually watched it, especially in full. My strongest memory from the screening though was how terrifyingly loud it was, and I tried to explain to many friends just how many speakers I noticed on the walls of the theater.

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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#41 Post by Robin Davies » Thu Jul 18, 2013 3:04 pm

I was a venerable 35 when Jurassic Park came out and, though I had reservations about some aspects of the film, this dinosaur fan loved it for one simple reason:
Realistic dinosaurs.
Up to that point the best way to see dinosaurs in action was via stop-motion animation which had its charms but hadn't fundamentally changed since the days of King Kong. The first shot of the majestic brachiosaurus was a real thriller and a quantum leap in movie special effects. Of course now we've lived with CGI long enough to get bored with its worst excesses but back then it was a real revelation.

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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#42 Post by knives » Thu Jul 18, 2013 3:09 pm

Actually stop-motion had changed drastically between King Kong and Jurassic Park with several notable technologies making the animation more fluid and less time consuming to do with more details.

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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#43 Post by cdnchris » Thu Jul 18, 2013 3:24 pm

Robin Davies wrote:Of course now we've lived with CGI long enough to get bored with its worst excesses but back then it was a real revelation.
I still think Jurassic Park holds up because it's a blend of animatronic/models and CGI, so when you watch it you feel like everything is actually there, unlike modern CGI-only effects which never really look right. Armageddon's effects (mostly) hold up for the same reason. For those that haven't seen the Criterion DVDs features, the "Paris-blowed-up-go-boom" sequence was a mix of CGI and pyrotechnics, and they still used models for other effects (even matte paintings) and I thought these sequences looked pretty good.

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domino harvey
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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#44 Post by domino harvey » Thu Jul 18, 2013 4:28 pm

Out of morbid curiosity I watched Jurassic Park III, which I'd never seen and came with the other two movies in Universal's Blu-ray set and thought it was... not bad! Certainly like most sequels its very existence was unnecessary, but it did what it needed to do with far more efficiency and even bothered to cast some likable character actors (though poor John Diehl bites it early) to flesh out the scant roles offered. Tea Leoni's career is inexplicable and she's awful here, but the rest of the cast is okay, though the newest kid on the block yet again sucks-- both sequels could use a close reading of the memorable child roles from the first film and hopefully Jurassic Park IV learns a lesson before it joins the pantheon! The action scenes are okay, the best probably being the successful usurping of the Pterodactyl aviary sequence from the first book. The biggest problem I had with the film was just that all the dinosaurs were just ugly to look at and none were as interesting as any of the dinos from the first film. For all the free associative grabbing from Michael Crichton's source texts, it's strange that neither of the sequels have taken his best invention in the Lost World novel, the chameleon dinosaur. At least that creature would justify the use of CGI. But ultimately Jurassic Park III doesn't overstay its welcome and embraces its inherent silliness with the "Send in the marines" ending-- plus Sam Neill at one point makes a veiled swipe at Goldblum's character that doubles as a dig at the sequel! I doubt I'll ever watch it again, but if given a choice between the two sequels there's no question which I'd re-endure!

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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#45 Post by Moe Dickstein » Thu Jul 18, 2013 11:02 pm

Maybe we just loved it in the Hoffman/Schaumburg area. Seeing it at Woodfield 1 was amazing.

Yeah JP was a total cultural thing - as was Batman, and actually Batman Returns was almost MORE of a thing because they marketed the SHIT out of that one. And yeah we all liked Batman Forever when it came out, but it's not held up as well as the Burton films.

The SOUNDTRACK, omg, again also one of the first CDs of a score I ever owned. How can anyone not find Williams' music for the approach to the island and the first sighting of the dinosars to be ABSOLUTELY stirring as anything he's ever done!

I think also that JP is much more of a "quality" film than the other movie that was hyped that summer and promoted in a blind hysteria - Remember Last Action Hero? JP was the tasteful one there. (While LAH has some really great stuff in it, it was crippled by the new Sony regime ordering them to make a deadline rather than a film. Had McTiernan had time to get the script licked, that would have been a far better film - there was one in there).

As to Jaws being better than JP? It isn't to me. Jaws I didn't see until I was well past 20. I find it a good solid film, but while both films have terror from animals, Jaws lacks the balance of the awe of the dinosaurs, there's no uplifting aspect to it that is such a key aspect of most Spielbergian films.

I've always asserted that the reason that A.I. works as well as it does is due to the mixing of Spielberg and Kubrick - they tempered the extreme qualities of each. Spielberg warmed up the cold aspects of Kubrick without smothering them and vice versa.

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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#46 Post by Kirkinson » Fri Jul 19, 2013 12:51 am

Moe Dickstein wrote:Maybe we just loved it in the Hoffman/Schaumburg area. Seeing it at Woodfield 1 was amazing.
Oh wow, I'm pretty sure that's where I first saw it! It wasn't the closest theater to where we lived, but at that time my parents still liked to drive to Woodfield to see "event" movies.
Moe Dickstein wrote:The SOUNDTRACK, omg, again also one of the first CDs of a score I ever owned. How can anyone not find Williams' music for the approach to the island and the first sighting of the dinosars to be ABSOLUTELY stirring as anything he's ever done!
Indeed, and I think that sad, distant, lonely little carnival theme that underscores Hammond's memories of his flea circus was a beautiful choice -- almost enough to save what for me is one of the weakest scenes in the film due to its somewhat nonsensical dialogue (which gives me the distinct impression it was heavily cut down from a longer, probably more sensible conversation).

For those of you less impressed with this score, might I recommend this memorable interpretation?


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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#48 Post by Forrest Taft » Thu Mar 13, 2014 3:42 pm


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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#49 Post by Roger_Thornhill » Fri Mar 14, 2014 10:53 am

I first saw Jurassic Park in the theater when I was 13 or 14 years old. I was quite into studying dinosaurs at the time so I was terribly excited to see Spielberg's latest film. I recall sitting in a packed theater with the surround sound literally shaking the theater from the thunderous booms of the T-Rex stomping and its terrifying screams. It truly was an experience at the time and one I won't soon forget.

And years later I still enjoy the film for its excellent action set pieces (T-Rex chase, V-Raptors in the kitchen, etc), the score, Jeff Goldbloom's delightfully cynical character and humor, the pseudo-science, and John Williams' memorable score. The Lost World I recall being very disappointed in. It felt disjointed, lacking the enthusiasm and wonder of the first film, banal score, and dull action set pieces except for the trailer sequence. The third film I rather enjoyed for what it is, a sort of back-to-basics monster movie but to me the first film stands head and shoulders above the sequels.

And to be honest I can't see how anyone can't enjoy Jurassic Park unless you find escapist entertainment repellent, which was a phase I went through myself some years ago, until I lightened up and realized I shouldn't take life (or art) so seriously.

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domino harvey
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Re: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

#50 Post by domino harvey » Thu May 29, 2014 11:02 am

So the forthcoming Jurassic World actually sounds like it might be promising. From the director
Culture’s numbness to technology and all it’s amazing advances was the second element they wanted to explore. “Those two ideas felt like they could work together,” he added. "What if, despite previous disasters, they built a new biological preserve where you could see dinosaurs walk the earth…and what if people were already kind of over it? We imagined a teenager texting his girlfriend with his back to a T-Rex behind protective glass."
And according to the spoiler-heavy JoBlo article, that chameleon dinosaur from Crichton's sequel I mentioned earlier will finally make its appearance (sort of)!

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