Jurassic Park Retrospective

It may surprise you to know that many years before I was a child. I am an adult now and no longer care for such childish items such as toys, board games, and any movie below a 12 age rating. When I was more accepting of films below this rating, my favourite film ever was Jurassic Park.

I can't say how old I was when I first watched Jurassic Park with my parents. All I can say with absolute certainty is that I wasn't strong enough to watch it when I was any older.

I think it'd make sense that my parents skipped over some of the more scarring death scenes in the film. When I was older and had a DVD player in my room however, I didn't have any parents to skip over the "scary bits". So naturally when the worker dies in the opening, I put the film away and left it for years.

Over time I tried to re-watch the film and eventually I enjoyed it more and more. Jurassic Park has been one of my favourite movies since then, despite its many flaws. Over the next few weeks I shall be covering every Jurassic Park film and discussing what makes it so important to me and why I love them all so much.

Michael Crichton had written several books already, receiving a variety of different reviews, but they were mostly well received, critically and commercially. One day he conceived of a screenplay of a pterosaur being brought back to life through its surviving D.N.A. During this time as he continued to tinker around with the idea to see what exactly he could do with it. Before long he had the finished idea for Jurassic Park and it was released in 1990. The book, compared to his previous works recieved greater critical response, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt compared it to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: ""Jurassic Park" turns out to be a superior specimen of the [Frankenstein] myth, and easily the best of Mr. Crichton's novels to date ."

Steven Spielberg had known of the book before it was published,1989, when he was discussing a screenplay with Crichton. The author arranged a non-negotiable fee of $1.5 Million for film rights, which was bid on by a number of studios and directors, including Joe Dante and Tim Burton. Despite Speilberg's fascination with the product, he was busy filming Hook, and wanted to make Schindler's List before anything else. Universal Studios eventually bought the filming rights and organised a deal for Spielberg, allowing him to make Schindler's List, provided he first completed Jurassic Park. He said on making the film:

" I was really just trying to make a good sequel to Jaws, on land. " He also said he was mainly inspired by Godzilla, particularly the 1956 film Godzilla, King of the Monsters! which he watched a lot in his youth.

The film's script underwent several rewrites, firstly by Crichton who said his book was too long and cut out 80-90% of the book's content. The script was then re-written by Malia Scotch Marmo, before being again re-written by David Koepp. Koepp's scripts changes are most notable in the film, cutting out scenes of excessive character details and making Ian Malcom flirt with Ellie Sattler. This wasn't all the changes, but it's almost certainly his work that makes the film as memorable as it was.

It wasn't going to be easy for Spielberg to make the Dino-flick. Computer-Generated-Imagery (C.G.I) was't as common as it is now. Spielberg was forced to create animatronic dinosaurs, but was worried full-sized dinosaurs would cost too much. So his team made only heads, arms and feet, utilising creative camerawork to create an unnerving experience. Although Spielberg was dissatisfied with the end result, Dennis Muren, who was hired for digital compositing suggested he could create the Dinosaurs using C.G.I.. Obviously this went well. Many people who created the animatronics were retrained for creating C.G.I dinosaurs and others were kept on to help keep the animations realistic.

There's an excellent video by Cinefix about how they created the dinosaurs here. I strongly advise you to check it out

Harrison Ford was considered for the role of Alan Grant before Sam Neill who claims to have never heard of the book before then.

Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcom was a clear choice for the casting director when she read the book, although Jim Carrey also auditioned for the role.

Ariana Richards, who played Lex, said in her audition she was asked only to scream. She later found out that Spielberg had numerous girls audition and hers was the only scream that woke up his wife to see if the kids were okay.

Joseph Mazzello, who played Tim, auditioned for Speilberg's previous film Hook, but was too young, but Spielberg promised to have him in a future film.

Filming began in August 1992 on the island of Kauaʻi, Hawaii.

John Williams was called on by Spielberg to create the film's score. They had previously worked together for numerous films, including Jaws, Indiana Jones and Hook.

The film first premiered in Washington D.C. at the Uptown Theatre on June 9th 1993 for charity, and then widely released two days later on June 11th. An exhibition was also created, parading the models created and used for the film. Allowing people to see the dinosaurs in real life.

It soon became the highest grossing film of its time and the first to gross over $500 million outside of the United States. It also broke records for film openings across the Globe. It took a further four years for Titanic to beat it and become the new highest grossing film. 27 years on from its release it now sits in the 40th position behind Despicable Me 3.

The film has obviously become an important facet of pop-culture. Countless references to the William's theme, the water scene and more have been made and the actors have become synonymous with the roles. It also helped to popularise the use of C.G.I and thus revolutionised the movie industry.

So far all the surviving cast from the film have appeared in at least two of the film's sequels, with the exception of BD Wong and Jeff Goldbum who have both appeared in three. All survivors are expected to be in the next film, Jurassic World: Dominion, with the exception of Richard Attenborough who sadly passed away in 2014

The film was re-released in cinemas in the United Kingdom in 2011 to celebrate the film's Blu-Ray release. It was re-released globally in 2013 in 3D and in select cinemas in 2018 for the film's 25th anniversary along with a 4K HD box-set of the first four films.

The film won all three Oscars it was nominated for. Those being sound mixing, sound editing and visual effects. And both Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards were the only actors to receive any awards, both receiving 'Best Youth Actor Co-Starring in a Motion Picture Drama' and 'Best Youth Actress Leading Role in a Motion Picture Drama'

To me Jurassic Park is an experience that deserves to be seen. by as may people as possible. The film brilliantly carries you along its story and you have no idea who will make it out alive, until each character makes one careless mistake that costs their lives.

Maybe don't watch it at a young age, but it's a classic film that deserves the praise that it gets. It's by far a perfect film, but it's had so much passion put into it that it's impossible to not, at the very least, appreciate what has been made.

It's impossible to not understand how revolutionary Jurassic Park was to the movie industry, whether you think of C.G.I and special effects as beneficial or not. Even now as an adult I can look back and enjoy the film for what it's done, and for doing it in an entertaining fashion.

I must beg of you, watch this film if you haven't, watch it again if you have. There'll be something new that you can pick up on, many things that I haven't covered here that

Despite what the film may say, there is no real-life evidence that would lead to any belief that a T-Rex's vision is based on movement, as they say it is in the film. There has been no evidence to lead one to that conclusion, although it does make for a more interesting and tense film. In the book Alan discovers this accidentally when he froze in front of the T-Rex and it stopped

This was just one of many factual inaccuracies that we now know. We can't judge the film for not knowing everything about dinosaurs that we now know. The factual inaccuracies of the dinos was brought up in Jurassic World by BD Wong's character:

"Nothing in Jurassic World is natural. We have always filled gaps in the genome with other animals, and if their genetic code is pure many of them would look quite different."

There's a lot of interesting uses of C.G.I. in the films, but special effects were used at one point on Ariana Richards. During the raptor chase when the heroes escape into the air duct, Lex is knocked back down by a velociraptor, but manages to grab onto the air duct and escape the dino. There's a brief moment when Lex looks up at as she's pulled back up. This happened when the stunt double for Ariana Richards accidentally looked at the camera. Spielberg, instead of redoing the shot, had Richards' face added in post.

If you paid close attention to the scene where Dennis Nedry is taking out the dino DNA, some of the dinosaurs have been miss-spelt. Most notably Stegosaurus has changed to Stegasaurus.

In Jurassic Park a hurricane strikes, setting a spooky atmosphere for many of the events that unfold on the island. Coincedently, while filming on the island Hurrican Iniki struck and delayed filming. It also destroyed a set where Ray Arnold was to be chased by the raptors so that scene was cut from the film.

If you read the book and then watch the film, you'll notice there's a large number of changes that occur, as if the film took the characters and plot, but nothing else from the book. One of the most dramatic changes is what happens with the characters, most notably whether or not they survive. Here's a list of the deaths in the book and film.

Name - Book - Film

John Hammond - Dies - Survives

Ed Regis - Dies - Survives*

Henry Wu - Dies - Survives

Ian Malcom - Dies** - Survives

Alan Grant - Survives - Survives

Ellie Sattler - Survives - Survives

Jerry Harding - Survives - Survives***

John/Ray Arnold - Dies - Dies

Dennis Nedry - Dies - Dies

Robert Muldoon - Survives - Dies

Donald Gennaro - Survives - Dies

Donald Gennaro (the lawyer) also proves to be one of the more competent members of the gang in the book. Following the T-Rex attack he goes back to the park to find Alan Grant and the kids. He even fights a velociraptor and survives.

Robert Muldoon not only survives the same velociraptor attack as the one in the film, but he manages to take down the T-Rex chasing Grant and the kids on the river. This was made into a ride at Universal Studios and a similar scene was included in the third Jurassic Park movie.

Several scenes from the book that weren't included in this film were later included in the sequels including the book's opening. This was originally deemed too graphic for a film, yet was included as the opening of the film's sequel.

Also a major difference between book and film is when most of the workers left the island it was revealed that an unspecified number of dinosaurs were on that boat, and had now escaped. This would later be incorporated into the sequel and Fallen Kingdom.

The book ended with the island's survivors being imprisoned to hide any evidence of what happened on the island. Whereas at the end of the film the characters do their best to tell of what happened, but they're passed off as crazy.

*Ed Regis is in the film as the driver of one of the jeeps at the beginning of the film, but he presumably left when the hurricane hit, like most of the other characters. His traits were put onto Gennaro, even suffering a similar death, although not by a baby T-Rex, like the book.

Also on a personal note, in high school I made a text adventure playing as Ed Regis where you could help save Alan and the kids and escape the island, or die trying.

**Ian Malcom is reported dead at the end of the book, having succumbed to his injuries, yet is alive in the second book, passing his death off as a mistake made by the news. He does however have a cane and limp following the injury he suffered on the first island.

***Jerry Harding is the doctor working on the sick triceratops, we assume he left the island when it was safe like Henry Wu and Ed Regis. In the book he stays behind with other workers and saves Sattler. His daughter even joins Ian Malcom on the second island in The Lost World.