In "Jurassic Park," no expense is spared, as we are frequently reminded by the kindly, visionary, slightly more-than-eccentric multi-gazillionaire Mr. John Hammond (the late English thespian/director Sir Richard Attenborough), who is hoping to realize his dream of Jurassic Park, a wildlife theme attraction where the wild things are genetically engineered dinosaurs - cloned back into existence by geneticists utilizing preserved DNA found in the stomachs of fossilized mosquitoes.
Hammond's wealthy investors are worried about the park's safety, and he's invited Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill), a noted paleontologist, and his top student, paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), to come to Jurassic Park to give their positive endorsement of it. Along for the ride, are lawyer Donald Gennero (Martin Ferrero), who represents Hammond's nervous investors, and mathematician and "Chaos Theory" subscriber Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), who argues that Jurassic Park's ecosystem is ultimately unsustainable and doomed to failure. "Life finds a way," he ominously intones, and "Chaos Theory" soon prevails...
"Jurassic Park," of course, is the 1993 science fiction blockbuster directed by Steven Spielberg and adapted from the 1990 novel of the same name (which I have never read, but am aware of the many significant differences between the original source material and the film adaptation) by the late sci-fi author Michael Crichton, who also co-wrote the film's screenplay with David Koepp.
The film's tagline of "Jurassic Park" being "an adventure 65 million years in the making" is a tagline that delivers on exactly what it promises. So, for once, the promotional materials don't lie. I saw "Jurassic Park" in the theater during its history-making run at the box office when I was just seven-years-old back in 1993. I still have vivid recollections of that experience, and the film was at the center of my childhood fascination with dinosaurs. (It's a wonder that I didn't go into paleontology.) The characters of Lex (Ariana Richards) and Tim (Joseph Mazzello), Hammond's grandchildren, represent that innocent, childhood fascination with dinosaurs that I'm sure Spielberg himself had when he was a kid (and probably still does).
And of course, "Jurassic Park's" big attraction for the film audiences of the time was its pioneering blend of state-of-the-art Industrial Light & Magic- (ILM-)-produced CGI and practical (animatronic) special effects provided by the late Stan Winston and Phil Tippett to bring the dinosaurs to life - the overall quality of which still holds up today and remains as fresh and tremendous and ground-breaking as they were back in 1993. "Jurassic Park" represented the next step in the CGI revolution that had been started two years earlier with James Cameron's revolutionary "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" (1991).
Having seen the film again today for the first time in many years, I still felt that same level of excitement and wonder that I felt the first time I saw it all those years ago back in 1993. That same excitement and wonder is what attracted Steven Spielberg to Crichton's source material, and only Spielberg was capable of delivering it. No other living filmmaker can provide such wonder and excitement on a consistent basis with each new film he directs, and "Jurassic Park" represented yet another monumental, history-making cinematic achievement for the most prolific director working in the modern film industry.
10/10
P. S.: My favorite dinosaur, by the way, is the Dilophosaurus.
Hammond's wealthy investors are worried about the park's safety, and he's invited Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill), a noted paleontologist, and his top student, paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), to come to Jurassic Park to give their positive endorsement of it. Along for the ride, are lawyer Donald Gennero (Martin Ferrero), who represents Hammond's nervous investors, and mathematician and "Chaos Theory" subscriber Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), who argues that Jurassic Park's ecosystem is ultimately unsustainable and doomed to failure. "Life finds a way," he ominously intones, and "Chaos Theory" soon prevails...
"Jurassic Park," of course, is the 1993 science fiction blockbuster directed by Steven Spielberg and adapted from the 1990 novel of the same name (which I have never read, but am aware of the many significant differences between the original source material and the film adaptation) by the late sci-fi author Michael Crichton, who also co-wrote the film's screenplay with David Koepp.
The film's tagline of "Jurassic Park" being "an adventure 65 million years in the making" is a tagline that delivers on exactly what it promises. So, for once, the promotional materials don't lie. I saw "Jurassic Park" in the theater during its history-making run at the box office when I was just seven-years-old back in 1993. I still have vivid recollections of that experience, and the film was at the center of my childhood fascination with dinosaurs. (It's a wonder that I didn't go into paleontology.) The characters of Lex (Ariana Richards) and Tim (Joseph Mazzello), Hammond's grandchildren, represent that innocent, childhood fascination with dinosaurs that I'm sure Spielberg himself had when he was a kid (and probably still does).
And of course, "Jurassic Park's" big attraction for the film audiences of the time was its pioneering blend of state-of-the-art Industrial Light & Magic- (ILM-)-produced CGI and practical (animatronic) special effects provided by the late Stan Winston and Phil Tippett to bring the dinosaurs to life - the overall quality of which still holds up today and remains as fresh and tremendous and ground-breaking as they were back in 1993. "Jurassic Park" represented the next step in the CGI revolution that had been started two years earlier with James Cameron's revolutionary "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" (1991).
Having seen the film again today for the first time in many years, I still felt that same level of excitement and wonder that I felt the first time I saw it all those years ago back in 1993. That same excitement and wonder is what attracted Steven Spielberg to Crichton's source material, and only Spielberg was capable of delivering it. No other living filmmaker can provide such wonder and excitement on a consistent basis with each new film he directs, and "Jurassic Park" represented yet another monumental, history-making cinematic achievement for the most prolific director working in the modern film industry.
10/10
P. S.: My favorite dinosaur, by the way, is the Dilophosaurus.