review by Julie Patron
Jurassic Park 1993
Rewatched Jun 24, 2012
Julie’s review:
Holy wow, did this hold up.
I haven't seen this since I saw it as a child, maybe at the drive-in? I actually don't remember a lot about that viewing experience, but I'm pretty sure of two things - I was probably terrified for most of the movie. And little nerdy me was probably annoyed that a lot of the harder science stuff was omitted (I loved dinosaurs, I was really nerdy, and I was a big Michael Crichton fan = I was an annoying child).
Watching it now, almost 20 years later, I see how perfect a Hollywood film it really is. Everything has a reason for being, everyone has pretty clear goals, motivations, and weaknesses, and there are clear narrative and character trajectories. And through that, it taps into some universal well of emotion by creating absolutely indelible images and experiences (and through an (over-)reliance on close ups to show emotion and investment in characters, but whatever). Even though I hadn't seen it in 20 years, I could still immediately call up almost perfect screenshots in memory. That's a great and lasting film.
I also thought the effects held up really well, with that blend of animatronics and CGI. One of the most interesting things I read was about the attempt to use a type of stop-motion animation for long shots of the dinosaurs - when this technique plus motion blur still failed to give the desired effect, CGI was tried.
"Animators Mark Dippe and Steve Williams went ahead in creating a computer-generated walk cycle for the T. rex skeleton and were approved to do more. When Spielberg and Tippett saw an animatic of the T. rex chasing a herd of Gallimimus, Spielberg said, "You're out of a job," to which Tippett replied, "Don't you mean extinct?" Spielberg later wrote both the animatic and his dialogue between him and Tippett into the script, as a conversation between Malcolm and Grant." (happy ending, the stop-motion animators were re-trained as computer animators.)
Also, this movie is the best because it gave us a film score that felt like a reward when we got to play it in orchestra.
"Hold on to your butts..."
I've never loved (with emphasis on loved) "Jurassic Park," but your review has inspired a rewatch, perhaps of the entire series!
Thanks, that's always such a great compliment, I really appreciate it!
I didn't expect to like this as much as I did. In the past few years, I have mostly seen ironic screencaps of smoldering Jeff Goldblum and thought that the current love for it was really just that - ironic. But my love of this was completely genuine.
Loved it as a 9 year old, love it now! I totally get where your impression of it being a good-bad movie came from, but it's good-good for sure! Your review captures why.
=) Yea, I even put the Blu-Rays on my wish list. I may have to try to take up the gauntlet of nacho parties - although it will just be Kady and me, haha =(
A very nice summation of possibly my favourite film of all time! Great review! :-)
Thank you! I'm kinda kicking myself for waiting so long to do a re-watch :)
Great review Julie! I have watched this movie many times and enjoyed it almost as much every viewing. Jurassic Park deserves every one of it's five stars.
@Adam oh yea I think I remembered that happening! Yea, I think there were a lot of changes made to the book, but a) it's been over 20 years since I've read it so I can't really make any judgments as to its literary merits, and b) I think the movie turned out just fine so I'm not going to complain :) I think that adding more of the "science" would have unnecessarily bogged down the movie, and adding any more of the serious kills would have made it too dark.
@Showbill Thanks! I look forward to watching it more than once every 20 years from now on :)
Also of note - about a week after watching this, I had the chance to see a local theatre company put on a live action show of Jurassic Park. It was fucking amazing. They basically sweded the movie (for anyone who's seen Be Kind, Rewind) and they did it really really well. They have also done Robocop, Back to the Future, and Aliens (on ice!) and they just completed their first ever U.S. tour. If anyone ever has a chance to go see them, I highly recommend it. oldmurderhousetheatre.com/
@Adam I think I'll be re-reading the book this weekend, sounds like a good summertime read. I think that the details about the girl in the film might be from The Lost World, I don't remember any of that from Jurassic Park, although maybe I missed something! And thanks =)
would have been better if the 2 brat kids died apart from that great film
Can't say that I agree, but yea they could be annoying :) still, I've seen worse from child actors!
I've read the book a few times, and both @Julie and @ Adam are right....there are huge differences, with different characters surviving to the end and certain characters that die early in the movie becoming major characters in the book. I actually think this is a situation to which I can find no other parallel....it's a situation where the movie deviated quite a bit from the book, and yet I love both stories almost equally. Usually in cases like this, I tend to prefer one over the other, but I think both the book and the movie are good works of fiction in their own right.
Oh yea, I was supposed to track that down this weekend...thanks for reminding me =) It was a book I read multiple times as a kid, and loved.