Stuff I Grew Up With/Franchises: Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park (1993)

Of all the movies, TV shows, and video games that I'll ever review on here, there are a select group that were very significant in my childhood, with some holding more importance than others. And Jurassic Park, in particular, was one of the biggest, right up there with the first few Godzilla and Disney movies that I saw (in fact, while Godzilla does edge Jurassic Park out on this score, it's not by much), so I couldn't think of a better subject for the first Stuff I Grew Up With. I really cannot overestimate the impact this movie had on me. I was just five years old when it was released in the summer of 1993, the week before my birthday, no less (I'm sure that I had officially turned six by the time I saw it). While my memory is, understandably, fuzzy, I think the first time I became aware of it was a short TV spot one night. As quick as it was, perhaps only 30 seconds or so, and only showing glimpses of the dinosaurs, it was impactful enough for my mom to decide, "We have to see that!" Before we could, though, everyone we knew was talking about it, including some kids I knew both at elementary and Sunday school, and they said that it scared them out of their wits. That gave Mom pause as to whether or not she should take me to see it, and I do remember being a little apprehensive myself, as some of the images I saw from it, both on TV and various picture books, did look a little scary. Of course, we did go see it and, while there were moments where I hid my eyes, it would mostly be an awesome experience. While I had been to the theater a few times before, with my earliest memories being when we saw both Aladdin and Batman Returns when I was five, Jurassic Park left a much bigger impact. As young as I was, I can still remember my reaction to certain scenes, whereas things are hazier for those others. Moreover, when it came on video, my paternal grandmother bought a copy of it just so she could have something to keep any kids she had to watch occupied and, thus, I must've watched it at least fifty times during my childhood, and even that might be a conservative estimate. I also really pity both my grandparents and actual parents who had to sit through it so many times, to the point where they were likely sick of it, even though they did like it themselves.

Fortunately, it's far from one of those things that I liked as a kid but now cringe at; looking back at Jurassic Park as an adult, I can still understand perfectly why I loved it so much. Like countless others, I was in love with dinosaurs as a kid, and this was the movie where it felt like I had seen living, breathing ones onscreen. I had seen clips of a fair amount of old sci-fi and monster movies before this but, even at that young age, I knew that this one was different. I didn't understand anything about filmmaking or CGI, but I could tell that the dinosaurs and monsters in those movies never looked or felt completely real. With Jurassic Park, it felt like the dinosaurs were right there in front of the camera, chasing it, running with it, jumping over it, and such, as if it were a National Geographic documentary with footage of honest to God living creatures. And to this day, those effects still amaze me to the point where I consider these dinosaurs to be the best CGI creations ever. There have been some great digital creatures since then, but I feel that it's never gotten any better than this. If the effects in the original King Kong and Ray Harryhausen's movies of the 50's and 60's made those generations go "ooh" and "awe," the effects in Jurassic Park are what made my generation do the same.

This is also the first time in my life that I got swept up in a major movie phenomenon. At that point, I had been around for stuff like Tim Burton's Batman, the latter two Back to the Future movies, and Terminator 2: Judgement Day, but I was either only mildly aware of them, if at all, or, in the case of Batman, too young appreciate what a big deal it was. But with Jurassic Park, I understood that practically everybody in the world was watching and talking about it. Not only had all of my friends and schoolmates seen it and loved it, but I remember seeing them talk about and show a clip from it on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno shortly before its release, as I often stayed up late with my parents since it was summer. I also saw it being referenced in other movies and TV shows for quite a while after it was released, and I remember our local news talking about how incredibly the VHS tape sold when it came out in October of 1994. And there was one other way in which I got swept up in it: the merchandise! I had so many of the toys from this movie, either because I got them for my birthday or I browbeat my parents into buying one of them for me whenever I came across it at Wal-Mart. (As I've said in other reviews, I'm not my proud of myself for doing that, but as a kid, you do what you have to.) And I still have a lot of those figures to this day, reminding me of an awesome time from a very early part of my life. I also still have a poster of the various dinosaurs on my closet door that came out of Nana's VHS copy, I played and owned at least one of the video games, as well as the arcade games, I had various picture-books, and even a tie-in tape for my 2-XL toy robot! I just about had it all, and could never get enough.

Jurassic Park, of course, began life as the novel by Michael Crichton (which I had the opportunity to read as part of a high school summer reading program), who had actually known Steven Spielberg since he was just starting his career at Universal Pictures, as a television director. When Crichton came to the studio when his first major book, The Andromeda Strain, was to be made into a movie, Spielberg was tasked with showing him around the place. The two of them had kept in touch over the years, as their respective careers flourished, and in 1989, going into '90, they began having meetings about Spielberg directing a script that Crichton had written: ER, which would later become the pilot for the television series. During one of these lunch meetings, Crichton told Spielberg about Jurassic Park, which he'd been developing since 1983, as it grew out of an aborted screenplay he'd written, and was almost done with. Spielberg said that he immediately leapt to his feet and said he wanted to turn that into a movie, as he was one of those millions of kids who loved dinosaurs and had always wanted to do such a movie. A bidding war for the book's film rights was sparked among the major studios, each of whom had a director in mind for it: Warner Bros. and Tim Burton, Columbia and Richard Donner, and Fox and Joe Dante. James Cameron also came very close to making it but, in the end, Universal and Spielberg, whom Crichton had kind of promised it to, prevailed. Crichton was also hired to write the screenplay but, because he was burned out after having written the novel, he agreed to write only a first draft and have Spielberg bring someone else in to finalize it. That other writer was David Koepp, who, for the most part, was allowed to make his own creative choices, but had to include two major sequences: the T. Rex attack and the Velociraptors stalking the kids in the kitchen. Crichton said that he was ultimately pleased with the final screenplay. Before Koepp, however, there was another writer, Scotch Marmo, whose work was ultimately not used and who went uncredited, although when Koepp was writing, she was allowed to give suggestions and input.

Steven Spielberg has been around for so long and created so many legendary films that multiple generations have grown up with key movies from him that had a big impact on their lives. Jurassic Park was most definitely that film for my generation and, while I once said that I had to think about it "long and hard," it's honestly not at all a stretch for me to say that this is my favorite Spielberg movie. Naturally, I like a lot of his films, like Jaws, Duel, the Indiana Jones movies, E.T., and such, but I'd be lying to myself if I didn't give Jurassic Park the number one slot. It is mainly because it's the one that I've watched the most and introduced me to him in the first place, but I also truly think this is where he shines as a director, showing that he can create both a sense of wonder and scope to appeal to the kids, and nail-biting suspense and thrills for the adults, within a single film. 

Jurassic Park also occupies an interesting spot within Spielberg's overall career. I personally view it as the beginning of, let's say, the fourth phase of his career, with the third phase having been everything between it and E.T. During that period, the only mega blockbusters he truly made were the latter two entries in the original Indiana Jones trilogy. The Color Purple was also really successful, sure, but the same can't be said of Empire of the Sun or Always, and Hook, while certainly a hit, wasn't nearly as big as expected. Jurassic Park, however, became the highest grossing movie of all time until Titanic, and it definitely reestablished Spielberg as the king of Hollywood, if you will. And yet, at the same time, it was kind of the last of the enormously successful, wondrous movies he'd become known for. During post-production, he left to go make Schindler's List, which was released just five months after Jurassic Park, and was not only a massive hit in its own right but also won Spielberg both a Best Director and Best Picture Oscar. In short, he'd graduated to a more adult and prestige type of filmmaking, and began taking on these types of movies more and more. He wouldn't abandon those wondrous, inner-child-inspired movies completely, as he would go on to direct the first Jurassic Park sequel, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Adventures of Tintin, and Ready Player One, among others, but it was never quite the same, and none of those would ever reach the level of the first Jurassic Park, be it critically or commercially.

One criticism I sometimes hear, including when Siskel and Ebert reviewed the film, is that, while the dinosaurs themselves, along with much of the technical aspects, are incredible, the characters are bland and undeveloped. While I can see that for maybe some of the minor characters who are, regardless, significant to the plot, I don't agree at all when it comes to the main cast. I can remember liking these characters even when I was a young kid whose main interest was the dinosaurs, so that should say something. In doing research, I've found that screenwriter David Koepp struggled with the character of Dr. Alan Grant, even suggesting to Spielberg that he combine him with the character of Dr. Malcolm. But, thanks to Spielberg and Scotch Marmo's input, along with Sam Neil's portrayal, Grant manages to avoid being the bland scientist lead, like a number of the leads in 50's sci-fi and monster flicks, he could've easily been and is instead quite compelling in his own way. Grant comes off as a rather earthy guy, who's been studying dinosaurs all his life, with his specialty being Velociraptors, and firmly believes that they evolved into birds. He's also not somebody who does well with technology, as he flat-out hates computers, and the feeling, as Ellie Sattler says, appears to be mutual, as during his introductory scene at a fossil dig in Montana, one momentarily malfunctions apparently because he touches it. In fact, when things first go haywire during the park and the electric vehicles they're riding in stop, Grant briefly thinks it's something he did. And speaking of technology, he prefers to do things the old-fashioned way. When another paleontologist comments that the new radar program they're using to find fossils is going to develop to the point where they won't need to dig anymore, Grant comments, "Where's the fun in that?" 

When John Hammond arrives at the dig-site, Grant, like Ellie, is initially angry, as his entrance in a helicopter threatens to destroy the fragile raptor skeletons they've unearthed, but when he realizes he's meeting the man who's been funding his work, he quickly changes his tune. Both of them are also intrigued when Hammond invites them to come visit the park he's building off of Costa Rica, saying it's something they would be interested in, and that his investors care very much about their personal

opinions on it. They are initially reluctant, saying they're busy with those new skeletons, but when Hammond offers to fund their dig for another three years, they're more than willing to go. And once they arrive at the park, they're absolutely stunned and full of wonder when they see real, living dinosaurs. Seeing a Brachiosaurus and hearing that they have a T-Rex is enough to cause Grant's legs to nearly give out on him, and that feeling only doubles and even triples when they see herds of dinosaurs nearby.

They're also fascinated when they learn how Hammond and his scientists managed to create the dinosaurs from DNA contained in mosquitoes that have been encased in amber for millions of years. But when he learns that they've bred deadly Velociraptors, gets a glimpse of how they have to be fed, and learns from Robert Muldoon just how frighteningly intelligent they are, he starts to become concerned about the implications. While he's not quite as pessimistic about it as Malcolm or even Ellie, he does warn, "I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but

look... Dinosaurs and man, two species separated by 65 million years of evolution, have just been suddenly thrown back into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea what to expect?" And the latter part of the movie proves him very right, and he also finds that Malcolm was right when he said that life would find a way, as he, Lex, and Tim come upon some hatched eggs, even though the dinosaurs shouldn't be able to breed. Still, when they're out on their personal tour and come upon the sick Triceratops, Grant can't help but become a kid again, remarking, "She was always my favorite when I was a kid. And now, I see she's the most beautiful thing I ever saw," as well as listen to her breathing.

During his time at the park, Grant has two personal issues to deal with. One, he sees that Malcolm is very openly flirting with Ellie, although that's resolved very quickly when Malcolm learns that he and Ellie are something of a couple. Two, and more significantly, Grant doesn't like kids at all. This is clear during the dig at Montana, when this one kid derides the Velociraptor as being like a "six-foot turkey," and Grant feels the need to put him in his place by describing just how dangerous they are,

producing a fossilized claw from their feet to emphasize it. The kid was being a little brat about it, and it's obvious that Grant doesn't care for his work being mocked, but he still went a little extreme, and told Ellie what he thought of kids in general: "They're noisy, they're messy, they're expensive... They smell." So, when Lex and Tim show up before they embark on their tour, he's not at all thrilled and does everything he can to avoid Tim when the boy, who's a big admirer of him, begins following him around,

peppering him with questions. Moreover, Lex seems to have something of a crush on Grant, given how, when he helps her up after she falls at one point, she won't let go of his hand. But, that said, when they're attacked by the T-Rex, Grant is horrified when the kids' car gets turned over and is slowly crushed by the dinosaur. He then gets out of the car with a flare and uses it to distract the T-Rex, eventually getting the chance, thanks to a further distraction from Malcolm, to help them. From there, as he guides the kids through the park and back to the visitor's center, he

grows to genuinely care about them, even becoming something of a surrogate father and risking his life many more times to save them. This culminates in the nice sight at the end with him sitting in the helicopter, the two of them sleeping on either side of him, which really pleases Ellie and which he acknowledges the possible significance of as well. 

I used to not be that big on Dr. Ellie Sattler. I always thought Laura Dern played her part well, but felt there wasn't much to her. However, I now feel like I was wrong. One of the biggest aspects of Ellie's character is her relationship with Alan Grant, whom she has a subtle but still present romantic bond with. She clearly loves and respects him, both as a man and a paleontologist, and wants to settle down with him some day, but his attitude about kids is a roadblock, since she admits to wanting some herself. It's not something she's constantly pestering him about, thankfully, but she can't help but laugh at and and even tease him about it, like when, before the tour, and after he's been avoiding Tim like the plague, she gets Lex to tell him, "She said I should ride with you because it'd be good for you." However, she's also just as dedicated to her field and, like him, she's both taken with what John Hammond has accomplished, being reduced to near tears when they see the baby Velociraptor hatch and come upon the sick Triceratops (she's even willing to dig through the dinosaur's crap to see if she's eaten something that made her sick), but also grows concerned at the implications. During the lunch that she, Grant, Malcolm, and Donald Gennaro have with Hammond, she, after Malcolm has made his opinion very clear, speaks up and says, "Well, the question is, how can you know anything about an extinct ecosystem? And, therefore, how could you ever assume that you can control it? You have plants in this building that are poisonous. You picked them because they look good. But these are aggressive living things that have no idea what century they're in and they'll defend themselves, violently if necessary." Speaking of Malcolm, while she does seem to sense that he's flirting with her, she doesn't take it all that seriously, as her heart clearly belongs to Grant.

Ellie's reaction to Hammond's arrival at the dig site and realizing who he is turns out to be even funnier than Grant's. She comes barreling into Grant's trailer, all dusty and angry, yelling, "Okay, who's the jerk?!", but when Grant introduces her to Hammond, she shakes his hand and sheepishly asks, "Did I say 'jerk?'" In any case, since she opts to stay behind and help with the sick Triceratops, she makes it back to the visitor's center and manages to avoid getting stuck out in the park when Dennis Nedry shuts everything

down. Worried about Grant and the others when they realize what's happened, she accompanies Robert Muldoon when he goes to the T-Rex paddock to fetch them. Naturally, she's horrified when they arrive to find that the other car isn't there, and the only one they find alive is Malcolm, but they also find evidence that Grant and the kids are still alive as well. Of course, they also come close to getting eaten by the T-Rex when she wanders back into that area. Ellie's best scene by far comes when they've made it

back to the visitor's center and she sits down with Hammond in the cafeteria. After he tells her his reason for building Jurassic Park, and still thinks that he can regain "control" of it, she tearfully exclaims, "You never had control. That's the illusion! I was overwhelmed by the power of this place! But I made a mistake, too. I didn't have enough respect for that power and it's out now! The only thing that matters now are the people we love: Alan and Lex and Tim. John, they're out there where people are dying." And finally, while she definitely has her fair share of

moments where she screams in terror, Ellie is not a damsel in distress. After they've shut down the system and turned it back on, and Ray Arnold fails to return from the maintenance shed to get everything up and running again, she opts to go do it herself, despite the danger. Moreover, when Hammond suggests that he should be the one doing it for no other reason than gender, she just says, "Look... We can discuss sexism in survival situations when I get back." While she nearly gets eaten by a Velociraptor, and almost unintentionally kills Tim when she turns on the

perimeter fence when he's climbing over it, she does manage to get the electricity working again. And throughout the climax, she and Grant work together to defend the kids from the raptors and escape with their lives.

Without a doubt, my favorite character is Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm. One reason is simply because of Goldblum's natural charisma and ability to come off as very intelligent and a know-it-all, but not quite to the point where he's obnoxious about it. Second, in his introductory scene, when they're flying to the island in the helicopter, he immediately comes off as rather cool, given how he's dressed in black, with a leather jacket and black-rimmed glasses. He also comes off as playful and a tad eccentric here, given the weird way he laughs at Ellie and Grant's answer to his question about their digging up dinosaurs. According to John Hammond, whom Malcolm seems to take delight in annoying (the way he touches Hammond's knee while they're arguing during this scene being a good example), he suffers from a, "Deplorable, excess of personality." Malcolm is also a major flirt towards Ellie right off the bat. When trying to explain the basics of chaos theory, he says, "Non-linear equations? Strange attractions? Dr. Sattler, I refuse to believe that you aren't familiar with the concept of attraction." He continues to do so her regularly, mostly during the park tour, where he rides with her in the same car and shows her an example of a chaos experiment that involves him dripping some water on her hand. And it's clear that he's a free-spirit when it comes to this sort of thing, as when he's later alone with Grant, he admits to having three kids and adds, "I'm always on the lookout for a future ex-Mrs. Malcolm." That comment especially worries Grant, but when Malcolm later asks if Ellie is available, he backs off when Grant confirms that he and Ellie are an item.

Like the others, Malcolm is shocked when they see that Hammond has managed to create real dinosaurs. But while he, as they're watching the Brachiosaurus in the field, can't help but laugh to himself, for a reason even he probably can't explain, his overall emotion is horror and concern. He'd already been trying to warn Hammond that what he's doing is very ill-advised, but now that he sees he's actually accomplished it, there are scenes where Malcolm is quite grave. In the scene where they watch the baby

Velociraptor hatch, and Dr. Wu has explained how they keep the dinosaurs from breeding in the wild, Malcolm warns Hammond, "The kind of control you're attempting is... it's not possible. If there's one thing the history of evolution has taught us, it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free. It expands to new territories and it crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh... well, there it is," and adds the immortal line, "Life finds a way." And after the scene at the Velociraptor

containment pen, where they've learned how dangerous and intelligent those creatures are, and Hammond and Donald Gennaro are talking about their plans for the park over, lunch, Malcolm really tries to make Hammond understand that this is a disaster waiting to happen. He tells him, "Don't you see the danger, John, inherent in what you're doing here? Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet's ever seen, but you wield it like a kid that's found his dad's gun... I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here: it didn't

require any discipline to attain it. You know, you read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it." Moreover, he's disgusted by how flippant they're being about what they've done, saying, "Before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now, you're selling it. You wanna sell it." When Hammond counters that he wouldn't be taking this attitude if he were to genetically recreate a critically endangered species,

like condors, Malcolm responds, "This isn't some species that was obliterated by deforestation, or the building of a dam. Dinosaurs had their shot, and nature selected them for extinction." And when Hammond tries to defend himself by asking, "I mean, how can we stand in the light of discovery, and not act?," Malcolm sums up his feelings by countering, "What's so great about discovery? It's a violent, penetrative act that scars what it explores. What you call discovery, I call the rape of the natural world."

Malcolm is also, as Goldblum tends to be, very funny, with a witty, off-the-cuff sense of humor that leads to some nice lines. Some are more well-known, like the classic, "What do they got in there, King Kong?", or "Now that is one big pile of shit," but others are a little less flashy but no less funny, like, "Oh, God help us. We're in the hands of engineers," or.when the T-Rex fails to show and he annoys Hammond by asking the security camera in the car, "Ah, now eventually you do plan to have dinosaurs on your, on your

dinosaur tour, right?" Others include when the T-Rex first gets loose and he comments, "Boy, I hate being right all the time!"; when he, Ellie, and Muldoon barely manage to outrun the T-Rex, he asks, "Think they'll have that on the tour?"; and when Hammond compares Ray Arnold's disappearance to the dysfunctional opening of Disneyland, Malcolm counters, "Yeah, but John, if the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists!" Speaking of which, Malcolm is kind of side-lined during the movie's latter half when his leg

gets broken during the T-Rex attack. But, that said, what's great is that it happens because he heroically lures the T-Rex away from Grant so he can get the kids, whereas he was originally supposed to cowardly run away, like Genarro. And he still manages to be useful, like when he and Hammond are guiding Ellie to the breaker room, and Malcolm's instructions prove to be more helpful than Hammond's.

In the original novel, John Hammond is portrayed in a very negative light, as a cold, sociopathic businessman whose only interest in cloning dinosaurs is to make a tidy profit. In stark contrast, Steven Spielberg and Richard Attenborough portray Hammond as an eccentric but very jovial billionaire showman, someone whom you can tell loves entertaining people and, above all else, wants to give them a real sense of wonder. He's kind of a Walt Disney figure in that respect, one who has upgraded from animatronics and rides to genetic engineering to give his customers something they've never experienced before. And he takes great pride in what he's accomplished, as you can see when he watches his guests marvel at the sight of the dinosaurs when they first arrive on the island and then tells them, "Dr. Grant, my dear Dr. Sattler, welcome... to Jurassic Park." He happily talks about how sophisticated the park is in every detail, with his repeated catchphrase, "Spared no expense," and is sometimes heard going on about his vision for its future when it gets up and running, about what he'll add to and improve upon. In addition, he regards the dinosaurs themselves very affectionately, even in a paternal manner, as he talks about being present for the birth of every single one of them, that they imprint upon the first creature they see and he feels it creates a sense of trust between them. This is very clear in the scene where the Velociraptor hatches and he absolutely dotes on it. Hammond also comes off as supremely confident that everything will work; when Donald Genarro tells him that he'll get shut down if his inspection of the island's security systems and whatnot doesn't pan out, Hammond smiles at him and says, "In 48 hours, I'll be accepting your apologies." And above all else, he hopes that people from all walks of life will get the chance to experience the wonders of these living dinosaurs, especially kids, which is why he invites his beloved grandchildren to the park. (It's also possible that he hoped to give them a break from some turmoil at home, as it's mentioned early on that his daughter is getting divorced.) You get the sense that he especially identifies with kids, as he's so like one himself, with all his energy, enthusiasm, innocence, and even naivety.

In fact, Hammond is so childlike and naive that it proves to be one of the faults that leads to his downfall. As much as he invited Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler to the park in hopes that they would endorse it and satisfy his investors, it also seems like he hoped they would tell him what he wants to hear, as he knows he's not going to hear it from Dr. Malcolm. Though he claims, during the lunch scene, that he wants to hear everyone's point of view, when Malcolm tries to explain to him how unpredictably

dangerous this endeavor is, Hammond obviously doesn't like what he's saying, insisting that Malcolm isn't giving his company and the scientists he's hired the credit they deserve, and questions why he's being so conservative. And when both Grant and Sattler more or less agree with Malcolm, Hammond can only laugh and say, "You're meant to come down here and defend me against these characters, and the only one I've got on my side is the blood-sucking lawyer! Ha!" There are also moments where you can see that

Hammond's ultra confidence is something of a facade to mask insecurity in his need for the park to work, as he clearly didn't want them to learn about how dangerous the Velociraptors are and see the rather barbaric way in which they're fed. When Robert Muldoon starts talking about just how intelligent and deadly they are, Hammond initially tries to downplay it, but it doesn't work. And when their tour starts, everything starts going wrong, with the dinosaurs not showing up on cue, the vehicles malfunctioning, which you learn is just the latest of many problems

they run into on a daily basis, and worst of all, a powerful tropical storm heads right for them, forcing them to cut the tour short, all of which erodes Hammond's confidence. Of course, things then go from bad to worse when Dennis Nedry shuts down the park's security system, the dinosaurs begin running amok, and people fall prey to them. By that night, Hammond knows the extent of the damage that Nedry has done, that Ray Arnold, his chief engineer, can't do anything to fix it, and, worst of all, that his grandchildren are missing, along with Grant.

Attenborough is absolutely splendid in playing every side of Hammond, but he truly shines during the latter half, when you see him struggling to process that the park has indeed failed in every way. In the scene between him and Ellie in the cafeteria, he tells her about an animatronic flea circus that he created as his first attraction, then says, "But with this place, I wanted to show them something that wasn't an illusion. Something that was real. Something that they could see and touch. An aim not devoid of merit." He 

then tries to blame the disaster entirely on Nedry's treachery, adding that he was too dependent on outside help, and that when he rebuilds the park, there won't be any mistakes. Ellie then breaks it to him that he never had control over the park to begin with, that it was an accident waiting to happen, and all that matters is that everyone get off the island safely. With that, as crushed as he is, he comes around and works to get the system up and running again, coming up with the idea to completely shut it down and then

reboot it. Though it does work, despite some hiccups, and they're able to call for help and escape the island, Hammond, despite knowing that he was wrong, still has to come to terms with leaving his dream behind. The last look he gives back towards the park at the helipad, as he hears the Brachiosaurs singing in the distance, is one of an utterly shattered man, making for a sad contrast to when they first arrived and he had such a smile on his face over just being there. And as they head home, he can only look at where it all began, at the amber-encased mosquito at the tip of his cane, and silently lament all that's happened and reflect on the innocent, well-meaning dream he once had.

Lex (Ariana Richards) and Tim (Joseph Mazzello) are examples of kid characters whom I actually care about and don't find annoying... most of the time. While I get that they're both scared out of their minds, there are moments where I think Lex gets overly panicky, especially during the T-Rex scene, where she does some really dumb things with the flashlight she finds and provokes the T-Rex into directly attacking them. As for Tim, while I do feel bad for him when he meets Grant, who's his idol, and Grant goes out of his

way to avoid him, I also can't blame Grant when he's talking his ear off, including when they're walking to the spot where they come upon the Triceratops. In addition, he does some frustrating things, like when he refuses to jump off the perimeter fence when they realize that someone is turning it back on, or when, during the scene in the kitchen with the Velociraptors, he won't move from a certain spot, forcing Lex to get their attention. He can get a bit whiny too, like when he's saying, "Come on, Lex!" when she's trying to reboot the security system, while Grant and Ellie are trying to keep the lead Velociraptor from getting into the control room. I've always wished he would do something truly useful there, like hand one of them the gun on the floor so they can shoot the raptor. 

But, all that complaining aside, I do genuinely like these kids. Spielberg has always had a real knack for casting really good child actors (except for maybe Short Round; I don't care if he's an Oscar winner now, I still found him to be really annoying for 90% of that movie), and these two are no exception. Tim is very precocious and intelligent, having a major interest in dinosaurs, while Lex comes off as a good-natured, pre-teen girl, although those moments where she seems to have something of a crush on Grant are kind

of weird. Also, in another change from the novel, the siblings' ages and personalities are swapped, with Lex now being the older and a whiz at computers, describing herself as a "hacker" as opposed to a nerd. Her computer skills really come in handy during the climax, as she's able to successfully reboot the park's security system, momentarily keeping the Velociraptor from getting into the control room and enabling them to call for help. More than anything else, though, I feel bad for these kids because, once

the park shuts down, they find themselves in one dangerous situation after another. They're attacked by the T-Rex, which sends their car over a cliff with Tim still in it; Grant and Tim are nearly crushed when the car comes crashing down through the trees while Grant is helping him; they're nearly trampled by a stampede of Gallimimus; they're forced to climb the big perimeter fence, and Tim is nearly electrocuted to death when it's switched back on (the sight of Lex in tears over the thought of her brother dying is both heartbreaking and sweet at the same time); they make

it back to the visitor's center, only for the kids to be stalked by a pair of Velociraptors; and even after they get the system up and running again, they're hunted down and nearly killed. Thus, when they're finally on the helicopter, heading for home, it's not surprising that they're asleep on either side of Grant.

One character whom I really like and wish he didn't go out the way he did was Robert Muldoon (Bob Peck), the park's game warden. He comes across as a really cool, competent person, someone who understands how to deal with dangerous animals and thus, you'd want to have him at your back in the jungle. He's also the one person on Hammond's staff who understands the potential danger of something going wrong with the park's system,and is very tense during the tour, especially since he knows the tropical storm is coming in. His specialty are the Velociraptors, which he seems to both admire and fear at the same time (when the security system begins to shut down, his first concern is whether the raptors' pen has been turned off). As he tells Grant and the others at the pen, "I've hunted most things that can hunt you, but the way these things move...", and goes on to describe how dangerously intelligent they are, especially the leader, or the Big One, as he calls her, adding, "That one... when she looks at you, you can see she's working things out." Muldoon does prove to be quite a badass when he needs to be, such as during the jeep chase with the T-Rex, and when Ellie opts to go to the maintenance shed when Ray Arnold disappears, he accompanies her with some loaded weapons. That's when they discover that the raptors have escaped, as their pen's fence was deactivated when they shut the system down completely, and Muldoon is filled with a sense of dread. When they head towards the shed, he senses that they're being hunted from nearby, and goes as far as to use himself as bait by going into the jungle after the raptors, giving Ellie a chance to run to the shed. Unfortunately, while this does allow Ellie to turn the power back on, it gets Muldoon killed, as the Big One lures him into an ambush. On the one hand, he does go out as something of a hero but, at the same time, if he knows raptors so much, he should've considered that it might be a trap.

The other supporting characters are the ones who are more than a little bland, including Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight). The closest the film comes to having a human antagonist, as the disaster is all his doing, Nedry is portrayed as an, admittedly, intelligent computer programmer, but also an obnoxious, greedy guy who's disgruntled about his job, feeling that Hammond has underpaid him, and thus makes the deal to steal dinosaur embryos for a competing company in exchange for a large sum of money. You see how arrogant he is and how highly he thinks of himself when Hammond criticizes him about the electric vehicles' headlights not working, remarking, "You can run this whole park from this room with minimal staff for up to 3 days. You think that kind of automation is easy? Or cheap? You know anybody who can network eight connection machines and debug two million lines of code for what I bid for this job? Because if he can, I'd like to see him try." He also gives such abrasive, yammering excuses for why he won't do something, like when Ray Arnold asks him to fix the headlights, that everybody tends to just ignore him. In any case, Nedry is able to use his knowledge of computers and the security system to shut it down, as well as thoroughly cover his tracks by turning the key-check off so they can't crack the code he used. Though he does manage to successfully steal the embryos, placing them in that fake Barbasol can, the tropical storm that hits the island throws a major monkey wrench in his plan. First, it puts him under a serious time crunch to reach the ship that'll take him back to the mainland, and then, the heavy rain causes him to knock over a sign pointing the way to the dock with his jeep. He gets lost afterward, and ends up crashing his jeep and getting it stuck. He tries to pull it loose using a hook and cable on its front, but that's when he runs into and is killed by the Dilophosaurus.

I've heard some people criticize Nedry from a thematic point of view, saying that a disgruntled employee being the reason for the disaster in the park nullifies Malcolm's point about life eventually breaking free and running wild. While I can understand that viewpoint, I think Grant's discovery that, unbeknownst to anyone, the dinosaurs are indeed breeding out in the park, despite the scientists' attempt at population control by engineering them to all be the same sex, proves that, even if Nedry hadn't sabotaged the security system, things were still going to get out of control at some point.

Even though he's the one who hires Nedry to steal the embryos, and is a major character in both of Michael Crichton's novels, Lewis Dodgson (Cameron Thor) appears in only one brief scene in the film, when he meets Nedry in San Jose, Costa Rica to give him an initial payment of $750,000, as well as the fake Barbasol can (not even the name of the rival company he works for, Biosyn, is mentioned). Unfortunately for the character, I think all that people remember this scene for is when he tells Nedry, "You shouldn't use my name," and Nedry obnoxiously yells, "Dodgson! Dodgson! We've got Dodgson here!", before mocking him for his overtly covert appearance. And he doesn't have much of a personality, aside from being subtly annoyed by Nedry as he tries to explain to him how everything is to work. The character wouldn't get to become a true antagonist, or even appear onscreen again, until Jurassic World: Dominion.

The character of Donald Gennaro (Martin Ferrero) is definitely interesting when compared to his literary counterpart, as he's much more like the character of Ed Regis, who acts as InGen's publicist in the novel and proves to be a real coward when things start going bad. He also has more of the negative characteristics from the literary Hammond, particularly his greed. Thus, while in the book, Gennaro is a pretty decent guy, in the movie, he starts off as somebody who's initially taking his job of representing Hammond's investors and investigating the island's security measures very seriously. But when he sees the living dinosaurs for the first time, all he can say is, "We're gonna make a fortune with this place," and from there on out, that's all he cares about. During that pivotal lunch discussion, he says, "We can charge anything we want: $2,000 a day, $10,000 a day, and people will pay it." Hammond has to reel him back and he jokes, "Well, we'll have a coupon day, or something." Unlike earlier, when he was being extremely cautious, he's now willing to declare it safe enough, even though they haven't taken the tour yet. More than anything else, Gennaro comes off as a little twerp who's out of his depth, like in the early scene in the Dominican Republic, where he's wearing a business suit in the middle of the rainforest, and slips and bangs his head in rapid succession. He looks similarly uncomfortable during the helicopter ride to the island and, when they're getting a look behind the scenes at the visitor's center, he asks Hammond, referring to the scientists in the lab, "Are these characters... auto-erotica?" The hell was he even trying to say there? Gennaro really shows his character, or lack thereof, when the T-Rex appears and he runs off, leaving Lex and Tim by themselves (Ed Regis does that in the book), which later leads to him getting eaten.

Samuel L. Jackson, before he was Sam "Motherfucking" Jackson, has little to do in his small role as Ray Arnold, the park's chief engineer, other than spout some techno jargon, and complain and fret about the system's constant glitches. He does have some standout moments, like his classic line, "Hold on to your butts," and, when he's trying to get the system back online early on, he gets so frustrated when Nedry's image appears onscreen, mockingly saying, "Uh uh uh! You didn't say the magic word! Uh uh uh! Uh uh uh!", he yells, "Please! Goddammit! I hate this hacker crap!" In the end, although he's initially reluctant to shut down the entire system in order to reboot it, worried that it might not come back on, Arnold does finally go through with it, as there's no alternative. It does work, but it messes up the circuit breakers, forcing Arnold to go to the maintenance shed to flip them back on. And that leads to him getting killed by the escaped Velociraptors. 

Like Lewis Dodgson, Dr. Henry Wu (B. D. Wong) is a significant character in the novel who wouldn't get a substantial role in the movies until much later on in the franchise's history. He only appears in one scene here, in the laboratory when the baby Velociraptor hatches. There, he explains to the scientists that they keep the dinosaurs from breeding in the wild by ensuring that they're all born female. He's skeptical when Malcolm talks about how life will get around such containment, asking, "You're implying that a group composed entirely of female animals will... breed?", prompting him to elaborate that life always finds a way. After he tells Grant that the hatchling is indeed a raptor, Wu is never seen again, as he left the island with much of the staff. Wong would get to develop his character much more when the Jurassic World films came along.

One last character I want to mention is this kid (Whit Hertford) at the dig site in Montana, who's very derisive of the Velociraptor skeleton, calling it a, "Six-foot turkey." He proceeds to be lectured by Grant, who scares the crap out of him by describing how Velociraptors hunt, kill with the large claws on their feet, and eat their prey alive. I mention this kid because I always found him to be really memorable, even with just a few minutes of screentime, and also because of how shocked I was years later when I watched the movie again and recognized him from A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child.

While it's debatable if I would call Jurassic Park Spielberg's best-looking film, as all of his movies look awesome, there's no doubt that, as per usual with him, every penny is up there on the screen, as it's so slick and polished. The visual style also perfectly captures the feel and vibe of each environment and setting, from the orange of the hot, dry badlands in Montana at the beginning, to the green and lushness of the steamy, humid Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, and Isla Nublar itself; from the comfort of the visitor center's immediate interior to the cold, clinical

feel of the laboratories; and the bright sunlight during the day, with increasing dimness indicating the oncoming tropical storm, to a blueness for the nighttime exteriors in the rain, chief among them being the T-Rex attack scene. I've always really liked the feeling of it being a hot, late afternoon during much of the movie's second half, with the orange lighting within the deserted visitor's center and the beams coming through the windows in the emergency bunker, where much of the group gathers. It's beautiful, but also gets across the dire mood of that

part of the story. Another, more blatant example of using light to emphasize mood and emotion is how, after the baby Velociraptor is born, it goes from a well-lit scene to one with harsher contrasts, with a lot of darkness on Grant's face when he learns the disturbing truth that they've bred raptors (I remember one of the junior novelizations I read as a kid describing his face as "dark with concern"). One of my favorite-looking scenes is when they shut the system down, then switch it back on, as it bathes the

control room in darkness, with the only light being the blue beams from the flashlights and a green glow from the computer monitors when it's revealed that the shut down did work. And speaking of darkness, the scenes within the maze-like tunnels beneath the maintenance shed, leading to the breaker room, are creepily dark. You can tell that cinematographer Dean Cundey's past work with John Carpenter really aided him there.

As for the cinematography, one great thing that Spielberg and Cundey do is not tip their hand too early. For a long time, the dinosaurs are kept offscreen, even after you've seen the Brachiosaurus and the baby raptor. During the opening, when the Velociraptor is being transported to her pen in a crate, you either get only obscured glimpses of her from the outside, an extreme close-up of the side of her face, or shots from her point-of-view, with the struggle everyone puts up to try to save the unlucky worker who falls victim to her telling you how deadly she is.

In fact, save for the baby, you don't see the raptors until the third act, when they become the main threat. The horrific sounds they make from inside their foliage-filled pen, and the shaking of the branches and leaves when they tear apart the steer that's lowered in there, prove to be more than enough for the time being. The scene where they begin the tour and pass by the spot where the Dilophosaurus is kept, only to see nothing but a seemingly empty jungle is a part I've always find to be rather eerie, and the T-Rex not

showing up initially, even when they put that goat out to bait her, makes her entrance later all the more impactful. As for camerawork, while they never get too fancy or arty, there are some impactful shots and images, like the mosquito in amber, the slow push-in on and close-up of the cups of water as they vibrate from the T-Rex's approaching footsteps, the close-up of Gennaro's face reflected in the mirror when he hears it, the shot of the water in one of the T-Rex's footprints in the mud rippling to indicate her return,

the shot following Alan, Lex, and Tim as they climb up the perimeter fence, a low angle shot that follows them from one side of the fence to the other, a similarly low angle on Ellie when she's switching on the various systems, increasing the tension of her possibly killing those on the fence, the Velociraptor's shadow appearing behind the mural depicting them in the visitor's center, and the shot of her looking through and fogging up the window on the kitchen door, among others.

The editing by Michael Kahn, Spielberg's frequent editor, is also wonderfully used for both suspense and, in some cases, dark humor. During the opening, the way the film slowly fades from the hand of the worker being dragged away by the Velociraptor to a close-up of Gennaro's reflection in water as he's being pulled on a river raft in the Dominican Republic is such a dramatic change in tone that it's kind of brilliant. It's also rather poetic how, at the end of that scene, it cuts from a close-up of a mosquito in amber, the means by which the dinosaurs were brought back

to life, to the skeleton being uncovered in Montana. One bit of editing that I've really come to admire as an adult is when it cuts back and forth from Ellie turning the individual park systems back on to the turmoil at the perimeter fence, where Tim gets scared, won't come down, and is in danger of being electrocuted. The way it shows Ellie getting closer to pushing the button that activates the fence and Tim hanging onto it is masterful suspense. One moment of dark humor in the editing comes when, as they realize

the security system has completely shut down, Hammond asks where the electric vehicles stopped and it cuts to show that they're at the worst place imaginable: the T-Rex paddock. And during the third act, when Grant asks Ellie if the Velociraptor that attacked her in the maintenance shed is contained, she answers, "Yes, unless they figure out how to open doors." It then cuts to a close-up of the one stalking Lex and Tim at the visitor's center doing exactly that.

I think this movie may partly be the reason why I love both desert and especially tropical jungle settings as much as I do. The latter is also likely due to my having lived my whole life in Tennessee, which can get quite humid and hot during the summer, and also because I've vacationed a lot in both Florida and the Carolinas, but as for the former, the heat, the constant sunshine, and the sand have always appealed to me, and you get a fair amount of it in the brief scene at the dig site in Montana near the beginning. I also can't help but love the notion of Grant and Ellie living out

by the dig-site, in the middle of nowhere, within this somewhat cramped and cluttered, but very nicely stocked and equipped, trailer. As for tropical settings, we get a couple of nice ones before we move to Isla Nublar for the rest of the movie. Early on, in the Dominican Republic, we get a scene in a steamy patch of jungle around a quarry housing an amber mine owned by Hammond, and we also briefly go inside the mine, which looks really cool with all of the beams of light going through it. And there's the

brief scene in San Jose, where Dodgson meets with Nedry at a restaurant by the seaside. You get a little bit of local color there, with the music playing in the background, a guy selling chickens, and so on. These latter two locations were shot on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, as was pretty much all of the real location shooting (save for the scene in Montana, which was actually done at Red Rock Canyon in California).

Before we even see the park, we see that Isla Nublar is a gorgeous island, as the helicopter flies in through a beautifully lush, green canyon and come in for a landing at a helipad in front of a magnificent waterfall. They then drive along a mountainside and into a big, open plain, with sporadic trees here and there, which is where they first see the Brachiosaurus. Ignoring the park itself, the island does look like the kind of place you would expect to see dinosaurs, with the thick, steamy jungles, full of prehistoric plants and trees that the engineers have also recreated, and

the big, lovely valley, with the high cliffs on the one side, where Grant, Lex, and Tim are nearly trampled by the herd of Gallimimus, and then watch the T-Rex attack them. Speaking of the plants and trees, I remember thinking they looked kind of monstrous in and of themselves when I saw images of them in the picture books I got as a kid, especially the one that Grant and the kids take shelter in for the night, with how gnarled its base is, and all the vines hanging down to the ground. What's amazing is that, while scenes like that were done on a soundstage back at

Universal Studios, they did find some unusual-looking spots at the actual location in Kauai, such as Allerton Garden, where Grant finds some hatched dinosaur eggs amid these enormous, thick, twisting roots at the base of a tree. But, above all else, the place has a palpable atmosphere to it, with the constant sound of buzzing insects and birds, as well as the sounds of dinosaurs in the distance after they're able to roam free. As for the tropical storm that hits the island, one story that I like is how, in reality, an

actual hurricane hit Kauai right at the end of filming, and a small crew shot some footage of it making landfall to use in the movie for when the storm hits the island. (I also like the story about how Richard Attenborough literally slept through the hurricane, later telling Steven Spielberg that it was nothing, seeing as how he lived through the Blitz.)

On the park side of things, since it's not yet finished, you only have two main buildings, but they're both iconic in their own way, with production designer Rick Carter doing an excellent job. That's especially true of the visitor's center, which I've read was loosely based on a Jerusalem temple, but it's always made me think of a big, tropical-style hut, mainly due to those straw roofs. Regardless, the place has a very cool aesthetic, with sections of wall made to look as though they have dinosaur skeletons embedded within them, which is to say nothing of the T-Rex and

Brachiosaurus skeletons right in the enormous main lobby, and that big mural in the cafeteria. It makes for an interesting contrast during the climax, when the Velociraptors and T-Rex manage to enter the building and interact with these elements. The same goes for the very large kitchen where the raptors stalk Lex and Tim, which Spielberg said he wanted for the sheer contrast of the kids being hunted in a familiar environment, rather than out in the jungle. 

There's also a small theater where the guests are treated to a film detailing how the dinosaurs were created, which I now appreciate more as an adult for how utterly gimmicky it is, akin to a presentation you would see in an actual theme park. Hammond himself plays up to it, interacting with his image onscreen (he fumbles a bit, as he has to take out a piece of paper with his lines), encouraging the others to do the same, and then, the character of Mr. DNA (voiced by Greg Burson) is introduced. Spielberg and David Koepp came up with him and this little film as a means of

condensing all of the scientific dialogue and exposition in the novel into an easy to digest manner, and I think it was a clever move. Even as a kid, while I didn't understand everything that Mr. DNA talks about, I was able to get the gist of it, that they extracted ancient dinosaur blood from mosquitoes trapped in amber and used the DNA within it to recreate them. I know there are many variables that wouldn't make this viable in reality, but it seems like a realistic enough way to bring dinosaurs back. In any case, the sequence with Mr. DNA is not only well-

animated and gets across everything the viewer needs to know, but it introduces a significant plot-point when it's mentioned that they used frog DNA to fill in the holes in the genome. After the film is over, the theater turns into a rotating amusement park attraction, as the guests are allowed a behind-the-scenes look at the laboratories, filled with scientists in white bodysuits who, among other tasks, place dinosaur eggs into incubators. This leads to the pivotal moment where they see the baby Velociraptor

hatch, and also begin to realize the implications of what Hammond and company are doing. Another notable spot in here is the embryo lab, where little vials housing various species are contained in this chamber beyond an airlock, within these cryogenic cylinders that Nedry pulls up, cold vapor then pouring out of them and drifting to the floor. I also remembered that dining room, not just for the significant discussion that takes place within it but also for the room itself, which has images of intended

future attractions being projected on the walls around them. And finally, there's the main control room, which is a cool-looking, high-tech place, with a big, steel door with a large, security lock, perfectly round windows next to that, and various computer monitors allowing them to keep an eye on every part of the park. The room's interior also continues the design theme with the dinosaur skeletons, which you see in the walls and pillars. The one section that hurts the room's air of sophistication is Nedry's workstation, which is horribly cluttered and messy, including the floor around it.

The other noteworthy area is a compound not far from the visitor's center, housing a security bunker that Hammond, Ellie, Malcolm, and Muldoon take shelter down in while waiting for Ray Arnold to get the power back on. While a fairly small room at the bottom of a flight of stairs, it's filled with supplies and equipment, from rifles to walkie-talkies, and a map of the maintenance tunnels when Ellie has to go do it herself. This also happens to be the area where the Velociraptors are contained within their pen (not the smartest place they could've put it), which is filled

with thick, jungle foliage. Going back to the maintenance shed, it's at the end of a stretch of jungle on the opposite end of the compound, behind a chain-like fence (again, couldn't they have built that at a more convenient spot?). While deceptively small on the outside, the inside descends down a flight of stairs into a creepy, dark maze with many twists and turns, eventually leading to a breaker room where Ellie manages to get the power up and running again, but is almost killed by a Velociraptor in the process. 

Considering the sophisticated computer system that monitor the park, along with the 50-mile long perimeter fence and various other electric fences and blockades, including that big, massive gate that signals the start of the tour, it's clear that, while Hammond was foolish to think he was in complete control, he and everyone else did take the idea of security very seriously. Most significantly in that respect, they not only engineered the dinosaurs to all be female to keep them from breeding in the wild, but they also bred them lysine deficient, meaning that

they can't produce the vital amino acid themselves and need to be supplied with it by the humans, otherwise they die. As Arnold describes, it was done to ensure that the dinosaurs wouldn't last long if any of them managed to escape the island. Strangely, even though this is brought up as a means for everyone to survive, it's never mentioned again after Arnold explains what it is. There was additional dialogue where Arnold goes on to explain that it could take a week for the "lysine contingency" to take effect, thus

meaning it's useless, but it was removed from the film. And as for the means to keep them from breeding in the wild, that doesn't work out because some of the frog DNA they used to fill in the genetic code was from species that are actually able to change their sex to ensure they can mate.

When you get within the island interior, on the tour, it does feel akin to a safari park that you've been to in real-life, with signs telling you what dinosaurs inhabit various spots, and Richard Kiley's voice in the electric cars filling the role of a tour guide, telling you where to look and what to expect. However, I find it kind of funny that there's actually a restroom out by the T-Rex paddock, as if they expect that somebody would have to go that bad, even if the T-Rex herself is watching them from right behind the fence, electrified or not. And speaking of which, their having that goat

there to try to tempt the T-Rex into showing up is more than a little sick, don't you think? I don't know if they intended for her to actually eat the goat (but, then again, they do feed live cows to the Velociraptors), but still, while I'm not a vegetarian like Lex, I would be horrified at that!

The design of the park also produces a number of pieces of iconography that have become as synonymous with the film as the dinosaurs themselves, chief among them being that iconic logo, which you see on the side of vehicles, hard-hats, and such. It's not only a cool image but, like the Ghostbusters logo or the bat symbol for Tim Burton's Batman, it was all that was needed to sell the movie and has continued being used to do so throughout the series, with different variations. Almost as iconic is that huge gate, with JURASSIC PARK atop it in big,

red letters, torches lining its sides, and the enormous doors, which I think were to meant to bring to mind the Great Wall from King Kong, hence Malcolm's joke. Then, there are the vehicles, which made for great toys (I don't think I ever had them, though), like those cool red and gray gas jeeps, with the icon on its doors, and those beautiful red, green, and yellow-painted Ford Explorers. Those were especially awesome, not just because of the paint job but also due to the sunroof and the interactive CD-ROM on a

monitor in the front seat, not to mention that they're electric, running automatically on a track in the road. Of course, that spells trouble for the tourists when the power is shut down, and the cars don't have locks, either, which you'd think would be a no-brainer. Also, before the T-Rex attacks, Tim finds some night vision goggles that have the same paint scheme as the cars. While they don't serve much of a function, and are quickly abandoned when the T-Rex shows up, they're still cool-looking in and of themselves. And going

back to the topic of merchandising, I like how the creators of the park were well aware of how much money they could generate from that alone, as you see this little gift shop near the cafeteria that's full of stuffed toys, lunchboxes, cups, T-shirts, and other items, including a making-of VHS. That especially makes this place feel very authentic.

Okay, now that all of that's out of the way, we can finally get around to the dinosaurs, i.e. the characters that everyone really cares about. Before we talk about the individuals, I wanted to comment on how, until just recently, I didn't know that the dinosaurs' full screentime clocks in at just around fifteen minutes. I never would've thought that before but, when I really replayed the movie in my mind, as well as went through the stream of it in order to get these screenshots, I realized that the dinosaurs are, indeed, not onscreen as much as you might think. Like I said

before, they are teased a lot during much of the first half, with the film only giving you a really clear look at a small handful during that time, but even after the security system goes down and they're running loose throughout the park, they're still used sparingly. You certainly feel their presence, with the T-Rex's approaching footsteps and the sound of her often roaring in the distance, and the Velociraptors lurking about once they escape their pen during the third act, but, like he did with the shark in Jaws, Spielberg

doesn't overexpose them (although here, I'm sure it was more an artistic move than a practical one that he had to make due to malfunctioning props; while the huge animatronic T-Rex did run into problems when it got soaked with rain, it wasn't nearly as frustrating for Spielberg as Bruce the shark). The reason why I and other people probably don't realize this until they're told is that the characters are so engaging and the setpieces, whether they involve dinosaurs or not, come so thick and fast that you don't have time to

check your watch, waiting for them to come onscreen. Again, even as a kid, I didn't find myself getting antsy while waiting for the dinosaurs, something I wish I could say for a good number of kaiju movies, both Japanese and American.

When he and Siskel reviewed the movie, Roger Ebert, even though they did both ultimately give the film two thumbs up, said that it never felt like there was any sense of awe or wonder about the dinosaurs. Maybe it's because he was an adult but, still, I have to ask if he and I saw the same movie. That entire scene when the characters first arrive on the island and see the Brachiosaurus, followed immediately by Hammond declaring, "Welcome... to Jurassic Park," and their looking out across the countryside and seeing two more Brachiosaurs wading in a lake, as a

herd of Hadrosaurs are gathered at the water's edge, all while John Williams' amazing, sweeping score comes in, is nothing but pure awe and wonder. Moreover, when the T-Rex appears and is stomping along the road, amid the cars, the characters are clearly amazed at what they're seeing (scared out of their wits, but still amazed). And how about the scenes where the baby raptor hatches from her egg, they come across the sick Triceratops, Grant, Lex, and Tim see the Brachiosaurs singing out in the

distance, or when they feed the one that approaches their tree in the morning? As I've said in many other reviews, while I have no personal disrespect for the man, sometimes Ebert really frustrated me, as it felt like he either simply didn't get it or ignored things to make a point.

One thing I'm not so sure I agree with in regards to Spielberg's intentions for the film is that he didn't want it to become a monster movie, and for the dinosaurs to always be treated like animals first and foremost. For the most part, I do think he accomplished that but, while I wouldn't necessarily call Jurassic Park a horror/monster film (sci-fi/action thriller, maybe), it is still very intense at points, and the T-Rex, the Dilophosaurus, and the Velociraptors in particular are quite frightening. In fact, the third act, when the raptors are on the loose, is where it does

come close to feeling like a horror film, with the first raptor's truly scary appearance when she attacks Ellie in the breaker room, Muldoon's brutal death at their hands, the two of them stalking Lex and Tim in the kitchen, and how utterly relentless the Big One is when she's chasing Grant, Ellie, Lex, and Tim throughout the visitor's center. And the buildup of the Big One, with how dangerous she's said to be, and how sadistic she comes off, kind of hurts the notion that these are little more than genetically-engineered animals.

As a kid, I cared the most about the carnivorous dinosaurs, or the theropods, and was fairly dismissive of the other types, in both this film and its sequels. Now, as an adult, I do appreciate how majestic they are, particularly the Brachiosaurs, since they're the first dinosaurs we see in full, and also because they make for a great first impression for Hammond's guests, showing them right off the bat what he's been able to achieve. Like I said, that whole scene is full of magnificence and magic, with Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler both being absolutely stunned at the sight of

the one Brachiosaurus, unable to do anything but walk up to her, slack-jawed and speechless, as she eats some leaves from the trees, vocalizing like a whale. And then, that, as well as Hammond telling them that they also have a T-Rex, is topped by the shot of the landscape, with more Brachiosaurs and a herd of Hadrosaurs, the latter of which you don't ever see again. The Brachiosaurs return later in the film to bring back some of that wonder, now that we've seen the more frightening side of the dinosaurs following

the T-Rex attack. Not only do we get the lovely sight of them singing in the distance across from the tree that Grant, Lex, and Tim take refuge in, but that morning, one comes to feed from the leaves and proves to be a true gentle giant who's willing to let them feed her. That also leads to a gross but funny moment when, right after Tim says she looks as though she has a cold, the Brachiosaur sneezes all over poor Lex, leaving her completely stunned. And she was just getting over the fear and shock she'd experienced from the T-Rex.

You know, it's strange that, for as popular a dinosaur as the Triceratops is (Spielberg says in the Return to Jurassic Park documentary on the Blu-Ray set that it's his personal favorite), its signature scene in this franchise is still here, where one is lying on the ground, half-sedated because she's sick. A couple would get to do some damage during a scene in The Lost World but, to this day, they haven't had something like a major action sequence centered around them, which they would be ideal for. Still, there's no denying how amazing this scene is, as

this particular Triceratops, despite the pathetic state she's in, is so magnificent and beautiful that she brings Ellie to tears and turns Grant into a kid again, as he's able to interact with the dinosaur he says was always his favorite (that moment when he puts his ear against her side to listen to her breathe says it all). The only thing about this scene is that its only true purpose is to show off the dinosaur, as you never learn what's been making her periodically sick every six weeks. Ellie thinks it may be due to her eating

some West Indian lilac berries that are growing nearby, but when she infamously digs through the Triceratops' massive dung pile (what this scene is also known for), she finds no trace of them. Since Ellie does stay behind to continue helping Dr. Harding, they may have actually found what was making the dinosaur sick but, if so, it's never said.

My favorite dinosaur, both in this franchise and in general, will always be the Tyrannosaurus Rex, and when I was a kid, I thought the T-Rex here was simply the most awesome thing ever. She's powerful, terrifying, unstoppable, and, above all else, just plain cool, with one of the greatest creature roars that has ever been created. If her introductory scene, where she breaks out of her paddock while the tour cars are stuck there, is not the greatest sequence in the movie, it's at least very close to the top, as I still remember being mesmerized by what I was seeing in the theater.

Afterward, she remains a powerful and foreboding presence throughout the film, often only alluded to by either the sound of her roaring in the distance or her thundering footsteps, and has some other great scenes centered around her, like when she chases Malcolm, Ellie, and Muldoon as they speed through the jungle in the jeep and when she pops out of the trees to feast on a Gallamimus. And yet, despite how much of a threat she is, Spielberg was smart enough to know that the T-Rex would be popular with audiences and

decided to have her act as an unlikely and unintentional hero, saving the survivors from the Velociraptors. Some may say he was pandering to his audience by doing that, especially since there was no way the T-Rex could've gotten into the visitor's center in such a stealthy manner, but it's just so freaking awesome that I don't care at all.

One dinosaur I was dreading before even seeing the movie was the Dilophosaurus. In one of those big picture books I got beforehand, there was a picture of Nedry screaming with the creature's black venom all over his face. Because I was so young, I didn't understand what I was seeing; all I knew from the way the pictures were organized was that this dinosaur with a crest on its head was the cause of it, making me terrified of that thing. It was to the point where, when Nedry drives off into the jungle after shutting down the security systems and stealing the

embryos, I was already hiding my eyes, thinking the Dilophosaurus was going to show up. Nowadays, though, I can truly appreciate what a cool creature she is. I like how innocent she looks at first, with her small size and cute chirping and trilling sounds, but then, when she approaches Nedry when he tries to climb back up to his jeep, a big frill deploys from her neck, surrounding her head, she lets out a very threatening hissing roar, and hits Nedry right in the face with her venom. Nedry gets blinded and is just barely able to get back into his jeep, but that doesn't save him. Since then, I've always wished that the Dilophosaurus would make a reappearance, and not just as a hologram in Jurassic World. 

Even though the Gallimimus appear in only one scene, it's one that's always stuck in my brain, as it was the clip I remember being played on The Tonight Show. Not much to say about the Gallimimus themselves, as they comes off as little more than reptilian ostriches, although they do prove to be a potential threat to Grant, Lex, and Tim when they come stampeding in, threatening to run them over. I have always felt bad for the one that's unlucky enough to fall prey to the T-Rex, as it dies in a nasty, painful-looking manner.

While the T-Rex is initially the biggest threat, that role switches over to the Velociraptors once they escape their pen during the third act (for some reason, when I was a kid, I got it in my head that they were called Vipers; I think my mom misheard the word "Velociraptor" and that confusion got passed to me). As I've said, they're built up as a serious threat right from the opening scene, where a worker is killed by one while trying to move her into her enclosure and, throughout the film, we get more and more of a sense of how dangerous they are. The fact that they're not part of the actual park tour but are kept in a large pen, with an electrified fence around its rim, says a lot, as not even the T-Rex is deemed that unpredictable. Once you finally do see them in action, you immediately appreciate what a threat they are, as they're sleek, fast, ferocious, persistent, and, worst of all, intelligent, able to figure out how to solve problems like open doors and coordinate attacks on their prey. They tear Ray Arnold to pieces in the maintenance shed, rip Muldoon apart after luring him into a trap in the jungle, and even come very close to killing our core characters. Like the T-Rex, the raptors have a signature scene, which is the very tense and well-paced sequence where they stalk Lex and Tim through the kitchen, followed by how they relentlessly pursue them, along with Grant and Ellie, throughout the visitor's center. They also have vocalizations that have become as iconic as the T-Rex's roar: an assortment of snarls, growls, a purring kind of sound, a bark that the Big One uses to call in another one, and different types of screams, including a nightmarish screech they let out when attacking.

On top of everything else, while the T-Rex comes across as a predator who's just doing what she does, the raptors have an air about them that feels genuinely sinister, especially the leader, the Big One. Like I said, she's made out to be especially dangerous early on, with Muldoon telling Grant and the others, "We bred eight originally, but when she came in, she took over the pride and killed all but two of the others." He adds that the reason why they have to feed them the way they do is because the Big One had the other two attacking the fences when they were originally fed by

hand, saying, "They never attack the same place twice. They were testing the fences for weaknesses, systematically. They remember." And once they've managed to escape, the Big One seems to really relish hunting and killing her prey, much more so than the other dinosaurs. Case in point, none of the others actually smile before attacking but she does several times, like when she thinks she's spotted Lex in the kitchen and when she sees the kids running out. Even before that, when Muldoon is killed, the Big One

lures him out into the jungle, where another raptor ambushes him, and while he screams as he's mauled to death, she coldly watches, not moving from the spot where she was "hiding." She's also the raptor who's smart enough to figure out how to open doors, and after her companion gets locked in the freezer, she stalks the group through the control room and back out into the visitor's center lobby, jumping onto the dinosaur skeleton displays to get at them. It's the only the intervention of the T-Rex that finally stops both her and another raptor that shows up from killing them.

Even though there's supposed to be only three raptors in all, I've never been sure if the raptor that kills the worker during the opening is the Big One or a new adult that had recently hatched and grown to maturity. You would assume the latter, since Muldoon orders the raptor shot and you hear gunshots as the scene ends, but given how dangerously intelligent this raptor comes off, knocking her crate loose from the pen's gate so she can get at the worker, it's also possible that it is the Big One, and that she managed to dodge the bullets and run into the pen. Since we

don't see exactly what happened, anything's possible. Another interesting thing to ponder are the exact fates of the Big One's subordinates during the climax. We have the raptor who attacks Ellie down in the breaker room and the one that kills Muldoon with the Big One, which is also likely the one that joins her when they head into the visitor's center and go after Lex and Tim. That raptor gets locked in a walk-in freezer by Lex, leaving the Big One to continue the hunt by herself, until right before the T-Rex saves the day,

when another raptor appears, helping the Big One corner the group. Either the one in the freezer managed to get out somehow or it's the one from the breaker room, who also managed to figure out how to open doors and escape. Since this second raptor comes in from outside, I'm personally willing to bet it's the latter.

Jurassic Park's greatest legacy will probably always be what a landmark in visual effects it was, and it's a reputation that's well-deserved. As significant as both The Abyss and Terminator 2 were in that respect, this film took it a step further and was the first to depict creatures that once actually existed through CGI. And to this day, they look absolutely incredible and, as I said at the beginning, are the greatest CGI effects ever in my opinion. It really is amazing how a movie from 1993 has better CGI than a good number of the numerous other films that have come in its wake.

However, what helps is that it's basically a 50/50 split between the CGI and the animatronic dinosaurs that Stan Winston and his studio created, leading to one of the most effective blends of the two techniques. Nowadays, I know which shots are digital and which are practical but, at the time, the blend was so seamless that it was very easy to believe that these dinosaurs were real. One of the best examples is a shot during the T-Rex scene, where you first see the animatronic outside of Grant and Malcolm's car, then

it ducks out of frame and is replaced by the digital T-Rex when she approaches the kids' car. And those animatronics, especially the enormous T-Rex and the Triceratops, are so detailed and lifelike in their movements that it really makes me pine for the days when there was still an attempt to make use of both techniques, rather than just relying solely on CGI. There's even a little bit of suit-work in regards to the Velociraptors during the kitchen scene, with effects artists John Rosengrant and Mark McCreery doing the honors.

Jurassic Park sets a mood right from the very beginning, with the buzzing of insects and the distant calls of birds being the only sounds when the Universal logo comes up, creating a feeling of being deep in the jungle. This is then broken by the first ominous notes of the scores as the opening credits appear in front of a black background, and the first actual images being something rustling through the foliage, approaching a team of waiting engineers, headed by Robert Muldoon, who has his rifle at the

ready. It turns out to not be a dinosaur but rather a forklift transporting a large crate towards a pen. As the Velociraptor contained within watches through the slats, Muldoon has a team move in to push the crate towards the pen's large gate. One worker is taken aback when the Velociraptor shrieks, but Muldoon orders them to get back in position and continue pushing. Once the crate reaches the gate, the loading team steps away and a lone man climbs atop the crate, as the raptor watches him through the slats in its

ceiling. Per Muldoon's orders, he begins opening the gate, when the raptor suddenly rushes forward, hitting with enough force to knock the crate away from it. The gatekeeper also falls to the ground, and before he can get to his feet, he's nearly pulled inside the crate. He manages to grab the edge of its opening, as Muldoon tries his best to pull him loose, only for the raptor to wrench him up off the ground. Men attempt to get the dinosaur under control, with some tasering her through the slats to try to make her get back. But she instead locks eyes with Muldoon for a second,

before continuing to try to drag the man inside the crate. Muldoon begins losing his grip, as the man's arm is slowly pulled through his hold, and yells at the others to shoot the raptor. Gunshots can be heard, but the scene fades as the man's hand slips completely through, and other than his death and the consequences it has on the park's progress, exactly what happened next is left ambiguous.

When the chopper transporting Hammond, Grant, Sattler, Malcolm, and Gennaro comes upon Isla Nublar, we get some very lovely shots of the lush landscape as it flies in, accompanied by the magnificent Jurassic Park main theme for the first time. However, the wind shears force them to descend very quickly, which flings them around a bit. While Hammond is amused by this, everyone else, starting with Gennaro, begins fastening their seat-belts. However, when Grant goes to do his, he only finds

two buckles, rather than a buckle and a latch, forcing him to improvise by tying them in a knot for the final descent. This is in front of the magnificent waterfall, down to the helipad at its base, and once everyone has disembarked, they gather into some gas jeeps and are led into the island interior, where they come upon the first few dinosaurs. Between this and the scene in the laboratory not too long afterward, where they watch the baby Velociraptor hatch, there is that palpable sense of wonder that the film is so great at conveying. And yet, it's immediately counteracted by the very

next scene, where the group watches in horror as a steer is lowered down into the Velociraptors' pen and you hear the thing being torn apart, as it screams bloody murder, which is then replaced by the sounds of the snarling raptors. Following the talk with Muldoon about how lethal and intelligent the raptors are, especially the Big One, the harness is lifted back up, and is revealed to be torn to shreds (it should also be splattered with blood but, given the PG-13 rating, they couldn't get that graphic).

After the tour turns out to be something of a bust, with the only dinosaur they see being the sick Triceratops, they're forced to return to the visitor's center as the tropical storm hits the island. Meanwhile, Dennis Nedry, learning that he has a short amount of time to escape on the last boat with the embryos, puts his plan into action and starts the program that will shut the system down. While he heads to the embryo lab, those in the control room begin to see the first sign of trouble, when the security

doors begin to shut off. In the lab, he takes a sample of each type of embryo and places them inside his special Barbasol container. Out in the park, the visitors realize that something's wrong when their cars suddenly stop for no reason, while in the control room, Ray Arnold and Muldoon see that fences are shutting down everywhere. Hammond demands that Nedry be found, but by this point, he's taken a gas jeep out into the storm. Throwing the manual override switch on the huge main gate, he drives through it and

further into the park. While the others learn that he didn't switch off the fences at the Velociraptor pen, he manages to make his way through the security area that the visitors were transported through that afternoon and continue on. But, his glasses mist up due to the humidity, causing him to not see the sign pointing the way to the east dock until he's almost on top of it. He swerves but knocks it over, and when he gets out, he finds he has no idea which road to take. Back at the control room, Arnold finds he's unable to access the security, and they learn that the phones are

out as well. Meanwhile, the cars have stopped at the Tyrannosaurus paddock. After speaking with Gennaro in the car with Lex and Tim, Grant rejoins Malcolm in theirs and tells him what's going on. In the other car, Tim finds the night vision goggles under his seat and climbs into the backseat, using them to watch Grant and Malcolm behind them. Grant gets out of the car, gathers some rainwater in a canteen, and shares it with Malcolm.

Everyone continues sitting around for a while, to the point where Gennaro dozes off in the one car, when Tim hears, and feels, a faint rumbling. He asks Lex if she felt it, then climbs into the front seat and looks at the two cups of water on the dashboard, as the water ripples with each successive rumble. The sound gets louder, awakening Gennaro, who says that it might be the power trying to start up again. Tim goes back to looking outside with the goggles, and sees that the goat that was used to try to bait the T-Rex before is

now gone, with the pole it was chained to bent. Lex and Gennaro notice this too, and as soon as Lex asks, "Where's the goat?", its severed leg falls on the sunroof, horrifying both her and Gennaro. As Tim looks up from his goggles, we get out first look at the T-Rex, as she raises her head up behind the fence and swallows the rest of the goat, then turns towards the cars. Panicking at the sight of her, Gennaro jumps out of the car, runs to the other one, and then ducks into a nearby restroom. Grant and Malcolm, who apparently

haven't seen the T-Rex, watch this, with Grant asking, "Now, where does he think he's going?", and Malcolm answering, "When you gotta go, you gotta go." But then, the T-Rex begins pushing against the fence, ripping the wires loose, and once they're gone, she steps out into the road between the cars, letting out a mighty roar. Inside their car, Grant tells Malcolm to keep still, as the dinosaur's vision is based on movement. In the other car, Lex, panicking, grabs a large flashlight that she shines out the back window. This gets the T-Rex's attention and she stomps

towards their car. Tim tells Lex to turn the light off, when he sees the dinosaur's head outside the driver's side door that Gennaro left open. He grabs the door and slams it shut, which she hears. The two of them watch, terrified, as the T-Rex curiously scans the outside of the car, then lowers her head down by a backseat window. Lex shines the flashlight into her eye, prompting her to snarl loudly, and raise her head back up. Now knowing that there's potential prey in there, she lets out a loud roar, then nudges the side of the vehicle with her snout. Screaming, the kids

fumble around with the flashlight, trying to turn it off, but unintentionally aim the beam right at the T-Rex as she hovers above them. As soon as they look up, she smashes the sunroof into the car and right on top of them with her snout, then pulls back out and comes at them again. That glass proves to be all that's keeping them from being devoured.

As Grant and Malcolm watch, the T-Rex nudges the side of the kids' car with her head, managing to turn it over onto its roof. She starts biting at the vehicle's underside and the tires, threatening to crush the kids to death. Scrambling around in the back of his car, Grant finds a box of flares, while the T-Rex mashes the other car down with her foot until mud starts flowing in all around the kids. Grant gets out into the rain, waving the flare, and yells at the T-Rex, getting her attention. He waves the flare back and forth,

which she follows, and then tosses it. She goes after it, when Malcolm gets out with a flare as well and gets her attention. He yells for Grant to rescue Lex and Tim, then runs, tossing the flare off to the side. However, the T-Rex ignores the flare and is now focused on Malcolm, chasing him over to the restroom. Still sitting inside the stall where he took cover, Gennaro screams and slams the door, as the T-Rex's head crashes through the front of the small building. Malcolm is flung by her nose and buried

beneath the debris, while the structure literally falls apart around Gennaro. He finds himself being stared down by the T-Rex, who lunges at him and clamps her jaws down around his torso, then shakes his body from side to side, ripping his bones apart (the sight of that really freaked me out as a kid). Meanwhile, Grant manages to get Lex out of the overturned car, but Tim's feet are pinned by the seat. Lex screams as the T-Rex approaches, and Grant quickly grabs her from behind and puts his hand over her mouth, telling her not to move. The two of them stay perfectly still as

the T-Rex moves her enormous head right in front of them, unable to find them. A snort blows Grant's hat off his head and then, she moves the car's rear with her head, swerving it around to where it knocks Grant and Lex off their feet. The two of them get trapped between the car and the concrete lining of the fence's base, as the T-Rex begins pushing the car towards them. They're forced atop the concrete, and Grant looks behind him to see there's a steep drop-off there (this is a massive continuity error, as there was no indication earlier of such a drop, but I never noticed

this until someone else pointed it out). Grabbing a cable leading down along the side of the drop, Grant and Lex repel towards the bottom. Seeing that the T-Rex intends to push the car over the side, down at them, Grant tells Lex, who's on his back, to grab a line next to theirs. It takes a few tries, as Lex just comes a hair to grabbing it, but they manage to do so right before the car goes tumbling over the edge and lands in a tree below, with Tim still inside. The T-Rex lets out one last mighty roar, as if proud of what she's done.

After a brief moment back at the visitor's center, where Hammond sends Muldoon and Ellie out in a jeep to get his grandchildren, and Arnold tells him that he can't get the park online without Nedry, we cut to Nedry, as he still hasn't reached the dock. Losing control of his jeep, he crashes through a wooden fence and heads down a hillside, where the tires get stuck. Just as things seem hopeless for him, he looks down below and sees the very road he's looking for. Pulling a hook and cable out of the jeep's front, he

loses his footing when he attempts to go down the hill (if you listen closely, you can hear a cartoonish sound effect when he slips). Landing down at the bottom, he realizes that he dropped his glasses but decides, "I can afford more glasses." Pulling the cable with him, he walks through the nearby bit of jungle, until he comes upon a firm, sturdy tree. He begins tying the cable around it, when something jumps down and hops off nearby, making a strange hooting sound. At first distracted, when Nedry doesn't hear it again, he

continues looping the cable around and manages to lock it through the hook. That's when the Dilophosaurus peeks around the other side of the tree, as if playing peek-a-boo with him. When he finally sees her, he just laughs and begins following the cable back to the jeep, when he hears her trilling right behind him. Turning around, he sees that she's followed him, and though initially frightened, when he sees how small she is, he figures that she's not a threat. He tries to get rid of her by picking up a stick and tossing it, but the Dilophosaurus just looks for a

few seconds, then turns back to face Nedry. Aggravated, Nedry growls, "Man, no wonder you're extinct. I'm gonna run you over when I come back down." He then goes to climb back up the hill, fumbling about, but the Dilophosaurus continues following him. Looking behind him to see her standing on the hillside now, she drops the cute act, deploys her large frill, and snarls at him. She spits a glob of her black, sticky venom at him, hitting him in the chest. He gets up and goes to get back in the jeep, only to turn and look back. That's when she hits him

right in the face, and he screams in pain as the venom burns his eyes. Attempting to climb back into the jeep, he smashes his head against the top of the door and falls back. He unknowingly drops the can full of embryos, which rolls down the embankment, while he manages to climb into the driver's seat. After a few beats of silence, he then realizes that the Dilophosaurus somehow got into the jeep on the passenger side and she attacks him. As you vaguely make out her killing him through the jeep's misty windshield from outside, the camera pans over to show the can being totally covered in mud. 

Elsewhere, Grant, after having Lex stay in a large drainpipe, goes to help Tim. Walking towards the tree that the car landed in, he calls for Tim but doesn't get an answer. He then climbs his way up to the car and when he reaches it, he sees Tim sitting in the front seat, seemingly in shock but otherwise unharmed. Grant opens the driver-side door and, after Tim, embarrassed, admits that he threw up, Grant gets him to climb over towards him. But when he reaches for Tim, Grant, without thinking, turns the steering wheel, turning the tires sideways. They start to climb

down, when the branches holding the car gradually begin to give way. Grant tells Tim to move it down the tree, when the branches break and the car drops down at them. It hits some strong branches that they climb directly beneath, and they quickly start down again. They don't get too far before those branches slowly give way and the car literally starts chasing them down the height of the tree, snapping branches on the way. They jump when they get close to the base, with the car, still in an upright position, hitting the tree's huge roots right behind them. They run for

it, only for the car to lean forward and fall on top of them. Fortunately, they go right through the broken sunroof, managing to avoid getting crushed. Back at the paddock, Ellie and Muldoon arrive and begin searching for the others. They both find what's left of Gennaro (when they're standing several yards away from each other), and after hearing the T-Rex roar in the distance, they find Malcolm amid the rubble after hearing him moan in pain. Once they've gotten him into the back of the jeep, Ellie searches around where

the fence was and, looking over the edge, sees the other car at the bottom of the drop. They somehow manage to get down there without killing themselves, but find the car abandoned. Though Ellie is initially distraught at this, she and Muldoon then see footprints in the mud leading away from the wreck.

Back up top, Malcolm is sitting in the jeep, when he hears an all too familiar, and increasingly louder, rumbling sound. Looking down at one of the footprints the T-Rex left in the mud, he sees the water in it ripple with each rumble. He, surprisingly calmly, asks, "Anybody hear that? It's a, um... it's an impact tremor, is what it is. I'm fairly alarmed here." He yells to Ellie and Muldoon nearby that they need to get out of there quick. The two of them come running and gather up front in the jeep. Muldoon starts the engine and drives off, right as the T-Rex emerges from the

treeline behind them. Within seconds, she's right on their tail and quickly catches up to them, leading to a great shot where Muldoon sees her mouth almost envelop the rear-view mirror, which has the caption, "OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR," written along its bottom. Malcolm falls back in fear and lands on the stick, causing the jeep to go into a lower gear. Muldoon yells for him to move, when the three have to duck as they drive

under a tree that's partially fallen across the road. The T-Rex easily plows right through the tree, snapping it in half, and attempts to knock the jeep over again. Muldoon pops the gear again and gives the jeep the gas, and after chasing them for a few more feet, the T-Rex gives up and moves off, much to their relief.

After this series of major setpieces, the movie finally slows down for a little while, allowing the audience to catch their breath. It starts to pick back up again when, after shutting down and then restarting the system, Arnold heads over to the maintenance shed to flip the circuit breakers back on. Elsewhere, in the park, Grant, Lex, and Tim journey through a large valley, when a large herd of Gallimimus appears ahead of them. Grant is unable to contain his scientific curiosity and observes them, when they change direction and stampede towards them. They

run for it amid the dinosaurs, avoiding getting trampled, and take cover behind a dead, fallen tree in the middle of the field. They wait for the herd to pass, then crawl under the tree to the side they need to be on. Peeking over it, they watch as the T-Rex charges out of the treeline ahead and manages to snag one of the Gallimimus. After watching this for a few seconds, they crawl away while keeping low to the ground. Back with the others, who've moved to the security bunker, Ellie fears that something's wrong, as

Arnold has been gone for a long time. She decides to go to the maintenance shed herself and get the power back on, accompanied by Muldoon, who takes a loaded rifle with him. When they walk out the door and make their way around the edge of the compound, they come upon the Velociraptor pen and discover that the fence has been ripped up, as well as some tracks leading off into the jungle.

At the edge of the jungle, Ellie sees the shed not too far away, but Muldoon tells her that they're being watched nearby. He then tells her to make a break for the shed, while he heads into the jungle, after the raptors. She runs frantically down the path towards it, jumping and grabbing a branch overhead and hitting a puddle on the other side of a fallen tree. She makes it through the gate and the shed's door, slamming it shut behind her. After calling for Arnold and getting no answer, she begins making her way to the breaker room, with Hammond directing her over the walkie-

talkie. Elsewhere, Grant, Lex, and Tim come upon the 50-mile long perimeter fence. Throwing a stick at it and getting no reaction, Grant figures the power's still off, then pulls a mean-spirited but fairly funny trick on the kids by grabbing the fence and acting like he's being electrocuted. He attempts to possibly rip through the fence, but when they hear the T-Rex roar nearby, the three of them immediately start climbing. Back at the shed, Ellie, after hitting a dead-end, is then directed successfully to the breaker room. While Grant and the kids climb over the top of the fence,

Ellie gets the system charged up, resulting in an alarm sounding at the fence. While Grant and Lex make it to the ground, Tim is caught near the top. Per Hammond's directions, Ellie begins switching on the individual systems, with the perimeter fence being at the very bottom. Grant and Lex try to get Tim to jump off the fence so they can catch him, but he's too scared to do so. Tim then opts to count to three and jump, as Grant suggested before, but he barely gets "two" out before Ellie switches the fence on. A blast

of electricity sends him flying off the fence and into Grant's arms. Grant tells a panicked Lex that her brother isn't breathing, while down in the maintenance shed, the lights come on. Ellie proclaims, "Mr. Hammond, I think we're back in business!", when a Velociraptor suddenly lunges out behind her. The dinosaur gets stuck in her hiding spot, as Ellie frantically climbs through the chain-link door leading into the breaker room. She slams the door on the raptor when she charges at her and pushes the

door back so that it closes in place and secures itself. Ellie backs up and an arm falls on her shoulder. Initially relieved, as it's Arnold's hand, she then realizes that it's nothing but his severed arm. The raptor begins tearing her way through the chain-link fencing and Ellie limps her way back towards the stairs and out the door, shutting it behind her.

Back with Muldoon, he makes his way through the jungle, when he hears the Big One purr and rustle in the bushes straight ahead. Taking his hat off and putting it on a log in front of him, he quietly prepares his rifle, then takes aim at her head, as she watches him. But that's when the other raptor emerges from the bushes to his left, snarling. Muldoon comments, "Clever girl," and tries to swing around to shoot, but the raptor jumps at and pins him to the ground, tearing him apart, while the Big One watches from the bushes. At the fence, Grant manages to revive

Tim with CPR and chest compressions, and the three of them walk the rest of the way to the visitor's center. Finding it empty, Grant leaves the kids in the cafeteria, while he goes to find the others. While out on the grounds, he comes across a panic-stricken Ellie, who tells him to run. 

Back at the visitor's center, Lex and Tim are helping themselves to the desserts that were laid out, when Tim looks at Lex, as he notices a change in her expression. She then starts trembling in terror, and he looks behind him to see the shadow of a Velociraptor prowling around behind the large mural in the back of the room. The two of them run into the kitchen, turning all the lights off, and take cover at the end of a long counter. It's not long before the Velociraptor walks up to the outside of the closed door, snorts on the window, and looks in and sees Tim peeking out

from behind the counter. When she snarls, Tim quickly pulls back around the counter. After a quick cutaway to the bunker, where Grant and Ellie are loading up to face them, you see that the raptors have figured out how to open doors, as the kitchen's handle turns and the Big One then pushes the door completely open using her snout. Standing in the doorway, she calls for her companion, who steps in with her. Peeking out and seeing that there are now two of them, Lex has Tim follow her along the floor and they crawl along the side of another long counter.

At one point, one raptor stops and taps her big toe claw on the floor, as if thinking. Once she starts moving again, so do the kids, keeping in step with her. Suddenly, she knocks some pots and pans off the side of the counter with her tail, sending the kids scrambling around a corner. They get there just as she pokes her head through the one counter's underside, finding nothing. But, when she pulls her head back out, a ladle that Tim jostled when he took cover next to it drops to the floor with a clang. The raptors hear

this and, now sure that their prey is in there, search more forcefully, with one jumping atop the counter. Tim hides around the other side from where the utensils were hanging, but is too scared to move. The Big One comes around the corner, licks and sniffs the ladle, but before she can zero in on Tim, she and the other raptor are distracted by Lex tapping the floor with another ladle elsewhere. She then takes cover in a cupboard at the end of that counter row, when the Big One spots her and smiles menacingly. As Lex

struggles to close the cupboard, the Big One shrieks and charges at her, but when she seemingly reaches and lunges at her, the raptor slams into the side of the counter. Turns out that what she saw was Lex's reflection, and Lex takes the opportunity to run for it while the Big One is stunned.

Seeing Lex scramble away, Tim, looking at the nearby walk-in freezer, the door of which is wide open, decides to run for it. The other raptor sees him and gives chase, right into the freezer. Tim grabs onto something for support right inside the doorway, while the raptor slips on the slick floor and slams into some shelves inside. Tim, struggling for traction, runs back out, as the raptor lunges at him right as he closes the door on her. Lex comes screaming in and pushes the door to, forcing the raptor back inside. Lex locks her in, then takes Tim and the two of them run out of the

kitchen. However, the Big One sees them on the way. Out in the cafeteria, they run into Grant and Ellie, and the four of them head to the control room to reboot the system. While Ellie runs to the nearest computer in there to do so, Grant slams the door and tells her to boot up the door's automatic locks. But then, he sees the Big One looking at him through the window. She turns the handle, which Grant grabs, and she next tries to force the door open. He pushes back against her, struggling to get the door shut, and Ellie rushes in to help him. While the adults are busy with the door,

Lex sits down at the computer and, using her computer and hacker knowledge, attempts to find the file necessary to reboot the system. As she helps Grant keep the Big One out, Ellie tries to go for the rifle, which is on the floor in front of them, but finds she can't reach it and keep the door shut at the same time (like I said before, have Tim hand it to you!). The Big One manages to get both of her hands around the side of the door and Grant has to push with all of his strength to force her back out. Just as she manages

to force her hand back out, Lex finally finds the right file and manages to reboot the system. The Big One pulls back out, as the door slams and the lock engages. Once the adults have heard that everything is back up and running, Grant calls Hammond down in the bunker. He tells him that everything is working again, that his grandchildren are okay, and he can contact the mainland for help. However, their victory is short-lived, as the Big One begins smashing her way through the window. Over the phone, Hammond

hears gunshots and screams Grant's name in a panic. Having used all of his shells, Grant and the others grab a nearby ladder and climb up into the ventilation system. The Big One smashes through the window and jumps onto a computer station, right before Grant knocks the ladder away beneath him.

The group crawls through the claustrophobic section above the ceiling panels, when the Big One lunges up through the panel that Lex happens to be on. Grant quickly kicks the raptor in the face, causing her to fall, but Lex nearly falls as well. She grabs onto the edges and the others pull her up, right as the Big One gets back on her feet and jumps up, snapping at Lex's foot. They move through the ventilation system and, opening a panel, find it leads down to some scaffolding around the dinosaur skeletons in the lobby. They make their way down there, only for the

Big One to appear on a ledge across from them. They climb onto the Brachiosaurus skeleton, when the Big One jumps on it as well, causing it to come apart from the weight and resulting in their being stuck on different sections of it: Grant, Tim, and the Big One are on the body, Ellie on a section of the tail, and Lex on the neck. Grant has Tim jump down to the floor below, as the cables holding the bones up begin to come loose from the ceiling. Lex's section falls about halfway, while Ellie falls onto the floor and shields

herself as those bones collapse on top of her. The body comes loose and Grant and the Big One tumble to the floor, with Tim nearly getting impaled by the rib-cage. Just as everyone is getting their bearings, Ellie sees another raptor entering the lobby through an opening. Grant gets the kids up, as the Big One resumes her attack, but just as they're about to run outside, they find that they're trapped. With nowhere to go, the group waits for both raptors to move in for the kill. The one that came in from outside prepares to pounce...

...when the T-Rex suddenly grabs her in midair and wrenches her left and right, before throwing her to the floor. Enraged at this, the Big One charges and jumps on the T-Rex's side, clawing at her, while the people run outside. There, Hammond pulls up in a jeep, as the others pile in. Grant tells Hammond, "After careful consideration, I've decided... not to endorse your park." Hammond responds, "So have I," and they drive off to the helipad. Inside, the T-Rex manages to get the Big One in her jaws and flings her into the Tyrannosaurus skeleton, before letting out a

final, triumphant roar, as the banner that reads, "WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH," floats down in front of her. (How could you not love that? That is the definition of kick ass.) After all that excitement, the movie ends on a quiet, bittersweet note, with the characters piling into a waiting InGen helicopter at the helipad (when they leave the jeep, you see that the Jurassic Park logo on its door is splattered with mud, as opposed to how pristine it was when they arrived, a visual representation of how

Hammond's dream has truly failed) and fly away from the island. While Hammond laments having to abandon his dream, Grant and Ellie have a silent exchange when she notes how much he's changed when it comes to kids. They then look out the window and see a flock of pelicans flying across the water, which makes Grant give off a soft, peaceful expression. I think what it's meant to symbolize is how, given the theory that dinosaurs led to birds, that they'll always be with us in some form, and so Hammond's dream is not completely destroyed. In any case, it then ends with that awesome shot of the helicopter literally flying off into the sunset.

According to Steven Spielberg, this was the only time during his longtime collaboration with John Williams that he wasn't present when the score was recorded, as he went off to Poland to do Schindler's List as soon as he finished shooting Jurassic Park. Regardless, Williams, as always, came up with another amazing and iconic score, one that managed to capture both sides of the coin that is this movie. He came up with two memorable main themes, the first being that sweeping, wondrous piece that you first hear when the helicopter flies in towards the island and which you hear in its full glory again at the end, when the T-Rex saves the group from the raptors. That's sort of considered the official main Jurassic Park theme, but I think it shares that title with that incredibly beautiful piece that you hear in the scene with the Brachiosaurus. That theme still gives me chills every time I listen to it, especially in how it builds and becomes absolutely epic and magical in that shot of the landscape, getting across how magnificent the dinosaurs are, as well as the wonder that they've been returned to life. This notion is emphasized by the piece that plays when the baby Velociraptor hatches, which is fairly low-key and consists mainly of a woman vocalizing, and the theme that plays during the Triceratops scene, getting across how these creatures, as amazing as they are, can also be quite vulnerable. It makes a part of you wish that it were possible to see these amazing creatures in the flesh. 

But, at the same time, the music also emphasizes how terrifying the dinosaurs can be. In fact, like I said earlier,  the movie opens on that kind of a note, with a very foreboding piece that's comprised of a few impactful "dooms," some subtle vocalizing, and a very mysterious and creepy sound when the title comes up. While none of the dangerous dinosaurs have a leitmotif all their own (the T-Rex attack, the Dilophosaurus scene, and the sequence with the Gallimimus all, wisely, play out without any music), the exception are the Velociraptors, which have a very threatening leitmotif, often played on very loud horns, and which has this unsettling way in which it twists around. Not surprisingly, the music that plays during the kitchen scene is about as suspenseful as you can get, really making you bite your nails at points. Another theme that I wouldn't call suspenseful but is definitely foreboding begins as soon as Nedry puts his plan into action, and increases in urgency as the park systems begin shutting down and he himself gets lost out in the storm. The part where he takes the embryos from the lab is scored with an eerie bit of music similar to what was heard when the title came up. Above everything else, the music is often just thrilling, such as in sequence where the car is coming down the tree at Grant and Tim, the jeep chase with the T-Rex, and especially during the third act, where it's one heart-pounding theme after another, culminating in the final confrontation in the visitor's center lobby. Finally, as the movie wraps up, it's very solemn and bittersweet, transitioning into the first main theme playing softly on the piano, before becoming big and epic once again as the helicopter flies off into the sunset, which leaves you with a satisfying feeling that you've been on a great adventure. That said, though, if you watch the credits right to the end, the music becomes sinister again, hinting that it might not be over (which, of course, it wasn't).

Have I mentioned that I love Jurassic Park? I may be slightly blinded by how it was such a big and important part of my childhood but, honestly, it's a movie that I can find very few faults with and remains one of my favorites to this day. Some people may say the characters and story are underdeveloped, or criticize that, despite Steven Spielberg's intentions, it does become something of a monster movie during the second half, but I don't agree. For one, I love monster movies, so that's a non-issue for me, and for another, as I've said, I think the characters and story are developed a lot more than people give them credit for. Maybe some of the lesser characters could have more meat to them but I don't think it matters in the long run, and the story is not only well-told but also brings up some significant issues and themes. And that's to say nothing of not only how well both the visual and practical effects hold up to this day, but how much the dinosaurs feel like real creatures. Finally, and most importantly, this is the kind of movie where spectacle is key. It's meant to be an exciting, bigger than life adventure and, as such, it's as close to perfection as they come. If the original King Kong can be of the same ilk and get all sorts of acclaim, why can't Jurassic Park? When it comes right down to it, they're both perfect testaments to the same thing: the wonder and magic of the movies.