Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park, adapted from the book of the same title written by the late Michael Crichton and directed by Steven Spielberg. While I hope that by 2009, everyone would know this groundbreaking 1993 film, I’m sure someone out there who should know this film who honestly doesn’t.

This film was one of the first films to really showcase computer generated effects as a viable use of so-called special effects in a film. The dinosaurs which appear in this film are a mixture of computer effects as previously mentioned, and animatronics. A great deal of the advancement of computer effects in modern films has to do with the work that Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) put into this film.
Sam Niell plays Dr. Grant; Laura Dern as Dr. Satler; Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm; and Richard Attenborough as John Hamond. Samuel L. Jackson, B.D. Wong, and Wayne Knight also star in the film.

The film itself is wonderful, even over 15 years after it has been released. Has it really been that long? I remember seeing this film in a second-run theater, at around the age of 11. On a side note I do also remember walking into the theater way later than I would even consider walking into today. Ah well.
The characters were well developed and believable, with one reason going for that due to the limited number of people that actually do appear in this film. Everyone feels so isolated, which in a way, creates the perfect atmosphere for the characters being stuck on an island

The book and film, like almost all adaptations, are different. However, there are a few changes that just don’t make sense. Some characters that die in the book don’t, while ones that survive in the book die in the movie. However, my qualms are small potatoes in the long run since the film is extremely good.

This film convinced George Lucas to return to the Star Wars franchise and “complete” the first three parts of the saga. Whether or not this is a good or bad thing is hard to really say. It’s all up to your personal preference.

The film is followed up by “The Lost World: Jurassic Park”, which is a hybrid of both the Jurassic Park novel sequel, The Lost World, and takes heavily from the original “Lost World” story –however it is more commonly compared to King Kong instead of the Lost World. The third film, Jurassic Park III isn’t nearly as good, and for the last four or five years there have been rumors of another film being made, but so far, the project seems pretty dead.