Reflecting On: Jurassic Park

Reflecting On…

The Jurassic Park Franchise 

Yesterday marked the 25^th anniversary of the original Jurassic Park. Even after all these years, it’s still considered a ground-breaking achievement for its impressive use of animatronics and huge leap in computer generated imagery—not to mention, remembered fondly as one of the most-entertaining movies in cinematic history. Despite a long gap between the third and fourth film, the franchise is still going strong to this day, and is one of the most financially-successful series of films ever.

With age comes perspective. Perspectives can change opinions. I was a fan of Jurassic Park at a very early age, and though my perspective has radically changed since I first laid eyes on that towering Brachiosaurus toward the beginning of the first film, sparking a life-long obsession with the biggest creatures ever to walk the earth, I still love Jurassic Park as much today as I did back then, if not even more. 

Before the next entry in the series comes out, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (which I promise I will actually review, not like my false promise of reviewing Infinity War, but I mean, c’mon, this is a Jurassic movie, it’s a far bigger deal to me than Marvel), I thought it would be fun to look back on the previous four movies from a current perspective.

Jurassic Park (1993): 

There’s no question that Jurassic Park holds up today. Very few major blockbusters—especially ones made in the last few years—are as highly regarded as this. Even Jaws or Indiana Jones (it’s not much of an argument to say both are among Spielberg’s best films) don’t hold up effects-wise the same way Jurassic Park does. Is every shot perfect? No. Even as a tremendous fan, I can admit a few of the cgi shots do look a bit dated, and there are certain flaws that become more noticeable after watching it a million times (strings on the Dilophosaurus’ frill, the T-rex’s crooked leg that’s not quite touching the ground properly, the random hand of a guy on set touching the Velociraptor as it enters the kitchen), but if you took all of the special effects shots in the film (there aren’t as many as you might think), and graded them on a pass or fail basis, it would still get an A+.  

But let’s look beyond the effects. There’s something timeless about the story of Jurassic Park. It’s that undeniable Spielbergian magic that makes viewers feel like this is the first time they’ve ever really seen a dinosaur, and that is as much a result of his directorial expertise as it is the visual effects department. Even though Lex being overjoyed at the tour vehicle having an “interactive CD ROM” and her ability to use a UNIX system to get the door locks working again are dated, these are pretty trivial bits of a very intricately constructed film. Due to the settings, casting, and ageless effects, there’s not a lot about the movie that screams 1993. 

When it comes to criticism of the film, I always have to laugh. On a technical writing level, you could say the characters are thinly scripted and it doesn’t function as a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material, and that would be true. But when anyone starts to say the movie isn’t good, it becomes a conversation of personal tastes. There’s really very little to criticize. No movie is perfect, but Jurassic Park, for what it is, came awfully close. 

Rating: 10/10.

 

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997):

When I was a kid, I loved the first and second Jurassic Park almost the same amount, but I often favoured the second because it had more dinosaurs. Today, I easily side with the first as being my favourite, but Lost World still holds a very special place in my heart, and I still find it immensely entertaining, just like everyone else…or, no?

After the massive success of Jurassic Park, of course there was going to be a sequel. People wanted more dinosaurs, so that’s what Spielberg gave them. Only, it wasn’t exactly what people wanted. The Lost World is quite different from the first film. I never even really thought about it until I was much older, but it tells a rather different kind of story, is actually even darker and more brutal, and less original. It’s not Jurassic Park 2—not really, anyway—even though it’s a sequel, it forges a new path without repeating the first movie too much. 

I’ve never seen a sequel divide viewers quite like this one. It’s split pretty much down the middle: people either love it, or hate it. I’m firmly on the side of loving it, despite some flaws. One of the flaws everyone always goes to is Malcolm’s daughter. Why is she black? Why did she have to be in the movie? Why does she use her gymnastic skills to kick a Velociraptor out a window and mortally wound it? This is a fraction of the film, yet it’s all the haters fixate on. What about the multiple tense, well-executed action scenes? What about the return of Ian Malcolm, this time at the forefront of the story instead of Dr. Grant? I always thought that was a cool idea. Grant was great in the first film, but Malcolm was a standout. Having had his chaos theory proved right, now he’s back, but weary, and dealing with a new problem. The new characters, too, are believable, memorable, and easy to root for. 

The visual effects are much more numerous than before, of course, given the greater number of dinosaurs, but I think they hold up just as well as the first movie. The cgi still looks great, and the animatronics are even more ambitious and frightening. The music isn’t quite as classic as before, but certainly enhances the experience. In the end, the only real criticism I have is the often stumbling attempts at making something as original as the first movie. There was no way to duplicate the experience of Jurassic Park; what we end up with is something rather derivative of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World (from which it borrows the title) and even Godzilla, with the T-rex attacking San Diego at the end. Still, I think it’s one of the most underrated sequels ever made, and more than worthy of continuing the Jurassic legacy. 

Rating: 9/10.

Jurassic Park III (2001): 

I still remember the Christmas morning when I opened up one of my presents, and it was Jurassic Park III on VHS. I was beyond excited. I was still a little too young to see it in theaters at the time of its initial release, but I loved it when I first saw it, and declared it my new favourite Jurassic Park movie. Oh, how times have changed.  

Looking back, it’s easy to see why I felt that way. It’s the shortest movie in the franchise, the Spinosaurus was a formidable replacement for the T-rex, there were glimpses of other new dinosaurs (I distinctly recall my animated reaction to the Ceratosaurus encounter on the riverbank), and even more scenes with Velociraptors than Lost World. However, with a modern day perspective, I completely understand why it’s heavily criticized. Though I have problems with it, I still enjoy it for the nostalgic value, and some of the scenes are, in my opinion, pretty well done. 

The main problems are with the scope, story, and logic. Jurassic Park III forces Dr. Grant to run from dinosaurs once again, for basically the same reason he ended up running from dinosaurs in the first place: money. An unlikely group of people get stuck on the island, search for a lost kid, and get rescued in the end. That’s about it. The behaviour of the dinosaurs is questionable too. There’s a line from Grant about them being “genetically-engineered theme park monsters”, and that’s never been more true than here (until Jurassic World, anyway). It never used to bother me as a kid, but now it all just seems a bit extreme while lacking any kind of explanation. Yes, the dinosaurs were very scary in the first and second films, but this time around, they are scary in ways that make no sense. Why does the raptor stand motionless behind that incubating chamber for so long, then leap out for a jump scare? Why is the Spinosaurus so intent on chasing the tiny humans? Why does it snap the T-rex’s neck in order to kill it?

I may be knit picking here, but you can’t deny other lame moments like the talking raptor dream or the intercutting between the Spinosaurus attacking the boat and Ellie’s son watching Barney. It’s silly stuff like this that really makes the movie feel inferior to the previous two. 

What it lacks in story and ambition it makes up for with dinosaurs. Their behaviour may be more akin to movie monsters than living creatures, but it still makes for some exciting scenes. The cgi isn’t as consistent as before, but still extremely good. Though the runtime is shorter, the Spinosaurus gets many moments to shine, the raptors are a terrifying force once again, and the Pteranodon are nightmarish in their depiction. 

I think of Jurassic Park III as just another fun adventure with a familiar face (Dr. Grant) and some entertaining dinosaur action. It lacks the sure handed direction of Spielberg and classic score by John Williams, but more importantly, the absence of Michael Crichton’s hand at the story is sorely missing. No chaos theory, no techno thriller aspect, no man vs. nature, just some dinosaurs chasing people. 

Rating: 7/10. 

Jurassic World (2015): 

I was incredibly skeptical about Jurassic World from the beginning. If you want to check out my initial reaction to it, here’s the link. http://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2015/06/jurassic-world-initial-reaction.html Spoiler: my thoughts have changed a decent amount. 

Every time I watch Jurassic World, I like it a little bit less. In short, I think of it in a similar context to Jurassic Park III: just a dinosaur movie with some cool dinosaur scenes, but not a great story. However, I still prefer it slightly over Jurassic Park III, simply for feeling like a more ambitious concept with bigger moments and more going on. It is still not on par with Jurassic Park or even The Lost World, for me, but let me get into some detail. 

What surprised me the most when I first saw it was the level of respect paid to the original film. I didn’t expect the characters to literally go back to the old part of the park and walk through the ruins of the Jurassic Park visitor center, among other direct references to the old films, but once the initial surprise of them doing that wore off, I started to realize just how similar this movie was to the original. The only real difference between the overarching plots of Jurassic World and Jurassic Park is having the park open to the public and having a genetically-modified dinosaur as the main threat, as opposed to a normal dinosaur. At least The Lost World tried something different.  

Jurassic World certainly feels like a product of its time, unlike the original Jurassic Park. There is so much cgi, it often starts to look unrealistic, but there’s something about the way the film is shot that just shatters the illusion of these creatures looking and feeling real. It could be all the cgi, it could be the lack of animatronics, or the directing style, but whatever the case, the dinosaurs just aren’t as convincing. Neither are the characters, for that matter. They are all serviceable, but none of them will ever be as memorable as Alan Grant or Ian Malcolm or John Hammond or Ellie Sattler. 

What’s really frustrating, to me, is despite the dinosaurs not fully coming to life visually, the script tries to make them into characters. Chris Pratt’s Velociraptors are given names and distinguishing characteristics. The T-rex is the same one from the original film (which is pretty cool, I’ll admit), but they aren’t scary or jaw-dropping or wondrous like they once were. And to be fair, that’s the point the movie is trying to make. It’s just not a great point, in my opinion.  

Where Jurassic World succeeds the most is in a handful of crowd-pleasing scenes, the pinnacle of which has to be the final fight between the Indominous Rex and T-rex/Velociraptor. But the scene I love the most doesn’t even have dinosaurs in it. It’s the scene where Masrani and Dr. Wu are talking about the Indominous Rex in the lab, and Wu explains they used a mix of DNA to create it, which is what they’ve been doing from the start for all the dinosaurs, and many of the creatures would look quite different if they didn’t do it that way. I can’t really get into why, exactly, I love this scene so much, it’s just some real deep cuts into Crichton’s novels and the fandom and dinosaurs in general. Unfortunately, there’s less focus on stuff like that and more focus on dinosaurs eating people—unfortunate depending on your preference, I guess. 

Some fans have severely critiqued this movie as being utterly inferior to the original and unworthy of the Jurassic name. My response to that would be…yes, I agree, to a point, but here’s the thing: Jurassic World is a monster movie, much the same way Jurassic Park III was. It has silly ideas and silly moments, but it still has some of the heart of the original film. It still at least tries to give us the wonder of a dinosaur theme park, even if it doesn’t quite nail it. Besides, this is Jurassic World, not Park, which makes me automatically think of it as something of an offshoot series anyway, even if it’s still basically the same title. The original Jurassic Park trilogy will remain classic and forever in my mind and heart, but Jurassic World is a new thing inspired from it, as far as I’m concerned. It still has strands of DNA, so to speak, from the original trilogy and even Michael Crichton’s two novels, but it isn’t trying to be more than a giant dinosaur romp, so I can’t get too upset about it. 

I really liked Jurassic World when I first saw it. Now, I have a more lukewarm reception to it. I like it for lots of the details and particular scenes and moments, but as an overall movie and story, it’s average. It felt like they tried really hard to make something as spectacular as the original, which is admirable, but also incredibly blatant, and was probably a bit miscalculated. In a way, this feels like a true Jurassic Park II, which I mentioned in my initial reaction back in 2015, but today, I still can’t think of it as being truly a part of the franchise I loved growing up, and continue to love. 

Rating: 7.5/10.

So there you have it, my contemporary thoughts on the Jurassic Park movies (and Jurassic World). It seems likely Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom will continue the over-the-top-dinosaur-packed thrills, and I’m OK with that. If they manage to further develop the characters along the way, that would be even better, but I’m definitely not getting my expectations too high once again, and hopefully, that will allow me to enjoy it more.