JURASSIC PARK - Jurassic Park 25th Anniversary Retrospective | PART 1

In coming up for idea's for new types of posts to do for this blog, I have a considerable list of retrospectives I wish to do. One of them was for the Jurassic Park series and with this year being the 25th Anniversary of the original film and 'Fallen Kingdom' coming out soon, I figure now is the perfect time to do so.
So ladies and gentlemen, without any further ado...

Part 1 - Welcome to Jurassic Park

JURASSIC PARK
(June 11, 1993) - June 11

Some people may not be aware of the fact that Jurassic Park began it's life as a novel. It all started with an idea by Michael Crichton, he conceived an idea of Dinosaurs being brought back to life through genetic engineering and put into a theme park for everyone to see. It may sound ludicrous, but hey, the MIT guys Crichton spoke to seemed to support it.
This rousing adventure and cautionary tale would end up becoming a best seller, but before it ended up being published, Crichton told one of his friends about it and he become adamant about wanting to make a movie based on Crichton's story. That friends name was Steven Spielberg.

Crichton himself would help to write the initial screenplay, which would then be revised by David Koepp. It ended up being very different from the novel. Some might say it's bad to deviate from the novel, because most movies based on books that change a ton of stuff NEVER go on to be classics, am I right? The novel was very dark, detailing a ton of violent and disturbing sequences. It's hard to say weather or not it would have become the major success it ended up being if it had kept to it's source material.
The basic story outline remains the same: Scientists are able to bring dinosaurs back to life and placed in a theme park/zoo on a remote island. The man behind the whole project, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) is pressured by his lawyer to bring in experts to verify the safety of the park after a previous incident. He invites 2 paleontologist, Alan Grant (Sam Neil) and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), Chaotician, Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum) as well as his grandchildren (Ariana Richards and Joseph Mazzello) to go on a sneak peek tour. But the park security systems shut down, the dinosaurs become loose on the island and they must try to survive.

Before 1993, if you were to ask someone what the greatest Dinosaur movie was, you'd probably get the answer of 1925's The Lost World, One Million Years BC or even the immortal 1977 classic: The Last Dinosaur with Richard Boone.
Needless to say, Jurassic Park knocks them all at least 3 miles out of the ballpark. And it's not hard to see why.

Jurassic Park has an all around great cast, every single performance in the movie feels natural. I believe Sam Neil is a credible Paleontologist, I buy Jeff Goldblum as a quirky, mathematician obsessed with Chaos Theory and I get a lot of joy out of seeing Richard Attenborough excited at the prospect of the park he's created and I also feel bad when I see him realizing it's all falling apart.
Even the kids are great. They can be annoying at parts, between Tim's fanboying over Grant and Lex's screaming (Even Fay Wray would tell her to calm down). But it doesn't last for very long.

We've come a long way from seeing Dinosaurs portrayed as stop-motion puppets or super imposed lizards with fins spirit glued to their backs.The Academy Award winning visual effects of Jurassic Park are the stuff of legends, flawlessly combining practical animatronics and new computer generated imagery. You've probably heard the names Stan Winston (Animatronics), Dennis Muren (CGI), Phil Tippett (Dinosaur Supervisor) and Michael Lantieri (On Set Effects) before.
The main idea was not to see Dinosaurs portrayed as typical movie monsters but more as actual animals and the production team spared no expense (lol) in getting the best of the best in the business to work on the project. 
Even Paleontologist, Jack Horner was brought on to make sure that the Dinosaurs were brought to life on screen as accurately as possible.
It really is amazing to see the results of their labor. When Alan Grant says "It's...it's a Dinosaur!", that reaction pretty much mirrored everyone's reaction to seeing that Brachiosaurus for the first time. If you get a chance, I highly recommend picking this movie up on Blu-ray just to watch the bonus material. I mean, I can't be the one to give away all this movies secrets.

And do I even need to mention the iconic score? John Williams created a score that really emphasizes the awe, wonder and terror of what you see. It's just incredible.

I watched this movie all the time as a kid. Being a big Dinosaur lover already, I fell in love with this movie. I've probably watched it so many times, I'm sure I could recite certain whole scenes on command when asked to. I, like many others was amazed by it and scared by it. 
Spawning sequels, a ton of merchandise, theme park attractions and even a "Weird Al" Yankovic parody song, Jurassic Park continues to be a cinematic marvel, revered by critics and audiences alike. It's appeal doesn't appear to be going extinct anytime soon.

Till next time, I have been your host Gryphon

and I hope you've enjoyed your time here in my lair.

So long...

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