Jurassic Park

A masterpiece of 1993, ‘Jurassic Park’ is a Hollywood film directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the novel by Michael Crichton and stars Richard Attenborough, Sam Neil, Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern. ‘Jurassic Park’ was ground-breaking for its special effects, its iconic soundtrack and realistic dinosaurs for its time.

The plot of ‘Jurassic Park’ is simple, millionaire and business-man John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) opens a theme park full of real-life dinosaurs, he invites Dr. Allan Grant (Sam Neil), Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), and Dr. Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum) to inspect the park and see the unique “attractions”. A tropical storm hits the island (this was a real storm that hit the location during filming) and cuts out all of the electrics on the island. The loss of power wipes out the security systems, allowing the dinosaurs to escape all over the island. Allan Grant has to help Lex and Tim Murphey (John Hammond’s grandchildren) get back to the Visitors centre and escape the island before it’s too late.

‘Jurassic Park’s’ special effects were incredible and ground-breaking for the time and in my opinion rivals some special effects of many of todays films. The dinosaurs look so realistic for their time and still hold up today, animatronics, created by Stan Winston, were used for close up shots and CGI dinosaurs were designed for long distance shots. The landscapes of Oahu, Hawaii are stunning and gorgeous to look at throughout the film capturing fan’s imaginations just as much as the dinosaurs do. The phenomenal score was composed by John Williams, who has also composed beautiful music for incredible films such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jaws, E.T and more. The main theme of ‘Jurassic Park’ is one of the most iconic tracks out of any film and has been reused in all the Jurassic sequels. The special effects team were inventive with their practical effects, the technique that was used to get the water rippling in the cup on the dashboard during the famous T.Rex break out scene, was achieved by a man laying under the car and plucking a guitar string attached to the cup.

'Jurassic Park' is also full of clever references to the book, real world problems and what happens later on in the film, my favourite of these references is when the helacoptor is landing on the island and Allan Grant's seat belt only have two female ends so he ties them into a knote, this references later on in the film where one of the Veloceraptors changes gender from female into male so that the species can breed, this signifies that 'life finds a way'.

However, this film isn’t perfect. The dinosaurs aren’t completely authentic anymore as they were at the time the film was made, but due to recent findings these dinosaurs would look very different if the film was made today. Also, it is a shame that Samuel L. Jackson’s character didn’t get the originally planned death scene because the set was destroyed in the tropical storm that hit Oahu when filming took place. This isn’t anyone’s fault, its just a shame that it didn’t happen. The final criticism that I have with this film is it would have been cool to see another small carnivore to chase the main cast for a scene or two, a cool/small dinosaur to cameo could’ve been a ‘Deinonychus’ or a ‘Herrerasaurus’.

‘Jurassic Park’, full of fantastic special effects, a phenomenal soundtrack, and a brilliant cast, is one of the most iconic and influential films ever, it was hugely influential for short film and internet sketch makers and fan theorists and will continue to inspire film fanatics for years to come.