When it comes to groundbreaking cinematic releases you can always count on the Lucas's and the Spielberg's to deliver. And deliver Spielberg did, in spades I might add with Jurassic Park! The visual imagery achieved with this release is nothing short of remarkable. Through the marriage of stop motion animation by master model maker Phil Tippett, life sized animatronics and CGI, Spielberg and crew achieved the impossible, resurrecting dinosaurs from fossils. This movie still remains as one of the standards which all other VFX productions are judged against. How many of you watched this on the big screen and was blown away by our first look at the brachiosaurus, towering over our main cast? This scene is forever seared into my brain. There are no words to describe seeing a live dinosaur on the screen. As Dr Ian Malcolm, Jeff Goldblum character exclaims to Sam Neill's Dr Alan Grant and Laura Dern's Dr Ellie Sattler 'the son of a bitch did it, referring to Richard Attenborough's John Hammond.
Based on the novel by Michael Crichton, who penned a second tome, The Lost World, which was also adapted into a major motion picture, this is a cautionary tale of what can go wrong when man decides to play god. John Hammond has a vision, to bring back extinct creatures using advances in cloning and genetic engineering. The science behind it is surprisingly believable, although obtaining genetic material from mosquitoes trapped in amber is far fetched. But the premise of obtaining genetic material from fossils does have its merits. Scientists have found evidence of the preservation of such material in the marrow and soft tissues in well preserved specimens. We are still a while away from cloning dinosaurs.
Anyways John successfully brings dinosaurs back to life with the help of BD Wong's Dr Henry Wu. Dr Wu splices amphibian DNA to fill in the gaps in the DNA, and engineers them to be all female, and leucine deficient so they won't be able to survive without the supplement. John invites Dr Alan Grant, a paleontologist, Dr Ellie Sattler, a paleobotanist, Dr Ian Malcolm, a chaos theory mathematician and a lawyer to review the park. Among the guests are John's grandchildren. While touring the park things go very wrong when IT support Dennis Nedry, played by Seinfeld's Wayne Knight brings the whole grid down during a typhoon. Dennis turns out to be working for another entity who wants viable embryos of the cloned dinosaurs. He tries to escape with his bounty,but takes a wrong turn and is ambushed by a pack of dilophosaurus.
The electrified fences go down and the dinosaurs escape from their enclosures to wreck havoc on the visitors, who happened to be in the tyrannosaurus paddock. The Rex attacks the two vehicles. The survivors make their way back to the compound only to find the deadly velociraptor pack hunting them. So begins the race to restore the power to the grid. Along the way, Alan and the kids have some close scrapes with the Rex. When they get back at the compound, the kids have a run in with the raptors, while Alan and the rest attempt to restore power manually. Alan saves the kids and they reboot the system. Just as they are fleeing, they are cornered by the raptors. The Rex appears and makes short work of the raptors. They leave the island as it is. The next two sequels will take place on Site B, Isla Sorna. We won't see Isla Nublar again until Jurassic World.
If there was any criticism of this movie, it would be the lack of more species of dinosaurs, and the absence of feathers on some of the smaller critters. Being a huge dinosaur buff since young, I was hoping for more, but I guess the ones that made it into the movie where amazing. The full sized animatronic T Rex, for all the issues with the material soaking up the rain water and sagging and quivering added to the realism of the paddock break out and attack scene. A solid 10/10 for me. We do get to see many other species in the next two sequels, but this is by far the best!
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