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Jurassic Park is a 1993 film adaptation, directed by Steven Spielberg, of the novel Jurassic Park written by Michael Crichton and published in 1990. The film is followed by The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), Jurassic Park III (2001), and Jurassic Park IV in 2008 (expected).
Plot summary The movie begins with a mysterious cage being lowered against a concrete structure surrounded by several heavily armed guards led by game warden Robert Muldoon (Bob Peck). (Although we only catch glimpses of the animal inside the cage, it is later revealed to be a Velociraptor). When a worker climbs atop the cage to open the gate to allow the animal to enter the enclosure, it rushes the entrance, knocking the cage backward and toppling the gatekeeper to the ground. It then seizes and devours him, despite the guards' attempts to shock it with what appear to be high-voltage cattle prods, Muldoon's attempts to save him, and several shotgun blasts to the creature. After this, Donald Gennaro (Martin Ferrero), a lawyer for a group of unseen investors, explains to a Dominican mining supervisor that an expert must "sign off on the island" due to the death of the worker shown in the opening scene. Paleontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) and mathematician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) are then invited on an all-expense-paid preview visit to Jurassic Park, a zoo-like amusement park set up by eccentric billionaire and InGen CEO John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) on the island of Isla Nublar (near Costa Rica). Also invited are Gennaro and Hammond's grandchildren Alexis (Lex) (Ariana Richards) and Tim Murphy (Joseph Mazzello) who are on vacation while their parents are getting a divorce. Hammond wishes to hear the opinions of the scientists and eventually win their approval of the park which is required of him by his lawyers before he can open the park to the public; Malcolm cites chaos theory and immediately expresses misgivings. When they arive at the island, their Jeeps stop beside an enomous Brachiosaurus, and the visitors are amazed at the beautiful animal towering fifty feet in the air. They turn to realize that behind them, a whole herd of Brachiosaurus and Parasaurolophus are drinking at a lake in the valley below. The park contains dinosaurs, which have been recreated from damaged dinosaur DNA (found in mosquitoes, trapped in amber, that fed on Saurian blood) that have been spliced with reptilian, avian, or amphibian DNA to fill in the gene sequence gaps. Hammond and his genetic engineers take great delight in explaining the ways that they created the dinosaurs. A tropical storm begins closing in on the island, and, despite hopes that 'Maybe it'll swing south like the last one', it does not and all staff members and guests are forced to leave the island for the weekend, cutting the tour short. The action begins when Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight), chief programmer of the Jurassic Park controlling software, tries to steal dinosaur embryos as per a deal with Lewis Dodgson, an agent of Biosyn—a genetics company and archrival of InGen (not named in the film). In order to do this, Nedry must turn off the electricity to the park's many electric fences (and the electronically controlled locks of the embryo chambers), and a number of dinosaurs correspondingly escape from their enclosures, causing a vicious attack on five of the visitors on the tour by the Tyrannosaurus rex, in which Gennaro is killed and Malcolm is severely injured. Grant and the kids escape into the jungle. While heading for the dock to deliver the stolen embryos, Nedry's Jeep becomes stuck in mud, he is eaten by a Dilophosaurus, and the embryos are lost forever. Muldoon and Ellie arrive at the scene of the T. rex attack in a Jeep to find an injured Malcom. They are then attacked by the Tyrannosaurus and they succeed in outrunning it with their Jeep and returning to the lodge. During a dash through the now-deadly island by Grant and the two children, Arnold attempts to restart the entire sytem so they can phone for help, but after he shuts it down he discovers that in order to turn it back on he must go to the maintenance shed at the other end of the compound, while Hamond, Muldoon, Ellie, and a rescued Malcolm wait in the emergency bunkers. Meanwhile Grant and the kids are observing a running flock of Gallimimus, when the group turns directly toward them and they are soon caught in a stampede. Suddenly the Tyrannosaurus springs out of the trees alongside the herd and sends them running in all directions, as it quickly closes its jaws over the nearest one and kills it. When Arnold fails to return, Muldoon and Ellie go in search of him and find that the Velociraptors have escaped. Ellie gets the power back on and finds that the raptors have killed Arnold. Although she is almost killed by a raptor herself, who was hiding behind coils in the maintanence bunker. Muldoon tries to hunt one of the raptors in the dense undergrowth of the jungle, but the hunter soon becomes the hunted, as they use their pack behavior to outwit him. One poses as a decoy, and as he is aiming, he falls prey to the other one that he didn't even know was there, as it attacks him from the side and and kills him, proving Grant's theory to be right. Grant and the kids are reunited with Ellie, Hammond, and Malcolm at the main compound. Once there, they are attacked and surrounded once again by the pack of Velociraptors. They are saved, however, by Lex, who reboots the park's mainframe computer, and also by the arrival of the T. rex, who defeats the raptors in the climactic final action scene. The group finally escapes the island by a helicopter sent from the mainland. In the final scene before the credits, Grant sees a flock of birds outside the helicopter window, relatives of the dinosaurs they just escaped. Production The movie was filmed on the Hawaiian islands of Maui, Oahu and Kauai in September 1992. On September 11, while filming, the eye of Hurricane Iniki passed directly over Kauai. The movie opened June 11 1993. Largely credited for the movie's success were its special effects. Through the use of CGI and conventional mechanical effects, the dinosaurs in the film appeared incredibly lifelike, due to the experience ILM had on previous effects films such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day. See Timeline of CGI in film and television. Music The Jurassic Park Score was composed by John Williams and orchestrated by John Neufeld and Alexander Courage. Like many of Williams' scores, there is substantial use of leitmotif. Original ending Originally, the movie was to end with the T. rex skeleton (in the Visitor Center) falling, crushing a raptor in the fossil jaws before it could attack Grant, Tim, Lex, and Ellie. Another raptor would then be crushed in the supports for the cherry picker that the group was standing on as it lowered. Hammond arrives and is then able to gun down the last raptor with a shotgun. Later when the original ending was seen as too simplistic a resolution, the skeleton was replaced with a living T. rex that attacks the raptors, saving the group. Reaction The film was extremely popular, grossing $919,700,000 worldwide, the highest ever at the time, and the eighth-highest worldwide box office take for a feature film as of 2006. The movie won Academy Awards for Visual Effects, Sound Effects Editing, and Sound, and spawned two sequels, The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) and Jurassic Park III (2001). The third sequel, Jurassic Park IV (IMDb) is currently in pre-production and is rumored for release sometime in 2008. The film won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1994. Jurassic Park remains one of the most well-known films of all time. It was the first notable film to animate actual animals using CGI, and many consider it to be a milestone in special effects history. The film's influence on dinosaurs in popular culture was also significant. Public interest in dinosaurs skyrocketed after the release. The film also raised public scientific understanding about dinosaurs, and helped introduce the dinosaur-bird evolutionary relationship theory into public knowledge. It was the first popular movie to portray dinosaurs relatively accurately (compared to previous films), due to paleontologist Jack Horner's guidance during filming. Trivia Changes from the novel Many plot points from the novel were changed or dropped, and the cautionary aspect of the novel was reduced. A subplot involving animals escaping to the mainland was dropped, and the cast of dinosaurs was made smaller and more manageable. Many secondary characters were also dropped. Many scenes are left intact from the novel, but have the species of the relevant dinosaurs changed. Dinosaurs and other extinct animals featured These are dinosaurs featured in the film: Biological issues Scientists and fans of the movie have pointed out that much of what happens in the film is impossible for various reasons. However, the novel, and to a greater extent, the movie, sparked years of serious debate on the plausibility of cloning dinosaurs. Other media There are rides based on Jurassic Park in the Universal Studios theme parks in Universal City, California, Orlando, Florida and Osaka. The Universal Studios theme park rides themselves act as a kind of sequel to the films. The rides' premise is that Universal Studios ignores the cautionary tales (featured in the films) in an effort to reconstruct John Hammond's park and send visitors on a thrilling journey that includes dangerously escaping menacing raptors and the T. rex herself. They supposedly contact Hammond to rebuild his park in their Orlando or Hollywood locations (depending on the ride location). There have been a number of Jurassic Park video games released to act as merchandise for the release of each film. The titles have appeared on a range of platforms including NES, Game Boy, Game Gear, PC:DOS/Windows, SNES, Sega Mega CD, Sega Genesis/Sega Mega Drive, 3DO, arcade, PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Parodies Sequels See also | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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