Jurassic park (1993) movie analysis

Jurassic park (1993) 

Cast: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Geoff Goldblum,

Directed by: Steven Spielberg

Based on the book ‘Jurassic park’ by Michael Crichton

Review by Zulfiqar - 4/5

            ‘Jurassic park’ is that thrilling juxtaposition of danger and fun you would ever find in cinema. Fun because it is such a titillating experience to see largest of the reptiles, dinosaurs, moving and hunting with their majestic screeches and ear thumping paw-falls. And it is dangerous because how much can you envisage a world in which you could think of co-existing with reptiles, whose predatory instincts are the primal issues that rule them. You could say similarly regarding horror movies or sci-fi fantasies which have been many in Hollywood infusing both the themes. But the thing here is that dinosaurs really existed in the world. They moved and ruled in their times. The only reason we exist is because they did extinct. We wouldn’t have occupied our place in the evolution line if that theoretic comet shower hadn’t rubbed off dinosaurs. The Jurassic period in Mesozoic era was their heyday. Spielberg’s and Crichton’s idea was what if they came back in our present Cenozoic.

            Spielberg was at the top of his game for a plateau period of nearly twenty to thirty years starting from his ‘Jaws’ till his ‘Munich’. Some may argue that he still is. ‘Jurassic park’ was the meat of this plateau in the fantasy zone. He was the classic master storyteller of real life tales. But when he tried his hand at childish fantasies, he did wonders. ‘Jurassic park’ was the first sprout in its genre. It could have been an initial great attempt but Spielberg made it into a classic, which till now isn’t surpassed of a movie with dinosaurs. He applied his inherent trait of bringing his star material late into the story, but till then he busily weaves it thoroughly. He weaves it with mathematicians, paleontologists and some software props of bio-medical engineering.

            The plot starts with industrialist John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) inviting a team of paleontologists (Sam Neill and Laura Dern) and a mathematician (Jeff Goldblum) to his theme park, ‘Jurassic Park’, to label it safe after a fiasco which leads to a death of an employee at the hands of a dinosaur. Now, these dinosaurs are created through medical engineering by splicing the dinosaur DNA from fossil relics to that of frogs. It is not just theoretically mentioned but there is an official presentation to the visitor group, who go wide eyed with such a strange theory. But they know it to be true as they have a park full of diverse dinosaurs. In the park, they see a docile ‘Brachiosaurus’ eating coniferous trees as herbs. Malcolm, the mathematician played by Geoff Goldblum, laments on the artificial hand of manipulation in the evolution. He senses that the scheme is doomed to go wrong. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) however are overwhelmed by the live dinosaurs. When they go through the park for a tour with Hammond’s grandchildren, the security of the park is breached when a computer programmer of the park steals dinosaurs’ embryos to sell them to some interested foreign buyers. All hell breaks loose when the most dangerous ‘Tyrannosaurus’ is on the prowl as a free predator with zillions of raptors assisting the mayhem.

            Tyrannosaurus is obviously the star material here. His entry is such a well staged set piece that you don’t have to be a kid to have your heart in your mouth. Provided that you have a terrific sound system and a big screen to watch. When I watched back in 1993, as a child even in my pecuniary personal conditions, I felt the movie was well above the ticket’s worth. Recent reviewing just solidified the idea. Granted we have moved to better VFX but still the chill and thrill are always there. But what’s more interesting regarding Jurassic park is the way Spielberg claims the validity of the park’s existence. Before you move onto the action part of the movie, he establishes that there is a park, which replicates the ancient history in its fauna. Attenborough’s Hammond is a genial old soul, who realizes his mistake in stirring the waters of evolution. When he speaks early on, it is with a sparkling of child’s enthusiasm of having animals, magnanimous and every bit natural. He forgets the meaning of wild at that time. Geoff Goldblum’s brainy mathematician was probably an accidental pitch for his intelligent scientist of ‘Independence day’. He raises concerns regarding the dice game of the nature which plays on its own terms and is not interested in any other odds. The paleontologist couple bonds with the kids as they go through the thrilling journey of their lives.

            But there are a million questions which ‘Jurassic park’ raises. What are the odds of creating so many varied species of dinosaurs? And even if they are created, the flora too have evolved over not centuries but millions of years and are they conducive as sustenance for the oldest reptiles known? And can you really engineer the genome to such alignment of creating an old life? Crichton took many such artistic licenses to write the book and he makes many successful attempts of explaining the theories. But he also emphasizes at the collapse of a system which is created in a controlled environment. Spielberg too tries to prove the same point but he basks in the realm of its deficiencies, which is the dinosaurs’ outbreak from the park. The kids (Hammond’s grandchildren) in the movie are the real deal. Because it is their shoes, we want to be but granted we make it alive at the end. Both the brother and sister were certainly great finds in the way they shiver, sputter and dodge from the raptors at the nick-est of times. And they do it quite often. The VFX bar was raised at that time with this movie in many scenes. The best one was when the raptors run towards the hero and kids but overtake them soon enough as they really are running away from the tyrannosaurus, which picks one and disembowels it. There is another at the end when a couple of raptors goad intuitively both the kids towards one of them, but they don’t know that they are down the intellectual line of humans. But the story’s highlight is the choice of bullfrog for the program of controlled breeding, which proves to be a misnomer. It is these highlights which Crichton provides and which Spielberg is a master at projecting.