Jurassic Park is a 1993 science fiction film directed by Steven Spielberg, based upon the novel of the same name, written by Michael Crichton. The story involves scientists visiting an amusement park of genetically engineered dinosaurs on an island over one weekend. Sabotage sets the carnivorous dinosaurs on the loose, and technicians and visitors attempt to escape the island. The film stars Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern and Richard Attenborough.
The film began its genesis before the novel was even published, and Crichton was hired to write a script that skimmed down its plot. Spielberg hired Stan Winston Studio' puppets and worked with Industrial Light and Magic to develop cutting edge CGI to portray the dinosaurs. It was well received by critics, although they criticized the plotting and characterization. Since its release it has grossed $914,691,118, becoming the highest grossing film of all time, and is currently the eighth-highest grossing feature film. Most significantly, the film inspired a new breed of films that primarily used CGI for special effects. The film was followed by The Lost World: Jurassic Park in 1997 and by Jurassic Park III in 2001, neither of which was as financially successful or as critically acclaimed as the first. A fourth film is thought to be in development.
Plot
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Welcome to Jurassic Park!
On the volcanic island of Isla Nublar, an InGen employee is attacked and murdered by a Velociraptor while attempting to transport it to a heavily fortified enclosure. This prompts the workers family to file a law suit against the company, and it successfully scares InGen's investors into thinking that the Dinosaur park is not safe. The CEO of InGen John Hammond decides to reassure the investors by bringing a group of experts to his park in order to gain their approval of it. Among the group he invites paleontologist Alan Grant and paleobotanist Ellie Sattler, a couple who's expedition he's been funding, Ian Malcolm a Chaos theorist and his investors lawyers, Donald Gennaro. Meanwhile in Costa Rica, Dennis Nedry is meeting with Lewis Dodgson, a rival scientist of InGen working for Biosyn. Nedry is a computer programmer working for Hammond on Isla Nublar and has recently become dissatisfied with his treatment by InGen. Nedry agrees to steal dinosaur embryos for Dodgon for a price.
The group assembled by Hammond arrive on the island by helicopter and then take two jeeps out into the park, where they come across a Brachiosaurus and a whole herd of other dinosaurs to their amazement. Hammond then takes his stunned guests to the Visitor Center where they learned that InGen were able to clone dinosaurs using genetic material taken from mosquitoes who had feasted on dinosaur blood and had been preserved in Amber. The DNA taken from the mosquitoes was spliced with DNA from frogs to fill in the gaps of the genetic strains. InGen scientists altered the animals so that they could only clone females, thus eliminating the threat of uncontrolled breeding between the animals. They are then taken to the Velociraptor enclosure where they meet park warden Robert Muldoon. Muldoon tells the group about how vicious and intelligent the raptors are. He explains there are only three raptors all together because the lead female keep on killing all the new raptors they try and introduced to the enclosure.
Over dinner Alan, Ian and Ellie start to express doubt in the park after the initial shock has worn off. Malcolm questions the ethical morality in cloning a species that had not lived for 65 million years while Sattler expresses concern that the scientists may not be thinking of the repercussions that might occur of what they are cloning. Grant remains fairly neutral on the issue though advises Hammond to be careful. Gennaro is the only one who completely approves thanks to the amounts of money they could make off the island, and Hammond so eloquently puts it "Wonderful, I invite all of you here to approve of my park and the only one I have on my side is the blood sucking lawyer!" The guests are then introduced to Hammond's grandchildren who have also come to visit the park, Lex and Tim Murphy. Both of them instantly take a liking to Grant who doesn't appreciate the attention. The tour goes disappointingly, with most of the dinosaurs failing to appear.
Dilophosaurus fence
T-rex attacks a car
Ellie leaves the tour to take care of a sick Triceratops with Doctor of Veterinary Medicine Gerry Harding. A tropical storm hits the island and most InGen employees leave, except for Hammond, game warden Robert Muldoon, chief systems engineer Ray Arnold, and leading computer programmer Dennis Nedry. Commissioned by a rival businessman, Nedry takes an opportunity to shut down the park's security system so he can steal dinosaur embryos and deliver them to an auxiliary dock. As a result, the Tyrannosaurus breaks through the deactivated electric fence surrounding its pen, devouring Gennaro, attacking Tim and Lex hiding in the car, and wounding Malcolm. The children and Grant only narrowly avoid being killed and eaten. Just after they flee the wreckage, Ellie and Muldoon arrive. At first, they believe the only survivor of the attack is Malcolm, but upon further investigation they find two footprints: one is Grant's and one belongs to one of the kids. Just then, the T. rex returns, and Malcolm, Muldoon, and Ellie barely escape her in their jeep. Meanwhile, Nedry crashes his car, and while trying to winch it, he is killed by a Dilophosaurus. Grant, Tim, and Lex spend the night in a tree. While hiking to safety the next morning, they discover hatched eggs, which means that the dinosaurs are actually breeding. Grant realizes that the frog DNA is responsible: some species of frog are known to spontaneously change sex in a single-sex environment.
Arnold tries to hack Nedry's computer to turn the power back on but fails, so he does a full system restart, which requires the circuit breakers to be manually reset from the utility shed. When he does not return, Ellie and Muldoon follow and discover the raptors have escaped: the shutdown having cut off power to the electric fences around their pen. Muldoon realizes that they are near and tells Ellie to go to the utility shed herself and turn the power back on while he tries to hunt them down. Muldoon is attacked and killed by a lurking raptor while Ellie escapes from another after discovering Arnold's remains in the maintenance shed. After managing to turn on the power and escaping the raptor, she meets Grant, and they both go back to Malcolm and Hammond in the emergency bunkers. Lex and Tim narrowly escape two of the raptors in the kitchen (locking one in the freezer), and Lex is finally able to restore the Park's computer systems in order to call Hammond to request a helicopter rescue of the survivors.
The T-rex kills the Raptor
Muldoon's death
Grant and Ellie hold off a raptor trying to open the door to the computer room, until the power is restored and the electromagnetic locks begin working. With the door secure, the raptor breaks into the room through the window, and the group climbs up into the ceiling crawlspace and arrive at the Visitors Center skeleton display. The raptors pursue and after a scuffle on top of the fossil exhibits where the raptors block their escape route, help comes from an unlikely source when the Tyrannosaurus suddenly appears and kills both raptors, saving Grant, Ellie, Lex, and Tim in the process. The four then climb into Hammond and Malcolm's jeep and leave. Grant says he will not endorse the park, a choice with which Hammond concurs. As all fly away in the helicopter, the children fall asleep beside Grant, who contemplatively watches the birds flying nearby, the surviving relatives of the dinosaurs they escaped.
Cast
The cast of Jurassic Park
- Sam Neill as Dr. Alan Grant: A paleontologist excavating Velociraptor fossils in the Montana Badlands. He dislikes children, frightening one with a talon of a raptor, but he soon has to protect Hammond's grandchildren. Neill only had a weekend's break between filming Family Pictures and Jurassic Park, and had prepared for the role by meeting Jack Horner.
- Laura Dern as Dr. Ellie Sattler: A paleobotanist and Grant's girlfriend. Dern also met Horner and visited the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, learning to prepare a fossil.
- Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm: A mathematician and chaos theorist. He forewarns the danger of resurrecting dinosaurs and becomes Hammond's main opposition. He also falls for Sattler, another in a long line of romantic interests. Goldblum was Spielberg's first choice and is a big fan of dinosaurs. To prepare for his role, Goldblum researched Chaos Theory, which included arranging a meeting with James Gleick and Ivar Ekeland to discuss the theory. Coincidentally to their romantic tension in the film, Goldblum began a real life romance with Dern.
- Richard Attenborough as John Hammond: CEO of InGen and architect of Jurassic Park. Attenborough had not acted in a film since 1979 in film The Human Factor.
- Ariana Richards as Alexis "Lex" Murphy: Hammond's granddaughter, a vegetarian and self-professed computer hacker.
- Joseph Mazzello as Timothy "Tim" Murphy: Lex's younger brother, into dinosaurs. He has read Grant's numerous books.
- Wayne Knight as Dennis Nedry: The disgruntled architect of Jurassic Park's computer systems. He is bribed by Biosyn agent Lewis Dodgson for $1.5 million to deliver frozen dinosaur embryos.
- Samuel L. Jackson as Ray Arnold: The park's chief engineer. He switches off the main power to reboot the mainframe — but unwittingly unleashes the raptors in doing so.
- Bob Peck as Robert Muldoon: The park's game warden. He is concerned by the intelligence of the raptors, and would have them all destroyed.
- Martin Ferrero as Donald Gennaro: A lawyer who represents Hammond's concerned investors.
- B.D. Wong as Dr. Henry Wu: The park's chief geneticist. He made all the dinosaurs female and lysine deficient. He leaves during the storm.
- Gerald R. Molen as Gerry Harding: The park's veterinarian.
- Cameron Thor as Lewis Dodgson.
- Dean Cundey as the Dockworker who Nedry talks to on the computer.
- Christopher John Fields as Billy: One of Dr. Grant's assistant at the dig site.
- Richard Kiley as himself, as the voice of the car tour guide.
Click here for a complete list of cast and crew.
Dinosaurs on screen
Jurassic park
Despite the title of the film most of the dinosaurs featured did not exist until the Cretaceous period.
- Compsognathus, nick-named "Compy" were the first dinosaurs seen in the film. In the novel, Jurassic Park, the dinosaur that played this part in the film was the Procompsognathus. The Compsognathus is a distantly related coelurosaur of the Procompsognathus. The Compsognathus' part in the film was the same as that of the Procompsognathus in the novel.
- Tyrannosaurus, dubbed "T-Rex" informally in the film, is the star of the film according to Spielberg, being the reason he rewrote the ending for fear of disappointing the audience Winston's Rex animatronic stood 20 feet, weighed 13,000 pounds and was 40 feet long. Jack Horner called it "the closest I've ever been to a live dinosaur". Despite his comment, the head is more boxy and there is no scientific evidence for having a vision based on movement. The Rex's roar is a baby elephant mixed with a tiger and an alligator and its breath is a whale's blowhole. A dog attacking a ball was used for the sounds of it tearing a Gallimimus apart.
- Velociraptor, dubbed raptors in the film, also has a major role, although those depicted are not based on the actual species in question, which is significantly smaller. It was instead based on its larger relative, Deinonychus, which was at the time called Velociraptor antirrhopus. Spielberg also changed it for dramatic reasons, and when Utahraptor was discovered before the film's release, Stan Winston jokingly said "We made it, then they discovered it". For the scene with Bob Peck, the raptors are played by men in suits. Dolphin screams, walrus bellowing, geese hissing, an African crane's mating call and human rasps are within the raptor sound mix.
- Dilophosaurus was also very different from its real life counterpart, made significantly smaller to make sure audiences did not confuse it with the raptors,and also that it would not overshadow the film's star, Tyrannosaurus. It has a frill and spits venom. Its vocal sounds were made by combining a swan and a rattlesnake together.
- Brachiosaurus is inaccurately depicted as chewing its food. Despite scientific evidence of them having limited vocal capabilities, sound designer Gary Rydstrom decided to represent them with whale songs and donkey calls to give them a melodic sense of wonder.
- Triceratops has an extended cameo. Its appearance was a particular logistical nightmare for Stan Winston when Spielberg requested to shoot the animatronic of the sick creature earlier than expected. Winston also created a baby Triceratops for Ariana Richards to ride, which was cut from the film for pacing reasons.
- Gallimimus and Parasaurolophus' roles are mainly cameos, the latter appearing in the first encounter with the Brachiosaurus. Gallimimus appears in the scene where Dr. Grant, Lex and Tim are wandering across the open field. A herd/flock of Gallimimus come running in, with the Tyrannosaurus following.
Changes from the book
The film opens with a Velociraptor attacking an InGen worker: the aftermath of a similar scene begins Crichton's novel. Other incidents excised from the film include a number of attacks on people by Procompsognathuses, one of which is sent to a University in New York. Spielberg felt the subplot was too horrific. The film also axed most of the middle of the book, in which the T-rex follows Grant and the children after killing a herd of hadrosaurids, chasing them up a river. It briefly leaves as Grant and the children enter an aviary of pterosaurs, and then it attacks once more before being disabled and left to drown by Muldoon. Also the sick Triceratops in the movie was originally a sick Stegosaurus in the novel. This was changed because Tricertops is Speilberg's favorite dinosaur.
The most significant changes are in the characters. In the novel, Hammond is a ruthless businessman who invites his grandchildren to the island to use them as political leverage with the inspection of the island, whereas in the film Hammond is a kindly old man. Spielberg admitted he identified with Hammond's obsession with showmanship. Grant loves children in the novel but in the film he dislikes children. Spielberg's film also invents a mild love triangle between Grant and Dr Sattler, a couple, and Ian Malcolm. Crichton's version did mention romantic interest between Grant and Sattler. Spielberg also switched the characters of Tim and Lex; in the book, Tim is aged 11 and into computers, and Lex is only seven or eight and into sports. Spielberg did this as he wanted to work with Joseph Mazello, and it also allowed him to introduce the subplot of Lex's adolescent crush on Grant.
Media
left|400px|right|Jurassic Park Trailer Click here: Jurassic Park (film)/Media for images and videos related to this article.
Trivia
Although called "Jurassic Park", many of the dinosaurs within the park are not from this era.
External links
- Official site
- Jurassic Park at Box Office Mojo
- Jurassic Park at SpielbergFilms.com
- A list of major and minor gaffes, goofs, and bloopers
- Jurassic Park Legacy — Jurassic Park Encyclopedia
- Jurassic Park Brasil (Jurassic Park Brazil)
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