This should be a short article. I'm going to make an argument that has been going on for almost 30 years. Steven Spielberg's movie is excellent. It could be a perfect movie. Every time you watch it, there is a new piece of brilliance. I decided to revisit each film in the franchise after seeing the sixth and final film in the series. It's a good idea to give each film a fresh look. I saw the first film in the series on opening night in 1993 and was enamored with it. I have seen it many times in bits and pieces on cable. The experience of watching it start to finish without commercials is completely different. You can see the nuts of bolts of how popular the film has become. The script was very close to perfect on the rewatch. The original idea of cloning dinosaurs in the modern day and putting them in a theme park is brilliant, but the adapted script from Crichton and David Koepp is so structured and propulsive that you could use it to teach a screenwriting class. From the very first scene, the audience is given multiple key pieces of information without them even knowing, followed by a seamless transition into what's next. The worker was killed by a creature. In the next scene, there is a lawsuit about his death and we first see a mosquito. A character mentions Alan Grant and we cut to Alan Grant, who lays out the entire third act of the film. Within moments, the owner of the park proposed and the movie was off to a great start.
Throughout the film, this economy of storyTelling continues. There are not a single scene that doesn't move the story forward or provide important character development. For the most part, that story is very simple. Once Alan Grant, Ian Malcolm, and Laura Dern are on the island, they learn how the dinosaurs were created, and then go to the park. That is basically what it is. You add in the kids, Tim and Lex, and the Nedry storyline to complicate things, but rather quickly you have human beings roaming around a theme park crawling with dinosaurs.
Adding to that is the fact that the park is almost completely devoid of mythology. In later films, we'd learn about John's company, InGen, his personal life, friends, rivals, and other companies who want his discoveries. The world gets bigger. That is never part of this movie. We don't know who Dodgson is. We don't care. It is not about the outside world. The story is about these characters and their survival.
The brilliance of the action scenes was one thing I focused on on this rewatch. We have become accustomed to chaotic action. There were quick cuts, explosions, cameras flying around. It isn't that. You know where each character is in every scene. Spielberg's blocking and editing is so clean that if you paused, for instance, the first T-Rex attack, any person watching could tell you precisely where the characters are in relation to the others. It is a practice the director uses for every single scene, with one exception: by the time the Velociraptors have cornered Tim and Lex in the kitchen, we are so accustomed to knowing where everyone is that we don't even notice. Spielberg pulls the rug out from under us. The raptor saw a reflection, and you get a nice rush of excitement as it crashes and escapes. Every scene leading up to the moment is designed to make the audience trust and understand what they are seeing.
The characters in the film feel the wonder that the audience should be feeling. Grant and Sattler have physical and emotional reactions to the revelations on screen in multiple scenes. Grant was relieved for sure, but also fascinated as he peered out the window of the helicopter. The audience is given permission to feel wonder when they see characters on screen. No one is tired. Nedry is corrupted and we see where that leads him. Everyone is in awe of the park. If memory serves, it establishes a tone that only returns in the rare occasions of the rest of the franchise. This film has a tone that makes it special.
Everyone who worked on the film has mastery. The digital effects of the T-Rex are almost flawless 30 years later. John Williams brings me to tears whenever I hear it. Hundreds of people working at the top of their game on an excellent idea and making something that will last longer than any of us can possibly imagine is what makes the costumes, sets, designs, and other elements of the movie,Jurassic Park.
The term "Perfect movie" is thrown around fairly hyperbolically. It isn't perfect, but it's about as close as a movie can get.
Did you just say that the movie was not perfect?
I thought that might be controversial. I want to clarify that these are the smallest, tiniest nitpicks. I don't care about things per se but they are perfect.
How did John Hammond sneak into Grant and Sattler's trailer in Montana? He was picked up by a helicopter, but how did he get there undetected by everyone else? Did he walk? Did he drive? I can't get my head around the fact that a mosquito preserved in amber is actually 100 million years old and not 20 million or 2 million, or any other number. It must have been like winning the lottery every day for a year when you found just one mosquito with dinosaur blood. Is it possible to find more than one? The odds are the most crazy. It's a sci-fi movie, you have to suspend disbelief, it doesn't really matter, and at least the idea makes sense, which is saying something. If we are talking about perfect, this drops like a small percentage.
There is a movie on the streaming service.
The Lost World:Jurassic Park is the only other Steven Spielberg-helmed film.
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