Monday, December 12, 2011

A Travesty of Jurassic Proportions

Jurassic Park (1993)
from IMDb


During a preview tour, a theme park suffers a major power breakdown that allows its cloned dinosaur exhibits to run amok.


Jurassic Park stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum.  It was directed by Stephen Spielberg.  Normally I would list some of the more popular movies that the director worked on, but if you don't know Stephen Spielberg then you probably shouldn't be reading this site.  However, who am I to judge.  Maybe you've had a long day at the office and your brain has shut down for the evening.  It's okay.  I've had those kind of days.  Go ahead, click on the link and refresh your memory.  I'll wait...


You're back?  Good.  We can carry on.  You've probably read by now that Spielberg is one of the greatest directors of all time.  I'd put him only behind Alfred Hitchcock on my favorites of all time, and that's probably only because of Spielberg's involvement in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Shitty Skull.  Fortunately Spielberg directed Jurassic Park 15 years prior to that heaping pile of a movie and before he started phoning it in.


Jurassic Park tells the story of John Hammond, played by the incredible Richard Attenborough who "spared no expense" to create a fantastic theme park filled with dinosaurs for all the world to see and enjoy.  However due to an accident, the investors have concerns and require some outside expertise to sign off on the park before they will allow it to open.     


Sam Neill, paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant, and Laura Dern, paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler, provided excellent performances and had a great chemistry.  Dr. Grant's introverted, and serious personality expertly plays off of Dr. Sattler's more outgoing and playful persona.  Jeff Goldblum plays mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm masterfully.  His performance of the eccentric chaos theorist stole the show and provided bits of comedy when he wasn't predicting the epic failure of the park.  


Jurassic Park is an exceptional movie that revolutionized special effects for years to come.  Spielberg and Industrial Lights and Magic were able to create realistic dinosaurs using CGI and animatronics where all previous attempts had failed.  Watching the film 18 years later, I was amazed how well the special effects still held up.  Jurassic Park is one of my favorite movies of all time and should be seen by everyone.


To be clear, I saw Jurassic Park in the theaters in 1993.  In fact, I've seen it many times.  It's one of those movies that whenever I come across it on TV, I stop what I'm doing, sit down and watch it.  Every time I see it, the film takes me back to my childhood and my love of all things dinosaur.  My bedroom as a child looked like the souvenir shop of the natural history museum and if not for my wife would potentially appear the same today.  Jurassic Park brings me back to the days when I had dreams of being a paleontologist.


So the question you may be asking yourself is why is this post titled "A Travesty of Jurassic proportion" when everything you've read is how great I think Jurassic Park is.  Well the answer to that is Jurassic Park is NOT on the list of the top 250 movies according to IMDb.  I made this realization after I recently watched the film and the thought occurred to me that I hadn't seen it on the list.  I couldn't believe this and after checking the list 3 or 4 dozen times, I lost a little faith in humanity.  Jurassic Park revolutionized the special effects industry.  It was directed by one of the best directors of all time and had very good performances from Academy Award winners and nominees (and Newman!).  Oh yeah, it also one 3 Academy Awards and shortly held the all time box office record.  But forget all that.  The 3D version of Ferngully needs to be on the list instead.


Okay enough of me pointing out blatant oversights on the part of the voters for the List.  This is my second movie in a row that wasn't on the List.  I'm going to try and get back into the swing of things soon, well, unless Jurassic Park is on TV again.  Then I make no promises.  

1 comment:

  1. You are correct sir, this is an effing travesty! I'm going to IMDB and voting for it as we speak, wait can I even do that? Well I'm going to try. Consider it your Christmas present.

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