Jurassic Park Retrospective Pt. 2: The Movie

I don’t want to jump to any conclusions. But look, dinosaurs and man, two species separated by 65 million years of evolution, have just been suddenly thrown back into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea what to expect?- Dr. Alan Grant

The Jurassic Park film adaptation began production even before the book was published. Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg met in October 1989 to discuss another script Crichton had written that would later evolve into the hit TV series ER. Spielberg was immediately fascinated by the novel’s premise, believing that the science Crichton used to back his story up could elevate a potential adaptation beyond a standard monster movie. A bidding war would soon begin for the movie rights, with Crichton demanding $1.5 million and a substantial cut of the box office profits. The primary battle was between Tim Burton (representing Warner Bros.), Richard Donner (Columbia Pictures), and Joe Dante (20th Century Fox). James Cameron also claims to have placed a bid, but Spielberg beat him to it by a few hours, securing the film rights for Universal Pictures in May 1990. Crichton himself wrote the first draft of the screenplay, which subsequently underwent rewrites from Malia Scotch Marmo (who is uncredited in the final film) before the final draft was written by David Koepp.

The biggest problem, naturally, was trying to figure out how best to portray the dinosaurs onscreen. Spielberg initially intended to have the dinosaurs be a combination of animatronics (courtesy of the late great Stan Winston) and stop-motion animation by Phil Tippett, who had pioneered a technique called “go-motion,” which incorporated motion blur to make his animation seem less stilted. Indeed, Tippett had previously animated dinosaurs in his classic 1984 short film Prehistoric Beast, later incorporated into the 1985 CBS documentary Dinosaur!

However, Dennis Muren, an employee from George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic hired on as a digital compositor, saw an opportunity when Spielberg expressed dissatisfaction with the animatics Tippett made for the T. rex breakout and the “Raptors in the Kitchen” scene. He and his colleagues Mark Dippe and Steve Williams created a computer-generated walk cycle for a T. rex skeleton, which impressed Spielberg. The fate of Tippett’s go-motion ambitions was sealed when the ILM team made an extremely convincing animatic of the scene where the T. rex attacks a Gallimius herd. Upon seeing this, Spielberg turned to Tippett and said, “You’re out of a job,” to which Tippett replied, “Don’t you mean extinct?” This exchange would later make it into the script as a dialogue between Grant and Malcolm. Spielberg kept Tippett on as a consultant on the dinosaurs’ movements, with his team being converted to computer animators. Tippett’s resulting credit, “Dinosaur Supervisor,” has since inspired a thousand “You had one job!” memes in the Internet age.

From there, the production went relatively smoothly, except on September 11, 1992, when Hurricane Iniki made landfall on the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i on what was supposed to be Spielberg’s last day of on-location shooting. While Spielberg got some excellent footage to represent the in-universe tropical storm that ravages Isla Nublar in the film, Iniki trashed several sets. Some scenes had to be filmed elsewhere, like the Gallimimus chase scene (filmed at Kualoa Ranch on O’ahu), whereas others, like Ray Arnold’s death scene, had to be cut, much to Samuel L. Jackson’s chagrin.

Filming moved to the Hollywood film lots, where the film shoot was wrapped up 12 days ahead of schedule on November 30. The last scene to be filmed was the climactic Velociraptor chase, which was initially supposed to end with the raptors getting crushed by the skeletons in the visitor center lobby falling on top of them. However, Spielberg became worried that he would be letting his audience down if he didn’t bring the T. rex back one last time, so he changed it to have Rexy break into the visitor center and kill the raptors.

Spielberg managed post-production on the film from Poland, where he was shooting Schindler’s List. The film was completed on May 28, 1993, and premiered at the Uptown Theatre in Washington, D.C., on June 9, 1993, with a wide release following two days later. The film quickly shattered numerous box office records, becoming the first to gross over $50 million on its opening weekend and surpassing $100 million in just nine days. While it didn’t exceed $1 billion during its first theatrical run, that would be remedied upon its 20th anniversary 3D rerelease, with the film’s current gross standing at around $1.058 billion as of February 2024.

But Is It Worth the Hype?

I think Ian Malcolm spoke for all who saw Spielberg’s the first time when he said…

The technical aspects are where the film really shines, of course. Some, like film historian Tom Shone, have described the CGI imagery in the film as “a revolution in movies as profound as the coming of sound in 1927.” Now, it’s natural for some to have more quibbles with the way the computer graphics are presented in the film as time passes and the technology gets more sophisticated, like the skin texture on the Brachiosaurus (both the CG model and the animatronic) and the somewhat plastic look of the Velociraptors in the kitchen scene. Even so, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone even today who says the GC looks outright bad even 30 years later. Who isn’t still on the edge of their seats when Rexy breaks out of her paddock for the first time?

T. Rex doesn’t want to be fed. He wants to hunt. You can’t just suppress 65 million years of gut instinct- Dr. Alan Grant

And who isn’t still gripping their armrests in terror when the raptors are stalking Tim and Lex in the kitchen?

They show extreme intelligence. Even problem-solving intelligence. Especially the big one…when she looks at you, you can see she’s working things out.- Robert Muldoon

Of course, the special effects, Oscar-worthy as they are (according to the 66th Academy Awards), would be nothing without the expertly crafted sound design, which won the film two additional Academy Awards. The sound editing team, led by Gary Rystrom, mixed and matched all kinds of different animal sounds to create their terrible lizards’ voices. Whale and donkey calls combined to create the Brachiosaurus call. Cow noises were combined with Rystrom breathing into a cardboard tube to simulate a sick Triceratops. Baby elephant, alligator, crocodile, lion, and tiger noises were the ingredients that went into Rexy’s earth-shattering roar (along with falling sequoias to simulate its footsteps). And finally, dolphins, walruses, hissing geese, African cranes, human rasps, and (believe it or not) mating tortoises were combined to create the intimidating cries of the Velociraptors. Granted, most scientists nowadays think it’s unlikely that dinosaurs actually could make noises like that, but I think we can all agree that Rexy just wouldn’t be Rexy without her titanic scream and that the raptors just wouldn’t be raptors without that iconic barking cough.

Another legendary aspect of the film is the iconic music composed by longtime Spielberg collaborator John Williams. The main theme (first introduced during the Brachiosaurus encounter) and the “Journey to the Island” theme (first introduced upon the helicopter’s initial approach to Isla Nublar) have since gone down in history as some of the most iconic pieces of music ever composed for a major motion picture. His score is the perfect accompaniment to the fantastic and terrifying adventure that the characters go on. Importantly, it also knows when to let the action speak for itself. Indeed, the entire scene where Rexy breaks out of her paddock has no music whatsoever, as if Williams knew that nothing he could come up with could ever do justice to the sheer terror of seeing a fully grown Tyrannosaurus towering over you and tearing the vehicle in which you’re hiding to shreds.

Speaking of the characters, the cast from Crichton’s book has been elevated beyond their basic archetypes by expert performances from a very well-chosen cast. Granted, several critics at the time didn’t seem to think so. Roger Ebert, for instance, said that “the human characters are a ragtag bunch of half-realized, sketched-in personalities, who exist primarily to scream, utter dire warnings, and outwit the monsters.” Maybe I’d agree with him if he was talking about the characters in the book, but the characters in the film have a lot more for the audience to grab onto.

Everyone remembers Jeff Goldblum’s charming and eccentric take on Ian Malcolm, with Spielberg accentuating his more clownish and snarky personality traits to make one of the most iconic comic relief characters of 90s cinema. Sam Neil’s portrayal of Alan Grant is fascinating for how he manages to combine the character’s overall level-headedness with a subtle childish streak, best showcased when schooling the “Volunteer Boy” on Velociraptor hunting techniques and the electrocution prank he pulls on Tim and Lex. His child-hating tendencies early on also give him a character arc that his book counterpart lacked and that he has to grow out of as he tries to guide Tim and Lex back to civilization.

Laura Dern’s portrayal of Ellie Sattler has also been widely praised for elevating the character beyond the “sexy lamp” that she was in the book. She’s second only to Ian Malcolm as the snarkiest character in the film (“Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the Earth.”), and also serves as the one to convince Hammond to shut the park down and turn the power back on. Dern also plays Sattler less like a tough-as-nails Sarah Connor/Ellen Ripley-type action hero and more a regular person caught in a horrible situation, something best depicted when, after encountering a raptor for the first time and finding Ray Arnold reduced to nothing but a severed arm, she just collapses on the ground crying her eyes out.

Granted, she and Alan clearly being in a relationship despite the 20-year age gap between the actors might rub some viewers the wrong way, especially now in the post- # MeToo era. Indeed, not only have both Neil and Dern commented on how the characters’ relationship has felt more and more inappropriate as the years have gone; the age gap was also cited as director Joe Johnson’s explicit reason for breaking the couple up in Jurassic Park III. Still, some critics, like Lindsay Ellis, have argued that their relationship still works due to Grant’s immature streak meshing well with Sattler’s “wise beyond her years” demeanor. Indeed, their relationship is handled with such subtlety that I didn’t even catch that they were a couple until Ellis’ video literally pointed it out to me (autism is a hell of a drug, let me tell you).

Finally, there’s Tim and Lex Murphy, whose ages have been reversed, partly because Spielberg really wanted to work with a then nine-year-old Joseph Mazzello, who performed as Tim alongside a then-13-year-old Ariana Richards as Lex (Fun fact: Richards got the part when the scream she uttered on her audition tape woke up Spielberg’s wife, who though one of their children had hurt themselves). Their personalities have been somewhat swapped, with Lex gaining Tim’s hacker skills from the book, much to Richards’ relief, as she, like most novel readers, found her to be an “annoying brat.” Indeed, Spielberg does much better than Crichton in making Tim and Lex feel like real children and making their bond with Grant more meaningful. It helps that the children prove much more helpful in dealing with the dinosaurs, between Lex finally restarting the system by “hacking” the computers, Tim managing to trap a raptor in the freezer even after being electrocuted by the perimeter fence, and the humorous scene when Tim has to snap Grant out of his reverie during the Gallimimus scene (“They’re, uh, they’re flocking this way!”). Granted, Lex’s “hacking” has since been criticized by actual hackers, to the point that a subreddit dedicated to documenting “every over-the-top, embarrassing, and downright flat-out incorrect usage of technology found in movies, TV shows, and video games” is even titled after the famous line, “It’s a Unix system. I know this!”

Unfortunately, the movie’s most significant flaws, at least in my opinion, are also in some of the portrayals of the other major characters, namely John Hammond (played by Richard Attenborough), Robert Muldoon (Bob Peck), and Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight).

-In the film, Hammond is played much more as a well-intentioned but short-sighted grandfather figure rather than the greedy, self-centered, and irresponsible person he was in the novel. This was apparently because Spielberg identified with Hammond’s sense of showmanship. While this personality change certainly makes for a more entertaining character, it also makes Hammond utterly unrealistic. Indeed, as the repercussions of anthropogenic climate change, the COVID pandemic, and the 1980s neoliberal revolution continue to plague us in the 21st century, with the capitalist class and the politicians they fund refusing to take responsibility for the carnage they’ve wrought, I think it’s safe to say that Crichton’s take on Hammond is the more realistic take on the character. However, let’s be honest: the movie likely wouldn’t have been anywhere near as fun if Spielberg hadn’t gone with Grandpa Hammond.

-Muldoon is similar to his book counterpart in that he is the game warden with a history of hunting big game. He is very cynical about the park’s ability to keep the dinosaurs in check, especially the Velociraptors. But we never get to see Muldoon’s talents in action, as the “Big One” gets the drop on him during the infamous “Clever girl” scene, despite Muldoon likely already being familiar with the raptors’ hunting techniques. This is especially disappointing in comparison with the book version of Muldoon, who blows up several raptors with a rocket launcher and successfully tranquilizes the adult T. rex despite being an alcoholic who can barely stand up half the time.

-Finally, there’s Nedry, who I feel is a bit demonized in the adaptation. His reasons for perpetrating the embryo heist are roughly the same in both the book and film: he accepted a low bid for a job he didn’t anticipate would involve so much work, which Hammond refuses to give him a raise for (indeed, the movie version of Hammond, for all his redeeming qualities, is still an inveterate cost-cutter). However, the film version of Nedry is much more unlikeable in that it is heavily implied that he intends to leave the island altogether in the film, thus leaving everyone still there (including two children) to face the carnivorous terrors that will inevitably break out. Compare this to his book counterpart, who fully intended to return to the control room and undo the damage he wrought on the computer system before he got waylaid by the storm and had his fatal encounter with the venom-spitting Dilophosaurus. Even so, Wayne Knight’s performance is so delightfully slimy that it’s hard to entirely dislike the guy.

One could also complain about how much of the underlying science and prognostications on chaos theory that gave the book much depth have been simplified. Indeed, Malcolm’s arguments against the existence of Jurassic Park in the film boil down less to “these dinosaurs are a massive wild card that the staff is woefully unprepared to handle should even the slightest thing go wrong” and more to much less persuasive arguments against “playing God.” Still, it’s clear that Spielberg had to either lend more depth to the science or the characters in his adaptation; he couldn’t do both. So, he focused on the characters, and I think the film is all the better for it.

Conclusion

In short, there is a reason this film has gone down in history as a modern movie classic. In addition to the special effects revolution it inspired, which in many ways rendered animatronics and stop-motion virtually obsolete overnight, it also led to dinosaurs experiencing a massive explosion in popularity that shows very little sign of slowing down even thirty years later. Indeed, you’d be hard-pressed to find any modern-day paleontologist who wasn’t inspired to enter the field thanks to this film. Granted, some ground on this front may have been prepared beforehand by Don Bluth’s 1988 animated feature The Land Before Time (which, incidentally, was co-produced by Spielberg). Still, given Jurassic Park’s much higher box office gross, it’s clear that this is the film that really got the ball rolling.

Not only would dinosaur research not have come nearly as far without Jurassic Park, but we probably would never have gotten the special effects-laden blockbusters of modern-day Hollywood like the Marvel Cinematic Universe or Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings adaptation. It is truly one of the most important and influential films in the medium’s entire history, which makes the many sequels it has spawned that much more controversial.

But that’s a story for another day. Join me next time when I review The Lost World: Jurassic Park and see if it really deserves its reputation as one of the worst sequels ever. So until next time, stay safe, stay away from remote island theme parks, and remember that Rexy is the queen! Bye folks!

John, the type of control you’re attempting is simply not possible. If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us, it’s that life will not be contained. Life breaks free. It expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but… life, uh, finds a way- Dr. Ian Malcolm