My Thoughts After Re-Watching Jurassic Park (1993)
My youngest daughter is taking a film & theater class as part of her senior year of high school and needed to watch and analyze a movie mentioned in one of her lessons. Jurassic Park was one of those films and as part of helping her out, I wound up getting an opportunity to re-watch it for probably the 100th time.
Here are some of the thoughts I had while doing so:
John Hammond's (Richard Attenborough) choices in experts is puzzling. I'm not saying a paleontologist, paleobotanist and chaos expert aren't good choices. I'm just surprised he didn't bring in an expert on zoos and living predators versus two scientists who only know about dinosaurs from fossils. Plus, if I were his insurance company, I'd be questioning the use of two experts who rely on his funding.
Oh, and why are his grandkids there? Do their parents want them to get eaten?
OK, so I am going to admit, the first scene with dinosaurs is cool. Like I told my daughter, it is hard to believe this movie is 33 years old because the CGI looks better than some modern films.
That said, the combination of CGI and practical effects is something more filmmakers should pay attention to. CGI is an awesome tool, but it is also a tool too many modern films overuse to save money and wind up looking ridiculous as a result. The healthy balance from this movie should be the standard.
I'm willing to give the "science" behind the resurrected dinosaurs a pass because it is a movie. However, how did they bring back the extinct plants? It's not like mosquitos drew their blood before getting trapped in amber.
The movie doesn't explain why the triceratops is sick, but Ellie's (Laura Dern) disproven theory does raise some interesting questions. Are there other plants that are toxic to dinosaur biology? How about germs? Could they catch a disease from one of their human handlers or vice versa? Just some things to keep in mind if you're planning on bringing back a species that's been extinct for millions of years.
Hammond may have "spared no expense" but he clearly didn't spend the money wisely. First, why was he underpaying the one man (Wayne Knight) who could shut down the park with a push of a button and why would he give so much control to that person? Second, that park's safety features sure seemed dangerously inadequate once the power went out, something that seemed dumb to overlook considering they built the park in a location susceptible to violent tropical storms.
Speaking of storms, is the plan to completely evacuate the park whenever one comes through? It kind of feels as though there should be a larger contingent of employees kept around considering how dangerous the animals are.
I have decided Tim (Joseph Mazzello) could possibly be the most useless character ever. I say this while even taking the fact he is a child into account. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) has to save him from a tree then later needs to perform CPR because Tim thought holding onto a fence that was about to be electrified would be safer than letting go and giving Alan a chance to catch him.
The final straw for me was when Alan and Ellie are struggling to keep a velociraptor from eating everyone, he decides he should yell at his sister to type on the computer faster rather than, oh I don't know, consider picking up the gun off the floor and giving it to Alan.
I would have fed him to the dinosaurs myself at that point.
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Here are some of my thoughts from other movies:
My Thoughts After Re-Watching Child's Play (1988)
My Thoughts After Re-Watching Encino Man (1992)
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