Top 100 Movies Jurassic Park. Hey there, THiNCers. Today is a momentous occasion. Why? You ask. Welp, it means we have officially made it through HALF of the movies on this top 100 movie list. Today is the 50th film I’ve posted about from this Hollywood Reporter list I have been working my way through. But I’ve had a bunch of fun doing this effort – and have really been amazed by some of these films which I haven’t seen before.
Anyway – obviously I’ve already seen Jurassic Park. So have you. But its impact on the Hollywood film industry is still being felt today. Yes, I’m full of (it) hyperbole – but this is a fact. George Lucas has come out and stated for the record that it was Jurassic Park that told him that the technology of film making had finally caught up with what he saw in his mind, and was the impetus for his starting his work on the Star Wars prequels. And the Star Wars movies predated, and presaged, the Marvel movies and AND and AND and and… You get the idea.
Jurassic Park Movie Walkthrough
As you are aware, I’m sure… Jurassic Park was directed by Steven Spielberg and was based on a really fantastic Michael Crichton novel of the same name. The story unfolds on Isla Nublar, a fictional island where billionaire industrialist John Hammond (played by Richard Attenborough) has realized his dream of creating a theme park with genetically engineered dinosaurs. I mean – can we pause a second and just give credit to Crichton for one of the greatest singular fiction ideas of all time? Why? Because it takes modernity, the pride and the hubris of our technologically super-powered modern human, and clashes it with the titans of the natural world, and it’s a clash for the ages. It’s not actually about humans and dinosaurs (I mean, it is, but it isn’t…) it’s about man’s hubris. It’s an idea worth billions in book sales, film receipts, and movie sequel after movie sequel. It really is a lovely idea.
Anyway – Hammond’s vision for the theme park is really grandiose. He enlists a group of experts to endorse the safety of the park before it opens to the public. Among them are paleontologists Dr. Alan Grant (played by Sam Neill) and Dr. Ellie Sattler (played by Laura Dern). Accompanying them is mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm (played by Jeff Goldblum), who strangely – specializes in chaos theory. And it’s this trio’s skepticism that flips to outright awe when they first witness the marvel of living, breathing dinosaurs, engineered through the extraction and cloning of prehistoric DNA. And can we take a moment out to herald this moment when the film pulls back and reveals to these characters just the brilliance of this CGI feat?
Now, obviously – as you know – their tour of the park spirals downward towards a more chilling turn when the automated electric fences fail and the park is breached. Unbeknownst to the visitors, the park’s computer systems are sabotaged by Dennis Nedry (played by William Kuklis), a disgruntled employee played by Wayne Knight, who plans to steal dinosaur embryos for a rival corporation. See? The introduction of evil, on top of the hubris. The security breakdown leads to a catastrophic series of events as the dinosaurs, once confined to their enclosures begin roaming freely.
Come on – that iconic Tyrannosaurus rex, with its thunderous roar and awe-inspiring presence, is our metaphor for chaos and the uncontrollable forces of nature – all unleashed by Hammond’s ambition. The scenes involving the T. rex, particularly its escape during a storm, are masterfully crafted, creating a palpable sense of fear and excitement. As chaos ensues on the island, the characters must confront not only the immediate threat of the dinosaurs but also the moral and ethical implications of playing with nature. Dr. Malcolm’s warnings about the unpredictability of complex systems, particularly living ones, echo through the narrative as the humans grapple with the consequences of playing god.
Let’s talk for a moment about some of the sheer terror of this movie – and the brilliance of the construction of these moments. They aren’t scary anymore because we know where the film goes and exactly what happens. But when I first watched this film in the movie theater the segment of these two defenseless children in the restaurant kitchen? Utter perfection. Just the most pure terror concentrate. Lovely, lovely screenplay and technological brilliance.
We forget the greatness of these characters and their mental progressions. We have Dr. Grant who was a skeptic, then develops into a father figure for the kids. Sattler, passionate about the opportunity to learn from the dinosaurs first hand, has to throw her scientific curiosity just in the hope of just staying alive. Malcolm? Mister Chaos – is possibly the most impersonated characters of all time. He is an icon now. But it is his questioning and his skepticism that is how we should always be evaluating new technologies and human brilliance. (Think about how Meta and X and Tesla and ChatGPT and all these new technologies just run rampant without any sort of check or balance by society at large. Why aren’t we questioning the impact of the TikTok / social media dopamine hit, and the rewiring of our teens brains?? Why are we okay with this? (hint? money. it’s all about money.)) Regardless, science, governments and legislators are always late to the risks caused by these “titans” of innovation and achievement.
The enormous climax comes when the fleeing party arrive to the island’s visitor center. I think they had to get there to turn stuff on and message out? Some contrived reason or other. Regardless, there, they are met by the deadly Velociraptors. Now, these dinosaurs have been built up, and up, and up as the dinosaurs to beat all dinosaurs. Not only are they fast, with ruthless opposable killing machine claws, but also they work in packs and are able to herd their prey all the way into their trap. So, everything is heading towards these ruthless Velociraptors just making snacks of these remaining humans on the island. But, at the last second, they are saved not by their own ingeniousness, but by another dinosaur – the T-Rex. It’s a formula that makes perfect sense, aligns with the rest of the movie’s philosophical premise, and keeps the humans from thinking themselves too clever.
Personal Thoughts on Jurassic Park
The technical CG of Jurassic Park is still a fantastic feat. The dinosaurs really are there in the room with the actors. They are a very real and present threat… even though they are nothing but a pastiche of pixels splashed on top of the developed film negatives. It’s also has one of the greatest film scores of all movies, of all time. Top five anyway. It’s a truly unbelievably good movie on every level. Sure, it’s lost a lot of its luster since its box-office release in 1993… but it’s always a worthwhile watch whenever it hits television.
But it’s not merely a thrilling adventure; it is also a really keen cautionary tale about the consequences of overreaching ambition and the delicate balance of the natural world. As the movie concludes the theme park is in ruins – Hammond has lost hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars. And as this scientific achievement goes up in flames, we’d also do well to reconsider the various “achievements” we believe that will revolutionize our world and our lives.
Interested in reading more of my Top 100 movies of all time posts? You can find them all right here.
Edited by: CY