Jurassic Park making my top five films of all time really surprises me, it never really dawned on me how much I really love this film. Of course when you break the movie down what’s not to love when it has:
- Dinosaurs
- Chaos theory
- Genetics/cloning
- Did I mention it has dinosaurs?
When I set out to identify the five films that I hold higher than all others I didn’t want to choose technically brilliant films, by which I mean I recognise the genius and high quality of Citizen Kane, but watching that film is a rarity and I generally don’t care to watch some of the more ‘important’ films over and over. Other great films are so because of their emotional content and are important because they highlight causes or open our eyes to someone else’s position. Once again I acknowledge how great and important the films are but from a pure entertainment point of view there are different standards.
Which brings me back to Jurassic Park, a film I consider to be one of the last “wondrous” Spielberg films. I vividly remember the first time I saw the sequence in the film that introduces the dinosaurs (excluding the raptor at the beginning). There was absolutely no cynicism as I sat and watched Brachiosaurus come to life.
The film holds up to repeat viewings, the T-Rex alone is worth rewatching, I mean they built a T-Rex!! That’s a full sized T-Rex. It’s just an amazing feat of animatronics and physical effects, a worthy highlight in Stan Winston’s career.
It doesn’t matter that the human actors take backseat to the dinosaurs, they all perform great but it is hard not to be overshadowed by two Velociraptors fighting a Tyrannosaurus whilst a banner floats to the ground with the words, “When dinosaurs ruled the Earth”.
I know some people will dismiss Jurassic Park but for me it is easily a film that I can watch over and over.
PS: for those of you who have been following it for the last week or so, my tooth has finally been removed, this evening.
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20 Responses to “Film number 4 from my top 5 films: Jurassic Park”
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I remember watching this film in theaters when it came out and being blown away by the realism that it had at the time. JP hold special place in my heart. It's one of the few films my dad ever bothered to take me to. Its just awesome.
Saw it in the cinema, last time I sat next to my mum..she squeezed the shit out of my arm haha. One hell of an awesome movie.. I can't remember watching the trailer though.
did I ever mention we've got a JP board game at home? You need to get from one point of the board to the other side, but Dilophosaurs (or is it saurusses), velociraptors and the single T-Rex controlled by the other players will try to prevent you from getting there. Not complicated, but we played it a lot.
I wíll rewatch it on VHS next week!
oh and we've still got a shitload of JP toys at my parents place (we build our own JP's out of eggboxes…really really large JP's.
Omg I'm so going to check for photo's of them and upload them.
I enjoyed Jurassic Park as well except for a couple things. The main one was that the intro in the book was wonderfully cinematic and much more suspenseful and foreboding than the Generic Hunter Stereotype Guy and the Mysterious Thing In A Cage bit.
@Arjan: A JP board game? Sweet. Now I'm cracking myself up with the thought of Dinosaur Theme Park Owners of Catan…
Damnit!
I think i'll have to hand in my resignation as film guesser.
I'm not a massive fan of the film to be honest – don't really like any of the human characters all that much and was never a dinosaur lover. I recognize it's quality though
Everytime I see you typing Damnit I read Dan-mit
, it should be your new curse word.
Had the exact same reaction to the film when it came out, judging from the rest of these comments it looks like JP has a special memory/place in a lot of people's hearts.
Jurassic Park board game – that sounds awesome – I've got a JP video game post in the works but we should so team up and do a joint post on our JP dinosaur collections!!
Hold off uploading them I'll email you we might coordinate on a post (or two)
It's good at least that they got to use the scene in the Lost World, there are several key scenes that didn't make it which would have been awesome and they did trickle some of them down in the sequels.
The Lost World novel was 127.4% better than the movie… the QYDJ winged monkeys worked that figure out.
Tracey feels the exact same way about Jurassic Park so there's no loss of respect there (she is prettier than you though).
I often take Dan's name in vain.
This is a great pick.
it was a bit strange though with the whole Malcolm thing..
I will, the pics are at my parents place anyway and I won't be there at least until next week. I might see if I can visit next weekend and scan in the photo's so I'll at least have the material. I'll also dig up my old JP post.
One of the best soundtracks, ever, too. John Williams pulls another one out of his hat.
This is a great pick.
it was a bit strange though with the whole Malcolm thing..
I will, the pics are at my parents place anyway and I won't be there at least until next week. I might see if I can visit next weekend and scan in the photo's so I'll at least have the material. I'll also dig up my old JP post.
One of the best soundtracks, ever, too. John Williams pulls another one out of his hat.