Posts Tagged ‘Jurassic Park’
Jurassic Park SNES
A long time back I was talking to someone about Jurassic Park related games, they were of the opinion that Jurassic Park games suck, I was in the opposite camp as I have played and enjoyed at least a couple of them. It’s not that I don’t consider some of the Jurassic Park games to be complete and utter failures, because I do, but not all of them.
My very first introduction to Jurassic Park in gaming was the Super Nintendo Jurassic Park …
Comment by Arjan: I've played a Jurassic Park game on the pc.also by …
Tags: Games gaming Jurassic Park NES SNES Super Nintendo
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.
Jurassic Park: Redemption cover by Frank Miller
I love Jurassic Park.
It’s one of those franchises that even when things aren’t so good (Lost World film) it’s still pretty good and it’ll get my interest which is why when I heard that IDW were making a new Jurassic Park comic of course this was something that interested me.
Then I saw Frank Miller’s cover.
VERY interested.
But then I picked up my Frank Miller cover copy of JP: Redemption, one thing really disappointed me and another only served to not move me.
The basic premise of JP: Redemption is that 13 years after Jurassic Park Tim and Lex are obviously adults now and both are dealing with their grandfather’s legacy in what I’m assuming is very opposing directions. Lex is running some company called Lexxcrop which has its own controversies and trying to protect the original Jurassic Park island Isla Nublar. Tim on the other hand is trying to resurrect Jurassic Park because apparently waking from nightmares of velociraptor attacks weren’t enough to remind him that it’s not a great idea. Okay I made the nightmare bit up and the more I think about it the more I accept that he has motivation to do so.
So what was the part of the comic that really let me down? Well it’s something I find more and more in the licensed lines of comic books and that’s the art itself. On the cover we’re treated to this awesome image of a T-Rex eating someone and inside the book all of the artwork is messy and uncomfortable. I just don’t like it, it’s all very capable and the artist no doubt has their fans but I’m not one of them and I probably can’t really put my finger on why not. It’s a personal taste thing and I’m also yet to read anyway praise the work. In regards to that cover too, it should be noted that it is a variant cover.
Actually that art is even worse than I remembered...
I don’t know what I was expecting storyline wise either, I don’t think I had any expectations but was very interested to see where Tim and Lex have gone in their lives and thought it interesting that they are taking all the movies into account. The story set-up just doesn’t do anything for me, I’m neutral about it, I neither like or dislike it which is probably not a good thing. I certainly didn’t care one bit that Dr. Wu and Dr. Burke showed up, in fact it feels forced.
I think I’m a little spoilt because I read manga and there is generally a lot of story jammed into those books. So reading this comparatively short first issue it is just so light on but then I don’t get that same sensation from other books so the writing still has some role in it.
I’ll keep getting the book if only to see where they go with it but it’s not really setting my world on fire and had I just bought a copy of that awesome cover in poster format then I might have actually been a little more pleased.
Rating: 
