Jurassic Park (1993) Directed by Steven Spielberg, from the novel by Michael Crichton.

” The lack of humility before nature that's being displayed here, uh... staggers me.” Dr. Ian Malcolm.

When I was little (a very long time ago) dinosaurs roamed the earth…or at least fiberglass sculptures of them did. Sinclair Oil had a traveling show of life sized models, and my parents took me to see them…I was, perhaps, almost five.

I still remember the wonder and awe I felt, looking at these static statues. It was as close to real as anyone had gotten, and it filled me with amazement.

That is the feeling that seeing the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park for the first time. Not only did Dr.s Grant, Satler, and Malcolm feel it, all of America felt it. Before this, dinosaurs were either animatronic or stop motion, both with limits, often sever. But here, on the screen were Dinosaurs.

And that was what John Hammond banking on, that sense of wonder. Any time you produce that feeling, there is money to be made.

However, the other awe inducing power of this piece is not Dr. Grant’s specialty, but Dr. Malcolm’s; Chaos. Chaos theory basically states that in any complex system, there are an infinite set of variables exist, and that they profoundly affect the outcome. It is the butterfly effect. A butterfly in Central Park flaps its wings, and that variable sets in motion a string of events that causes rain in China.

It does not sound like much, but Chaos theory can also be explained by another cosmological law; Murphy’s Law. Anything that can go wrong will.

Jurassic Park practiced extreme levels of safety protocols to control their creations. But they forgot a few elements. The Human Element. Dennis Nedry was highly skilled, but poorly socialized. He had a high IQ and low morality. This is a betrayal waiting to happen. I wonder who contacted who; did Dodgson’s company contact Nedry, or did Nedry call them and offer to sell Hammond out.

Henry Wu claimed they had control of the populations because they had number tracking sensors and all animals in the park were female. But they used frog DNA to make up the breaks in the sequence, and many frogs have the ability to change gender in a same sex environment, so the lead cow in all the herds turned into a bull, and the dinosaurs started breeding. The number counters did not notice this because they are designed to ask “are there 84 stegosaurs on the island? And the answer is always yes, because there are in point of fact 143, as of the last hatching. So there are 84 stegosaurs; no one is missing. And who would think that making a building handicapped accessible would also render it velociraptor accessible. The gun jammed, the computers needed booting, and even after the doors are locked, the raptor just decides to come through a window.
By the same token, how could a velociraptor (Actually, an Utahraptor…velociraptor were about half that size, and an eighth that weight. But Utahraptor was that size, and discovered while they were filming this movie.) The epitome of hunting prowess ever suspects that it would be outwitted by a pair of half grown primates, and locked in a freezer? What dinosaur knows about mirrors? Chaos works both ways.

There are further examples of Chaos; Nedry based his theft on how much time he could fool the computers not to work correctly; 18 minutes. But he needs more time than that. He underestimated by entering an erroneous variable as a given. The computer only allows 18 minutes, so the task must be done in 18 minutes.

Then there is the variable of the weather. The sudden storm threw Nedry off the time schedule, and off the road. And here is the biggest variable; who could know that dilophosaurus was venomous? The mechanism is not preserved in fossilization; only hollow fangs would give away that sort of information. So Dennis Nedry, god of information services, dies from a lack of information, and because of his own greed.

And that is why this movie was so successful. Sure, the plot was good, the script was better, the performances ranged from good to brilliant, and the special effects were like nothing that had been seen to date. But the real star here was the wonder of discovery, and the smug satisfaction and horrified delight at watching Chaos take apart everyone’s plans. Like Tim, mesmerized by the blood of the galimimus after they had rushed past them and the Tyrannosaurus caught it, there is a certain fascination with watch survival situations gone bad. Now tell me true…how many of you out there cheered when the T.Rex ate the lawyer? If John Hammond had been eaten by a herd of little chicken sized dinosaurs, would that have been justice? That is what happened in the book.

So Jurassic Park succeeds because it is awe inspiring, action packed, and has the right mix of pseudoscience to help us suspend our disbelief. It also continues Crichton's work on the Amusement Park gone wild theme...Westworld was the first. This is the best.

John Hammond: All major theme parks have had delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked, nothing.
Dr. Ian Malcolm: But, John. But if the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists.


Like so much of Michael Crichton’s work, it is a cautionary tale as well, and the lesson comes from the mouth of Dr. Ian Malcolm. ” I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here: it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it, you want to sell it!”

And there you are. A nice morsel of wisdom to chew on amidst all the stunning packaging.

Spielberg really is a great director. His sense of pacing and the use of wide angle shot, cutting to tight shot is very effective. It reminds me rather of Kurasawa.

The Cast
Sam Neill ... Dr. Alan Grant
Laura Dern ... Dr. Ellie Sattler
Jeff Goldblum ... Dr. Ian Malcolm
Richard Attenborough ... John Hammond
Bob Peck ... Robert Muldoon
Martin Ferrero ... Donald Gennaro
Joseph Mazzello ... Tim Murphy
Ariana Richards ... Lex Murphy
Samuel L. Jackson ... Ray Arnold
B.D. Wong ... Henry Wu
Wayne Knight ... Dennis Nedry
Gerald R. Molen ... Gerry Harding
Miguel Sandoval ... Juanito Rostagno
Cameron Thor ... Lewis Dodgson

Length 137 minutes.

Rated PG 13 for intense science fiction terror.

Jurassic Park
The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park III


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older