Jurassic Park why is it so good?
Looking back on it now, Jurassic Park IS a special film In 1993,
Hollywood saw something unlike anything else before it Never had
dinosaurs ever felt so overwhelmingly realistic and awesome on the Big
screen.
Winning 3 Oscars, it was the highest grossing film that year,
while having high praise from critics for its directing, visual effects
and musical score.
Some critics like from the Washington Post were not
so keep on it...
Saying that adapting this popular novel slashes almost
everything that made the book an entertaining read.
Nevertheless the massive global success of Jurassic Park setup a
franchise that spawned 3 sequels of rel ative diminishing qu ality as
well as toys, computer games clothes comic books and more!
Even though it was an adaptation from a book of the same name by Michael
Crichton this UNIQUE story had the potential to become an amazing movie.
When Stephen Spielberg heard that Crichton was writing a book on
dinosaurs coming to life, he jumped at the opportunity.
To resurrect these dinosaurs to be on the Big Screen, Jurassic Park had
to brake new grounds in technology; from creating new, to transforming
old.
It took 3 years of trial and error with the world's leading experts
to develop a movie that would change the film industry forever.
Directed by the legendary pioneer�Steven Spielberg, he knew that in order
for Jurassic Park to work, it would need to rely on more character
development than any other film of this type.
Big budget movies like this
usually get A list stars who are there just to be afraid of the monsters.
Spielberg on the other hand went in the opposite direction for his
casting �
and this is why the movie does a brilliant job
of immersing you into it.
The dialogue and acting are so good that you feel as though you're there
with the characters.
where you start to relate to and care for these
people.
So by the time the movie brings you to this exotic island, you
feel as though you're heading out to the island with them.
The same goes
for when they're in danger, you feel as though you're in danger too.
The ensemble cast in this film are great.
Well chosen and yet surprising
considering that Harrison Ford was Spielberg's first choice for Dr
Grant... who knew that Sam Neil would make the perfect palaeontologist
protagonist?
Jeff Goldblum does a great job portraying the witty and
qwerky Dr. Malcolm, where his naturalistic performance in his solo scenes
are brilliant, where he really makes all his scenes feel like their
unscripted.
Laura Dern really does feel like a palebotanist getting
excited over seeing extinct plants being alive for the first time in
millions of years.
Lets not forget Samuel L. Jackson has his memroable
and shocking performance with Laura �CLIP And the children's response to
the dinosaurs are very believable, especially in the raptor scenes And,
of course, Richard Attenborough as John Hammond, the wealthy theme park
owner who's a little out of touch with society..
CLIP
Jurassic Park is easily one of Spielberg's greatest achievements as a
director, even just for simple things like his choices on where to focus
the audience�s attention; One of the best examples been the first reveal
of the dinosaurs on screen� Where you're stuck with lingering close-ups
of Dr. Grant's and Sattler�s faces as they suddenly become speechless
from what they've just whiteness.
it feels like almost forever before you
actually lay your eyes on the massive dinosaur in front of them.
Spielberg's ability to shoot the dinosaur interacting with trees was
improvised on the spot.
using low angle shots, added a form of
disorientation, which gives the scene a great sense of scale and awe
which had never really been seen before.
But camera angels weren't the
only important tools; the light used in Jurassic Park was a low�key
design.
This is marked by the intense use of deep shadows, with a very
high contrast between the darkest parts of the scene and the brightest
parts.
The benefits of this type of lighting include added suspense and
realism.
As well as an effective way to hide some errors in the special
effects that could be seen with other lighting techniques.
The Filmmakers
also made sure to utilise this technique to help set a tone for the
film, as it allowed dark spots for dinosaurs to hide in, this aides in
surprising and shocking the audience when something unexpected jumps out
of the dark.
it's a beautifully shot film where even to this day, it's hard to make a
call on when a dinosaur is animatronics or CGI in some scenes.
The Orchestral score composed by John Williams is simply genius.
The main
theme is as iconic as it gets, where it has this warm regal feeling that
builds up with the audience's expectations of seeing dinosaurs for the
first time.
The entire score just adds to every scene, if it's one of awe
at seeing something for the first time, or when things get scary with the
raptors.
Just hearing this music sends you right back into this world,
where it complements it perfectly.
The plot, is well modified for the silver screen.
Spielberg made
additions and cuts where he believed necessary.
Like the addition of the
waterfall scene with the helicopter pad and the scene when the T rex
looks straight at Lex and it's eye dilates.
It's all these little things in this movies that add up to why this film
is so great overall, like the ingenious idea way of condensing much of
the novel's exposition into a few minutes using the Mr. D.N.A.
cartoon.
Or the cup of water vibrating from the footsteps of a 9 tonne T Rex
heading towards you.
The movie effects are so well blended together that
to think there are only 6 minutes of it is ILM's CGI compared to 9
minutes of Stan Winston's animatronics... and knowing which is which, is
pretty hard to tell.
Jurassic Park is a true movie breakthrough, exhibiting awe-inspiring
sights never before seen on the Big screen.
It's special effects are
still good today, but they were revolutionary for its time.
The cast and
acting is great, all of the action sequences are executed perfectly,
creating plenty of tension and suspense.
The thing for me, is It�s amazing that we got this movie in the first
place.
If the special effects teams hadn�t taken the risk to try
something new and untested or if the actors refused to take the film
seriously, this movie would have been lucky to get a cult status.
The
film makers could have played safe and just stuck to using Go motion clay
models.
When it came to this new CGI technique, it was pretty risky
stuff as they didn't really know what they were doing.
--Clip But the
special effects teams convinced Spielberg to take the risk to use
the
CGI, the script was reworked to suit the film more and the actors did a
fantastic job of giving an honest and natural performance.
I mean, just
imagine if Spielberg had hired Tom Cruise to be Dr Grant.
if he had
decided to stick with the Go motion dinosaurs.
This really is a movie that everyone should watch.
If you get the chance,
see it in cinema to take full advantage of the awesome experience.
The
characters are funny, likable and believable.
The dinosaurs are awesome
and their size can be pretty intimidating.
The suspense is pretty intense
and the soundtrack fit in perfectly.
In all, the original Jurassic Park is a classic masterpiece of 20th
century cinema.
And I doubt that it will be trumped by any of its sequels
any time soon.
However we will just have to wait see just how close
things get where the second Jurassic World comes out
in June 2018.
Jurassic Park why is it so good?