Jurassic Park
Most little boys love dinosaurs. I was no different. So when a big movie about dinosaurs was about to come out, of course I wanted to see it! I was only 8 and the movie was PG-13, but... DINOSAURS! And the marketing to kids sure didn't help! Trading cards, lunch boxes, stuffed toys... Man, Jurassic Park was everywhere months before it came out. However, I'm sure if I'd seen the trailer, I might have changed my mind and not wanted to see it. Seriously, it's one of the worst trailers I've ever seen. Here, let me show you.
Were all 90s trailers as bad as that? The voiceover, the random selection of scenes, the music... There's no sense of awe or fright in it. Still, at least the movie turned out good.
The movie was, of course, based on the 1990 Michael Crichton novel. The basic plot is the same, yet streamlined, as most novel adaptations are. It includes the novel's main points about cloning and chaos theory (cloning being a big ethical concern in the 90s, and chaos theory entering general knowledge. However, the characters range from being the same as in the novel, to being very different. Lex and Tim have been switched from how they are in the book (Lex as a younger girl and Tim as a teenage computer geek) to Lex as a teenage computer nerd and Tim as a boy with a fascination of dinosaurs. John Hammond in the book is a ruthless businessman more interested in money than anything and can hardly stand his grand-kids, whereas in the film he's a kindly older man who loves his grand-kids and is more of a showman. These changes were all done by David Koepp, who is not a writer I really admire. He did write Indiana Jones IV, after all. The main scientist in the book, the geneticist Dr. Wu, is relegated to about three minutes of screen time in the film, there entirely to do exposition. Ed Regis is combined with the Gennaro character, etc, etc. If I remember correctly, most of the other characters ended up pretty much the same, though the deaths in the film do not match the books and some are left alive in the book when they aren't in the film and vice-versa. (Muldoon and Gennaro, for examples.)
Being eight years old at the time, I'd never read the book, though I did pester my dad while he was reading it, asking him what was happening in the book all the time. (I remember we were my grandma's while he was reading it.) Also due to the fact that I was eight, I was told I wasn't able to see the movie until my dad had seen it first. Well, for my eighth birthday, I got to see it. I was really nervous but tried not to show it. I was afraid of scary movies at the time, and since all the older kids kept talking about people getting killed and stuff, I was of course apprehensive. So we get to the theater (I even remember it was the United Artists West Tower theater in Richmond. Before the days of stadium seating in most theaters. Heck, that theater still doesn't have it!) Now imagine my horror when the first scene in the movie shows a guy getting attacked by a velociraptor, even though you really don't see anything. Nah, I was fine actually. The movie did keep me enthralled all the way through, though. In fact, I'd say it's the first grown-up movie I actually followed the plot of! For a kid about to be diagnosed with ADHD the next year, that was something!
Some don't remember this, but the movie heralded in CGI effects. However, that's not what I like about it. In fact, if that's what it had done, I'd probably hate the film. No, what most people don't get is that the movie balanced CGI, puppetry, and animatronics to one of the best degrees they've ever been used. Take the scene where the T Rex breaks out of his paddock and starts attacking the cars.... They use mostly animatronics in that scene, yet people will still comment on how great the CGI is in that scene. Actually, CGI is only used in full body shots pretty much throughout the whole movie. In fact, if I remember correctly, the Dilophosaurus is all animatronic/puppet. No CGI there. Most of the CGI is limited to dinosaurs when they are running or are in full view. This way of working makes the dinosaurs seem so more real than they do in the two sequels, where they used more CGI and less of Stan Winston's robotics. The brain knows that CGI isn't real, and therefor it's harder to get a response out of someone with bland CGI.
This film was also the first one I saw where people jumped and screamed in the theater... Whilst I was alternating between hiding my face in my dad's side or looking through my fingers during the scary bits. It was a whole lot of fun, and due to all these memories, it makes rewatching the film now more fun that it would be otherwise. I'd like to take this time to remind those with kids to let them see scary stuff (within reason). The experience stays with you for a long while, and though the kid may be scared the first night after watching the movie, it will probably make them a much stronger/better person in the long run, and a lot of memories to look back on. Remember, to an 8 year old, seeing movies like this, The Avengers, or other big blockbuster big kid movies... It's a rite of passage. I remember the first night after seeing Jurassic Park I actually slept in my top bunk, which I never did because it squeaked so much and was kind of uncomfortable... But I was sure a dilophosaurus was down there, and they couldn't see me laying down on the top bunk from down there.
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