Looking Back At Jurassic Park

Jurassic World, the fourth instalment in the Jurassic Park franchise, has hit the theatres and, as a fan of the franchise, I just had to get out to see the Jurassic Park theme park once again.

(Spoiler Alert)

Jurassic Park was released in 1993 and had a great impact on both the film industry and science fiction/fantasy community as a whole. Consider this; Jurassic Park managed to generate so much interest in dinosaurs that there was a recorded increase in palaeontology students. There are few movies which have this kind of impact on society.

Jurassic Park is based on the novel of the same name written by Michael Crichton. The movie is directed by Steven Spielberg, one of the most influential directors in the history of filmmaking. The cast of Jurassic Park prominently includes Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough and, of course, the dinosaurs.

In this film, Richard Attenborough portrays John Hammond, the owner of InGen Corporation; the genetic research group that enabled Jurassic Park. He is a brilliant man who is ambitiously pursuing his idea of creating a park which has actual living dinosaurs in it for the amusement of people and, of course, for his own profit. Finally, after many years of research, towards the end of Hammond’s life, researchers find the DNA of dinosaurs trapped in amber. After finding the dinosaur DNA, there was nothing restricting Hammond from bringing his dinosaurs to life.

And so he does.

For an idea this ridiculously crazy to work, Hammond needed money and therefore investors. Thus Hammond asks Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) and Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) to take a tour of Jurassic Park and endorse it, so that Hammond's investors will be more confident about the Park. They know nothing about what awaits them in Isla Nublar.

They are about to embark on the most terrifying journey of their lives.

Despite the strong presence of the human members of the cast, the real stars of Jurassic Park are the dinosaurs themselves. There are lot of them. This movie has humongous herbivores, carnivores, friendly dinosaurs, hostile nightmares and a lot more.

There is a common misconception that Jurassic Park is a monster movie. I just refuse to believe that and here’s why. This movie works really hard to set up the premise that dinosaurs are animals. The dinosaurs will never usually attack anyone because it wants to, but it will if it has to. This "Discovery Channel" approach separates Jurassic Park from monster movies. Jurassic Park has an amazing story and relatable characters which makes it one of a kind.

Let us talk about visuals of the film.

Visually, this film is literally years ahead of its time. Film includes a combination of computer-generated imagery (CGI) and clever use of Animatronics. The full body shots of dinosaurs are usually CGI. When just a part of the dinosaur’s body is shot animatronics is used. Animatronics provides a different vibe to Jurassic Park which simply cannot be created using even modern computer generated imagery. If you are interested, click here to see how Animatronics work behind the scenes.

The last missing piece of this dinosaur puzzle was the dinosaurs' sounds. These sounds were mixtures of sounds from different animals. For example, the horrifying sound of Velociraptor was the mixture of the sounds from a dolphin, a geese and a walrus. These sounds were fed to a computer and operated by keyboard. The amount of effort put into the sound details is enormous and makes the film even better.

Speaking of sounds, the score is written by John Williams and it is fantastic. Jurassic Park succeeds in creating a perfect blend of music and awe-inspiring cinematography.

Jurassic Park is one of those rare movies which I really do not have anything bad to say about.

This movie has elements of every genre in it. It has elements from comedy, action, drama and thriller genres perfectly timed and expertly balanced throughout the movie. Jurassic Park definitely deserves a lot of credit just for being so much ahead of its time. This movie inspired an entire generation of films.

I would definitely recommend watching it if you haven't already. Word has it Jurassic World might be just as much of a thrill.

Sahil Sirsat is a Contributor to ComiConverse. Follow him on Twitter: @sahilcomicsguy