Jurassic Park | 1993 | 2011 Rerelease | UK Quad

Jurassic Park is a 1993 sci-fi adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Gerald R. Molen. The screenplay was written by Michael Crichton and David Koepp based on Michael Crichton’s novel Jurassic Park. Even before his novel was published, four studios had put in bids for its film rights. With the backing of Universal Studios, Spielberg acquired the rights for $1.5 million before its publication in 1990; Michael Crichton was hired for an additional $500,000 to adapt the novel for the big screen and David Koepp wrote the final draft, which left out much of the novel’s exposition, violence and made numerous changes to the characters.

The storyline is set on the fictional Isla Nublar, an islet located off Central America’s Pacific Coast, near Costa Rica. On the island a billionaire philanthropist John Hammond and a small team of genetic scientists have created a wildlife park of extinct dinosaurs. When industrial sabotage leads to a catastrophic shutdown of the park’s power facilities and security precautions, a small group of visitors and John Hammond’s grandchildren struggle to survive and escape the perilous island.

Initially the role of Alan Grant was offered to William Hurt, whom turned it down without reading the script. Harrison Ford was also offered the role but Sam Neill was ultimately cast as Grant only three to four weeks before filming began. Jim Carrey auditioned for the role of Dr. Ian Malcolm but Janet Hirshenson, the film’s casting director, felt Jeff Goldblum would be more suited to the role after reading the novel.

The dinosaurs used in Jurassic Park were created with groundbreaking computer-generated imagery provided by Industrial Light & Magic and used life-sized animatronic dinosaurs built by special effects creator Stan Winston and his team. To showcase the film’s sound design, which included a mixture of various animal noises for the dinosaur roars, Steven Spielberg invested in the creation of DTS, a company specialising in digital surround sound formats. Steven Spielberg hired Paleontologist Jack Horner who supervised the designs of the dinosaurs to help fulfill Spielberg’s desire to portray the dinosaurs as animals rather than monsters. Such is the meticoulous detail shown by Steven Spielberg he supervised post-production from Poland as he filmed Schindler’s List.

When Jurassic Park was released it received positive reviews from the critics and audiences alike. On Rotten Tomatoes it currently holds a rating of 91% with the general consensus being, “Jurassic Park is a spectacle of special effects and life-like animatronics, with some of Spielberg’s best sequences of sustained awe and sheer terror since Jaws”. Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, saying, “The movie delivers all too well on its promise to show us dinosaurs. We see them early and often, and they are indeed a triumph of special effects artistry, but the movie is lacking other qualities that it needs even more, such as a sense of awe and wonderment, and strong human story values”.

Jurassic Park won numerous awards and accolades following its release. At the Academy Awards in 1994, it won all three awards for which it was nominated: Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects and at the same ceremony, Steven Spielberg, editor Michael Kahn and composer John Williams also won Academy Awards for Schindler’s List. At the BAFTA it won an award for Best Special Effects, as well as the Award for the Public’s Favorite Film. Since its release, Jurassic Park has frequently been cited by film critics and industry professionals as one of the greatest movies in the action and thriller genres.

Following its enormous success, Steven Spielberg asked Michael Crichton to pen a sequel novel, leading to the 1995 book The Lost World. This was adapted and become the sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park which was released in May 1997, again directed by Spielberg and written by David Koepp. In July 2001, another Jurassic Park film was released, Jurassic Park III, this time under the direction of Joe Johnston, with Steven Spielberg working as executive producer and featuring an original script incorporating unused elements from Michael Crichton’s original Jurassic Park novel. A fourth film called Jurassic World, was released in June 2015 which Steven Spielberg produced with Colin Trevorrow directing a script he co-wrote with Derek Connolly. In June 2018, the fifth film in the franchise Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was released. Steven Spielberg returned as the producer once again with J. A. Bayona directoring. There is a sixth film called Jurassic World: Dominio which Colin Trevorrow returning to direct and scheduled to be released in June 2021.

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