"Hold On to Your Butts": Why 'JURASSIC PARK' Remains Untouchable Over 30 Years Later
“Over three decades later, the film remains just as impactful, if not even more.”
Directed by Steven Spielberg, the 1993 sci-fi classic Jurassic Park stars Sam Neill as paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant, Laura Dern as paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler, and Jeff Goldblum as mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm. This trio of experts is invited to preview Isla Nublar, a remote island featuring a revolutionary theme park populated by cloned dinosaurs. However, the preview turns into a prehistoric nightmare when a power failure deactivates the security systems and allows the creatures to break free. Left completely out of their element, the visitors are forced to fight for survival, proving Dr. Malcolm’s iconic warning true: “Life... finds a way.”
So, Jurassic Park is the next film I’m covering for Spielberg’s filmography, again being one of his heaviest of hitters and one of my earliest memories of watching a movie in a theater. I was five years old when this one came out, and my recollection of watching it is so vivid because of how impactful the film was for me. Later in the movie, when the group is running from the Velociraptors, at one point, one of the raptors jumps right up at the screen toward the group. I famously, or perhaps infamously and instinctively, kicked at the raptor, ending up kicking the seat in front of me and leaving one poor woman to look back at me disapprovingly... and this was long before it was eventually re-released in 3D. I was just so engrossed in the film that I couldn’t help myself, and over three decades later, the film remains just as impactful, if not even more.
Think about the visuals of this film, and then think about the year it came out. 1993. This was a couple of years before Toy Story, but more impressively, it was way before tons of movies that come out literally right now where the graphics look... well, worse. How do the visuals look so good in this movie? It’s absolutely insane. I know at some points they use nighttime and rain to their advantage... where reflections, wetness, lighting, and shadows ultimately help things look better... but even in direct sunlight... like the very first good look at a dinosaur. The iconic scene where Dr. Grant and Ellie first see the Brachiosaurus... it looks pretty darn perfect, even by today’s standards. I will admit that sometimes if you look really close, the CGI does appear aged, but really only barely. For 1993, it’s flawless.
One thing I said when I was watching this with my wife was that it’s unbelievable how untouchable this film is in comparison to something like Jurassic World. It’s night and day. This film is classic. It’s iconic. It’s thrilling. It’s tense. It’s also light-hearted and funny in a way only Spielberg can really manage to pull off. It’s endlessly quotable. Jurassic Park manages to take your breath away, while Jurassic World just pretends to try to do the same thing, but never even gets close. Part of that is the Spielberg magic, but even The Lost World: Jurassic Park, which was also made by Spielberg, doesn’t really reach the same magic as this film. Even though this universe has so many movies attached to it now, in my heart of hearts, it’s really a one-hit wonder.
It’s perfectly cast... this movie is really the only one to have the best overall group of characters. All of them are great on their own, but as a collective team, they’re fantastic. Every other movie, again, couldn’t match that same magic. That’s why it was such a big deal when they brought the team back together for one of the Jurassic World movies, even if it didn’t quite hit. The music is phenomenal. Some of John Williams’s best work. The CGI is great, the puppetry is great, the cinematography is great, and the one-liners are so good. “Hold on to your butts,” “You didn’t say the magic word,” “Life finds a way,” “Clever girl,” “Welcome to Jurassic Park,” “That’s one big pile of...” you catch my drift. It just goes on and on and on. This entire movie belongs in a museum.
It’s one of Spielberg’s absolute best films, and it’s also one of the best, if not the single best, dinosaur movies ever made. There’s just so little I have to complain about, so I just end up singing all of its praises.
Technical/Unbiased Score: 45/50 (90%)
Biased/Entertainment Score: 49/50 (98%)
Total Overall Score: 94/100 (94% or 4.5/5 on Letterboxd)