Jurassic Park 3D has just hit theatres, restored and re-released on the big screen 20 years after its original run. For many, it’s a chance to revisit a familiar friend, and all the warming pop-culture nudges that go with it; the ‘clever girls’ and the ‘uh uh uh, you didn't say the magic words.’ For others, it might be their introduction to the film; perhaps they grew up on a diet of Shrek and Pixar and their parents might have been wary of introducing them to Samuel L Jackson’s severed arm.
Whatever camp you might fit into, I want to spend some time extolling some of Jurassic Park’s virtues, for there are many. For some of us – particularly those of us born in the ‘80s – seeing Jurassic Park in the theatres in 1993 was a seminal moment in our lives; in the same way it was for those kids in the '70s who sat down to watch a movie called Star Wars. For me, a kid who grew up in the ass-end of the world (New Zealand, it’s a nice ass) and was 9 in 1993, Jurassic Park is my Star Wars.
From the mid ‘80s through to the early ‘90s, there was an incredible run of movies for children (I've already written a piece on it here). They were movies born of an optimistic era, teaching us to believe in the impossible, to believe that ordinary people could do extraordinary things, that if we dream hard enough our impossible dreams could come true. It's no wonder that upon re-watching as an adult, some of them bring pain.
They were also movies that taught us a great deal about wonder. Like, proper wonder, that kind of stomach-doing-flips-tears-springing-into-your-eyes-mouth-agape feeling that’s really hard to capture again after your babysitter thought Prince of Tides would be a suitable movie for a 10-year-old. But I digress.
I believe this string of cinematic gold climaxed with Jurassic Park, the movie in which Steven Spielberg seemed to have literally captured the essence of that emotion and didn't waste a drop weaving it throughout the film’s 127 minute running time.
It wasn't really to do with the characters, apart from Ian Malcolm, whose charming cynicism grounds the film in reality. Grant and Sattler are sweetly serviceable, and the kids are cute enough that you don't want them to die, but for most of the film they're all just vessels in which to project fear. It wasn't really to do with the script either, which wears its decade on its sleeve with lines like "it's a UNIX system! I know this!"
Mostly, it was to do with rewarding us for having dreams. Like a lot of children, I was really into dinosaurs growing up. 'Dinosaurs' was a frequent scenario in my solo ventures into our backyard. The thought of seeing a dinosaur that wasn't animated or a humorous Jim Henson puppet was a thrilling prospect. And not only did New Zealand kids have to contend with the marketing freight train pushing 'Steven Spielberg's Dinosaur Movie!!!' into the forefront of our consciousness, we had to wait two whole months for it to be released after its début in the States.
But it was worth the wait. We knew that when we were finally seated in the theatre and we saw the brachiosaurus.
Upon re-watching, the first dinosaur reveal in Jurassic Park is a statement. It’s Spielberg saying: look what I can do. Look at the age we live in now. It’s no wonder that after stop-motion expert Phil Tippet saw ILM’s test footage, he announced “I am extinct” – or so the story goes.
It’s also a brilliant piece of movie-making. From the slow turn of Alan’s head and the teasing build of John Williams’ strings to the eventual reveal and hysterical reaction, the scene is perfectly paced.
But none of this crossed my mind as a 9 year-old. For me, it was just real. I gripped the hand of some poor kid beside me who I’d only met a few days prior at my new school, I was that taken by it. The kid gripped my hand back.
Moments like that brachiosaurus reveal are peppered throughout the film, expert exercises in build and release. But this is not to say Spielberg’s film begins and ends with digital wizardry. Jurassic Park is not a movie where dinos run around with the fluidity of video game bad guys; that was yet to become depressingly ubiquitous. It’s a film that straddles the old and the new, embracing bold technology but backing it with the tried-and-tested.
Look at the next big dino reveal for example, the sick triceratops. Look at the way its chest – built of foam and rubber - heaves up and down, and that’s Sam Neil resting his head on it, actually properly embracing it with his human hands, skin on skin. It’s miraculous, but in a different way to the glorious brachiosaurus. It actually looks like it’s dying, like a cow heaving its last breaths on a field. Once again, there’s that wonder.
And of course, there’s horror, too, which is an important partner to wonder, because we have to totally, utterly buy that T.rex and the dilophosaurus and those velociraptors, and we do. And Spielberg reminds us of his skill in the genre with one brilliantly-paced horror sequence after another. The worker who gets eaten at the beginning of the film. The raptor attack in the kitchen that plays out like the climax of a psycho-stalker movie. The gory, vicious death of Dennis Nedry. The devastating T.rex attack that marks the beginning of the end.
But while Jurassic Park is a great horror movie, its monsters are revered, bar perhaps, the villainous raptors. The T.rex ends up claiming the second most wondrous moment of the film when she steps in and saves our heroes from the encroaching fiends, all to the strains of John Williams’ victorious soundtrack.
And when the banner flutters down that says ‘When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth' and the T.rex roars and it's all over, everybody cries.
Well, I did.
For 127 minutes Spielberg tells us that we were right, that dinosaurs could roam the earth. And while its overarching themes are far more adult than we'd care to address back then - don't mess with nature, lawyers will screw it all up anyway, capitalism is evil - its dinos trump all that, because Spielberg loves them, as we do. We don't leave the theatre thanking god nobody's messed with nature in the same way as Hammond, we wish Hammond was a real guy.
And in 2013, it's still a damn good movie. While its script might have dated, Spielberg’s masterful grasp of pacing hasn't. That John Williams score hasn't. And through that remarkable combo of digital and practical effects, the dinosaurs haven't. At age 9, I knew Jurassic Park was going to be timeless enough that we would still be talking about it 20 years later.
I knew it when that kid squeezed my hand back.
Lucy O'Brien is Assistant Editor at IGN AU, and she wanted to be Jeff Goldblum when she grew up. Follow her ramblings on IGN at Luce_IGN_AU,or @Luceobrien on Twitter.
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