Jurassic Park | |
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Directed by | Steven Spielberg |
Produced by | Kathleen Kennedy Gerald R. Molen |
Written by | Screenplay: David Koepp Michael Crichton Malia Scotch Marmo (uncredited) Novel: Michael Crichton |
Starring | Sam Neill Laura Dern Jeff Goldblum Richard Attenborough Joseph Mazzello Ariana Richards Martin Ferrero Bob Peck Samuel L. Jackson Wayne Knight |
Music by | John Williams |
Cinematography | Dean Cundey |
Editing by | Michael Kahn |
Studio | Amblin Entertainment |
Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date(s) | June 11, 1993 |
Running time | 127 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English Spanish |
Budget | $63,000,000[1] |
Gross revenue | $914,691,118[2] |
Followed by | The Lost World: Jurassic Park |
Jurassic Park is a 1993 American science fiction adventure thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. The film centers on the fictional Isla Nublar (Spanish for "Cloudy Island"), in Costa Rica, where billionaire philanthropist John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) and a team of genetic scientists from his company have created an amusement park of cloned dinosaurs. Threatened with legal action over the accidental death of an island worker, Hammond invites a trio of scientists -- paleontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill), paleobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), and chaos theorist Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) -- to inspect the park (and appease the company lawyers) before its public opening. During a storm that evacuates most of the island, except for the visitors and a small team of employees, sabotage engineered by a rival company sets the dinosaurs loose, and the island's few inhabitants attempt to escape the island under peril.
Spielberg acquired the motion picture rights to the novel before its publication in 1990, and Crichton himself was hired to adapt the novel into a proper screenplay. David Koepp wrote the final draft, which left out much of the novel's exposition and violence, and made numerous changes to the characters. Spielberg hired Stan Winston Studios to create animatronics to portray the dinosaurs, shots of which were then mixed with newly developed computer-generated imagery by Industrial Light & Magic. Paleontologist Jack Horner aided the actors and the special effects team in creating authenticity (although aspects of the animals' depictions became outdated due to changes in evolutionary theories). Filming took place from August 24 to November 30, 1992, in Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, and California.
Jurassic Park is regarded as a landmark in the use of computer-generated imagery, and received positive reviews from critics, who praised the effects, though reactions to other elements of the picture, such as character development, were mixed. During its release, the film grossed more than $914 million worldwide, becoming the most successful film released up to that time (surpassing E.T. the Extra Terrestrial and surpassed 4 years later by Titanic), and it is currently the thirteenth-highest-grossing feature film (taking inflation into account, it is the 18th-highest-grossing film in North America). It is the most successful film from both NBC Universal and Steven Spielberg. Ironically, this makes Universal one of only two of the "Big Six" film studios not to have a movie make at least $1 billion worldwide (along with Sony Pictures Entertainment, whose highest grossing film is Spider-Man 3). Jurassic Park spawned a franchise, including the sequels The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) and Jurassic Park III (2001).
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In Jurassic Park, located on Isla Nublar, an island approximately 120 miles west of Costa Rica, an employee for the genetic engineering company InGen is attacked and killed while placing a Velociraptor into a specially built enclosure, prompting a lawsuit from his family. CEO John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) is pressured by his investors to allow a safety inspection by experts before opening the park. He invites paleontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill), paleobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), chaos theorist Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), and his investors' attorney Donald Gennaro (Martin Ferrero) to perform the inspection. The group meets a Brachiosaurus when they set off into the park. At the park, they learn that InGen created the dinosaurs by cloning genetic material found in mosquitoes that fed on dinosaur blood, preserved in Dominican amber. The DNA from these samples was spliced with DNA from frogs to fill in sequence gaps. Only female dinosaurs are created to prevent uncontrolled breeding within the park. The team is also shown the enclosure of the Velociraptor, dubbed "raptors", extremely intelligent, aggressive and ferocious predators.
Malcolm is disgusted by what he sees as the rape of mother nature, Sattler is worried, but Grant remains neutral. They meet Hammond's grandchildren, Tim (Joseph Mazzello) and Alexis "Lex" Murphy (Ariana Richards), and go on a vehicular tour of the park via 2 electric-powered Ford Explorers. Ellie leaves the tour to supervise and take care of a sick Triceratops with Doctor of Veterinary Medicine Gerry Harding (Gerald R. Molen). A tropical storm hits the island as most InGen employees leave for the day leaving only Hammond, game warden Robert Muldoon (Bob Peck), chief engineer Ray Arnold (Samuel L. Jackson), and leading computer programmer Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight) to supervise the park and the visitors.
Having been bribed by InGen's rival Lewis Dodgson (Cameron Thor), Nedry takes an opportunity to shut down the park's security system so he can steal dinosaur embryos and deliver them to an informant at the auxiliary dock. As a result, the security systems of the whole park are shut down, most notably allowing the Tyrannosaurus to break through the deactivated electric fence surrounding its pen. The cowardly Gennaro flees from the car into a nearby bathroom, while Tim and Lex accidentally attract the T-Rex's attention with a flashlight and are attacked. Grant distracts the T-Rex with a flare, but just as she is about to leave, Malcolm tries the same trick with less success, and in fleeing from the T-Rex, attracts her attention and tells Grant to take the kids and run. Gennaro is devoured and Malcolm is severely injured and assumed killed, while the children and Grant only narrowly avoid being killed themselves.
Soon after they flee the wreckage, Sattler and Muldoon arrive. They discover the remains of Gennaro, and find that Malcolm is actually alive but has a severe leg wound, which he managed to support with his belt. Upon further investigation they find footprints belonging to Grant and the kids. Just then, the T-Rex returns and Malcolm, Muldoon, and Sattler barely escape her in their Jeep. Meanwhile, Nedry crashes his Jeep and, while trying to winch it, is killed by a Dilophosaurus. Grant, Tim, and Lex spend the night in a tree. While hiking to safety the next morning, they discover hatched eggs, indicating that the dinosaurs are breeding. Grant realizes that the frog DNA is responsible: some species of frog are known to spontaneously change sex in a single-sex environment.
Arnold tries to hack Nedry's computer to turn the fences back on but fails for lack of a key identifier. He does a full system restart, which requires him to shut down the entire power grid from the Visitor Center and to manually reset the circuit breakers from the utility shed. When he does not return from the shed, Sattler and Muldoon follow and discover the raptors have escaped, the shutdown having cut off power to the electric fences around their pen. Muldoon realizes that they are near and tells Sattler to go to the utility shed herself and turn the power back on while he tries to distract the raptors and hunt them down. Sattler arrives at the shed and manages to reset the breakers, then she is chased by a raptor, discovers Arnold's remains, and manages to escape the maintenance shed. Muldoon is attacked and killed by a second raptor while hunting the third raptor. Grant and the kids finally arrive at the Visitor Center, after Tim is electrocuted when the fences turn back on and revived by Grant. Grant leaves them to find the others and finds Sattler first, then joins Malcolm and Hammond in the emergency bunkers.
Raptors enter the Visitor Center and Lex and Tim narrowly escape them in the kitchen (locking one in the freezer). Grant and Sattler take Lex and Tim to the control room, where Lex is finally able to restore the Park's computer systems to call Hammond to request a helicopter rescue of the survivors. Grant and Sattler hold off a raptor trying to open the door to the computer room, until the power is restored and the electromagnetic locks begin working. With the door secure, the raptor breaks into the room through the window, and the group climbs into the ceiling crawlspace and arrive at the Visitors Center rotunda, above the skeleton display. The raptors pursue and, after a scuffle on top of the fossil exhibits where the raptors block their escape route, 'help' comes from an unlikely source; the Tyrannosaurus arrives and attacks the raptors. The T-Rex and raptors fight while Grant, Sattler, Lex, and Tim escape. The four flee, climb into Hammond and Malcolm's jeep and leave. Grant says he will not endorse the park, a choice with which Hammond concurs. Meanwhile inside the T-Rex tears apart one of the raptors and kills the other by hurling it at a Tyrannosaurus skeleton on display. As the group fly away in the helicopter, the children fall asleep beside Grant, who contemplatively looks out the window over the horizon at a flock of birds flying nearby, the modern descendants of dinosaurs.
Michael Crichton originally conceived a screenplay about a graduate student who recreates a dinosaur; he continued to wrestle with his fascination with dinosaurs and cloning until he began writing the novel Jurassic Park.[10] Spielberg learned of the novel in October 1989 while he and Crichton were discussing a screenplay that would become the television series ER.[11] Before the book was published, Crichton demanded a non-negotiable fee of $1.5 million as well as a substantial percentage of the gross. Warner Brothers and Tim Burton, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Richard Donner, and 20th Century Fox and Joe Dante bid for the rights,[11] but Universal eventually acquired them in May 1990 for Spielberg.[12] Universal paid Crichton a further $500,000 to adapt his own novel,[13] which he had finished by the time Spielberg was filming Hook. Crichton noted that because the book was "fairly long" his script only had about 10 to 20 percent of the novel's content; scenes were dropped for budgetary and practical reasons.[14] After completing Hook, Spielberg wanted to film Schindler's List. Music Corporation of America president Sid Sheinberg gave a green light to the film on one condition: that Spielberg make Jurassic Park first. Spielberg later said, "He knew that once I had directed Schindler I wouldn't be able to do Jurassic Park."[11] At the time, MCA was the owner of Universal Pictures.
Spielberg hired Stan Winston to create the animatronic dinosaurs, Phil Tippett to create go motion dinosaurs for long shots, Michael Lantieri to supervise the on-set effects, and Dennis Muren to do the digital compositing. Paleontologist Jack Horner supervised the designs, to help fulfil Spielberg's desire to portray the dinosaurs as animals rather than monsters. Horner dismissed the raptors' flicking tongues in Tippett's early animatics,[15] complaining, "[The dinosaurs] have no way of doing that!" Taking Horner's advice, Spielberg insisted that Tippett take the tongues out.[16] Winston's department created fully detailed models of the dinosaurs before molding latex skins, which were fitted over complex robotics. Tippett created stop-motion animatics of major scenes, but, despite go motion's attempts at motion blurs, Spielberg still found the end results unsatisfactory in terms of working in a live-action feature film.[15] Animators Mark Dippe and Steve Williams went ahead in creating a computer-generated walk cycle for the T. rex skeleton and were approved to do more.[17] When Spielberg and Tippett saw an animatic of the T. rex chasing a herd of Gallimimus, Spielberg said, "You're out of a job," to which Tippett replied, "Don't you mean extinct?"[15] Spielberg later wrote both the animatic and his dialogue between him and Tippett into the script.[18]
Malia Scotch Marmo began a script rewrite in October 1991 over a five-month period, merging Ian Malcolm with Alan Grant.[19] Screenwriter David Koepp came on board afterward, starting afresh from Marmo's draft, and used Spielberg's idea of a cartoon shown to the visitors to remove much of the exposition that fills Crichton's novel.[20] Spielberg also excised a sub-plot of Procompsognathus escaping to the mainland and attacking young children, as he found it too horrific.[21] This sub-plot would eventually be used as a prologue in the Spielberg-directed sequel, The Lost World. Hammond was changed from a ruthless businessman to a kindly old man, because Spielberg identified with Hammond's obsession with showmanship.[22] He also switched the characters of Tim and Lex; in the book, Tim is aged 11 and into computers, and Lex is only seven or eight and into sports. Spielberg did this because he wanted to work with the younger Joseph Mazzello, and it also allowed him to introduce the sub-plot of Lex's adolescent crush on Grant.[4] Koepp changed Grant's relationship with the children, making him hostile to them initially to allow for more character development.[11] Koepp also took the opportunity to cut out a major sequence from the book, for budgetary reasons, where the T. rex chases Grant and the children down a river before being tranquilized by Muldoon. This scene was revived in part in Jurassic Park III with the Spinosaurus replacing the T.rex.[20]
After 25 months of pre-production, filming began on August 24, 1992, on the Hawaiian island of Kauaʻi.[23] The three-week shoot involved various daytime exteriors.[12] On September 11, Hurricane Iniki passed directly over Kauaʻi, which caused the crew to lose a day of shooting.[24] Several of the storm scenes from the movie are actual footage shot during the hurricane. The scheduled shoot of the Gallimimus chase was moved to Kualoa Ranch on the island of Oahu and one of the beginning scenes had to be created by digital animating a still shot of scenery.[18] The crew moved back to mainland USA to shoot at Universal Studios's Stage 24 for scenes involving the raptors in the kitchen.[12] The crew also shot on Stage 23 for the scenes involving the power supply, before going on location to Red Rock Canyon for the Montana dig scenes.[25] The crew returned to Universal to shoot Grant's rescue of Tim, using a fifty-foot prop with hydraulic wheels for the car fall, and the Brachiosaurus encounter. The crew filmed scenes for the Park's labs and control room, which used animations for the computers lent from Silicon Graphics and Apple.[26]
The crew moved to Warner Bros. Studios' Stage 16 to shoot the T. rex attack on the tour cars.[26] Shooting proved frustrating due to water soaking the foam rubber skin of the animatronic dinosaur.[6] The ripples in the glass of water caused by the T. rex's footsteps was inspired by Spielberg listening to Earth, Wind and Fire in his car, and the vibrations the bass rhythm caused. Lantieri was unsure of how to create the shot until the night before filming, when he put a glass of water on a guitar he was playing, which achieved the concentric circles in the water Spielberg wanted. The next morning, guitar strings were put inside the car and a man on the ground plucked the strings to achieve the effect.[27] Back at Universal, the crew filmed scenes with the Dilophosaurus on Stage 27. Finally, the shoot finished on Stage 12, with the climactic chases with the raptors in the Park's computer rooms and Visitor's Center.[28] Spielberg brought back the T. rex for the climax, abandoning his original ending in which Grant uses a platform machine to maneuver a raptor into a fossil tyrannosaur's jaws.[29] The film wrapped twelve days ahead of schedule on November 30,[12][30][31] and within days editor Michael Kahn had a rough cut ready, allowing Spielberg to go ahead with filming Schindler's List.[32]
Special effects work continued on the film, with Tippett's unit adjusting to new technology with Dinosaur Input Devices:[33] models which fed information into the computers to allow themselves to animate the characters traditionally. In addition, they acted out scenes with the raptors and Gallimimus. As well as the computer-generated dinosaurs, ILM also created elements such as water splashing and digital face replacement for Ariana Richards' stunt double.[15] Compositing the dinosaurs onto the live action scenes took around an hour. Rendering the dinosaurs often took two to four hours per frame, and rendering the T. rex in the rain even took six hours per frame.[34] Spielberg monitored their progress from Poland.[35] Composer John Williams began work on the score at the end of February, and it was conducted a month later by John Neufeld and Alexander Courage.[36] The sound effects crew, supervised by George Lucas,[37] were finished by the end of April. Jurassic Park was finally completed on May 28, 1993.[36]
Despite the title of the film referencing the Jurassic period, most of the dinosaurs featured did not exist until the Cretaceous period.[38] When explaining the ferocity of the Velociraptor to a cynical young boy, Dr. Grant says "Try to imagine yourself in the Cretaceous period..."
Universal spent $65 million on the marketing campaign for Jurassic Park, making deals with 100 companies to market 1,000 products.[46] These included three Jurassic Park video games by Sega and Ocean Software,[47] a toy line by Kenner that was distributed by Hasbro,[48] and a novelization aimed at young children.[49] The released soundtrack included unused material.[50] Trailers for the film only gave fleeting glimpses of the dinosaurs,[51] a tactic journalist Josh Horowitz described as "that old Spielberg axiom of never revealing too much" when Spielberg and director Michael Bay did the same for their production of Transformers in 2007.[52] The film was marketed with the tagline "An Adventure 65 Million Years In The Making." This was a joke Spielberg made on set about the genuine, millions of years old mosquito in amber used for Hammond's walking stick.[53]
The film premiered at the National Building Museum on June 9, 1993, in Washington, D.C.,[54] in support of two children's charities.[55] The film made its VHS and LaserDisc debut on October 4, 1994,[56] and was first released on DVD on October 10, 2000.[57] The film was also released in a package with The Lost World: Jurassic Park.[58] The DVD was re-released with both sequels on December 11, 2001,[59] as the Jurassic Park Trilogy, and as the Jurassic Park Adventure Pack on November 29, 2005.[60]
Following the film's release, a traveling exhibition began.[61] Steve Englehart wrote a series of comic books published by Topps Comics. They acted as a continuation of the film, consisting of the two-issue Raptor, the four-issue Raptors Attack and Raptors Hijack, and Return to Jurassic Park, which lasted nine issues. All published issues were republished under the single title Jurassic Park Adventures in the United States and as Jurassic Park in the United Kingdom.[62] Ocean Software released a game sequel entitled Jurassic Park Part 2: The Chaos Continues in 1994 on Super NES and Game Boy.[47]
Jurassic Park was broadcast on television for the first time on May 7, 1995, following the April 26 airing of The Making of Jurassic Park.[63] Some 68.12 million people tuned in to watch, garnering NBC a 36 percent share of all available viewers that night. Jurassic Park was the highest-rated theatrical film broadcast on television by any network since the April 1987 airing of Trading Places.[64]
"The Jurassic Park Ride" went into development in November 1990[65] and premiered at Universal Studios Hollywood on June 15, 1996,[66] at a cost of $110 million.[65] Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida, has an entire section of the park dedicated to Jurassic Park that includes the main ride, christened "Jurassic Park River Adventure", and many smaller rides and attractions based on the series.[67] The Universal Studios theme park rides have been designed to support the film's plot, with Hammond supposedly having been contacted to rebuild the Park at the theme park location.[66]
Jurassic Park became the most financially successful film released worldwide as of that time, beating Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial which previously held the title, though it did not top E.T. in North America.[68] The film opened with $47 million in its first weekend[2] and had grossed $81.7 million by its first week.[69] The film stayed at number one for three weeks and eventually grossed $357 million in the U.S. and Canada.[70] The film also did very well in international markets, breaking opening records in the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, and Taiwan.[71] Spielberg earned over $250 million from the film.[72] Jurassic Park's worldwide gross was topped five years later by James Cameron's Titanic.[73] It still remains the oldest movie in the top 20 highest grossing movies of all time to this day.
The film received mostly positive reviews. High praise was heaped on the visual effects, although there was much criticism leveled at the characterization and departures from the book. Janet Maslin of The New York Times called it "a true movie milestone, presenting awe- and fear-inspiring sights never before seen on the screen… On paper, this story is tailor-made for Mr. Spielberg's talents…[but] [i]t becomes less crisp on screen than it was on the page, with much of the enjoyable jargon either mumbled confusingly or otherwise thrown away."[74] In Rolling Stone, Peter Travers described the film as "colossal entertainment—the eye-popping, mind-bending, kick-out-the-jams thrill ride of summer and probably the year [...] Compared with the dinos, the characters are dry bones, indeed. Crichton and co-screenwriter David Koepp have flattened them into nonentities on the trip from page to screen."[75] Roger Ebert noted, "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."[76] Henry Sheehan argued, "The complaints over Jurassic Park's lack of story and character sound a little off the point," pointing out the story arc of Grant learning to protect Hammond's grandchildren despite his initial dislike of them.[22] Rotten Tomatoes reported that 84% of critics gave Jurassic Park a positive write-up with 90% of top critics being positive.[77]
In 1994, the film won all three Academy Awards it was nominated for: Visual Effects, Sound Effects Editing, and Sound (at the same ceremony, Steven Spielberg, Michael Kahn, and John Williams took home Academy Awards for Schindler's List). The film won honours outside of the U.S. including the 1994 BAFTA for Best Special Effects, as well as the Award for the Public's Favourite Film.[78] It won the 1994 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation,[79] and the 1993 Saturn Awards for Best Science Fiction Film, Best Direction, Best Writing for Crichton and Koepp and Best Special Effects.[80] The film won the 1993 People's Choice Awards for Favorite All-Around Motion Picture.[81] Young Artist Awards were given to Ariana Richards and Joseph Mazzello, with the film winning an Outstanding Action/Adventure Family Motion Picture award.[82]
The American Film Institute named Jurassic Park the 35th most thrilling film of all time on June 13, 2001,[84] and Bravo chose the scene in which Lex and Tim are stalked by two Raptors in the kitchen as the 95th scariest of all time in 2005.[85] On Empire magazine's fifteenth anniversary in 2004, it judged Jurassic Park the sixth most influential film of the magazine's lifetime.[86] On Film Review's fifty-fifth anniversary in 2005, it declared the film to be one of the five most important in the magazine's lifetime.[87] In 2006, IGN ranked Jurassic Park as the 19th greatest film franchise of all time.[88]
Most significantly, when many filmmakers saw Jurassic Park's use of computer-generated imagery, they realized that many of their visions, previously thought unfeasible or too expensive, were now possible. Stanley Kubrick, the director of 2001: A Space Odyssey, contacted Spielberg to direct A.I.,[86] George Lucas started to make the Star Wars prequels,[89] and Peter Jackson began to re-explore his childhood love of fantasy films, a path that led him to The Lord of the Rings and King Kong.[90] Jurassic Park has also inspired films and documentaries such as the American adaptation of Godzilla, Carnosaur, and Walking with Dinosaurs,[86] as well as numerous parodies, like the Leslie Nielsen comedy feature Spy Hard. Stan Winston, enthusiastic about the new technology pioneered by the film, joined with IBM and director James Cameron to form a new special effects company, Digital Domain.[91]
The original novel contains many differences from the movie which are both major and minor to the plot.
Awards and achievements | ||
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Preceded by E.T. the Extra Terrestrial |
Highest-grossing film of all time 1993-1997 |
Succeeded by Titanic |
Preceded by Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country |
Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film 1993 |
Succeeded by Stargate |
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Jurassic Park is a 1993 film about an island theme park stocked with genetically-engineered dinosaurs. When the park's creator invites three scientists down to solicit their opinions, a series of mishaps strands them all inside with the security systems out of commission, and the humans find themselves under attack by the resurrected predators.
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