Jurassic Park (film)

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This article is about the 1993 film. For other uses, see Jurassic Park (disambiguation).

Jurassic Park
Image:Jurassic Park poster.jpg
Directed by	Steven Spielberg
Produced by	Kathleen Kennedy Gerald R. Molen
Written by	Screenplay David Koepp Michael Crichton Novel: Michael Crichton
Starring	Sam Neill Laura Dern Jeff Goldblum Richard Attenborough Joseph Mazzello Ariana Richards Bob Peck Martin Ferrero B.D. Wong Samuel L. Jackson Wayne Knight
Music by	John Williams
Cinematography	Dean Cundey
Editing by	Michael Kahn
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	11 June 1993
Running time	127 min
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$63,000,000
Followed by	The Lost World: Jurassic Park
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Jurassic Park is a 1993 science-fiction film directed by Steven Spielberg, based upon the novel written by Michael Crichton. The story tells scientists visiting an amusement park of genetically engineered dinosaurs on an island over one weekend. Sabotage sets the carnivorous dinosaurs on the loose, and technicians and visitors attempt to escape the island. The film stars Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern and Richard Attenborough, as well as Stan Winston Studios' puppets and cutting edge CGI by Industrial Light and Magic.

At time of release it grossed $919,700,000 worldwide, the highest ever at the time, and the eighth-highest worldwide box office take for a feature film as of 2006. It also helped introduce CGI to the public. The film is followed by The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), Jurassic Park III (2001), and a possible Jurassic Park IV in 2008.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Changes from the novel 4 Production 5 Dinosaurs featured 6 Reaction 7 Trivia 8 Tie-ins 8.1 Rides 8.2 Video games 8.3 Toys and Merchandise 9 Parodies 10 Sequels 11 See also 12 References 13 External links

[edit] Plot

An InGen employee is killed whilst releasing a Velociraptor into a penhold, prompting a $20 million lawsuit from his family. Thus, Dr. Alan Grant and Dr. Ellie Sattler, as well as chaos theorist Dr. Ian Malcolm and InGen's investor's attorney Donald Gennaro are invited by John Hammond, CEO of InGen to visit Isla Nublar. He must do this to make sure the park is considered safe by experts before being opened to the public. There they witness living dinosaurs, and learn in a film and tour of InGen labs that they recreated the dinosaurs by finding mosquitoes in Dominican amber that fed on their blood. The remaining DNA is spliced from frogs, and to keep control, all of the dinosaurs are female. The team also witness the birth of a Velociraptor, and learn of the intelligent adults in the pen during their feeding time.

The scientists are concerned, with Malcolm citing chaos theory. They meet Hammond's grandchildren, Alexis (Lex) and Tim Murphy, and go on a car tour of the park. Ellie leaves to take care of a sick Triceratops, whilst the rest continue the tour. However, a storm soon hits the island and most InGen employees leave, bar Hammond, warden Robert Muldoon, chief engineer Ray Arnold, and lead computer programmer Dennis Nedry, who—commissioned by rival company Biosyn—takes the opportunity to steal dinosaur embryos and shuts down the electricity to deliver them to a dock. Thus, a Tyrannosaurus rex gets past the electric fence, and attacks the cars. Gennaro tries to hide in an unfinished restroom but is eaten, and it also wounds Malcolm. Grant and Lex escape by climbing down the side of the runway, though Tim is trapped within a car high up within a tree. Ellie and Muldoon rescue Malcolm and are nearly eaten by the T-Rex during an intense chase whilst a Dilophosaurus kills Nedry as he gets lost on the way to the auxiliary dock to deliver the embryos.

Grant rescues Tim from the car in the tree, and narrowly escape its fall. They sleep in another tree and also play with a Brachiosaurus. They also discover some of the dinosaurs are breeding, a result of the frog DNA which enables them to change sex. They also witness the T. rex attacking a flock of Gallimimus. Arnold tries to turn the power back on and fails and goes to turn it back on manually. After about 15 minutes Ellie and Muldoon go to turn the power back on after Arnold never returns from doing so, and also discover the Raptors have escaped. Ellie manages to turn the power back on at the same time Tim climbs an electric fence, but luckily he survives. Muldoon is killed by a Raptor however, and Ellie escapes from one after discovering Arnold's remains to meet up with Grant. He learns that the Raptors are in the visitor's center where he has left the children. Lex and Timmy narrowly escape the Raptors in the kitchen and, using her computer skills, Lex reboots the mainframe in order to call Hammond to get a helicopter. A tyrannosaur kills the raptors, after a battle with the humans on fossil exhibits. Grant, Ellie, Tim, and Lex escape in Hammond and Malcolm's jeep to fly away on a helicopter. Grant decides not to endorse Hammond's park, and they simply watch the birds, the simpler relatives of the creatures they escaped.

[edit] Cast

Main article: List of characters in Jurassic Park

• Sam Neill as Dr. Alan Grant: A paleontologist studying Velociraptors in Montana. He dislikes children, frightening one with a tale of a Raptor but soon has to protect Hammond's grandchildren.
• Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm: A mathematician and chaos theorist. He forewarns the danger of resurrecting Dinosaurs due to having "had their shot" and becomes Hammond's opposition. He also falls for Sattler, another in a longline of romantic interests.
• Laura Dern as Dr. Ellie Sattler: A paleobotanist and girlfriend of Grant.
• Richard Attenborough as John Hammond: CEO of InGen and architect of Jurassic Park. Having created a flea circus as a child, Hammond comes from Scotland and also funded Grant's dig in Montana.
• Ariana Richards as 'Alexis "Lex" Murphy: Hammond's granddaughter and a vegetarian. Her parents are getting a divorce and is also a computer hacker.
• Joseph Mazzello as Tim Murphy: Lex's younger brother, into dinosaurs. He has read Grant's numerous books.
• Wayne Knight as Dennis Nedry: The corrupt architect of Jurassic Park's computer systems. He is bribed by Dodgsen for over a $1 million to deliver the frozen embryos.
• Samuel L. Jackson as Ray Arnold: A computer technician trying to get the Park back online. He switches off the main power to reboot the systems and attempts to switch on the mainframe - but unwittingly unleashes the Raptors in doing so.
• Bob Peck as Robert Muldoon: Game warden at the Park. He is fascinated by the intelligence of the Raptors.
• Martin Ferrero as Donald Gennaro: A lawyer who represents Hammond's concerned investors, though he himself gets bowled over by the Dinosaurs.

[edit] Changes from the novel

Many plot points from the novel were changed or dropped, and the cautionary aspect of the novel was reduced. A subplot involving animals escaping to the mainland was dropped, and the cast of dinosaurs was made smaller and more manageable. Many secondary characters were also dropped. Many scenes are left intact from the novel, but have the species of the relevant dinosaurs changed.

Name	Status at the end of the book	Status at the end of the movie
Ian Malcolm	Wounded by tyrannosaurus, taken back to the lodge where he is declared dead despite medical attention given by Harding and Sattler; returns in The Lost World revealing he had simply come near death	Escaped with a broken leg; returns perfectly healthy in The Lost World.
Donald Gennaro	Survives raptor attack, rescued after radioing to stop raptors from reaching the mainland. Is actually an investment banker working at a law firm rather than a lawyer. Learns of the dinosaurs existance before he visits the island.	Eaten by Tyrannosaurus Rex while hiding in a bathroom.
John Hammond	Wounded and is eaten by "compys" while planning in his head to build a new park	Left on a helicopter, repenting for his creation
Robert Muldoon	Wounded chasing velociraptors with Gennaro; still kills several and is later rescued by Costa Rican forces	Killed by velociraptor
Dr. Henry Wu	Killed by velociraptors in Hammond's quarters	Leaves for mainland by boat prior to the disaster
John Arnold	Killed by a velociraptor while attempting to restore power to the park	Killed attempting to restore power to the park. Death not seen in movie, but his severed arm is seen (Named Ray Arnold)
Tim Murphy	Escapes the island with a broken nose and bruised shoulders from the rex attack.	Injured to a somewhat severe extent by an electrocution, and a sprained ankle, escapes at the end of the movie.
Dennis Nedry	Became lost trying to find the east dock; eaten by a dilophosaurus; found mutilated later by Muldoon and Gennaro.	Became lost; lodges Jeep in a ditch; eaten by a dilophosaurus.
Ed Regis	Eaten by an adolescent tyrannosaurus	Does not appear in film
Alan Grant	Escapes with T-rex and raptor-inflicted wounds	Escapes barely wounded
Dr. Gerry Harding	Survives a Raptor attack and is rescued by the Costa Ricans.	Leaves for mainland by boat prior to the disaster.
The Tyrannosaurus Rex	Whilst trying to eat Timmy, was shot in the head by Muldoon with a large tranquilizer dart. Drowns a little later as a result of falling unconscious in water.	Lives on to kill the raptors.

• In the novel, the tour vehicles are Toyota Land Cruisers, but in the movie because of product placement by Ford Motor Company they were modified "First Generation" Ford Explorers.
• In the film, the dinosaurs escape only because Nedry shuts down the power, whereas in the novel some dinosaurs have escaped both their pens and the island from the beginning; Nedry's sabotage is only one in a series of oversights and failures.
• The ability for the animals to breed was only mentioned one time in the movie, whereas in the book it was a frequent problem.
• Malcolm's vitriolic monologues are toned down for the film.
• In the book, the car chase scene with the Tyrannosaurus was with Muldoon and Gennaro. In the movie, the car chase scene was with Sattler, Muldoon, and Malcolm.
• Many people killed in the book escape in the movie, and vice versa. For example, Gennaro escaped in the book, but was killed in the film, and Hammond dies at the hands of procompsognathids after breaking his ankle in the novel but escapes without a scratch in the film.
• Dr. Grant dislikes children in the film, but in the novel Grant likes them from the very beginning of the book.
• In the film, Gennaro is portrayed as a selfish coward, abandoning the children during the Tyrannosaurus attack. In the book, Gennaro is more brave; he goes to turn the power on, hunts the Tyrannosaurus with Muldoon, enters the raptor nest, and battles an injured raptor.
• The character of John Hammond is also distinctly different in the film, having a semi-benevolent, grandfatherly manner towards all and portrayed as perhaps too naїve to understand the difficulties involved in the park's creation and maintenance. In the book Hammond is much more callous, seeming to have knowingly glossed over difficulties with the park in order to save money and prevent delays in the park's opening schedule, ultimately concerned only with how much money he will make from Jurassic Park. The literary Hammond ultimately dies at the jaws of Procompsognathus while trying to climb a hill to his bungalow despite a broken ankle. During this climb, his head is filled with plans to rebuild somewhere else and irritation at his guests and his grandchildren.
• In the novel, Lex Murphy is younger than Tim and portrayed as a tomboy, while Tim is the one familiar with computers, and carries a dinosaur obsession. In the film, Tim is the younger of the two and his computer skills are expanded and given to Lex.
• In the book, Muldoon is a large, savvy, and boisterous man of South African descent with an alcohol problem, who nonetheless dispatches several dinosaurs with a decent amount of weaponry (rockets, guns, and lethal poisons), and survives. In the movie, he is very quiet, British, and only has one weapon at his disposal, which proves to be of little use when he is ambushed by a raptor.
• One of the more noticeable differences between the book and the movie is the showdown between Grant and the Velociraptors. In the book, he lures and kills three of them via poisoned eggs and syringes, whilst in the film a Tyrannosaurus storms into the museum and eats the raptors, preventing Grant and crew from being devoured themselves.
• In the novel, the Jurassic Park staff and employees do not leave on a boat for the mainland, whereas in the film version they do, resulting in fewer deaths.
• In the book, the T. rex has a prehensile tongue and uses it to nearly devour Tim.
• During the tour, the characters exit the Land Cruisers to observe a sick Stegosaurus in the novel. In the movie, it is a sick Triceratops. Furthermore, there is no explanation in the film for the dinosaur's illness. In the book, the dinosaurs become sick when they periodically eat stones for their gizzards and inadvertently consume the toxic berries at the same time. The explanation appears in at least one version of the script but it was either cut or not filmed.
• There are no stegosaurs in the movies until The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
• The novel has many scenes which become part of The Lost World: Jurassic Park, for example the beginning incident with the girl and the compys.
• In the novel Muldoon and Gennaro find Nedry's mangled corpse. In the film, he is forgotten after the Dilophosaurus kills him. Also in the movie the Dilophosaurus was small and only a few feet tall, but in the book the Dilophosaurus was said to be ten feet tall and the ground shook when it walked. In the film, this ground-shaking effect, accompanied by a distinct rumble, is given to the T-Rex.
• At the end of the movie, the survivors merely flee the island, and the audience has no idea what happened to the remaining dinosaurs; in the book, the island is devastated by explosive missiles and other conventional weaponry by the Costa Rican government, but it is almost certain that certain specimens, likely Velociraptors and compys, have escaped to the mainland.
• In the film, Grant and Sattler are portrayed as having a romantic relationship, while in the book Sattler is mentioned as being engaged to another man, and Grant as a widower.
• A substantial portion of the book involved Grant and kids traveling down the river, and coming across an unfinished aviary where the pterodactyls were housed. This idea was ultimately used in the film Jurassic Park III.

[edit] Production

Michael Crichton concieved a screenplay about a boy who recreates a dinosaur: following this, he wrestled with his fascination with dinosaurs and cloning until he was writing the novel Jurassic Park.<ref>Michael Crichton. (2001). Michael Crichton on the Jurassic Park Phenonemon [DVD]. Universal. </ref> Spielberg learnt of it,<ref name="Earl doc">. (1995). The Making of Jurassic Park - Hosted by James Earl Jones [DVD]. Universal. </ref> and soon the rights were aquired by Universal in May 1990.<ref name="Production notes">DVD Production Notes</ref> Spielberg went on to hire Stan Winston to create the animatronic dinosaurs, Phil Tippett would create go motion dinosaurs for longshots, and Michael Lantieri and Dennis Muren would supervise the on set and digital supervising of the effects respectively. Paleontologist Jack Horner also would supervise the designs, to help commit to Spielberg's desire of realism, and to portray the dinosaurs as animals rather than monsters.<ref name="Earl doc" />

Winston's department created full detailed models, before molding latex skins which were folded over onto complex robotics.<ref name="Earl doc" /> 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.<ref name="Earl doc" /> Animators Mark Dippe and Steve Williams went ahead in creating a computer generated walk cycle for the T-Rex's skeleton and were approved to do more.<ref>Don Shay, Jody Duncan (1993). The Making of Jurassic Park: An Adventure 65 million Years in the Making. Boxtree Limited, p.148. ISBN 1-85283-774-8.</ref> When Spielberg and Tippett saw an animatic of the T-Rex chasing a herd of Gallimimus, Tippett said "We're out of a job", to which Spielberg replied "Don't you mean extinct?", lines repeated in the film by Grant and Malcolm.<ref name="Earl doc" />

Jurassic Park began filming on August 24 1992 on the Hawaiian island of Kauaʻi,<ref>Shay, Duncan, p.67</ref> shooting scenes involving the visitors' arrival to the Park, Grant and the children climbing the electric fence<ref>Shay, Duncan, p.78-9</ref> and various other daytime exteriors. One particular logistical nightmare came when Spielberg requested the sick animatronic Triceratops earlier than expected.<ref>Shay, Duncan, p.83</ref> On September 11, while filming, the eye of Hurricane Iniki passed directly over Kauaʻi, but fortunately for the crew they only lost one day of shooting.<ref>Shay, Duncan, p.86</ref>

Following this, the crew moved back to the mainland U.S.A. to shoot at Universal Studios, to shoot scenes involving the Raptors in the Kitchen and power supply before going on location in the Red Rock Canyon for the Montana dig.<ref>Shay, Duncan, p.87-93</ref> The crew returned to Universal to shoot Grant's retrieval of Tim, using a fifty-foot prop with hydraulic wheels for the car fall, and the Brachiosaurus encounter. The crew proceeded to film scenes in the Park's labs and control room, which used animations for the computers loaned from Silicon Graphics and Apple Computers. This time, Spielberg requested a fully moving newborn Velociraptor puppet.<ref>Shay, Duncan, p.96-103</ref>

The crew moved to Warner Bros. Studios to shoot the T-Rex's attack on the tour cars.<ref>Shay, Duncan, p.103-4</ref> Back at Universal, the crew filmed scenes with the Dilophosaur<ref>Shay, Duncan, p.113</ref> Finally, the shoot finished with the climactic chases with the Raptors in the Park's computer rooms and Visitor's Centre. Spielberg bought back the T-Rex for the climax, nixing his original ending of Grant using a platform machine to manevoure a Raptor in a fossil T-Rex's jaws.<ref>Shay, Duncan, p.118</ref> The film wrapped on November 30, twelve days ahead of schedule.<ref>Shay, Duncan, p.120</ref>

Largely credited for the movie's success were its special effects. Through the use of CGI and conventional mechanical effects, the dinosaurs in the film appeared incredibly lifelike, due to the experience ILM had on previous effects films such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day. See Timeline of CGI in film and television.

The Jurassic Park Score was composed by John Williams and orchestrated by John Neufeld and Alexander Courage. Like many of Williams' scores, there is substantial use of leitmotif.

[edit] Dinosaurs featured

See also: Biological Issues in Jurassic Park

Amusingly, despite the title most of the dinosaurs featured did not exist until the Cretaceous:

• Brachiosaurus - This creature is inaccurately depicted as chewing its food.
• Dilophosaurus - This incarnation is smaller than its real-life counterpart. It has a frill and spits venom, aspects of which are fictional.
• Gallimimus - Completely computer-generated.
• Parasaurolophus - Cameos in the first encounter with the Brachiosaurus.
• Triceratops - An extended cameo.
• Tyrannosaurus - The main star of the film. Its head is more box-like and has vision based on movement.
• Velociraptor - Those depicted in the movie are not based on the actual species in question, which is significantly smaller. It was instead based on its larger relative, Deinonychus. See the Velociraptor article for a complete list of inaccuracies in the movie's portrayal.

Scientists and fans of the movie have pointed out that much of what happens in the film is impossible for various reasons. However, the novel, and to a greater extent, the movie, sparked years of serious debate on the plausibility of cloning dinosaurs.

[edit] Reaction

The movie won Academy Awards for Visual Effects, Sound Effects Editing, and Sound, and spawned two sequels, The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) and Jurassic Park III (2001). The third sequel, Jurassic Park IV (IMDb) is currently in pre-production and is rumored for release sometime in 2008.

The film won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1994.

Jurassic Park remains one of the most well-known films of all time. It was the first notable film to animate living creatures using CGI, and many consider it to be a milestone in special effects history. The film's influence on dinosaurs in popular culture was also significant. Public interest in dinosaurs skyrocketed after the release. The film also raised public scientific understanding about dinosaurs, and helped introduce the dinosaur-bird evolutionary relationship theory into public knowledge. It was the first popular movie to portray dinosaurs relatively accurately (compared to previous films), due to paleontologist Jack Horner's guidance during filming.

[edit] Trivia

• It is reported that, following the film's release, the worldwide price of amber increased by a factor of ten. ^{[citation needed]}
• For the film version, Steven Spielberg had a multitude of casting options for the key roles. He considered Richard Dreyfuss and William Hurt for the role of Alan Grant before choosing Sam Neill.
• Spielberg originally wanted Sigourney Weaver to play Ellie Sattler.
• Wayne Knight, Jeff Goldblum and Sir Richard Attenborough were first choices in casting.
• The UNIX interface that appears in the film is called fsn.
• The language that Dennis Nedry is programming in is PASCAL.
• The dockworker Dennis Nedry is talking to on the computer is the film's cinematographer, Dean Cundey.
• The character of Alan Grant is based on real-life paleontologist Jack Horner.
• During production, the Utahraptor was discovered by James Kirkland, Rob Gaston, and Don Burge.
• The huge double gates shown in the movie are based on the gates used in the 1933 film King Kong, which is why Malcolm references the film and also why John Williams mimics the drum beats of King Kong in that part of his score.
• Romantic tension, more present in the book than represented in the film, spilled into real life on set, as leads Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern began a relationship while filming.
• Jurassic Park was deemed too violent for children in the UK, but due to arguments over its educational content and merchandising, which included various toys, it was given a PG (parental guidance) rating, with an additional label attached warning of the violence. This was the first film to have this happen in the UK. Spielberg's next film, Schindler's List, received similar special dispensation for its educational value. Both films had school screenings arranged in the UK, with the former including visits to the Natural History Museum.

[edit] Tie-ins

[edit] Rides

There are rides based on Jurassic Park in the Universal Studios theme parks in Universal City, California, Orlando, Florida and Osaka. Jurassic Park: The Ride premiered at Universal Studios Hollywood and was designed by Steven Spielberg while he was also working on the movie. The ride cost over $85 million to design and build when it premiered. Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida has an entire section of the park dedicated to Jurassic Park which includes the main ride, here christened Jurassic Park River Adventure, and many smaller rides and attractions based on the Jurassic Park series. The Universal Studios theme park rides themselves act as a kind of sequel to the films. The rides' premise is that Universal Studios ignores the cautionary tales (featured in the films) in an effort to reconstruct John Hammond's park and send visitors on a thrilling journey that includes dangerously escaping menacing raptors and the T. rex itsself. They supposedly contact Hammond to rebuild his park in their Orlando or Hollywood locations (depending on the ride location).

[edit] Video games

Main article: Jurassic Park (video game)

There have been a number of Jurassic Park video games released to act as merchandise for the release of each film. The titles have appeared on a range of platforms including NES, Game Boy, Game Gear, PC:DOS/Windows, SNES, Sega Mega-CD, Sega Genesis/Sega Mega Drive, 3DO, arcade, PlayStation 2 and Xbox.

[edit] Toys and Merchandise

Jurassic Park's merchandise is notable for being both heavily featured in the movie itself (scenes taking place in the park's gift shop featured much of the movie's actual merchandise) and a scene decrying the use of merchandising (Ian Malcolm's "lunch box" speech). As was common for such large releases, particularly of "family" movies, at the time, Jurassic Park had a large merchandising campaign. In many ways, Jurassic Park was one of the last big film releases to have such a campaign, though the practice was common at the time.

The film spawned a series of action figures marketed by Kenner, with most of the film's main protagonists, human and dinosaur, represented. This included dinosaurs not seen in the movie (such as the Pterodactyl) and a very confusing action figure that is named for "villain" Dennis Nedry, but seems to bear closer resemblance in design and on package character notes to "hero" Ian Malcolm. The dinosaurs all featured a JP logo tattoo and I.D. number on their skins, both as an addition or an elaboration on the film's story, as well as to serve the important point of helping differentiate offical movie dinosaur toys from other similar dinosaur products that existed for years before and after. The Jurassic Park figures were one of the last movie tie-in ranges that were designed with children, rather than collectors, in mind, and consequently feature less articulation and accuracy than those of modern movie action figures, owing more to the first film action figures from Star Wars (also Kenner) than to modern, post-McFarlane and laser imaging toys.

Of higher mold quality were the various model kits released to tie in with the movie, the launch range consisting of T-Rex, Raptor, and Unwell Triceratops. There was also a model of the film's Ford Explorer props, which perversely were possibly the most popular of the kits in the scale modelmaking community.

There was also a set of candy-filled Dinosaur Eggs that contained small, though quite detailed for the time, replicas of various dino species. The initial run of these eggs were colored tan, to match quite closely the raptor egg seen in the film. The later eggs contained slightly larger dinosaur models, made of a harder plastic, the egg shells now a uniform bright artificial white. Both sets of eggs were embossed with the T-Rex silhouette logo. Production an sale of these eggs, at least in the UK, continued for many years after the film's initial release, only ceasing their irregular appearance when the movie's sequel was announced. This was also true of the Jurassic Park Candy Sticks, which were notable for possibly being the first of the regularly film-branded sweets to use this name instead of the more common Sweet Cigarettes and dropping the food-dyed red tips (ironic considering the park's IT departments' dependency on them). It was also likely the last major film release in the UK that branded these sweets, including cigarette-card style cards inside each packet, an association that goes back to at least Spielberg's earlier family blockbuster, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

These cards were separate to the main series of trading cards, which were released by Topps worldwide using the company's style for movie trading cards and packaging which was set four years earlier for Tim Burton's Batman. In addition to telling the story of the film, these cards included subsections on both "Behind the Scenes" information on the making of the movie as well as the pencil sketch designs of Mark "Crash" McCreery and Stan Winston of the film's non-human stars. Again this is something rarely seen in the modern era of film, being no doubt in part replaced by DVD commentaries and web presence.

This information could also be found in the obligatory Magazine of the Movie/Official Movie Magazine distributed worlwide, with some aesthetic changes, depending on region. There was also a Starlog Dinosaur Special released to coincide with the movie, which featured a JP-influenced lenticular cover, although it featured other dino-films as well.

More directly related to the film, and of a very high standard for the time, was the Jurassic Park comic book published by Dark Horse Comics. In the US, these comic books continued long after the film's release, branching into its own new storylines (not considered canon) which were told in several subsequent limited series, much in the vein of Dark Horse's Aliens and Predator licensed titles. In the UK, Dark Horse UK published these stories as part of an ongoing anthology that also reprinted other independent and international dinsosaur-related comic strips, including the first UK appearances of Gon, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs, and some completely "silent," beautifully rendered natural history stories showing Jurassic Park-familar dinos in their natural habitats.

These pieces are naturally the standouts in addition to the lunch boxes, pencil tins, stationery sets, etc., that accompanied the film's release, including, for example, free baseball caps with the film's logo atop in felt which were given away with the purchase of JP-branded super-sized popcorn and Coca-Cola deals in United Cinemas International venues such as the Empire at Leicester Square (where the film's UK premiere was also staged).

Later merchandising (early 21st century) would focus on limited collectibles and movie prop replicas, including raptor eggs and claws, as well as items from the park's technical side.

[edit] Parodies

• "Weird Al" Yankovic released a single, Jurassic Park, parodying MacArthur Park.

• In Wayne's World 2, the tyrannosaur scene is parodied when the Wayne and Garth are reading a map in the night in their car. Ripples form in the cup of soda, just like in Jurassic Park, and they put the map down and see the T. rex's eye in the window.

• The Naked Gun 33⅓ features 2 parodies: in the opening, the police car stops after being eaten by a T. rex, and Spielberg is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director with the film "Geriatric Park".

• In the video game Beetle Adventure Racing for Nintendo 64, one of the racing courses includes a recurring T. rex breaking through an electric fence, similar to the T. rex scene in Jurassic Park.

• Toy Story 2 features a scene where Rex, the toy dinosaur, is seen through the rearview mirror of the toy car he is chasing. The sentence made famous by the Jurassic Park movie, "Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear," is also visible on the rear-view mirror of the toy car.

• In The Simpsons episode Bart Gets an Elephant the titular elephant ('Stampy') peers into the Simpsons' living-room window upon arrival at their home. His pupil contracts, similar to when the T. rex looks inside the tour car in Jurassic Park.

• In The Simpsons episode Itchy & Scratchy Land, both the design of and emblem on the helicopter that takes the Simpsons to the titular theme park resemble the helicopter which brings visitors to Isla Nublar in the movie. Later in the episode, Professor Frink warns of impending disaster at the park, basing his ascertations on chaos theory, a la Malcolm in the movie. During the disaster, the park's power goes out, as in Jurassic Park.

• In the second story of The Simpsons episode Treehouse of Horror V when Homer travels back in time he arrives in the dinosaur age. Upon his arrival, Homer views a panorama highly reminiscent of the movie's 'lake scene', and remarks that he has gone back to a time when "dinosaurs weren't just confined to zoos" (a clear reference to Jurassic Park). The music in the background resembles John Williams' score for Jurassic Park. Homer is prompty attacked by a T. rex, which both sounds like and resembles the movie's creature, only with an added Simpsons-esque overbite. This can also be seen as a reference to A Sound of Thunder, when Homer remembers what his father said about not stepping on anything.

• In The Simpsons epsiode The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson, Barney notices a bowl of peanuts vibrating when the Duffmobile approaches, spoofing the scene with the cups of water when the dinosaurs approach.

• In The Flintstones motion picture, there is a scene that features a children's playground called, appropriately enough, Jurassic Park.

• In The Fairly OddParents: Abra-Catastrophe!, Timmy goes through the T. rex looking into the car scene but the T. rex is actually Wanda in disguise.

• On an episode of The Showbiz Show with David Spade, a small crew was given the task of recreating the Jurassic Park theatrical trailer using strictly limited resources such as yellow clay and toy army men. The two versions of the trailer were then played side-by-side.

• The television series Family Guy parodied the scene involving the T-Rex eating Donald Gennaro on the toilet in a 2006 episode.

• During the episode I Take Thee Quagmire on the television series Family Guy, Peter is shown humming the Journey to the Island theme as he pretends the toy dinosaur in his hand is eating his friend Quagmire.

• In an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy Mandy and Grim finds a big hole on the ground after a giant foot (very similar to a T-Rex). Later in the episode Mandy and Grim find a chicken labratory (similar to the laboratory in Jurassic Park III).

[edit] Sequels

• The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
• Jurassic Park III (2001)
• Jurassic Park IV (2008)

[edit] See also

• Jurassic Park Visitors Center
• Kualoa Ranch outdoor set location for the Tyrannosaurus's attack on the Gallimimus—the only outdoor scene shot on Oahu, due to Hurricane Iniki on Kauai

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official site
• Jurassic Park at the Internet Movie Database
• Jurassic Park at Rotten Tomatoes
• Jurassic Park at Metacritic
• Roger Ebert's review of Jurassic Park
• James Berardinelli's review of Jurassic Park
• Jurassic Park at the Official Michael Crichton Website
• A list of major and minor gaffes, goofs, and bloopers
• Stills from Jurassic Park
• Jurassic Park Legacy - Jurassic Park Encyclopedia
• Stills at Gavin Rymill

Films directed by Steven Spielberg

Duel • The Sugarland Express • Jaws • Close Encounters of the Third Kind • 1941 • Raiders of the Lost Ark • E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial • Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom • The Color Purple • Empire of the Sun • Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade • Always • Hook • Jurassic Park • Schindler's List • The Lost World: Jurassic Park • Amistad • Saving Private Ryan • Artificial Intelligence: AI • Minority Report • Catch Me If You Can • The Terminal • War of the Worlds • Munich • Indiana Jones 4 • Lincoln • Interstellar

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