Epic Win: Jurassic Park
Submitted by J Wallace
Jurassic Park is a blockbuster classic, and is an epic win for its quality, influence on pop culture, and the John Williams-composed theme song that middle school bands are still performing today.
I watched Jurassic Park fairly recently and was pleasantly surprised just how well it held up (read: the raptors are still terrifying). The choice of animatronics over CGI as often as possible has kept this Steven Spielberg masterpiece looking sharp, even 16 years after its release.
This scene reenactment is actually pretty good:
Hold onto your butts!
First movie I was allowed to see in the theater without parents. Terrifying. Epic win to the crazy little dinosaur with the collar who sprayed Newman with poison.
Man i saw this when i was younger im only 19 but this trailer looks so old bad CG and just style of a old movie, this is first thing that made me feel old.
When I was like 13 I found JR1 more terrifying than “the Hitcher” (’cause of the raptors in the kitchen).
Hey, I was 13 when this came out too! lol I got to go to this movie with just my girl friends and I remember being the one holding the popcorn. The raptors in the kitchen part scared me the most. I remember when the raptor blew on the window of the door, I accidentally threw the popcorn in the air all over us!
RAPTORS CAN OPEN DOORS!
My son totally loved this movie, and when 3 came out, was in complete denial that there was actually any dinosaur that could beat his beloved T-Rex.
Loved this film. I remember as a kid (at age 6) this was the first film that I recall that had lines down the block to see it.
But simply put, if you where a kid in the 90’s, and you didn’t see this film in the theaters you where either too young, or your parents didn’t love you.
I saw it on a rainy day at a drive-in movie theater, so it was especially terrifying as it seemed 3d with the rain outside the car I was in as well as the movie.
Still can’t believe at 11 years old, I had a cruch on Jeff Goldblum, and still do.
spelling epic fail… crush
♪Jurassic Park is frightening in the dark
All the dinosaurs are running wild!♪
WEIRD AL WIN!!!!!
I loved JP it was awesome!!!! …and the Weird Al parody video!
The first weird al song I heard XD
Ha ha! My middle school band played the Jurrasic Park theme song! (this was like, 14-15 years ago, too!)
Some of my favorite John Williams music! I love the main theme for this movie!
Movie totally missed the boat that Michael Crichton was getting at. We can but we shouldn’t. They shelved the moral for pricey special effects. Reading the first chapter of the book nearly made me throw up. This is an absolute fail!
I don’t think it totally missed the boat. I think the moral was still there but maybe some viewers didn’t notice it because of all the action and scary dinosaurs. Too subtle maybe. At any rate, this was way way better than the sequels or Timeline. I read both Jurassic Park and Timeline before seeing the movies (in the theater) and JP did not disappoint while Timeline…. ugh. The scene with the cars and Tyrannosaurus was still terrifying even when you knew what was coming. Ramming the moral down our throats would have ruined it, I think. Most people probably got the idea that bringing back the dinos did not turn out so well.
I think it made it’s point. The ‘reenactment’ above pretty much spells the moral for you.
win win and more win. I was a big reader as a kid and never wanted to read Jurassic Park for fear of ruining the movie. I STILL cannot pass it up whenever it is on TV.
I remember the tyrannosaurus head shapped cup lids the Cinemark had when we went to go see it. I also remember re-enacting the dino-trying-to-eat-the-kids-through-the-sunroof scene in the forts my sister and I would build. We’d knock over one of the chairs holding up the blanket roof, then hold the chair above us and scream.
i LOVE jurassic park.. the only problem i really had with the second and third ones were that the adorable little kids weren’t in it…. yes i know they were in the second one for about a minute but still.. and doctor grant wasn’t in it! the third one i enjoyed a lot though. overall great series… great music… great. freaking. idea.
LOVE LOVE LOVE this move! And the book, which I read after seeing the movie. I did find the book was better, but the movie stands fine on it’s own. MC’s Lost World book however… I really didn’t care for it, at all. The movie sequels were pretty much awesome, the third I could do without but still not terrible… I’m rambling.
ps- I still play JP and JP Rampage Edition on my Sega Genesis! 15 years later!
~Shudder~
I first saw this movie while I was being babysat at my Aunt’s house. It was from behind the back of the couch. For at least 2 years I had an unnatural fear of raptors hiding in dark places. To this day, I still fear them.
Ditto. So does the xkcd guy!
Hahaha the comic where he stands in as a sub teacher and pop quizzes them on the physics of how best to escape raptors is friggin’ priceless.
Loved the movie, and despite the flack I’ll get for saying it, I even liked the other two as well. (The first was the best, but even so.)
I also must say I quite liked that re-enactment! Especially when he’s doing Goldblum’s part.
I love that movie! The first time I saw it as a kid I was messing with my earring for some reason and then the raptor jumped through the wall I almost ripped the earring out (O_O)
I have to love the movies separately from the book because they’re so different. Basically they took the book and made it into 3 movies. I don’t care much for #2, but I love #1 and #3
And despite it having been about 6 years? They are still trying to make that fourth JP movie!
First movie I ever saw in the theater (I was six when it came out). The most vivid part I can remember wasn’t the T-Rex or anything like that…it was the beginning scene where the guy gets eaten by the raptor.
I love this movie.
Don’t move, they can’t see you. Its because the T-Rex is not a dinosaur, its a spider!
Thats exactly how Oscar Schindler got all those people to safety, right Stevie? The Nazi’s can’t see you if you don’t move!
Actually this movie was a pivotal shift to CGI *from* animatronics. Early test footage was done with “go-motion” puppetry etc. but when the director (and even the puppet animators) were shown test footage done with early CGI modeling, they realized that everything was about to change, and decided to buy into the CGI big time.
True. While there is only something like 13-15 minutes of CG in this film, it basically showed to other directors that CG was the future. Hell this movie apparently got George Lucas off his ass to make the prequel series. But I guess that’s sort of a double edged sword.
Screaming, annoying blonde girl = EPIC FAIL.
Any time I’ve ever watched this movie I pray the raptors will eat her.
They never do.
Other than her, I agree, this one is a win.
I always found it funny that in the book, their roles were switch. The brother was the older one interested in technology and she was the one interested in sports. I completely agree with you on the screaming!
Epic win — proved to the world what computers could do, proved that it did not all need to be computers (something many filmmakers seem to have forgotten), proved that you could give a message that is palatable (we can but maybe we shouldn’t, at least until we’re sure of the consequences) when it’s wrapped up in a butt-kicking story, and we got the most realistic looking dinosaurs EVER for the first time (and maybe even now, haven’t seen much to beat these guys) Still remember bursting into tears at the theatre when that beautiful brachiosaur thundered up, I knew just how Grant felt.
I did the same thing man, it was one of the most fantastic things I’d ever seen, and something that had lived inside my own head for soooo long. To be able to actually see it, oh man, wonderful memory.
I love Jurassic Park. I got the whole trilogy for 19$ at HMV…woo! But I was 14 when that came out…I musta went and saw that 3 times…loved it.
biggest WIN of all time! hands down.
I still like it, even though many of the dinosaurs are depicted incorrectly. At least they were realistic dinosaurs.
and it completely shaped randal munroe to who he is.
Jurassic Park was the first “grown up” movie I went to, and it still is my favourite. The CG dinosaurs in JP are still the best (Later dinosaurs were just plain monsters.)
This was the first film screened in DTS surround…i still have the little pink flyer you got with your ticket explaining the new digital system.. awesome sound mix, they held off on the surrounds and super-punch bass until the “cups of water” scene.. talk about knocking you out of your seat!
Thanks to this, the Transformers films were awesome. They won’t exist without this.
I remember almost going deaf when the T rex first roared. So awesome.
The effects are the only good things about Transformers. Long live Jurassic Park.
This movie STUNK. The best thing about it is changing the channel to something ENTERTAINING.
Stop wasting your by changing channels life and watch Jurassic Park. How old are you, 12?
*Stop wasting your life by changing channels.
Meh, I think I was drunk.
i think the absolute best part is the ending, when everyone is being chased by raptors and they’re sliding down the skeleton. it looks like doom and WHAM! in comes the t-rex to save the day, kill the raptors, and claim jurassic park for her own.
I have to say…I was immensely entertained by the reenactment video. Loved it, and the movie too!