Jurassic Park (1993)

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Plot Synopsis

An eccentric billionaire (John Hammond) creates the ultimate theme park where the main attraction is living, breathing dinosaurs born through genetic cloning. During the park's first dry run using a small group of adults and children, things go horribly wrong. The security system used to contain the dinosaurs ultimately fails, due to sabotage from an employee who wishes to steal DNA samples and sell them to a rival genetics company. With the animals given free access to the entire park, the survivors only hope is to call the mainland and escape the island before they end up the dinosaur's next meal.

Plot Summary

Grant and Sattler in awe by the Brachiosaurus

Paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant and paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler have recently dug up a new skeleton of what seems to be a Velociraptor when suddenly a helicopter lands in their research area. They find out that the person that just landed is the eccentric dinosaur enthusiast and CEO of InGen, John Hammond. Hammond tells them that he owns an island off the coast of Costa Rica and has spent the last five years building a theme park there. Hammond had been advised by his lawyer, Donald Gennaro, to invite experts for their opinion on the security of the park. He invites Grant, Sattler as well as Dr. Ian Malcolm, a mathematician, Hammonds grandchildren Tim and Lex Murphy to Jurassic Park to convince Gennaro and his investors that the park is indeed safe. When they arrive the guests are sent to the research facility where they learn that the dinosaurs have had their chromosomes genetically altered to make them all females so that they cannot breed. After they witness the birth of a Velociraptor they are sent on a safari ride through Jurassic Park. Meanwhile, Hammond, Head Technician Ray Arnold and his game warden, Robert Muldoon, observe the guests' safari ride through cameras.

Grant attempts to distract the T-Rex

Dennis Nedry, the head computer programmer of Jurassic Park is in the employ of the corporate rivals of InGen, BioSyn. Nedry has been paid a considerable amount of money to steal fertilized dinosaur embryos. During his theft, Nedry deactivates the park's security system so that he can easily access the embryo storage. He also deactivates the security fences so that he can escape the compound. Because of this Grant, Malcolm, Gennaro and the kids safari cars get stranded right infront of the Tyrannosaurus Rex exhibit. Because the security fences are shut down, the T-Rex manages to escape from it's paddock and devours Gennaro and injures Malcolm. Grant manages to escape with Tim and Lex. Meanwhile, Nedry has gotten hold of the embryos but doesn't manage to escape with them due to his jeep getting stuck. As he tries to winch it out, he encounters a Dilophosaurus which kills him. The stolen embryos fall from Nedry hands and get washed away because of the rain and mud.

Must go faster

Sattler and Muldoon drive to the T-Rex exhibit to see what happend to Grant and the others, however they only find a wounded Malcolm. Suddenly the T-Rex appears, they help Malcolm onto their jeep and barely manage to escape. Later, Grant and the kids discover a nest full of hatched eggs. Tim asks Grant how the dinosaurs are able to breed if they're all female. Grant explains that this is due to frog DNA that was used to fill in gaps in the dinosaur DNA, as some african frogs are able to change their gender in a single-sex environment. Elsewhere, Arnold is unable to reactive the security fences because of a code that Nedry has on his computer. Hammond recommends a total reboot of the park's systems. Hammond, Sattler, Arnold and Muldoon shut down the park's system and head to the emergency bunker. Arnold heads to the maintenance compound to reboot the system but he fails to do so and doesn't return to the bunker. Therefore, Sattler and Muldoon must go to the compound to reboot the system themselves.

The final shot of T-Rex

On the way to compound, Muldoon realizes that they're being hunted by the raptors. So they split up, Sattler heads for the compound while Muldoon goes after the raptors. Muldoon fails to kill the raptors and is instead eaten alive by them. Sattler manages to to reactivate the park's system. Meanwhile, Grant, Tim and Lex climb over the electrified fence out of the park's animal zone and Tim is nearly killed due to the reactivation of the electricity in the fence. Grant leaves Tim and Lex at the visitors center's kitchen and meets up with Sattler, Hammond and Malcolm. The kids then realize that the raptors have entered the kitchen, but they manage to evade them and reunites with Grant and Sattler. Lex is familiar with the Unix system used in the park's computer and is therefor able to get the security systems back up and running. Grant phones Hammond and tells him to call the mainland to send helicopters. Grant, Sattler and the kids leave the compound but are yet again met by the two raptors. Suddenly, the T-Rex appears and attacks and kills one of the raptors. While the other raptor attacks the T-Rex, the group flees from the building and hop in the Jeeps with Hammond and Malcolm. Meanwhile, the T-Rex grabs the other raptor in its jaws and kills it. The group reaches the helicopter and are finally evacuated from the island.

Production

Pre-Production

Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg were working on a screenplay together in 1989 which would eventually turn out to be the television series, ER. While they were working on it, Spielberg asked Crichton, what he was doing in the world of books. Crichton replied that he was working on this thing with dinosaurs and DNA. Spielberg got very interested in this idea and asked Crichton what the story is like. Crichton told basically the whole story to Spielberg, and Spielberg was ready to make a movie out of this novel.

Early storyboard shot

Even before Spielberg started his work on the screenplay, he started story-boarding, which he had never done before. He broke the novel down to scenes that he thought he might want to carry over into the motion picture version. As Spielberg conceived his ambitious plans for the movie and its dinosaurs, it became clear that bringing his vision to life would require an unparalleled level of special effects. Spielberg was very impressed with Bob Gehr's work on the King Kong attraction in Universal Studios. And so, Bob Gehr and Spielberg had some conversations on making some of the dinosaurs full-size. However, this didn't work out, as the costs for this were too much. And so, Spielberg assembled Hollywood's top special effects talent, for a unique collaboration. Stan Winston, Phil Tippett, Dennis Muren and Michael Lantieri would go on to compose the Jurassic's design team. Initially, Jurassic Park was going to use traditional technology to create the dinosaurs. Combining movable miniatures, created by Phil Tippett, with a few full-size robotic creatures, designed by Stan Winston.

By 1991, work was under way at Stan Winston's studio. The first step, was to determine how the dinosaurs would look. Winston believed that making these character to look real is the most important first step, otherwise the audience wouldn't believe it was real. As the sculptures of the dinosaurs were finished, the moulds were taken from that, and from those moulds the skins were made. Those then went onto the robotics and animatronics that had been built in a parallel process. Tippett created stop-motion animatics of major scenes that would appear in the film, but Spielberg still found this to be unsatisfactory in terms of what should be featured in a motion picture at that time.

Early CGI test of T-Rex

Dennis Muren then made the suggestion of creating most of the full-size dinosaurs with CGI. Initially, everything was built of bones to give an example of how it could move. The first test was to create a herd of Gallimimus running through a field. When Spielberg saw the test, he was incredibly impressed by the smoothness and the realism of the motions. But Spielberg still wasn't convinced that this was the way to go. Muren and his team then went onto making a walk-cycle of a T-Rex. Then they put the Gallimimus shot and the T-Rex shot together. This test convinced Spielberg that CGI was the future and that CGI is the only technology capable of bringing his visions to life.

Production

In August 1992, the Jurassic Park crew traveled to the Hawaiian island of Kauai, to begin three weeks of location shooting. Spielberg didn't want to cast movie icon stars for the main characters, because he felt that the audience has to truly believe that this is happening in order for them to take the journey. He decided to cast Sam Neill as Dr. Allan Grant, Laura Dern as Dr. Ellie Sattler and Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm because he felt that they were very honest and naturalistic actors.

The film-makers were anxious to see how their dinosaurs would perform. So one of the first scenes shot was the one with the sick Triceratops. Shooting continued and the next scene was the one with the enormous Brachiosaurus. By mid-September, the shooting in Kauai was finished and it would continue on in California. One of the sets that was built in California was of the place that T-Rex attacks the tour cars in the movie. The reason this scene was shot on a set was because the scene would require both live-action and CGI dinosaurs and so the film-makers wanted more control of everything.

The vibrating glass of water

One of the most difficult gags in the film was the vibrating glass of water caused by T-rex's footsteps. Spielberg got the idea for this shot when he was in his car listening to Earth, Wind & Fire, and his rear-view mirror started to vibrate because of the bass rhythm in the song. However this shot proved to be very difficult and they had no idea how to achieve the perfect circles. But Lantieri managed to figure it out the night before the shot. He put a glass of water on top of a guitar and plucked the string and the result was perfect. On the day of the shot, guitar strings were put inside the car and a man on the ground plucked the guitar strings to achieve the effect.

Post-Production

Before any of the CGI dinosaurs could be added, Spielberg and editor Michael Kahn had to put the film together. After Spielberg was satisfied with the editing, he turned it over to the post-production group. They had the job of adding over 50 CGI shots to the movie. To understand how dinosaurs would "act", the animators took mime classes. They would also often go outside and pretend they were Gallimimuses or T-rex's, hunting eachother and video-tape it. However there was still one crucial element that was keeping the dinosaurs from feeling absolutely real--sound.

The Dilophosaurus

Because nobody knows how dinosaurs truly sounded like, the sound-designers were told to make them sound like animals. The first thing they did was record a lot of raw material from different animals and then edit them together in interesting ways. The Dilophosaurus scene for example included sounds from rattlesnakes, hawks, howler monkeys and even swan calls. In the scene where the Velociraptors eat the cow, sounds from a dolphin and a walrus were used. Jurassic Park was finally released on June 11th 1993.

Critical Reception

Commercial

Jurassic Park became the most highest grossing film 1993 and of all-time at the time of its release, a record held by one of Spielberg's previous movies, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial released in 1982. However Jurassic Park's worldwide gross was topped five years later by James Cameron's Titanic. Jurassic Park is still the 16th highest grossing movie of all-time and also Spielberg's most successful film.

Critical

Most of reviews for Jurassic Park were positive. They all praised it for it's amazing visual effects, however it did get criticism in some other areas, such as character development. The film currently holds a 87% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes with 33 of 38 reviews being positive. At the 1994 Academy Awards, Jurassic Park won in all of the three categories it was nominated in: Sound, Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects.