Jurassic Park (1993)

Jurassic Park (1993)

By Eric Maus

"Mr. Hammond, after careful consideration, I've decided *not*to endorse your park."

   Although I enjoyed the best-selling book by Michael Crichton much more, a film like Jurassic Park is just the kind of thing that brings Sci-Fi nerds like me to the theaters. I love this movie, even though it is kinda old, and it’s visual effects may pale in comparison to recent movies. But hey, old classics like Jurassic Park actually offer something that most modern films don’t: a straightforward moral message.

   After years of research and construction on his brainchild, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) invites a select group of scientists and lawyers to his private island off the coast of South America in order for them to endorse his new theme park. But this theme park is like nothing anyone has ever seen before. Using DNA strands removed from preserved mosquitoes, John Hammond's company, InGen, is basically able to recreate dinosaurs. After building a prehistoric landscape and designing specially engineered, high-voltage pens meant to contain creatures of unknown abilities, Hammond plans on opening his park to the public, selling tickets for a million dollars apiece. However, while the team of scientists is on their first tour of the park, a massive storm rolls through the island, and all the electricity goes out. Do you expect an electric fence without power to keep a hungry Tyrannosaur contained? Don't count on it.

    Jurassic Park (rated PG13 for violence) was a huge hit. It grossed over 900 million dollars. Not only were the visual effects amazing for the time, but the storyline, although based on a novel, was fresh, original, and exciting. Director Steven Spielberg had everything under control. The cinematography is excellent, the musical score composed by John Williams is masterful, and the plot is very well paced. The range of actors, from Samuel L. Jackson to Jeff Goldblum, are all very talented and bring life to this film. But as much as Jurassic Park is a technical masterpiece, it is also offers strong and important values, as stated previously.

   One of the scientists invited to come and glimpse John Hammond’s park, Dr. Ian Malcolm (Goldblum), a proponent of the Chaos theory, doesn't approve of what Hammond has done, and, much to the annoyance of Hammond, is constantly berating him about it. At one point towards the beginning of their tour, Malcolm sarcastically says to himself, "God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs...". After man thinks he has disproved God, he thinks he can do just about whatever he wants to do, even if that is something as radical as creating dinosaurs. Malcolm knows that what Hammond has done is not right, and he knows what will eventually happen. He is right. The beasts break free of their confinements, and proceed to devour every human they come across. It takes the fact that his grandchildren are trapped in a place where creatures that shouldn’t be there are killing everyone, to finally get Hammond to come to his senses. The message of this movie is simple, yet powerful: There are things in this world that man has no business messing with, and when man tries to play God, things begin to collapse. Allowing John Hammond to build Jurassic Park almost seems like God's way of saying,” You think you can do what I can do? Go ahead and try." The sequel to Jurassic Park, The Lost World, topped with superior visual effects and twice the action, offers a similar and equally profound moral: Those who fail to learn history are bound to repeat it. And they do, and the same thing happens again. Man is foolish, and sometimes, it takes something as big as the destruction of a multi-billion dollar theme park and deaths of dozens to get us to wake up and realize this fact.

  Although your gut-reaction may be that Jurassic Park is just a movie for nerds, well, don't be fooled. One of the nice things about our world is that you can learn lessons just about any place, even if that happens to be an old Sci-Fi flick like Jurassic Park.