Jurassic Park is an American science fiction media franchise centered on a disastrous attempt to create a theme park of cloned dinosaurs. The dinosaurs escape confinement and terrorize the human characters. It began in 1990 when Universal Studios bought the rights to the novel by Michael Crichton before it was even published.
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THE MOVIES:
- Jurassic Park
A group of scientists named Alan Grant (Sam Neil), Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum), and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) are invited to an island by a rich entrepreneur named Richard Hammond (Richard Attenborough) to give their expert opinion about a secret business. Upon arrival, they are shocked to learn that dinosaurs have been genetically brought back to life from extinction, and Hammond shares his plans that he wants to turn the island into one big dinosaur theme park called Jurassic Park. Not too enthusiastic about the dangerous plan but curious nonetheless, the scientists take a tour of the dinosaur park. Thanks to a massive rain storm and a traitorous employee (Wayne Knight), chaos enters the park and the scientists fight for their lives as they run from a menacing T-Rex and hungry raptors.
Based on Michael Crichton’s book, Jurassic Park was the first movie to feature realistic-looking CGI creatures that were totally not questionable of looking silly or cartoonish. Mixing CGI and live-action animatronics, Jurassic Park’s dinosaurs still look realistic and look even better when compared to many CGI-enhanced creatures in current films.
- The Lost World: Jurassic Park
In 1997, Spielberg returned to direct the sequel that was based on the second (and last) Jurassic Park book written by Michael Crichton. The Lost World is a pretty respectable and exciting sequel that starts off with a nerve-wracking opening scene of a vacationing little girl (Camilla Belle) eaten alive by those cute miniature dinosaurs at the abandoned dinosaur park. The plot of this film has Ian Malcom convinced by Hammond to go to Site B (another dinosaur location at Jurassic Park) to study the dinosaurs in their natural habitat. Malcom has no plans on going back to that hell hole but changes his mind once he finds out that his scientist girlfriend Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) is already there observing the dinosaurs. Along with his new team (including Vince Vaughn, in his first big Hollywood movie after Swingers) and his teenage daughter, Malcom finds his girlfriend but are shocked to find out that Hammond’s evil nephew (Arliss Howard) sent in a whole slew of hunters to the island to capture and bring the dinosaurs to a new mainland location in San Diego.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park is sort of like two movies merged into one. The first half of the movie is reminiscent of the trigger-happy, gung-ho soldiers confidently swooping into an unknown land of dangerous creatures in James Cameron’s Aliens. As sad as it is to watch the sadistic hunters hurt the dinosaurs, we all know the trespassing poachers are going to eventually kiss their lives goodbye. In the second half of the movie, Spielberg creates his version of King Kong with a T-Rex running around the streets of California. Both ideas merge well together to make a very exciting sequel with tons of action and plenty of dinosaurs to root for!
- Jurassic Park III
In 2001, director Joe Johnston (Captain America, The Rocketeer, Jumanji) took over for the third film which was a great choice since he is like a Steven Spielberg-lite. Even Spielberg himself has recently become Spielberg-lite, so all three Jurassic Park movies feel consistently stylized which is always a nice feeling – giving the impression that the trilogy is one long story. Not based on a Crichton book or any other book, this film surprisingly fits nicely with the previous two films. The last Jurassic Park movie brings Alan Grant (Sam Neil) back to the dinosaur island along with sidekicks Billy (Alessandro Nivola) and Mr. Udesky (Michael Jeter) to help a divorced couple (William H. Macy and Tea Leoni) find their son who got accidentally stranded on the island. While the story is not as interesting as the ones in the previous two films, the stars of the films are the dinosaurs – we get more raptors, pterodactyls, and a kick-ass spinosaurus.
As I remember being sick of Jurassic Park movies by the time the third one came out, this movie has aged well. Watching Jurassic Park III today is just as entertaining as the previous two films. With so many unconvincing CGI-creature movies (Journey movies, Titans movies) nowadays, I enjoyed returning to Jurassic Park III because the island still felt like a real dinosaur island.
- Jurassic World
JURASSIC WORLD is easily the second best movie in the franchise. Nothing will beat the first movie, but JURASSIC WORLD is up there. The overall plot is nothing too different from what we have already seen, but the cast are great, the dinosaurs are great, the action is plentiful, the movie is damn loud and a fine mix of both CGI and puppetry that looks fantastic on screen thanks to Legacy Effects (AKA Stan Winston Studios).
VIDEO QUALITY:
Jurassic Park has never looked better! We’ve waited for these classics to hit 4K and now that they have it only boggles the imagination of other such classics to come in the future! Exciting times! Vibrant brights, deep darks, great texture on the dinosaurs that make them look even more life-like then they already did on blu-ray alone. Mist, fog, murky scenes etc. all feel so real as it oozes out of your UHD TV.
AUDIO QUALITY:
I would have loved an Atmos track, but the DTS-X Immersive Audio track is quite impressive! The DTS HD Master Audio 7.1 track on the previously released Blu-ray Discs were always exceptional as well and the DTS-X Immersive on the Ultra HD Blu-ray will blow your socks off. That T-rex roar … jeebus! These immersive surround soundtracks are one of the most important aspects of the Jurassic Park movies. To listen to these movies with mono or stereo sound or with headphones would be a total insult to the filmmakers. While I’m not against new mixes added to old films as long as they include the original audio mix, I feel bad for so many old monster/creature films from the past when they get put on DVD or Blu-ray that have lacking audio options. If those movies got immersive audio tracks as these Jurassic Park Blu-rays, they would be given new life.
SUPPLEMENTS:
With more than eight hours of extras. Everything you want to know about Jurassic Park is here. This 25th Anniversary Edition boxset includes the extras that were on the previous DVDs as well as the ones from Blu-ray ported over on the BD discs included in this set.
A fifth film, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, is scheduled to be released on June 22, 2018. A sixth film, tentatively titled Jurassic World 3, is scheduled to be released on June 11, 2021. As of 2000, the franchise had generated $5 billion in revenue, making it one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time. – wikipedia
