Well, it has been a really long day, and I have yet to finish all I need to do before tomorrow. I’ve just had dinner, and am finishing off my splash of wine while waiting for my tea to brew (making it slow in a pan with spices -chai-style-, to combat the aforementioned altitude-induced flavour problem.) The plan is to get back to work for a few hours…
I’m not a huge TV watcher, but occasionally I want to look away from a long day of books, papers, notepad, and computer and distract myself over dinner. Especially when in a hotel or other short stay place. More fascinating then somehow. I don’t know why. So I switched on the TV.
… and Jurassic Park is just beginning on AMC.
I can never resist this film. Never.
I don’t know why I love this film so much. It is Spielberg at his best (and he packs in every single one of his signature tricks, camera angles, and other story-telling devices), and John Williams’ theme -another set of almost inversions of his other well known themes- is just perfect.
It is not a perfect film, but somehow the imperfections are over-ridden for me by:
- The fact that every time I am almost in tears when the scientists -not the annoying one played by Jeff Goldblum- see the dinosaurs for the first time. They are immediately enchanted as human beings and as scientists, and are themselves almost in tears seeing the things they’ve been studying and theorising about all their careers walking in front of them…. Can you imagine that? Even with silly Holywood-scientist behaviour elsewhere in the script, and the silly biology holding up some of the plot, that early scene gets it so right – understands the scientists feelings so well, that the rest does not matter. Marvellous writing, and great performances by Sam Neill and Laura Dern.
- Bob Peck’s wonderful performance as the corny great white hunter… with his love, fear and respect for the Velociraptors: “Clever Girl….” (chomp! chomp!)
- Richard Attenborough’s wonderful character. I love this character. Every scene with him in. (I’m always saying “Spared no Expense “, in all sorts of situations as result of this character. In as an ironic situation as possible (like showing people around my 12ft by 12ft office)!)
- Any of the wonderful scenes involving the T-Rex! (Especialy the scene where it first approaches. (“Where’s the goat?!”) A model of dramatic buildup at the highest level.)
- The last scenes with the pair of Velociraptors and the kids in the kitchen. Excellent.
- I could go on…. there are so many other lovely scenes, and excellent lines. Even the supporting characters are great (Wayne Knight’s Dennis the computer guy, and even Sam Jackson’s Ray the security guy….even the normally annoying Spielberg kids are likeable.) I’ve seen this movie too many times, evidently.
Well, I think by blogging about it I’ve got it out of my system. I’m going to tear myself away from it…. O.k., I’ll watch the first T-Rex scene and then it’s back to work.
Anyone else out there love Jurassic Park too?
-cvj
Bob Peck rocks big time, as Robert Muldoon. Muldoon…sounds like a pretty appropriate name. Not quite Mick Dundee, but it sounds pretty poacher/gamekeeper of dangerous subjects-ish. I like his quiet personality, how he only says what he has to, you can tell that this guy spent years hunting crocs in Australia and catching snakes and subdueing elephants in Africa, first one on hand to snatch the Thai “gate-keeper” who gets munched. “SHOOT HER! SHOOOOOOOOOT HER!!!” Another thing, he refers to the dinos as “her” or “she”, thats what makes you respect him, that he respects them! Personally, I think it would have been good if he had popped a cap in said “clever girl”‘s face not before she took a bit of his leg, just a little bit, so that he could have been in the second one with a tiny limp. On the whole, he should have had some croc teeth in his hat, and a few scars. They really should have developed on his character!! Muldoon was so cool!
Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!
-cvj
So if some kind soul sends you the DVD, you’ll be glued to the tube for life?
Two points:-
1) It was a group of Velociraptors in the scene- not a a T-Rex.
2) The humans had stolen their eggs, and all they were doing were trying to get their offspring back. Why would you want them shot?
Oh, an a few more:
3) That is Jurassic Park 3
4) I repeat what I said above. A velociraptor is shot in the *very first scene* of the original Jurassic Park.
5) Why does the movie have to be just like every other movie where the animal is shot up when all it is trying to do is get on with its life? King Kong, etc? Nice to have a change.
Cheers,
-cvj
That’s right! Let’s have a little equality here. I don’t mind a few humans getting eaten, provided somebody gets to fire a rocket-propelled grenade into T. Rex’s mouth at the last moment. Eat this! 🙂
Amanda makes an excellent point. Consider JP3(?) (the one with William H. Macy). In the final scene they’re on the beach about to be eaten by a T-Rex. The obvious and satisfying ending would be for the marines to blow off T-Rex’ head just as he’s about to chow down. But no. Shooting animals is politcally incorrect. So, as I recall, they choose instead to have the mere noisy presence of the marines to cause T-Rex to retreat into the jungle.
A minor point, but I think JP started the honourable trend of kids saving the world by using a computer at the end of the movie, while adults look on nonplussed, as if they’ve never seen one.
`It’s a UNIX system! I know this!’
Actually I never saw “Walking with dinosaurs”. Yes, I heard it was good…
Did anyone ever hear that segment that spoofed it on Radio 4 (part of either the Sunday Supplement or Radio 9) which was called “Walking with quarks”? Hilarious.
-cvj
I like this film and like most Spielberg stuff it draws you in. Good christmas day movie (last time I saw it). Did you notice the Connection Machine supercomputer that was blinking away in the background?They used a real one. If I recall, Jeff Goldblum’s character was also a mathematician specialising in chaos theory? A scary scene I think is when the fat guy is in the forest in the rain (after he steals the genetic material in order to sell it) and sees a small dinosaur looking out at him behind a tree. It acts very cute and harmless at first then it turns very nasty and tears him apart.
What did you think of the bbc series “Walking with Dinosaurs” from 1999. I thought it was excellent I must admit.
Very first scene of the movie:- “Shoot her! Shooooot her!” (volley of guns…)
-cvj
What I hate about the JP movies is that nobody *ever* manages to shoot a dinosaur. I mean, I’m totally opposed to guns too, but I refuse to believe that they are *always* ineffective. There are cases where their use is fully justified, eg when one is about to be eaten. It would have been very satisfying to see that “clever girl” get her head shot off. Just another case of Spielberg ramming his message home with all the subtlety of a tyrannosaurus.
It’s a flaw because the the scene would have been twice as powerful if Sam Neill had teared up. And I didn’t want them “bawling their eyes out”. I just wanted to see tears welling up.
Would the scene have been flawless if the characters showed no emotion whatsoever?
Why is that a flaw? Everyone reacts differently. I would be in tears… others would not. Perhaps those particular two scientists (the fictional ones) would not be. I don’t think it takes away from the movie that they were not bawling their eyes out. They still showed a huge amount of emotion….
Cheers,
-cvj
This is the only slight flaw in this excellent movie. Many viewers are in tears at this moment (certainly the scientists among them), but the characters, though awed, are dry-eyed!
I’ve always enjoyed the film a great deal, though to date I’ve cautiously avoided the sequels (perhaps those more adventurous than I can comment on whether or not that’s been a wise move).
As a guitarist of many years, the riveting scene where T. rex makes its debut always brings to mind their brilliant use of a guitar string to create just the right rippling effect in the water glasses. Great stuff. 🙂
Matt:-
Brilliant! I would have been giggling uncontrollably for the rest of the talk, I imagine!
My problem is that nobody seems to know the “spared no expense” reference when I use it ironically…. so I’m chortling away and the other person does not see why it is so funny….. Sigh.
Rob Knop:-
Yes, I remember thinking that too! (except for the very first full screen shot… even when I first saw the movie, that shot somehow never quite seemed to be lit right…. but then I’m too busy wiping away tears at the scientists being overcome by seeing their subject matter up and walking about in front of them…..)
-cvj
I was in grad school when J. Park came out. My housemate (now an X-Ray astronomer at MIT) saw the movie before I did. When I asked him about it, he gave it a positive review. This was very early in the days of massive “realistic” CGI in movies, and we were less jaded and more impressed by it back then. His comment was that when you first see the dinosaurs, you’re sitting back wondering how they did it, but eventually you just throw up your shoulders and say, “forget it. They used live dinosaurs for the shoot.”
I also like this movie, for all the reasons you mention. Plus some of the fun lines like, “Well, we’re out of the tree.” “Yeah, but we’re back in the car.”
-Rob
Since I got to grad school, everyone cool has loved Jurassic Park. Not a day goes by that a velociraptor joke doesn’t get made in my department. (I cannot remember the context, but during a colloquium a few weeks back the speaker made some anthropomorphic comment about a galaxy cluster doing something, and someone leaned over and whispered “clever girl.” I almost died.) So I’m glad to see that this Jurassoparkophilic trend continues into the faculty-world.
“When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth” – the banner falling across the T-rex. That’s one of my favs.
I wonder when physicists will have such a moment
“When decoupling occured”, or something like that. 😛
Jude:-
On that you are right. He really pours on the fat jokes and the geek jokes, for example. This is one reason it is a far from perfect film… but it is Spielberg… he loves his stereotypes and cliches.
Recall that it was meant to be a theme park to make money. It would have made economic sense to recreate carnivores. C’mon… would you not *love* to see a T-Rex?! Wow!
-cvj
Jurassic Park is one of the few Spielberg films I like–well, let me double-check the IMDB to see if that’s true–guess what–Jurassic Park IV is in pre-production. Unless #4 is guaranteed to be as good as #1, I’ll skip it.
My biggest problem with Jurassic Park is that only the beautiful people survive. Each person who bites the dust is a stereotype of one sort or another–from lawyers to fat people to foreigners to chain smoking black men–once someone different appears on screen, he is marked for destruction. (The only exception is B.D. Wong’s character, only because he leaves the island early).
The film is beautiful, though. When they see the first dinosaurs, we experience it with them. But, gees, if you were recreating dinosaurs from scratch, why in the world would you bother creating carnivores? I’d leave out anything that could eat me.