Jurassic Park review
colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby)
<122762@bu.edu> talk.origins

I saw Jurassic Park last night -- great show. The sequence of
events follows the same general pattern of the book, but the
details are different. For those who haven't read the book a
capsule summary (that doesn't give away too much) is: Scientists
make dinos. Dinos run amuk. Nobody is overly pleased.

The special effects are, as expected, incredible. The dinos are
the most lifelike I've ever seen. There's also some humor thrown
in at the least expected times. So, in essence, you have a movie
made from a good thriller (Crichton's book of the same name),
a good director and a pile of money thrown at the special effects
people(*). _Nobody_ can screw up a formula like that.

(*) Incidentally, I heard more money was spent on J. Park than has been
spent on dinosaur research since day one.

There were some subtle disappointments for me; I personally
wanted to see a lot more humans end up as dinosnacks and I
wouldn't have minded if Laura Dern somehow lost her clothes
somewhere during the show 8-) (Anybody see "Wild at Heart"
with her in it? Hubba hubba, but I digress.)

Seriously, the characters never develop enough so that you
really begin to identify with them. And, a lot of the movie
(even the stuff that wasn't in the book) was rather predictable.
There is a sort of twist at the end, however. You don't really
notice these things to much though, because Speilberg paces the
movie very well. Once things start coming apart at the seams,
the action builds and builds.

The "science" of how they make dinos, is glossed right over. This
is (IMHO) as it should be because the idea has so many problems;
better to just have a brief suspension of disbelief, then enjoy
the show. I sorta hoped that more dinosaur info would be dispensed
in the film, two of the characters were paleontologists after all.
It wouldn't have been too hard to work in some mini-lectures without it
sounding too forced. A few little tidbits are dispensed -- dinos
are warm blooded, birds evolved from them.

The movie seemed to me less anti-science than the book. The
mathematician (Malcolm) does throw in a couple barbs, but it's not
the droning lecture of the book. And the people to blame for the
problems seem more misguided than evil -- there's no mad scientist
in a white coat wringing his hands and cackling at what he's about
to unleash on the world in J. Park.

I could write more, but, since everyone and his dog is going to
see this movie, I won't spoil anything.

Chris Colby   ---      email: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu     ---
"'My boy,' he said, 'you are descended from a long line of determined,
resourceful, microscopic tadpoles--champions every one.'"
      --Kurt Vonnegut from "Galapagos"