A Movie From Every Year Of My Life
1993
Jurassic Park
I'm feeling like I'm picking all the popular and obvious movies but sometimes movies are popular for a reason. Jurassic Park was a chunk of my childhood, dinosaurs were a chunk of it (Go in the first upstairs cupboard and at the back you will find a shit load of books on Dinosaurs from my youth) along with Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and Sonic the Hedgehog.
So to anyone that hasn't seen this movie... if those people exist... basically John Hammond, the adorable Santa like grandpa played by Richard Attenborough, has figured out a way to replicate dinosaurs from mosquito blood. He is going to open a nature park with the dinosaurs in for the public but before he can he needs the ok from a group of scientists, and off they set to preview the park taking Hammonds grandchildren with them. Inevitably a power failure throws a spanner in the works and the dinosaurs are set free on the island.
Now why do I love this movie?
If I could give one reason why this movie... The music.
John Williams you scored my childhood, and I can revisit it any time I hear the Jurassic Park theme.
Maybe my choice is obvious but this is pure Saturday entertainment with the family from my childhood, but what would you pick from 1993?
I'm feeling like I'm picking all the popular and obvious movies but sometimes movies are popular for a reason. Jurassic Park was a chunk of my childhood, dinosaurs were a chunk of it (Go in the first upstairs cupboard and at the back you will find a shit load of books on Dinosaurs from my youth) along with Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and Sonic the Hedgehog.
So to anyone that hasn't seen this movie... if those people exist... basically John Hammond, the adorable Santa like grandpa played by Richard Attenborough, has figured out a way to replicate dinosaurs from mosquito blood. He is going to open a nature park with the dinosaurs in for the public but before he can he needs the ok from a group of scientists, and off they set to preview the park taking Hammonds grandchildren with them. Inevitably a power failure throws a spanner in the works and the dinosaurs are set free on the island.
Now why do I love this movie?
If I could give one reason why this movie... The music.
John Williams you scored my childhood, and I can revisit it any time I hear the Jurassic Park theme.
Yeah this bit can still make the room a little dusty.
To me the movie, the effects, the themes/message still holds up... not that I rate "still holding up today" as important. A movie looking and feeling a part of the time it was made is all good to me, and I don't really go in for calling movies "dated" because movies are clearly a product of and reflective of the time in which they are made... that said, this really is an all time classic.
As for themes I feel the science vs. nature, the whole "because we can does not mean we should." We are nature then every advance we make is natural... but then the Dinosaurs had their chance and failed. Nature evolves and the world is not the same as it was when the Dinosaurs had their turn on Earth.
This story could be seen as a family friendly version of the Frankenstein story. Man is creator. Man is God.
Money made the characters short sighted... sure John Hammond wanted everyone, rich or poor to experience Jurassic Park, but he hardly had the deal worked out with the suits to that effect. Before the park is open the corporate suits already have heaps of merchandise, and that's where their priorities are.
I also freakin' love the relationships between the children Lex and Tim and Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler. The children idolize them, which I find refreshing and they provide great role models. I love how it is Ellie who gets to go be action woman, and Alan who looks after the grandchildren of John Hammond.
Maybe my choice is obvious but this is pure Saturday entertainment with the family from my childhood, but what would you pick from 1993?
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