Jurassic Park, Fears Realized

Rating: Null/10 (12 December 2014)

Based on a novel of the same title Jurassic Park, created a unique theme park environment centered on genetically cloned dinosaurs. Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), and Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) are brought to John Hammond's (Richard Attenborough) park for damage control following an accident. During the tour it experienced widespread systematic failures, through the sabotage of Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight) exerting revenge. This allowed the viscous dinosaurs to roam free. Dr. Grant, Lex (Ariana Richards), and Tim(Joseph Mazzello) are faced with surviving in the park surrounded by the dinosaurs. Meanwhile, Dr. Sattler and John Hammond are trying to restore the park to operation. The overall theme of the film is the potential for danger with reliance on technology. Jurassic Park was released in the early years of personal computing, a large part of the population at the time potentially had never accessed technology building on the fear. The park was presented as the most technologically advanced amusement park ever created with a sprawling network of systems all reporting back to the control room. Unfortunately, in the film technology is wielded by a sub-contractor who feels he is being under compensated. This revelation, along with his interactions with a rival business proprietor presents the central conflict of the film. Additional to the computer technology, is presented a concept of genetic engineering which was fought by Dr. Malcom. Throughout the film Dr. Malcom presents a theory of pending catastrophe which is soon realized. The film follows a similar theme as Terminator, although this film presents more a favorable outcome for humanity. The acting sequences centered on the technology were expanded cinematically in order to build suspense. Specifically when the park was being brought back online Lex Murphy (Ariana Richards) was immediately aware of the type of system and how to interact with it. All this despite the complexities of such a large scale automation project. During the rest of the film lighting was used to bring key visuals to the center focus, highlighting the features of the computer generated and animatronic dinosaurs. While using complex camera angles, post production editing coupled with the CGI, the viewer is presented a feeling of immersion. Once you add in the audio artifacts the film seems to pull you into the action. Technology has come a long way since the film was produced but our reliance on the vast network of interconnected devices is still a cause for concern. This could be a for-shadowing of a similar collapse of our would minus the dinosaurs of course.