Title: Jurassic Park
Author: Michael Crichton
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf (1990)
Author: Michael Crichton
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf (1990)
And for my final installment, inspired by this series: a Theatre... a Movie... and a Time.
Jurassic Park, Part II: But What About the Science?
Jurassic Park, Part III: TMT
Theatre
Egyptian Theatre (state historical web site for Delta County buildings)
Movie
Time
June 11, 1993 may or may not have been the night I saw this movie. The theatre was packed but that's not saying much. Living in a town with a one screen theatre meant that it was packed almost every night in the summer. But this was in June and that meant the Tru-vu Drive-in was open and it showed two movies/night in the summer tripling the movie options of Delta's cinema goers. (And people wonder why I shudder at the thought of voluntarily living in Colorado - flashbacks, people, flashbacks!) However, I didn't spend my summers in Colorado (I spent them in Louisiana in a town with two theatres totaling 13 screens, bragging rights, I had 'em.) so I would bet I did see this opening night and probably caught a plane out of town soon thereafter. However, the night I saw this isn't really the point. The point is the feeling I had while watching and I was rapt. When that jeep was driving across the field and the camera panned over to the dinosaurs my thought was, "This changes everything!" I saw this with my dad and we couldn't stop talking about it the rest of the night. The effects absolutely blew me away and I am amazed that almost twenty years later movies often do not use effects with the realism and skill displayed in Jurassic Park.
Marvelous memory and post, Rachel! It's wonderful you got to watch this with your dad, and that you both shared in the enjoyment and experience. It really does make it quite special. Thanks for an excellent wrap-up to a favorite film of yours (and the shout-out).
ReplyDeleteI think one of the reasons we see so much abuse of CGI effects in movies that followed Jurassic Park is that filmmakers have begun to think of computer imagery as an answer to everything, and it's not. There are times when a miniature, a mock up, or a good make-up job is a better solution. Jurassic Park used CGI sparingly and mostly in long shots and medium shots. They also made extensive use of mechanical creatures, puppets, and other traditional special effects mixed freely with the CGI and that's one of the things that I think made the dinosaurs seem so real. And it didn't hurt to have Stephen Spielberg directing of course...
ReplyDeleteMichael - Thank you for the inspiration! :) You know another favorite movie memory of mine with my dad? If we were watching TV on a Sunday night and we saw ads for the late night movie and liked and owned it, we would watch the ads getting all geared up and then fire up the ole VCR at the time the movie was scheduled to start. ha! Maybe my geekiness is inherited.
ReplyDeleteHey Charles, I quite agree with you. Over at Michael's review many comments were made about just what you're saying. I was sharing a story I remembered of the crew spending weeks figuring out that a guitar string would create the desired look under the cup in the T-Rex Approaching scene. I think it was Michael who said that probably wouldn't happen anymore because everyone goes straight to CGI. It's a shame because you really do lose that key component of realism.