Nine months ago I included a retrospective of the work of Steven Spielberg from 1974 thru 1991 as part of my movie watching. I stopped at 1991 because the next set of films Spielberg released in 1993 brought about seminal change in his story telling and visual style. In 1993 Spielberg released two movies that achieved both critical acclaim and box office success, Jurassic Park and Schindler's List. As I finish my 365 days of movies I am going to explore the later part of Spielberg's career (1993-2008) and how the making of these two films changed his directorial style and visual storytelling for the better.
Upon it's release Jurassic Park became the biggest movie of all time and held that title until it was surpassed by Titanic four years later. Jurassic Park was bigger than E.T. and Star Wars. Adjusted for inflation Jurassic Park is currently the 18th highest grossing film in North America (Gone With The Wind still holds the top spot).
But it wasn't it's success as a summer blockbuster movie that set Jurassic Park apart from everything that came before. It was the movies innovative integration of computer animated and animatronic dinosaurs into a seamless movie where the creatures completely interacted with the human actors in a seamless manner. Films such as The Abyss and Terminator 2 had laid the ground work for computer animation but Spielberg, with the help of special effects wizards Stan Winston (animatronics) Phil Tippett (go motion) Michael Lanttieri (on-set effects supervisor) and Dennis Murren (digital animator), brought fully realized extinct dinosaurs back to life and made them both beautiful and terrifying.
While George Lucas was watching a demonstration of the new technology he commented that a major gap had been crossed and nothing would ever be the same. This was a major understatement. Spielberg's Jurassic Park opened the flood gates of new creativity in film making. These new digital tools allowed Spielberg to unleash his imagination in new and exciting ways. He would further explore the use of storytelling via technology in The Lost World: Jurassic Park II, Saving Private Ryan, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Minority Report and War of the Worlds.
Films that were once considered to difficult or to expensive to make suddenly became possible. Peter Jackson saw the realization his life long dream of filming The Lord of the Ring Trilogy. James Cameron would break new ground with Titanic and years later Avatar. Every movie from the second Star Wars trilogy to the special visual effects in last year's Black Swan owes a nod to Spielberg and the team at Industrial Light and Magic for their creative genius.
Jurassic is a great movie because of the digital dinosaurs. What it lacks in script writing and character development it makes up in T-Rex's and Velociraptors. Eighteen years later the movie still holds up. the special effects look realistic and there are enough chills and thrills to give you goose bumps.
At The Movie House rating ***1/2 stars.
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