What Makes Jurassic Park Special (And Where Jurassic World Went Wrong)

What is Jurassic Park? It is a cautionary tale of man playing God with genetics without the foresight of what they have done. It is as important a film then as it is now with GMOs in our food that leads to cancer and the sterility of our species. It is a film about the brutal force of nature in all forms that man cannot control.

What is Jurassic Park not? A film about dinos fighting dinos.

Jurassic Park is my Star Wars. It is perhaps the movie I have seen the most times. Lost World is perhaps the only book I have reread as many times as I have, and Jurassic Park was the beginning of Michael Crichton becoming my favourite author.

Let's go through the film to see what makes it special.

Movie Mistakes Reveal the Lie

I have always had a fascination with mistakes in movies with continuity errors (items switching positions between shots), equipment or crew visible (either clearly like in Harry Potter, or in reflections), factual errors (later era planes or ships used in a period piece), to downright illogical use of the surroundings (flat land suddenly becomes a large drop-off in Jurassic Park). Since I took a class on film in college, I have a better understanding of how it came about that these errors have occurred. The Lord of the Rings trilogy flipped the screen a lot, which most of the time is not noticeable because the human body is symmetrical (the same on either side). But when you have a leaf on your cloak that points one way, it becomes painfully obvious. The reason for doing this is the camera angle shows them looking one way. Another shot has them looking another way, but if you flip the image, it makes it look like they are looking in the same direction.