Down In The Park Part 2: I Was In A Car Crash Or Was It A Tree?

So, as previously discussed we're having a Jurassic Park marathon. For reasons that can only be described, if we're being honest, as self destructive masochism. Only with dinosaurs.

To be fair, it wouldn't be the first time.

However, for all the pain that is to come we do have to start out with one simple fact: Jurassic Park 1 is actually really good.

Now, as I've said before it's by no means perfect. But if we're being honest perfection is only a theoretical construct anyway. Even diamonds have the price tag. The main point being that there aren't any game breaking problems. The whole thing is put together very well, the story flows naturally from one point to another and at no point do you actually stop and wonder exactly what arcane powers the T-Rex is using to levitate up sheer surfaces at least twice her height or teleport into buildings that lack any obvious, T-Rex sized apertures.

HOW DID I GET IN HERE?!?!? HOW DO I GET OUT?!?! HELP ME, HUMANS!!!

Seriously, look that shit up online if you don't believe me. That Rex must have had go-go gadget legs or something, because there isn't anything on the other side of the gap it makes in the fence apart from a 60 foot drop straight down.

Well, probably. I may be anal enough to point it out, but even I've got better things to do than go measure it.

Okay, I HAVEN'T got better things to do, but I still can't be bothered. Shut up.

So, like I said, not flawless. But well directed. It's funny really. I mean, I'm not nearly qualified in film theory to make any real comments on what good or bad directing even IS, but I can still tell you when something has really good or really bad direction. The classic example of course being the Star Wars prequels. They really had some terrible direction. And I want you to keep those in the back of your mind, because we'll be coming back to them later.

But what we have here is good direction. Indeed, one might go as far as saying VERY good direction since even when stuff shouldn't make any sense your attention is deflected away from it, keeping ones sense of disbelief well and truly suspended. So that's good. The script work, the performances are good. Hell, it even has child characters who I didn't immediately want to beat to death.

Well, okay, a little bit at first. But then they're only initially grating in the sense that children are by their very nature rather annoying. Not the standard level of full on grating obnoxiousness thrown in your face that you see in a lot of child characters. Sudden random declarations of hackerdom notwithstanding.

There are of course various other niggly parts I could bring up to nitpick, but I'm not going to. Partly this is because, as I've already pointed out the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts and a lot of it doesn't really matter to the final impression one is given. Partly of course I just can't be bothered as I've still got 2 more films to work through at this point. However mostly it's because I think there's actually enough material available for writing some sort of extended parody which I would like to have a go at one day if I ever find the time. I wouldn't hold your breath though.

The next 2 points stand for pretty much all 3 films, but we may as well bring them up now. Firstly, no, the level of scientific accuracy on display is not all it perhaps could be. But a lot of that is of course hindsight. It's incredibly easy to forget just how OLD this film is. It came out over TWENTY years ago. The science of paleontology has come on in leaps and bounds in that time. I mean, sure even then the Velociraptors are way too big, the Dilophosaurus is way too small and the T-Rex is probably running too fast. Not too mention all that ridiculous business about not moving and just what idiot thought that frogs would be the best genetic match for dinosaurs when the film is taking great pains to point out the then relatively new idea of Dinosaurs being ancestral to birds. But at the end of the day you can learn just as much from a mistake as a success. And it's a lot easier to complain about something than praise it. So maybe go look up a top X things Jurassic Park got wrong list sometime. Just make sure it provides references.

The other thing worth mentioning is the fantastic effects work. Or more specifically, the  REASON the effects work is so successful. It's pretty simple really. The reason that the special effects hold up so well today, and indeed are pretty much as good as modern SFX despite being old enough to be modern effects mum (which to be fair, they kind of are), is that they blended digital and practical. That's all there is to it. Use both old fashioned physical techniques alongside the digital effects in an intelligent fashion and each supports the other. The viewer is no longer looking at a digital T-Rex or a mechanical T-Rex. They're just looking at a T-Rex. Quite why we decided to ignore this for the intervening decades I really have no idea.

Of course, the question we have to ask now is that why is it, if Jurassic Park is such a good movie, do I find myself approaching the prospect of watching it  with such trepidation. The answer of course, is coming up next....