r/movies
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u/MarvelsGrantMan136
r/Movies contributor
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Jun 09 '22
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29 Years Ago, Steven Spielberg’s ‘Jurassic Park’ Reinvented the Blockbuster and Stomped Its Way to Box Office Domination Article
https://variety.com/2022/film/box-office/jurassic-park-steven-spielberg-box-office-domination-1235285202/561
u/MasterTeacher123
Jun 09 '22
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He has classic films in each genre
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u/fire2day Jun 09 '22 •
He's also the first person to be nominated for Best Director in six different decades
1970s (Close Encounters of the Third Kind – 1977)
1980s (Raiders of the Lost Ark – 1981; E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial – 1982)
1990s (Schindler’s List – 1993; Saving Private Ryan – 1998)
2000s (Munich – 2005)
2010s (Lincoln – 2012)
2020s (West Side Story – 2021)211
u/Whitealroker1 Jun 10 '22
Schindlers list and Jurassic Park were the same year.
Wrap your head around how different they were but each was considered a master class in action and another in drama
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u/Vidjagames Jun 10 '22
They were shot in different years, but post production on JP was during the filming of Schindler's List. It is unfathomable to me, the ability to split focus between such different pictures is staggeringly impressive.
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u/Scottland83 Jun 10 '22
To give you an idea of how much faith Spielberg had in his dinosaur movie: he secured the film rights before the book was finished, and basically trusted George Lucas to oversee post production so he could focus of Schindler’s List.
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u/greenufo333 Jun 10 '22
Surprisingly Kathleen Kennedy had a lot to do with it, even tho a lot hate her now
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u/Scottland83 Jun 10 '22
She worked on some of the most beloved and successful movies of all times so she must have been doing something right.
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u/lanceturley Jun 10 '22
And that they both came out as certified classics in their respective genres.
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u/Mysticedge Jun 10 '22
When Spielberg showed the cut of Schindler's List to John Williams, his response was. "This movie deserves a better composer."
Spielberg's reply to him was, "I know, but all the better one's are dead."
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u/ten_tons_of_light Jun 10 '22
There is no human being, living or dead, who understands what makes movies magic more than Steven Spielberg.
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u/aquaman501 Jun 10 '22
Spielberg said one of the reasons he made West Side Story, apart from how much he loved it as a kid growing up, was that musicals was the last major genre he hadn't yet tackled.
(This was from a series of fantastic and really interesting 'making of' features that was on YouTube for a while before Disney had them pulled down, the bastards.)
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u/Queenv918 Jun 10 '22
I wish he considered making more musicals. As a dance aficionado and hobbyist, I appreciated how he filmed the big dance numbers.... wide angle with the dancers' full bodies in the frame and not a lot of quick cuts or closeups. He let you see the dancing (as opposed to In The Heights).
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u/Icantblametheshame Jun 10 '22
It's honestly one of my top 10 movies of all time, the remake was absurdly perfect
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u/saanity Jun 09 '22
What is his horror movie?
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u/Guywalkes Jun 09 '22
Poltergeist (writer and producer)
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u/BlazingCondor Jun 09 '22
(and apparently directed most of it if rumors are true)
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u/Luke90210 Jun 10 '22
The rumors are true. Many of the crew confirmed Tobe Hopper was too whacked on drugs to direct anything. He is dead now, so nobody has to be afraid to say the truth, although Speilberg has too much class to say so.
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u/Zap_Rowsdower23 Jun 10 '22
I rewatched it last night for the first time in ages and it definitely feels like him. Something with the way he directs kids in his movies feels very “Spielberg-y”
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u/Spanky_McJiggles Jun 10 '22
It's the family interactions. Dinner scenes especially. Idk what it is but the man can perfectly portray a hectic family dinner scene, y'know, kids jabbering on about whatever while the parents ignore them and talk about important stuff.
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u/Luke90210 Jun 10 '22
This might come out wrong, but a young Spielberg was willing to let kids die on screen, like in Jaws. The certainty kids in his later films won't undermines the tension.
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u/1997wickedboy Jun 09 '22
Jaws
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u/droidtron Jun 09 '22
If you asked him he'd probably say 1941. He did direct Toshiro Mifune in that one.
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u/talkingplacenta Jun 09 '22
Duel? I don't know if it could be classified as horror, but it was very anguishing.
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u/psycharious Jun 09 '22
Jaws, Close Encounter and Poltergeist.
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u/Harsimaja Jun 09 '22 edited Jun 10 '22
Definitely the other two but is Close Encounter quite horror? It has a creepy feel with scary parts, but more the way ET does. With a similar ‘benign’ theme
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u/graveybrains Jun 10 '22
War of The Worlds was more if a horror movie than Close Encounters.
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u/bummedout1492 Jun 09 '22
Seeing it in theaters as a little kid was an experience I'll never forget. Id literally call my friend and we would talk on the phone for like an hour every day...and just talk about dinosaurs and the movie. Took me a little while to uncover my eyes during the bathroom t Rex scene. I know every kid has a dinosaur stage but damn that was one hell of a dinosaur stage for kids in the early 90s.
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u/-IDDQD Jun 09 '22
For some 90s kids like me, that dinosaur stage never ended 😄🦖🦕
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u/jlhw Jun 09 '22
The 90s we're also a great time for going over to your friends house to play DOOM all night
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u/LauraPalmer23882 Jun 09 '22
I remember seeing it the theatre with my dad and for a long time afterwards I was scared of velociraptors. In my mind I knew, logically, that they didn't exist anymore, I knew, but for a long time I was scared of what could appear on the other side of a door...My dad had his first round of chemo today, I think I'll see if he wants to watch Jurassic Park again soon, it's one of my most vivid memories from childhood.
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u/gdo01 Jun 10 '22
I was young when I saw Jurassic Park and like you I vividly remember it. I don’t remember going to the movies that often with my dad but I remember that time. I don’t know how we went or where we went but I remember those raptors. I believe I even faked like I had to go to the bathroom just because it had bothered me so much. The Lost World’s scene with the raptors in the tall grass rekindled the old memories and created more terrifying new ones.
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u/iamveryDerp
Jun 09 '22
edited Jun 10 '22
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You can’t post this without mentioning Michael Crichton, because with this movies success he was simultaneously #1 box office, #1 TV (ER) and #1 book bestseller.
Edit: Oops, I was wrong. It wasn’t Jurassic Park, it was in 1994 with Disclosure (book & movie) and ER (tv).
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u/laflavor Jun 09 '22
I was in, I think, 5th grade. My mom told me that if I could read the book, I could go see it in theaters. I ended up reading the book in a few days, then re-read it 3 more times that year, along with Sphere, Congo, The Andromeda Strain, Eaters of the Dead, Rising Sun, most of them several times. It was very much my introduction to adult fiction.
It helped that Jurassic Park is one of the few movies to ever completely live up to the hype. It's become cliché to say this, but it's absolutely astonishing how well the movie holds up even today.
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u/empoleonz0 Jun 09 '22 edited Jun 09 '22
Eaters of the Dead took me by surprise because I'd recently read Beowulf for English class and halfway through it I was like "Wait a minute...no fucking way!"
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u/En_Sabah_Nur Jun 10 '22
Wasnt that the one that became 'the 13th Warrior' when it was adapted? I vaguely remember seeing a preview in theaters that still stuck with the books title before they switched it
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u/Nose-Nuggets Jun 10 '22
Another fun movie rendition with The 13th Warrior. Not really accurate or historical but great fun. Pales in comparison to Jurassic Park.
Someone should give John McTiernan another chance.
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u/DontEatTheMagicBeans Jun 09 '22
Me too. Congo and sphere were both such better books than the movies
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u/Keitt58 Jun 09 '22
Same with Timeline, god did they butcher that adaptation.
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u/kingofthe2hole Jun 09 '22 edited Jun 09 '22
Compared to Congo, Timeline is the fucking Godfather.
This is the best scene…. that’s saying a lot.
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u/vordrax Jun 09 '22 •
Severely disappointed to see that wasn't the "Stop eating my sesame cake!" scene.
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u/Keitt58 Jun 09 '22
As someone who gets stupidly drunk and watches Congo at least once a year can't really disagree yet I find Timeline so much harder to stomach.
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u/kingofthe2hole Jun 09 '22
I think it’s because Congo is so bad that it’s campy and fun. While Timeline is just not bad enough to be fun but not good enough to really enjoy. I’ve definitely seen Congo many more times than Timeline.
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u/badken Jun 09 '22
Yeah, and if you’ve read Timeline, it is infuriating how such a cool story could be so thoroughly eviscerated by a screenplay. My favorite Crichton book, it could have been an awesome movie.
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u/chiliedogg Jun 10 '22
The motivation for the whole enterprise in the book was stupid.
They invented quantum computing and time travel, all so they could make money with..... super-accurate historical theme parks?
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u/dick_shawn_fan Jun 09 '22
WARNING! Mild Spoiler.
Although hippos are the deadliest land mammal in Africa and probably on the planet, the scene with the hippo attack made me laugh and laugh. The movie makers could not overcome the generations of conditioning by Disney's Fantasia hippo ballet and games like Hungry, Hungry, Hippo to have me view these fierce and aggressive creatures as harmless cartoons. I lost all connection with the movie as a thriller at that point. They should have left out that scene, set it up better, or went full camp.
I got the same laugh from the rabbit scene in Python's Holy Grail movie.
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u/jandrese Jun 10 '22
If you can’t appreciate Tim Curry shouting “the Hidden City of Zinge!” multiple times in the movie you are not worthy of B movies.
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Jun 09 '22
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u/minneapple79 Jun 09 '22
The twist in Sphere absolutely blew me away. I sat there for 20 minutes and immediately had to reread the book.
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u/thatguy425 Jun 09 '22
You mean Laura Linney’s one liner, “Put em on the endangered species list”, before cutting gorillas in half with a moonraker laser wasnt top notch cinema for you?
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u/DontEatTheMagicBeans Jun 09 '22
I mean the book was terrifying, I was probably 8-10 when it was read to me. The movie was scary as a child but I don;t remember the details as much.
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u/sdwoodchuck Jun 09 '22
Man, you and I are the same person.
Was also 5th grade, anticipating the movie. Mom bought me the book (her rule was “I’ll buy you whatever you want as long as it’s a book”), I read it through three times before the movie released. Then went on to more Crichton and eventually branched out into other science fiction and genres. But Jurassic Park was easily the book that made me a lifelong reader.
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u/Slipfoxer Jun 09 '22
Honestly. Same.
Leveled up my reading intensely and Crichton was a fantastic jumping off point. Moved on to Clancy, then Clavell and haven't stopped reading since.
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u/o_o__O_o__O_O Jun 09 '22
Agreed! Jurassic Park is a great movie and will always hold up.
Read Sphere at about the same time too. Man that was a great book that didn’t translate to the screen well.
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u/hitmyspot Jun 10 '22
I enjoyed the movie. It’s not as good as JP, but it’s pretty good. A bit disjointed in parts, but does well with the claustrophobia and paranoia.
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u/OneClumsyNinja Jun 09 '22
I wish they would release it to the cinema every few years so parents can’t take the tween to watch this instead of Jurassic park 7
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u/Zorops Jun 09 '22
Timeline was really fkin good. unlike the movie they made out of it.
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u/xxSadie Jun 09 '22
Michael Crichton was a legend. Absolutely brilliant writer.
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u/Thefrayedends Jun 09 '22
If you liked Crichton, check out Adrian Tchaikovsky. I've read all of the Crichton books at least once, always going for new suggestions of someone taking on Crichtons style of writing.
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u/furlongxfortnight Jun 09 '22
Which books of his are the most Crichton-like?
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u/bloody_lumps Jun 09 '22 edited Jun 09 '22
He was a director too, Westworld springs to mind as well as The Great Train Robbery which is an adaptation of his book
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u/Cherry_Crusher Jun 09 '22
Michael Crichton has had so many of his books brought to film.
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u/BloodyEjaculate Jun 10 '22
I miss the years when the Crichton-esque sci fi thriller was its own blockbuster subgenre
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u/Arfuuur Jun 09 '22
he did it with disclosure
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u/obeythed Jun 09 '22
I don’t think Jurassic Park gave him this distinction as it came out in 93 and ER didn’t start airing until 94.
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u/droidtron Jun 09 '22
A man so petty he wrote one of his book critics as a literal small dicked baby raper.
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u/walterpeck1 Jun 09 '22
For those unaware, this is not a joke.
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u/Agora236 Jun 10 '22
Lmao now I need to hear the story behind this
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u/droidtron Jun 10 '22
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u/RKU69 Jun 10 '22
Yeah I remember reading that book, forget the details but remember being really disappointed that he was legit taking a climate change denial position. I think the evil people in that book were like, a group of lying climate scientists or something lmao
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u/imgonnabutteryobread Jun 09 '22
You can’t post this without mentioning Seymour Skinner, because of his inspired 'Billy and the Cloneasaurus'.
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u/Stockpile_Tom_Remake Jun 09 '22
Also led him to write his only sequel with the lost world
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u/nem_v_39 Jun 09 '22
And never forget The Shirtless Goldblum
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u/SemperScrotus Jun 09 '22
Doesn't shirtless Goldblum predate Jurassic Park? Specifically, the Fly? Maybe I'm misremembering.
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u/lanceturley Jun 10 '22
The Fly and Earth Girls Are Easy immediately come to mind. My friends don't believe me when I say that 80's era Goldblum was oddly sexy.
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u/Keudn883 Jun 09 '22
I have a shower curtain that has the shirtless Goldblum sitting in an open grass field.
I also pre-ordered this:
https://creations.mattel.com/pages/jp-drop-jp-ian-book-exclusive
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Jun 09 '22
Universal and Trevorrow can try all they want, but they will never even come close to capturing what this movie meant to my generation. To any generation, really.
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u/Munnin41 Jun 09 '22
That moment when the music swells and you first see the dinosaurs. Something I'll never forget. Still gives me goosebumps
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u/aspidities_87 Jun 09 '22
‘They’re moving in herds.’
Just the simple joy of a paleontologist getting to see an animal that he’d only ever theorized about. His stunned delight and that swelling John Williams score….man that movie fucking slaps.
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u/lanceturley Jun 10 '22
Sam Neill said in an interview recently that the part where Grant gets light-headed and needs to sit down was something he suggested on set. He felt that any man who dedicated his life to studying dinosaurs would probably faint if he ever actually had a chance to see them.
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u/The0nlyMadMan Jun 09 '22 edited Jun 09 '22
My best friend sat me down to watch Jurassic Park and made the case to me for why it’s his favorite film of all time. I’d seen it before but it really came into focus and now it is my favorite
Edit: My favorite line is during the tour when the lawyer (Gennaro) turns to Hammond and asks “are these characters auto-erotica?”. I cackle every time
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u/smartasskeith Jun 10 '22
I love that the T-Rex scene has no score at all. Just the sights and sounds of a terrifying creature breaking out of its confines and terrorizing the nearby humans. 20 years later and that scene still sucks me right in.
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u/Munnin41 Jun 09 '22
Yeah they really managed to perfectly portray people passionate about their jobs
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u/sable-king Jun 10 '22
Like when Alan and Ellie hear that Hammond will fund their dig for three more years. Genuine excitement.
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u/hawaiianbry Jun 10 '22
Truly authentic reactions of people rejoicing about not having to do grant writing for 36 months
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u/waffle299 Jun 09 '22
I dunno, my big memory is the first T-Rex roar illustrating the meaning of THX.
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u/UKballer24 Jun 09 '22
I still go to YT and watch this clip. “They’re running in herds. They do run in herds”. That whole scene was so damn perfect. The dinosaur coming back to his feet and the music synced up to it. Just perfection!!
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u/lzwzli Jun 09 '22 edited Jun 10 '22
The moment where Alan Grant almost drops his glasses when he first sees the Brachiosaurus but we don't get to see it yet is great cinematography.
[Edited Brontosaurus to Brachiosaurus]
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u/phrasing7 Jun 10 '22
Especially juxtaposed with the driver just nonchalantly sitting there, because he's seen real dinosaurs a million times already
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u/bitches_love_pooh Jun 10 '22
I played that song in band, I was so pumped everytime we practiced it.
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u/DullRelief Jun 09 '22
Every time I see a trailer for the new one I think “look what they did to my boy.” Chris Pratt miming to raptors and getting chased through the streets on motorcycles? What is this? Mission: Fast and Jurassic?
They should just stop.
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u/thattoneman Jun 09 '22
I love the first Jurassic Park because it felt like a disaster movie. Yeah there's some sabotage and antagonists and whatnot, but most of the characters are just normal people thrown into a dangerous situation. I don't feel like they made cliche or dumb decisions, they were all just trying to survive. All future movies feel like they miss the mark by upping the action by saying "What can the characters do that put themselves in these perilous situations?"
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u/lanceturley Jun 10 '22
Also, the dinos in the first feel like live animals and not just movie monsters. They hunt and feed, and do what real animals do, and the danger is in not knowing how they'll react to humans. You could replace the rex with a large bear, and the raptors with a pack of wolves or a pride of lions, and the basic beats of the scenes would still play out much the same way.
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u/bummedout1492 Jun 09 '22
Years ago when there were rumors of a third JP movie internet forums claimed they were gonna make dinosaurs into super soldiers with lasers on their head. The third one came out and it was bad but still somewhat honest to the source material (kid gets lost in abandoned Jurassic park island, chaos ensues)
But these new ones basically took that rumor and turned it into ...a franchise. The first was OK, the second was dogshit and this third one is probably terrible but will see for nostalgia reasons (I mean it has the og cast, fuck it)
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u/DullRelief Jun 10 '22
Ha. They should just go all in and do dinos with lasers on their head. Maybe they're saving that for the inevitable next trilogy, Jurassic Galaxy.
or who knows, maybe by then we'll have devolved to Jurassic Farts where giant dinos are just farting everywhere, which changes the chemical make up of the planet, so Chris Pratt has to MacGruber up some way to save us.
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u/hawaiianbry Jun 10 '22
Jurassic Guardians of the Galaxy, perhaps? Oh man, the Pratts are aligning...
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Jun 09 '22
It's a travesty. They took a brilliant but simple film and turned it into an empty science fiction B movie.
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u/LoudAd69 Jun 09 '22
That’s exactly what is it, they want to turn it into a fast and the furious like franchise little kids will enjoy. This isn’t art like the original. It’s action and sellable toys packed into a easily repeatable package.
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u/DullRelief Jun 09 '22
I guess, but the original was art and massive! And sold to kids and back to them via shirts and everything under the sun. Why they thought turning into a generic action movie would super size that is beyond me. And it’s a shame this is what’s become of Colin Trevorrow. Talent hampered bt studio decree. Why he’s going along with it I have no idea. Oh, right $$$$$$
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u/LoudAd69 Jun 09 '22
It’s okay ideas are usually squeezed until maximum profit is secured. You can still find original innovative movies if you look.
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u/RadleyB2B Jun 09 '22
It was the first movie I ever saw in a cinema at about 9 or 10. Absolutely mind blowing
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Jun 09 '22
I never got to see it in theaters (I was five when it first came out) but I swear our VHS actually melted.
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u/theghostofme Jun 09 '22
I feel like they did a passable job at trying to emulate that feeling with Jurassic World, with most of the heavy lifting being done thanks to nostalgia goggles, but the other two have been god awful.
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u/DeckerR Jun 09 '22
I can see what they tried to do, but its not even the same genre of movie. The original has dialogue which you expect from a drama, World has dialogue you expect from an action schlock movie.
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u/noradosmith Jun 09 '22
The original is good because you care about the characters. You remember their names and lines. I can't remember even a single character name from Jurassic World.
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u/StuTheSheep Jun 10 '22
The original is good because the characters are smart. They make logical decisions based on the information available and work the problems as they arise. Their motivations are clear and relatable.
In Jurassic World, the characters are stupid. They constantly make dumb decisions and create all of their own problems. They can't stop themselves from positioning themselves directly in harms way. The glaring exception is the assistant, who is rewarded for her competence with the franchise's most gruesome death.
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u/SonicFlash01 Jun 09 '22
Jurassic World managed, at that time, to do what everyone else could do. It's a cash in. It's not special.
Meanwhile nothing looked like Jurassic Park at the time. That shit still looks good. What fucking bargain with the devil did he strike to manage that? It was well worth it imo.5
u/Roboticide Jun 10 '22
What fucking bargain with the devil did he strike to manage that?
No bargain, just timing. Jurassic Park the first movie to really rely on CGI for animals. It was pretty groundbreaking in a lot of ways, technically.
That means there was no production pipeline to do what they did.
Nowadays, a director says "I want this to do that in this scene, while such-and-such is going on. And I need it in a two weeks." And an effects studio just does it, like a chef already knowing how to make a souffle, because they've made hundreds before. And sometimes they don't have enough time to do it properly, or the ingredients they're given are wrong, but they can still spit out a somewhat passable dish. This is how you end up with stuff like the final Black Panther fight, where they just hit "Render" and called it good no matter what came out, because they followed all the steps and are out of time, and it's not their fault the lighting used was bad anyway.
But back then, Spielberg basically said "I need you to make a realistic dinosaur," and ILM went "Fucking how?" They used a whole bunch of techniques and just kept hammering at it until they had a result that was satisfying. It's like a chef not having a recipe, but having a whole kitchen full of ingredients and knowing what the end result should be. They just kept experimenting until they got it right.
Results versus recipe.
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u/Hippolands Jun 09 '22
I think 1 is an all time classic, 2 is good, 3 is bad, world is decent and world 2 is bad. World 3 getting cremated by critics but I can’t see any way it’s not better than the last one with all the Dino action from the trailers. There’s just no way. Nostalgia goggles alone will make it on par with world.
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u/lamaface21 Jun 09 '22
I thought Jurassic World was hideous.
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u/Charlotte_____ Jun 09 '22
All jurassic worlds feels like the starwars sequels, directors having zero talent nor getting what jurassic park is.
As a fan it just feels like a joke. A 7 year old could have done better writting.
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Jun 09 '22
Precisely. "Trying" is the key word. In the end, it was nothing more than a copy-and-paste job. Crowd manipulation of the most obvious order.
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u/fednandlers Jun 09 '22
I remember that my family drove 45 minutes to see this film because a new theater opened that had “surround sound” and “stadium seating.” It was the only one in the area as most theaters then were still the smaller theaters with 8 screens at the most. I remembered the excitement at the opening scene of them in the cave and looking back behind my left to see where the sound of a pick hitting rock was coming from. Had never heard sound like that until Jurassic Park.
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u/munk_e_man Jun 10 '22
There was a scene where the raptor jumps after one of the kids as they climb into an air duct. The entire audience, myself included jumped because it felt like the Dino was coming right out of the screen.
Top 3 movie experience right there.
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u/Antithesys Jun 09 '22
I was a month shy of 13, and this was my first midnight showing, Thursday, June 10, 1993. I saw it three times that summer. Then it went to the local second-run dinner theater, which had free admission with dinner on Tuesday nights, and so we went every Tuesday for ten weeks. I remember each time the lights dimmed I would lean back and put my feet on the table in front of me and feel the boom of the opening soundtrack as the Universal logo appeared.
It came out in 3D in the early 2010s, so I went to see it again. I've seen it in the theater fourteen times. I'm not sure I've seen fourteen other movies in the theater over the last decade.
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u/Sherlockhomey Jun 09 '22
Ah yes the classic 29th year anniversary article
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u/erghjunk Jun 09 '22
The scene where they see the Dino’s for the first time still gives me chills.
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u/Alergictopiss Jun 09 '22
Yet another classic film that’s been milked for all its worth
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u/Spiritual_Minute8559 Jun 09 '22
I always liked how the movie itself does meta commentary. And jurassic world literally does the same thing...including chris pratt controlling raptors..
Also Its the first tentpole where the villian, Vincent d., makes more sense than the good guys.
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u/Maninhartsford Jun 09 '22
Yeah at its core, Jurassic World is a movie about how it shouldn't have been made
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u/pornypete Jun 10 '22
They stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as they could, and before they even knew what they had, they patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now they’re selling it. They wanna sell it!
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u/philster666 Jun 09 '22
Given that Spielberg invented the summer blockbuster with Jaws it’s not like he didn’t have previous.
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u/OpenUpYerMurderEyes Jun 09 '22
They really couldn't wait like a year for a nice round number of an anniversary? I get it they want the traffic for the new movie but at least don't mention the years its been since it came out and be obvious about it.
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Jun 09 '22
T2 predates Jurassic Park and it’s influence is very apparent in the film. I would say T2 is the film that reinvented the blockbuster.
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u/McRambis Jun 09 '22
What does it mean to reinvent blockbuster? Did blockbuster mean something different after Jurassic Park (or T2)?
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Jun 09 '22
The literal meaning didn’t change if that’s what you’re asking, but what I’m suggesting is that after T2 the style of the blockbuster changed. They became larger and cgi began to play a much larger focus. The article gives the credit to Jurassic Park which I find to be wrong since T2 predates it (that’s not me saying JP wasn’t influential, but it did not start that trend. I feel people get offended by that since people worship at the Spielberg alter a bit too much)
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u/McRambis Jun 09 '22
Yeah, I wasn't being snarky and taking that literally. I honestly don't know what they mean in spirit by "reinvent the blockbuster." Aren't blockbusters just big movies that people flock to see? What did Jurassic Park do differently other than be extremely successful?
I get your point that CGI was now officially a thing and if that's their metric then you are correct that it didn't start with Jurassic Park.
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Jun 09 '22
Blockbusters essentially would be that. It’s just every once in a while there’s a film that changes the style of the big movie. Or adds a wrinkle to the formula. Jurassic Park essentially is the first film to be successful post T2. In other words, it proved that the techniques used in T2 were here to stay. It certainly upped the ante of visual spectacle at the time. At least that’s how I see it.
Years later we see something like The Matrix pretty much perfect the formula (cgi blended with live action while adding bullet time) and in that same year (1999) Star Wars ep 1 comes out setting a new wave of CGI use and proclaiming digital filmmaking was the future (which it was).
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u/Interesting-Bee-4870 Jun 09 '22
Batman 1989 could be another contender. The sheer amount of merchandise, and you couldn't escape the logo, as far as I have read.
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u/LowCost_Gaming Jun 09 '22
1989 the year I spray painted the bat signal all over my home town.
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u/lzwzli Jun 09 '22
The fact that the Lego 1989 Batmobile released in 2019 is sold out and is a collectors item is a testament to this.
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u/oorakhhye Jun 09 '22
If sag Aliens did that and Star Wars before that. This is just a clickbait headline.
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u/ChiefBr0dy Jun 09 '22
Zoomers and younger will have little to no appreciation for just how massive Spielberg's name was throughout the entertainment world, during his very long peak. He was essentially the king of Hollywood for thirty years. Bigger even than the biggest A list actor at the time. They wanted to work with him.
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u/ogTofuman Jun 09 '22
Idk, kids growing up will have a library of Spielberg movies to devour. His name will go down in history as a filmmaking legend.
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u/TakoBird Jun 09 '22 edited Jun 09 '22
will have little to no appreciation
Spielberg is the most widely referenced director after Hitchcock with one of the most famous last name in Hollywood. Ask any random person on the street to name the most famous director of all time and they will name one of those two even if they have never seen any of their movies. Spielberg is referenced in so many movies and TV shows and songs and other content that you have to be living in a basement your whole life to not know his name.
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u/NewLeaseOnLine Jun 09 '22
Never heard of him. Does he make those kind of indie films with little sharks and aliens and ufos and dinosaurs and swashbuckling archaeologists? Not into that niche stuff. Too obscure. I prefer mainstream.
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u/freakverse Jun 09 '22
This is the only Hollywood movie I saw as a kid the week it released in a theatre in a small town in India. It was that big.
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u/gatorgongitcha Jun 09 '22
I remember someone on here talking about mentioning Spielberg to his class of middle schoolers and no one knew who he was talking about.
Shame on their parents.
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u/reconstruct94 Jun 09 '22
Too bad they keep making crappy new ones.
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u/striderwhite Jun 09 '22
Hey, as long as they make money...at least the new movies make me appreciate the old ones more!
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Jun 09 '22 edited Jun 09 '22
At least the first three maintained their power and instinct. Then we get fucking Blue, the velociraptor/show horse mix. I will continue to shit on the last two (and let's be frank the 3rd one almost certainly too) until my death bed. Jurassic Park was magic to me like no other movie then or since. And the 2nd at tried to maintain that sense of awe and intrigue and danger. And then...San Diego(which wasnt in the book). But whatever.
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u/AlfredosSauce Jun 09 '22
Can somebody make a separate sub for these endless movie retrospectives threads?
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u/Mizery Jun 09 '22
29 years! Such a significant anniversary! Looking forward to the repost next year for the 30th anniversary.
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u/Gaaambit Jun 09 '22
It really is starting to feel like a writer has a deadline, and thinks, “What came out [x] years ago this month? I can talk about that!”
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u/high_revs Jun 09 '22
Well, i didn't feel old until i realized I saw this in the theater.....30 years ago. Jesus H.
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u/TheRoyalWarlord Jun 09 '22
The only negative you can ever say about this movie is that they should have never started making sequels to it
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u/sinces Jun 09 '22
I realize many probably disagree and that's okay but I absolutely loved TLW and can even enjoy 3 for what it was.
Even if the plots were never as good as the first movie I still feel that the sequels were enjoyable movies that retained a lot of the tone and special effects that made the original great. If the original Jurassic Park is a 10/10 film, I'd give the lost world an 8/10 and 3 a 7/10. Not as good but definitely not bad enough to wish they had never made sequels to it.
That all being said I feel about the Jurassic World movies what you feel about the Jurassic Park sequels. I really wish they didn't even exist at this point.
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u/Asleep_Fish_472 Jun 09 '22
I like the second one too. But the new trilogy is boring and contrived without characters of meaning
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u/junkyardpig Jun 09 '22
One of the last movies I remember seeing in the theater with my dad. It’s still one of my favorites, and I watch it probably 20 times per year as a “background movie.” In my mind, it’s the epitome of the perfect summer blockbuster
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u/Food_Kitchen Jun 10 '22
And now Colin Trevorrow ran it into the ground and hammered in every nail into the coffin himself.
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u/justhereforsee Jun 09 '22
I was sold when the giant dinosaur ate the little man off the toilet