Wonkette Movie Night: Jurassic Park
'Hold on to your butts.'
Sam Neill had already acted in several films, including The Hunt For Red October (free on YouTube) and Dead Calm (free on Tubi) before starring in the role that would bring him the most attention. That of Dr. Alan Grant, the dinosaur expert in Jurassic Park.
Dr. Grant, a paleontologist along with paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler and a mathematician, Ian Malcolm are invited by a wealthy man, John Hammond to a special island.
Isla Nubar is not a tourist destination, at least not yet, Hammond hopes to change that as he has developed a very unusual theme park. He has asked these scientists to help prove his new venture is safe for the public. Hammond has used his ridiculous wealth to pay some of the brightest minds to bring to life what had long been extinct.
As the three scientists arrive they are stunned with amazement to find themselves among plodding, living brachiosaurs, 50 ton creatures that dine on leaves and tower over them. Always the smart ass, Ian states, “God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs.”
To which the brilliant Ellie responds, “Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth.” I like the way she thinks. But it is also somewhat predictive of what is going to happen when humans try to control nature. Because this theme park has some of the more toothy, meat eating dinos, the tyrannosaurus rex is not satisfied with goat meat, and the raptors start getting tired of hamburger for lunch everyday.
Throw in a greedy computer expert and soon the walls come tumbling down and once again the dinosaurs rule the Earth. As things go wrong and the scientists along with Hammond’s 2 grandchildren fight for survival, Hammond still clings to the hope his dream can be saved. “All major theme parks have delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked!” To which Ian replies, “Yeah, but, John, if The Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don’t eat the tourists.”
Jurassic Park is based on the 1990 book written by Michael Crichton whose novels have been turned into many successful films, including The Andromeda Strain (free on OKRU) and Westworld (free on YouTube.)
Jurassic Park spawned 6 sequels in which Sam Neill would star in JP 3 and JW Dominion:
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
Jurassic Park III (2001)
Jurassic World (2015)
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
Jurassic World Dominion (2022)
Jurassic World Rebirth (2025)
As well as 2 really good animated series, Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous (2020–2022) and Jurassic World: Chaos Theory (2024-2025).
Before starring in Jurassic Park, Sir Nigel John Dermot “Sam” Neill was honored as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1991 by Queen Elizabeth II. In 2022 he was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer and underwent chemotherapy and experimental treatments with his cancer going into remission. He died July 13, 2026 from pneumonia, his damaged immune system unable to fight back. He was well loved and remembered fondly by his fans and costars.
Jurassic Park stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Ariana Richardson, Joseph Mazzelo, Richard Attenborough, Wayne Knight, Samuel L. Jackson, and B.D. Wong. Directed by Steven Spielberg.
Jurassic Park is available for free on OKRU; $3.99 in the usual places.
To make requests and see the movie lists and schedules, go to WonkMovie.
The animated short is Gertie The Dinosaur, created by Winsor McCay in 1914.
Next week’s Movie Night selection kicks off a month of classic films in honor of our friend Fukui. Dark Passage is available for free with ads on Tubi and Plex; $3.99 in the usual places. Free on OKRU.
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Despite being called "Jurassic Park" and having the reputation of being the movie that is all about dinosaurs (and vastly re-popularized them), the creatures only have around fifteen minutes of screen time: nine minutes are Stan Winston's animatronics, and six minutes of it is Industrial Light & Magic CGI. This means only around 11% of the film is dedicated to dinosaur scenes. Many people have therefore drawn parallels with Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975), which also used its creature special effects sparingly, and leaned heavily on suspense by keeping the big shark off screen as long as possible, thus making the audience believe that they had seen the creature for much longer than they had in reality.
Except for some very brief glimpses in the opening scene, the adult velociraptors, often cited as the most memorable dinosaurs in this movie, don't make an on-screen appearance until over one hour and forty-three minutes into the movie.