July 2022:
WELCOME TO JURASSIC PARK…
Jurassic Park premiered on Friday, June 11, 1993. It was directed by Steven Spielberg and starred Sam Neill, as Paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant, Laura Dern as Paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler and Jeff Goldblum as Mathematician & Chaos Theorist Dr. Ian Malcolm. It would set a box office weekend record of $502 million. It was produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Gerald R. Molen for Universal Pictures and Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment. The film was distributed by Universal Pictures. While considered a Science Fiction Action Film, let’s call it what it is, a bad ass dinosaur movie. At least that’s what I thought when I saw it premiere night in theaters.
A JURASSIC FILM MEMORY MADE…
I was 11 years old when I saw Jurassic Park in the theater for premiere night, and I will never forget the terror I felt when that T-Rex appeared on screen for the first time. When she broke through the fence in that pivotal scene of the film, I grabbed my chair and my cousin sitting next to me and half watched the scene while the other half of my face was buried into my cousin’s chair. I loved it. You wouldn’t think so, by that description but I loved every minute of that movie.
ALONG WITH FILM GODS…
That is exactly the kind of experience I want when I see a film. To be pulled into a movie and be emotionally affected is what the experience of going to the movies is all about. It’s why Hollywood makes movies. I knew there was no way the T-Rex would get me, but I still didn’t move when Alan Grant said not to. To be able to remember that movie experience to this day, is what made me want to be a screenwriter and film blogger and talk about this immersive world I envy. It’s the art of telling a story. Its omnipotent in a way, and in 1993, Steven Spielberg was a film God.
A JURASSIC MOVIE WITH GODFATHER POTENTIAL…
Jurassic Park was the first installment in what would become a franchise, and it was the first film in the original trilogy of Jurassic Park films. It was based on the 1990 novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. He also wrote the screenplay for the film with David Koepp. It was often taboo for a novelist to adapt his own work for the screen because producers felt it would be difficult for a novelist to edit up their own work and leave what isn’t necessary for the film adaption on the cutting room floor. But then came Mario Puzo and he blew that taboo out of the window, or pun intended, he left the taboo gun and took the money cannoli.
AN ISLAND OF JURASSIC CLONING…
The film took place on the fictional island of Isla Nublar, the island was located off the Pacific Coast of Central America near Costa Rica. There, is where wealthy businessman John Hammond and a team of genetic scientists, defied ecology and science along with mother nature and created a wildlife park of de-extinct dinosaurs. The genetic scientists that worked at the park would use frog DNA as a notable addition in the incomplete genome of a dinosaur, while also giving the dinosaurs special abilities. The scientists planned to limit the breeding of the dinosaurs by making them all female, but life found a way.
CHAOS THEORY IN MOTION…
To add insult to injury, when Hammond invites a small group of visitors to tour the park along with his grandchildren, Lex Murphy and Tim Murphy, industrial sabotage thanks to the one and only Dennis Nedry, leads to a catastrophic shutdown of the park’s facilities that control its power and security fences within the park that contain the dinosaurs. Those visitors Hammond invited, Paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant, played by Neill, Paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler, played by Dern and gifted mathematician who specializes in chaos theory, Dr. Ian Malcolm, played by Goldblum, along with his grandchildren who he is separated from in the chaos, struggle to survive extinction themselves and escape the perilous island.
HISTORICALLY JURASSIC PROFITS…
The film would rake in a record profit of $1.046 billion, more than paying off its budget of $63 million. Steven Spielberg, with Universal Pictures financing him acquired the rights for $1.5 million for Crichton’s novel adaption before its publication in 1990. Spielberg and Universal outbid four other studios who wanted the film rights before the novel was even published. Crichton was hired as the screenwriter for an additional sum of $500,000 to adapt the novel for theaters. The final draft of the script was written by Koepp, who made significant changes to the characters, while removing a majority of the novel’s exposition and violence.
A JURASSIC UNDERTAKING THAT INCLUDED A LIST…
Spielberg would be filming by August 1992 in Hawaii and took four months to complete the production shoot. He would multitask and complete the post-production of the film in Poland while he filmed Schindler’s List. This would be due to the special effects needed to create the de-extinct dinosaurs and the time it would take to create the Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) that would create the frightening T-Rex, I mentioned earlier. The CGI would be completed by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and the T-Rex would become an actual life-sized animatronic dinosaur along with the others built by Stan Winston and his team at ILM. They would use computer technology editing to complete the realness of the dinosaurs looks and movements where the animatronic replicas were limited.
A SOUND JUDGEMENT OF CREATION…
In order to get the sound design Spielberg desired, he wasn’t going to rely on anything that existed to pull it off. To showcase the various animal sounds for the dinosaur roars and achieve the sound design of the film, Spielberg invested in creating DTS, a company that specializes in digital surround sound formatting.
A MARKETING DREAM THAT WOULD NEVER GO EXTINCT…
The film would be a marketing gold mine with kids everywhere wanting to buy up Jurassic Park Toys, and adults could also buy up Jurassic themed merchandise with over 100 companies having licensing deals, it would cost a total of $65 million for Universal. The film went on to gross over $914 million worldwide in its theatrical run, becoming the highest grossing film of all time, until a little film called Titanic beat that record in 1997.
A JURASSIC PAYOFF IN GOLD WITH A RECORD ANNIVERSARY…
Jurassic Park took home over twenty awards during the giving season, which included three Academy Awards for its technical achievements in the categories of visual effects and sound design. The film was re-released in 2013 in 3D for its 20th Anniversary and broke more records by becoming the oldest film in history to surpass $1 billion in box office ticket sales. It was also selected in 2018, for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress due to it meeting the criteria of being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and deemed a cinematic treasure that must be protected to preserve and document our cinematic history, culture, hopes, and dreams in the American Film Industry.
You can read about Jurassic Park‘s 2018 induction into the National Film Registry below:
You can read about the box office records broken for Jurassic Park‘s re-release in 2013 below:
A FRANCHISE FOR THE JURASSIC ERA BEGINS…
The original film would have two sequels, The Lost World: Jurassic Park in 1997 with Jeff Goldblum and Jurassic Park III in 2001 with Sam Neill. The new trilogy of the franchise would start in 2015 with Jurassic World starring Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard. The only returning cast member from the original 1993 film would be BD Wong, who played Dr. Henry Wu, the InGen genetics scientist who oversaw the genetic engineering of the dinosaurs. The second film in the new trilogy would be Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom in 2018, Goldblum would return for this film as Dr. Ian Malcolm for book ended pivotal scenes in the film setting up the third and final film in the trilogy, Jurassic World Dominion in 2022, where all three original cast members: Neill, Dern and Goldblum would return for the farewell film of prehistoric proportions.
You can watch the 1993 Official Trailer for Jurassic Park here:
You can watch the 1997 Official Trailer for The Lost World: Jurassic Park here:
You can watch the 2001 Official Trailer for Jurassic Park III here:
You can watch the 2015 Official Trailer for Jurassic World here:
You can watch the 2018 Official Trailer for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom here:
THE END OF A PREHISTORIC ERA…
Jurassic World Dominion was directed by Colin Trevorrow, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Emily Carmichael. The second trilogy was not based on any Crichton novel and was instead based on a story by Trevorrow and Derek Connolly, with the original film having already created the world the Jurassic World Trilogy is based in. It is considered the sixth installment in the franchise when included with the original Jurassic Park trilogies. The new trilogies were produced by Frank Marshall and Patrick Crowley at Universal Pictures, with Colin Trevorrow and Steven Spielberg on as executive producers. The film was also distributed by Universal.
ALONG FOR THE FINAL RIDE..
Besides Pratt and Howard, the ensemble cast also included DeWanda Wise, Mamoudou Athie, BD Wong and Omar Sy. Neill, Dern and Goldblum reprising their roles in Jurassic World Dominion makes it the first time since 1993 film that the three have appeared on screen together. They all appeared briefly or at length in one the original trilogy sequels.
WELCOME TO JURASSIC WORLD…
Dominion is set four years after the events that took place in 2018’s Fallen Kingdom, with the dinosaurs now out of containment and off the island living among humans all over the world. Predicating Malcolm’s warning of Natural Evolution vs. Evolutional Science Speech to Congress in Fallen Kingdom and far from Claire Dearing‘s welcome to the new park in the beginning of the first film.
PLOT LINES ASSETS DEFINITELY OUT OF CONTAINMENT…
In the third and final film, Owen Grady and Clare Dearing, played by Pratt and Howard, embark on a rescue mission as a promise for a certain Blue friend of Grady’s, yes, Owen made a promise to a dinosaur, while they are busy traveling the globe on a promise, Dr’s Grant and Sattler reunite with Dr. Malcolm to blow the whistle on a conspiracy on the part of, genomics corporation, Biosyn, once a rival of the now defunct InGen.
ITALIAN DINOSAURS?…
Biosyn created a dinosaur preserve in the Dolomite Mountains of Italy where they conduct genomics research searching for groundbreaking pharmacological and agronomic applications to counter the ecological disasters and deadly animal attacks caused by the de-extinct dinosaurs roaming the Earth.
A PRE-HISOTRIC FOUR YEARS…
Clare Dearing is still with the Dinosaur Protection Group, along with Zia Rodriguez and Franklin Webb, only this time they aren’t championing Congress to save the dinosaurs from extinction on a volcano erupting island, they are investigating illegal dinosaur breeding sites, while Clare’s partner, Owen Grady is now working as a wrangler trying to relocate stray dinosaurs across the globe. When Owen and Clare aren’t trying to save the dinosaurs, they are secretly raising 14-year-old Maisie Lockwood in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Maisie is Benjamin Lockwood’s biogenetic granddaughter from Fallen Kingdom. While trying to secretly raise the cloned teenager, by living in seclusion in the mountains, they are also, protecting her from genetic research corporations, who would kidnap her to study her DNA, and no doubt use her genetics in pursuit of power and nefarious deeds. But Blue, Owen’s trained Velociraptor, who is now a mother to an asexually reproduced hatchling Maisie names Beta finds them and so begins Dominion.
FORGET THE DINOSAURS, WAIT UNTIL YOU HEAR ABOUT THE LOCUSTS…
Paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler is elsewhere dealing with formally extinct giant locusts that have inexplicably reappeared in massive swarms, wiping out crops and are causing an agricultural disaster. Dr. Sattler observes that corporate grown crops using Biosyn seeds are left uneaten causing her to have an idea as to how the locusts have reappeared on Earth after their long extinction. Believing they may date back to the Cretaceous period, Ellie approaches Paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant for help in figuring out how the locusts reappeared and why they are eating some crops and not others.
CHAOS THEORIES BE DAMNED….
Chaos theorist Dr. Ian Malcolm, who is now working for Biosyn, run by Lewis Dodgson. Ian has reached out too Ellie for help and invites her to Biosyn along with Alan, and the original team is reunited, and the nostalgia factor kicks into high gear in this final dinosaur thrill. Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler learn that Dr. Henry Wu, is now the company geneticist of Biosyn and begin to grow more suspicious of the intentions of the company. Clare and Owen head to Malta on a tip from Franklin, who has taken a job working for the CIA’s dinosaur unit and the dinosaur chaos ensues. Along for the thrill in Malta is Owen’s former dinosaur training colleague from Jurassic World, Barry Sembéne, who is working undercover for the CIA to track down illegal dinosaur breeding sites and has another lead for Clare and Owen along their journey in Italy. He points them in the direction of the Biosyn Dinosaur Sanctuary, and a sympathetic cargo pilot named Kayla Watts who flies them to the Biosyn Research Facility, but not before they face some prehistoric turbulence in the skies.
WITH A FILM GODS BLESSING, CAME MORE DINOSAURS…
Steven Spielberg, an executive producer of the new trilogies, had decided while Jurassic World was being made in 2015, that he had a desire to see more films produced and told Colin Trevorrow. The sequels were announced in April 2014, and Trevorrow stated that he was looking to create something that could serve as an arc to the originals but still make the entirety of the franchise seem like one complete story. Trevorrow wanted different directors for the sequel films, believing that others could bring different directing qualities to the series of stories he was trying to tell with the new trilogy. J.A. Bayona directed Fallen Kingdom, while Trevorrow directed Jurassic World and Dominion. He also felt it would give a whole new generation of kids and movie goers the benefit of discovering the Jurassic Park franchise that so many others had experienced two decades ago with the original trilogy of films. But Trevorrow noted that the stories he wanted to tell this time around would not always center on a dinosaur theme park, he would instead look at the consequences globally to John Hammond and Benjamin’s Lockwood’s genetics decision so many year ago and would explore the idea of dinosaurs and humans co-existing in one world together.
A Dinosaur Sequel Tributary…
Trevorrow did not however, want to depict dinosaurs terrorizing cities and killing people, an idea he saw as unrealistic. He wanted to honor the characters created in Michael Crichton’s dinosaur park novels Jurassic Park (1990) and The Lost World (1995), and a world where dinosaurs interacting with humans is unlikely, but possible. Trevorrow related his story of dinosaurs existing with humans, to that of predators we have in reality, like sharks and bears, and the way we watch out for them as we go about our daily lives. He wanted to tell the very real story of how we as humans, hunt animals to traffic them or kill for sport, and the way we herd and breed animals for food and profit, while also invading their territory and paying a price for it, while never actually going to war with those animals.
A DOMINION OF LESS DINOSAURS BUT SWARMS OF LOCUSTS…
Trevorrow looked to create a realism in the story he was telling by not having dinosaurs everywhere all the time. He didn’t think it would feel real to him to tell a story centralized around the dinosaurs, instead choosing to keep the film grounded in the context of the relationships of humans with wild animals today. The ultimate goal of Trevorrow was to have Clare’s line from the first film: “No one is impressed by a dinosaur anymore”, be proven false in the final film of the trilogy.
BUILDING A DOMINION…
Dominion‘s budget was between $165 million and $185 million. And the film was mainly shot at Pinewood Studios in England. John Schwartzman served as the film’s cinematographer, returning to the position he held in Jurassic World in 2015. He shot the film with a combination of 35 mm film, 65 mm film, and VistaVision. Some of the night scenes in the film were shot digitally to aid in the visual effects added during post-production. Filming would enter a hiatus for safety concerns due to the global COVID-19 Pandemic in March 2020. The filmmakers saved time during this pause and were able to edit the post-production footage that was already shot. Most of the scenes in the film featured the digitally created dinosaurs and the pandemic hiatus allowed the visual effects team to start creating and editing their prehistoric dinosaur creatures.
AND THAT’S A JURASSIC WRAP!
The film was completed on November 6, 2021. The completed film runs 2 hours and 26 minutes and is the longest film in the Jurassic Park franchise. It could have been even longer, but Trevorrow felt it was important to the story, to cut many scenes that were shot, including five scenes that were cut and released as prologue on social media. Approximately 14 minutes of the film were cut from the film, some included scenes of a dinosaur black market and an extended confrontation between characters in the film. Trevorrow expressed a desire to add the extended scenes back in for a possible director’s cut he is looking to release eventually with every excluded scene footage of the film that was cut intact.
You can watch the Jurassic World Dominion Prologue here:
A CRETACEOUS PREMIERE…
Jurassic World Dominion had its world premiere in Mexico City on May 23, 2022. The film premiered on June 01, 2022, in Mexico and South Korea. In the United States, the film was released by Universal Pictures on June 10, 2022, and was a year later from the original release date of June 11, 2021, which was due to the pandemic delaying production.
THE PRE-HISTORIC DIGITAL DOMINION…
Jurassic World Dominion will be released on Digital for Purchase and $19.99 Rental on July 14, 2022. An Extended Cut of the film will be released on Digital, 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray on August 16. It is also due to stream on Universal’s Peacock streaming service within four months of its theatrical release as part of an 18-month deal, after that the film will move to Amazon Prime Video for 10 months, before returning back to the Peacock streamer for the final four months of that deal. Following the expiration of that 18-month deal, Jurassic World Dominion will air on the STARZ Network for cable, as well as their online streaming platform as part of Universal’s post Pay-One licensing agreement with the television cable network.
So, run over to your TV or run to purchase your copy and get pre-historically sad as you bid farewell to a franchise that will remain in the hearts of adult movie goers everywhere for decades to come!