The Lost World: Jurassic Park

The first Jurassic Park (1993), directed by Stephen Spielberg and based on Michael Crichton’s novel, focused on the dangers of mixing pride with technology.  It was wonderful to gaze on dinosaurs, resurrected from DNA preserved in amber by modern genetics, but it was not wise to be over confident about the achievement.  Presumably, the first thing the scientists could think of once they restored dinosaurs to life was to build an amusement park where tourists come see them.  (This particular point was never adequately explained, and it is the single most preposterous aspect of the whole series). The dangers of mixing improbable technology with commercialism are another concern of that first film. In any event, the dinosaurs run amuck, human greed intervenes, and the park shuts down, all the dinosaurs are expected to die because they have been engineered to die unless they eat food that contains a certain chemical.  Moreover, they have been engineered not to breed. Although the science was mostly bogus, the film was fun, and it contains one of the most truly frightening scenes in film: the Tyrannosaurus Rex attack.

In The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997, dir. Stephen Spielberg), we learn that (a) the dinosaurs have survived on a nearby island and (b) they have reproduced.   The wonder is all gone, alas.  We’ve seen most of these dinosaurs before, the plot is thin, the acting is dull.  Tyrannosaurus is a one-note carnivore. Jeff Goldblum is a welcome vestige of life in the film, but he doesn’t have his heart in it.  Since most of the greedy villains died in the first film, a new set appears in this one.  They are mostly consumed as well. There is a worthwhile scene in San Diego, where an escaped Tyrannosaurus eats a family dog.

Many of the most famous scenes from this film and its predecessor take place at night.  I suppose darkness makes the special effects, the computer-generated images of huge dinosaurs, easier to put across in a credible way.  Darkness is an inherent element of the illusions put forth in the films.

What we have here is the birth of a franchise.  A film that supposedly attacks the dangers of unbridled commercialism and unregulated science instead becomes its own target. The next film is weaker than this one, and the fourth one is even worse.  I haven’t seen the fifth one, but the previews show velociraptors chasing children down a narrow hallway in a decrepit old mansion.  Shades of Scooby Doo.