We were dining at an outdoor restaurant (dhaba) run by a cute couple. The man and I started talking, and … small world … we both lived in New Delhi once upon a time. We shared fond memories of a particular theater in Vasant Vihar. Ask anyone who lived in Delhi in the 1990s about the Priya cinema hall, you will see nostalgia fill their eyes.
He and I listed the movies we saw there, and we stopped at … I’m not joking … Jurassic Park.
Back when I was a kid, Jurassic Park was a subject of wonder even before the movie’s release. Doordarshan had aired a couple of interesting dinosaur scenes. One of them gave me nightmares till I saw it in context in the theater. It featured two children in a vehicle … and a dinosaur came to peek at them.
After a fantastic viewing experience in the movie theater, we went home, little realizing that the Jurassic Park phenomenon would go out of control. A couple of years later, there were rumors of a second part. Sequels in those days were associated with Batman, Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, James Bond 007 and Hot Shots! Those movies were famous for their protagonists, not dinosaurs. We wondered … how could filmmakers recreate the dinosaur phenomenon?
They did recreate the dinosaur experience, minus the phenomenon.
Steven Spielberg (Jaws, Schindler’s List) returned to direct the first sequel – The Lost World: Jurassic Park. We got a third movie, after which the series went into hibernation. It hatched over a decade later, when development began for Jurassic World.
I don’t think the original creators made the first movie and said, “Let there be chaos.”
The real story of Jurassic Park began way before Spielberg developed it. The screenplay was adapted from a science fiction novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. From the prologue till the last page, you will see one theme dominating the narrative – chaos. Crichton expands on the subject of chaos in The Lost World, a sequel to Jurassic Park.
The two books and their movie adaptations told different stories, with one DNA strand in common – chaos.
One day, my neighbor’s kids came over to watch The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and the boy said, “They should make more Jurassic Park movies.” Three were too less for him. He wanted six, because for him, it was as great as the Star Wars series. His wish came true … a third Jurassic World is on the way.
All this chaos reminds me of the unforgettable experience of the first movie … before we met that many characters in the sequels who are struggling to prevent the franchise’s extinction.
Back then, it was just Alan (Sam Neill), Ellie (Laura Dern), Lex (Ariana Richards) and Tim (Joseph Mazzello) trying to survive in a theme park featuring dinosaurs. John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), who owns the property, attempts to regain control over the park. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) uses ‘humor’ to convey his expertise on chaos theory, only to become deadly serious when chaos erupts. It was these characters that we loved, but why?
Let’s go back to the beginning of Jurassic Park. We learn early on that Hammond is supporting his daughter during her divorce case. Alan Grant is a man who is not too fond of children. Ellie Sattler is the voice of reason in their lives. Hammond’s grandchildren – Lex and Tim – arrive. Which means his daughter, their mother, is alone somewhere on the American mainland, dealing with the absence of both her husband and her children. We also learn that Ian cannot preserve marital ties with any woman.
Therefore, it is the human species struggling to survive, not newborn dinosaurs.
Things get interesting when Alan gets stuck with the kids while running away from dinosaurs. Lex and Tim ignite the fatherly instincts within him. Meanwhile, Hammond and Ellie sit at a dining table, talking about how having complete control is an illusion. This was the kind of conversation Hammond could have had with his own daughter on marriage and divorce. Ian is a priestly figure, whose prophecy on natural selection stares him in the eye. Despite his pessimistic nature, he understands the necessity for the human race to live … survive.
Jurassic Park was released during a turning point in my family life, too. My father took us to a dinosaur exhibition in Delhi that year. We then went to a zoo. Saw a tiger and a deer. And like Lex and Tim, I was about to lose my father … not to divorce, but to death. We were not aware of his declining health.
A couple of years after his death, when I saw The Lost World: Jurassic Park, I did not feel disappointment – the reviews I heard were quite shocking. Ian Malcolm was too serious for audiences? Seriously? After what he experienced in Jurassic Park, why would he be as humorous as he used to be? I treat the second movie as a great adventure.
My grandmother (father’s side) was bedridden when Jurassic Park III was released theatrically. I cannot believe that pterodactyl-like fans still peck on some of the questionable scenes in the movie. The overall viewing experience was fine. In the third movie, a family gets a chance to patch things up. Nothing wrong with that.
Now, looming over us, earning billions of dollars at the box office is the mutated Jurassic World trilogy. It contains merely a single DNA strand from the original series. It has moments, like dead herbivore dinosaurs and a dying brachiosaurus (heartbreaking).
“Life finds a way,” was Ian’s most famous quote in Jurassic Park.
The movies have also found a way … to get Alan, Ellie and Ian back for one last walk in the park.
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