But I’m not here to review the trailer, but rather the movie that started it all 21 years ago. (Yes, I know the book came first, and yes the book is better than the movie. Shock. Moving on…) There are a lot of movies that have made extensive use of CGI over the last 2 decades that have not really held up well. Some do better than others, but really some of that early CGI work was… less than stellar.
Jurassic Park manages to hold up really well. I think this is because Spielberg didn’t rely upon CGI exclusively, but rather combining it with models and animatronics, and making sure the dinosaurs were living breathing animals, not monsters.
Beyond the special effects, it’s also a well crafted story, with characters acting in realistic ways. Nedry is greedy and sloppy. The children act like children, and even more than that, they act like siblings! Hammond is prideful, and all his decisions reflect that, even when his grandkids are in danger and he manages to mostly set aside that pride, the pride is still there.
It also strikes the right balance between horror and humor. The T-Rex chasing down the jeep, with Malcolm in the back yelling, then flip to the side mirror showing the T-Rex about to chomp down and the words “OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR”
Also, it’s a really easy movie to convert into an RPG adventure, and it would work for just about any genre or system. It’s just as easy to make it work as a d6 Star Wars adventure as it would be to convert into a 5e D&D game. Most gamers would probably be a little more aggressive than the characters in the movie though. For example, when Dr. Sattler and Robert Muldoon head out to turn on the circuit breakers, Dr. Sattler doesn’t grab a gun. That would never happen in any game I’ve ever seen, run, or played in…
Plus, who doesn’t love dinosaurs?
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