Yet in all that time, it’s hard to think of a single blockbuster spectacle that uses computer imagery to achieve a similar sense of awe and grandeur.
In the twenty-odd years since Jurassic Park pioneered the use of photorealistic computer-animated living creatures integrated into a live-action film, computer animation has become even more prevalent. Rarer is the sense of awe and wonder inspired by Jurassic Park’s unprecedented vision of the most mythologized creatures ever to walk the earth, brought to life by a still-convincing blend of early computer imagery and animatronics. Making viewers scream and jump is one of the movie’s oldest and most familiar tricks. The other is my brother-in-law, Dave, getting a bit misty when Sam Neill’s Alan Grant, witnessing Jurassic Park’s dinosaurs for the first time, murmurs in awed astonishment, “They’re moving in herds. One is my wife, Suzanne, screaming and reflexively whipping up her legs onto her theater seat when the velociraptor leaps up toward the camera at a young girl’s dangling legs as she tries to climb into an air duct. I saw Jurassic Park three times in theaters back in 1993, and I vividly recall two things from that time. The theatrical release of Jurassic World attests the enduring appeal of Steven Spielberg’s groundbreaking 1993 blockbuster.
