Spielberg takes a second bite at dinosaur tale with message

There is a fundamental message at the heart of Jurassic Park, both Michael Crichton’s novel and the blockbuster film that followed: don’t mess with Mother Nature.

As Crichton himself observed: “You decide that you’ll control nature, and from that point on you’re in deep trouble, because you can’t do it. Your powers are much less than your dreams would have you believe.”

When Steven Spielberg turned book into film he looked to a melding of scientific discovery and visual imagination. It made humans strangers in an alien world. Today, all that remains of the dinosaurs are relics of blood encased in amber. To Crichton that provided enough of a hook on which to hang a time capsule of a novel.

The tagline for the story was that Jurassic Park was “a childhood fantasy made real, a place where wonders come to life. It was created to be the ultimate amusement. But someone forgot to tell the dinosaurs...”

Jurassic Park was released in the summer of 1993, but had been in pre-production since May 1990, when Spielberg obtained the galleys of Crichton’s upcoming book.

Historically, the action of large creatures was best achieved with stop-motion photography, but Spielberg pushed the effects envelope and developed new technologies.

To do so he formed a ‘dream team’ of wizards like Dennis (Star Wars) Muren, Phil Tippett and the late Stan (Terminator) Winston. They created an impressive cast of dinosaurs, from the massive T-rex to a baby raptor.

Much of the dinosaur imagery was created in the computer as Spielberg and his team sought to break even more new ground. The work was handled by the George Lucas-founded effects house Industrial Light and Magic.

The ILM team used computer-generated imaging and morphing from Terminator 2 to flesh out the mechanical work being carried out by other teams. This, then, is how dinosaurs were brought back to life authentically and believably.

“Jurassic Park is a cross between a zoo and a theme park,” said Spielberg all those years ago.

“It’s about the idea that man has been able to bring dinosaurs back to earth millions of years later, and what happens when we come together. There’s a big moral question in this story. DNA cloning may be viable, but is it acceptable? Is it right for man to do this, or did dinosaurs have their shot a million years ago? This is not science fiction; it’s science eventuality.

“The first big words I ever learned were different dinosaur species, and when my son Max was two years old, he could not only identify but pronounce ‘iguanodon’. I think one of the things that interests kids is that [dinosaurs are] so mysterious”

Jurassic Park took almost $1bn dollars at the box office. Two sequels followed. Now a fourth film is in pre-production with Universal looking to delivery by 2013 – 20 years after the original lumbered out and astounded everybody.

Jurassic Park is re-released for a limited period to tie in with the launch of the Ultimate Trilogy on Blu-ray.