Jurassic Park (1993)
I saw Rebirth last week, and the only part that freaked me out was mentioning the original came out 32 years ago. Wow.
I saw it the Friday it opened in my town in 1993. My mom picked me up after school and took me right to the General Cinema at the mall. I had devoured the book. I was 13 and kind of fell out of my dinosaur obsession I had as a kid, but was immediately wowed by the book and movie.
I almost hid under my seat during the T-Rex-vs the car scene.
The movie changed everything. The advanced technology furthered the plot, and we hadn't scene monsters like this that weren't cartoons or Ray Harryhausen creations.
What every subsequent sequel lacked was the original spark of newness. Even today, the CGI and special effects are still better than than most modern movies.
I also collected all the McDonald's souvenir cups and still have them in storage, with my original ticket stub from 1993. It is still today one of my favorite movies.
I saw Rebirth at the same theater I saw JP in 1993.
Were you a kid when you saw it? Share memories here.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | July 15, 2025 9:37 PM
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[quote] I had devoured the book.
Interesting choice of words.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | July 15, 2025 3:30 PM
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I was six when it came out. It's a classic.
Like Spielberg's best works - Jaws, E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind - it holds up. It's as much a marvel today as it was in 1993. It's one of those nearly-perfect movies. The actors are solid, but not so A-list that it takes you out of the performances. The music is a character itself. The special effects were groundbreaking, and they're still pretty great today.
Look what they've done to it now. It's all CGI, and A-list asshole actors, and bizarre location filming done for sleazy tax breaks, and cartoonish supervillains that make it more of a James Bond adventure than a cautionary tale about the limits of science.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | July 15, 2025 3:40 PM
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I was out of college and working at the time, but on night shift.
All of my friends had seen it, so one day, I went to a matinee by myself.
The theater was pretty packed and a little kid and his dad ended up sitting next to me in the theater.
The part where the lawyer gets snatched off the shitter made both me and the little kid scream. We looked at each other, terrified. His dad asked, “did that scare you?” And both of us said, “Yes!”
I can’t remember being that scared in a movie since Poltergeist. I was shaking when I left the theater.
I didn’t see it again until years later on DVD and it didn’t scare me nearly as bad.
It’s one of those movies you need to see on the big screen to appreciate fully.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | July 15, 2025 3:45 PM
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R3, it is an incredibly intense film, which I think took a lot of us by surprise.
Once the storm hits and the power goes out, you're on a speeding train that doesn't end. I actually think it's more terrifying than Jaws.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | July 15, 2025 3:53 PM
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I agree, r4. “Intense” is the exact word for it, too.
No, I wasn’t ready for it to go from “oh, this is interesting” to “holy shit! Get me out of here!” in 20 seconds.
Once that movie hits the gas, it doesn’t let up.
It’s one of those movies that you remember seeing in the theater because of the intensity
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | July 15, 2025 5:08 PM
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R5 What are you, on the junk? There are NUMEROUS placid scenes throughout the movie. Spielberg paces the film so you don't get overwhelmed.
There's the scene where Grant and the kids climb the tree to sleep ("A Tree for My Bed")
The scene where Ellie and Hammond eat melting ice cream and talk about control ("Remembering Petticoat Lane")
The scene where they stare at Chilean sea bass and argue over genetics and plastic lunchboxes ("Coupon Day!")
The scene where they watch a raptor hatch in the lab ("Life, uh, finds a way.")
The coda in the helicopter, with the amber cane and the pelicans ("Welcome to Jurassic Park")
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | July 15, 2025 8:49 PM
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Lightning in a bottle. None of the sequels have come close to replicating the first movie. Even the Spielberg-directed Lost World sucked ass.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | July 15, 2025 9:37 PM
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