Through The Magic Lantern
Copyright (c) 1993, Diamond & Shipp
All rights reserved



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                       WITH BRUCE DIAMOND AND RANDY SHIPP


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          JURASSIC PARK:  Steven Spielberg, director.  Michael     
          Crichton and David Koepp, screenplay.  Based on the      
          novel by Michael Crichton.  Stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern, 
          Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Bob Peck, Martin    
          Ferrero, B.D. Wong, Joseph Mazzello, Ariana Richards,    
          Samuel L. Jackson and Wayne Knight.  Universal Pictures. 
          Rated PG-13.                                             
        


     BRUCE DIAMOND:  Welcome to the first installment of THROUGH THE
                     MAGIC LANTERN, with Diamond and Shipp.
                     I'm Diamond.


     RANDY SHIPP:  And I'm Shipp.


     DIAMOND:  For this first installment, we'll be discussing Steven
               Spielberg's new epic, JURASSIC PARK, taken from Michael
               Crichton's best-selling novel.  Billionaire John
               Hammond (Richard Attenborough) creates a theme park on
               an island off the coast of Costa Rica.  His investors
               are nervous about the park, so he invites two
               scientists, paleontologist Allan Grant (Sam Neill) and
               paleobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) to give the
               park their "stamp of approval."  As added insurance,
               the investors' lawyer, Donald Gennaro (Martin Ferrero)
               brings along a brilliant mathematician, Dr. Ian Malcolm
               (Jeff Goldblum), whose Choas-based theories foretell
               the inevitable collapse of the park.


     SHIPP:  The visitors are astounded when they reach the park to
             find that Hammond's team of geneticists have cloned
             dinosaurs from DNA millions of years old.  The group
             quickly decides that perhaps Hammond's scientists have
             acted too quickly, but are convinced by the jubilant
             Hammond to withhold final judgement until after they have
             had the grand tour of the park.  But a tropical storm,
             and the actions of a spy on Hammond's staff combine to
             make for a less-than-pleasant tour.  When Hammond's
             dinosaurs are set free to roam the island, the visitors
             are forced to survive against long-extinct predators.


     DIAMOND:  Well, Randy, I think you may have understated the case
               when you say "less-than-pleasant tour."


     SHIPP:  You're right.  I think that's one of the things that most
             people, especially parents, may be interested in hearing.
             JURASSIC PARK isn't exactly a kiddie movie.  Steven
             Spielberg's movie isn't gory, but it is suspenseful,
             maybe too much for some younger kids.


     DIAMOND:  Suspenseful is, again, an understatement.  JURASSIC is a
               tense, scary movie, perhaps the best-made monster movie
               ever.  It will scare you.  Bar none.


     SHIPP:  Maybe the fact that these monsters were once real makes
             it even more scary.


     DIAMOND:  That's a good point.  There's something primal about
               dinosaurs -- practically every kid feels it at one
               point or another.  Maybe it's a racial memory that
               keeps bringing us back to dinosaurs, even though
               science tells us that humans and dinosaurs never
               co-existed.  Look at the popularity of Godzilla, for
               example.


     SHIPP:  Right.  There's been a real rush on dinosaur things
             lately, and I think it's because they're the only
             monsters we're allowed to believe in.  Spielberg has
             taken what may have been fascinating creatures for kids
             and made them very believable and very scary.  Of course,
             it's worth noting that not all the dinos in JURASSIC are
             killers.


     DIAMOND:  Too true.  The brachiosaurs are one example of the
               peaceful dinos in this film.  The scene where Neill and
               Dern first see a live brachiosaur is incredible.  I
               *felt* the awe they were feeling, and the computer
               graphics are impeccable.


     SHIPP:  Yeah, in my opinion, I think the shots of peaceful animals
             were more awesome than the dark, violent shots of T. Rex.


     DIAMOND:  A friend who accompanied me to the preview said he was
               pulled in by the shot of the brachiosaurs in the lake,
               mixed with smaller dinosaurs and birds.  It was so
               REAL.


     SHIPP:  Or the scene where the herd of small dinos flocked like
             birds across a field.  That's where JURASSIC PARK's
             special effects people really succeeded:  they managed to
             really let you forget you weren't looking at models or
             computer graphics.  The effects, including the incredible
             sound, convinced you for a while that all that was
             possible.


     DIAMOND:  You know, I've already heard one critic complain that
               the full-size animatronic puppets and the computer
               graphics didn't blend together at all for him.  He even
               mentioned stop-motion animation, but the fact is that
               while Industrial Light and Magic's "Go-Motion" team
               (the same team responsible for the Landwalkers in THE
               EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and other such movies) worked on
               the dinosaur's movements, absolutely NO stop-motion
               animation was used in the movie.


     SHIPP:  I think it's a tribute to ILM that I couldn't tell how the
             effects were done.  And I'm a person who usually pays
             close attention to special effects.  I think it's great
             that the effects in this movie didn't vie for your
             attention quite like TERMINATOR 2.


     DIAMOND:  T2 seemed more of an effects-for-effects'-sake movie,
               whereas in JURASSIC PARK, the thrill-ride terror is
               more of the focus.  That may be the major distinction
               between James Cameron and Steven Spielberg as
               directors.  Cameron's great with action flicks, but
               NOBODY can do atmosphere and white-knuckle scenes like
               Spielberg.


     SHIPP:  And they abound in JURASSIC PARK.  I'll tell you, I'm
             tempted to declare this movie Spielberg's best for that
             very reason.  At no point did the tension stop building
             in this movie until the very end, when it climaxed and
             then dropped off very suddenly.  I thought that perhaps
             there might have been a bit more denouement or epilogue
             to the story, but then the ending was a weakness in
             Crichton's book, which may have been difficult to remedy
             in the screen adaptation.


     DIAMOND:  Yes, but there was more of a sense of closure to the
               novel.  The film, unfortunately, just leaves you
               hanging.  Perhaps deliberately for a sequel, which
               Spielberg has dropped hints about lately.  Spielberg
               changed several things from the book, some for the
               better, some for the worse.  I'm not sure I agree with
               his softening of EVERY character.  Hammond, for
               example, is not nearly as obsessed as he is in the
               book.  Crichton's Ian Malcolm was much more acerbic,
               and his kids were quite annoying.


     SHIPP:  You're right.  I worried that the kids would come out
             badly in the film, and in fact they did quite well.


     DIAMOND:  I agree.  The girl (Ariana Richards) plays absolute
               terror so *well* that I was afraid for her!


     SHIPP:  As for a sequel, I think they might have used the
             minimal epilogue of the novel to set us up for a
             JURASSIC PARK 2, but instead, Spielberg chose not even to
             give us a hint that there could be more action.  I think
             part of that comes from the fact that he was forced to
             edit the story heavily.  A time and money constraint
             certainly must have led him to cut back some scenes in
             the book, some of which suggested in no uncertain terms
             the possibility of a sequel.  But I think that with the
             incredible box office success this movie is likely to
             see, a sequel may be so financially sound an investment
             as to be inevitable.


     DIAMOND:  A time and money constraint?  I don't know.  Considering
               Spielberg spent somewhere between 50 and 70 million
               dollars and spent two months filming in Hawaii, it may
               have been more of a *dramatic* purpose to cut back some
               scenes from the book.  The whole business of dinosaurs
               (velociraptors, actually) escaping to the mainland was
               dropped entirely, and I think it makes for a stronger
               film.


     SHIPP:  A little more focused, maybe.


     DIAMOND:  Which, frankly, film needs to be.  The medium dictates
               it.


     SHIPP:  It's hard to fault Spielberg for not making a four hour
             movie, which JURASSIC PARK surely would've been had every
             scene been recreated...but it would've been fun to see
             two more hours of incredible dinosaur effects and to hear
             more of John Williams' outstanding score.


     DIAMOND:  Williams has outdone himself here.  It's not often I can
               still hear the score in my head after I leave a movie.
               Right now, the theme from JURASSIC PARK is playing over
               and over in my mind.  While it may not be his absolute
               best work (and I might have to say that for Spielberg,
               as well), it's certainly better than some of his more
               recent efforts.


     SHIPP:  Yep.  This soundtrack will join STAR WARS in my CD
             collection.  I found myself several times thinking, "This
             is just like STAR WARS.  Williams has actually WATCHED
             this movie."  His music will bring back the story when
             you listen to it later.


     DIAMOND:  Do you maintain that this is Spielberg's best movie,
               even in the light of JAWS, E.T., and THE COLOR PURPLE?
               While it's an excellent job, and easily the most
               exciting movie so far this year, I'm a little hesitant
               to call it his best.


     SHIPP:  It's tough to decide which of those medalists should get
             the gold, isn't it?  I just feel that maybe Spielberg has
             found a style which he might even refine more.  The
             suspense was so taut in JURASSIC, you'd think it was the
             only style Spielberg had ever worked in.  Perhaps I was
             hasty to suggest it was his best, but then I hope that we
             haven't seen Steven Spielberg's best movie.


     DIAMOND:  I hope we haven't, either.  God knows, it'll take a lot
               to surpass JURASSIC PARK.  I've been maintaining for
               the last two weeks that this is Spielberg's medium.  He
               works best with topics that at least have some
               grounding in reality.  When he takes off on a flight of
               fantasy (viz. HOOK), he loses his footing, despite the
               youth-based themes that he resonates so well with.



     SHIPP:  I think that may be why, surprisingly to some people,
             JAWS sticks out among the list of movies you mentioned
             earlier.  It had the same sort of building fear that
             JURASSIC PARK has, and it also deals with real-life
             monsters.  In JAWS, though, he had a much easier time
             building suspense, since the menace was hidden and struck
             without warning.  In JURASSIC, I think Spielberg had to
             work harder to be scary, so maybe I'm a little more
             impressed.


     DIAMOND:  Well, in the end, all the arguments and little flaws in
               the movie can be swept away by just two words:  "WHO
               CARES?"  JURASSIC PARK is one mother of an amusement
               ride, and everything else can just fall by the wayside.
               On a scale of 1-10, I'd have to give JURASSIC PARK a
               10!


     SHIPP:  I'm with you, Bruce.  This movie sparkled the way only a
             high-budget, high-quality film can, and is the first
             movie in a while which left me breathless even during the
             ride home.  JURASSIC PARK was a perfect 10!


     DIAMOND:  That's it for this month's installment of THROUGH THE
               MAGIC LANTERN, with Diamond and Shipp.  Be with us next
               month when we discuss another summer blockbuster.


     SHIPP:  I'm Diamond and he's Shipp...nononono...He's Diamond and
             I'm Shipp...and we'll meet YOU at the matinee.  See you
             next time.


