Current Events > You kids don't realize what Jurassic Park looked like to us in 1993.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Now everyone blows their CGI wad in every blockbuster movie, but if you were at the movie theater in 93 your jaw was on the fucking floor wondering how the images on your screen could possibly exist in this reality.

And you know what? It STILL holds up.
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I think part of why it works so well is because CG was an untested method of creating special effects. They didn't lean into it the way modern studios do and the movie looks so much better because of it.

Even Jurassic World has that oversmoothed CG shimmer to the dinosaurs that breaks cinematic immersion.

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Still one of my favorite movies. The Jurassic World movies look like shit by comparison.

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A lot of it was practical effects as well, which very rarely gets mentioned, but is a big part of why it looked so good.

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Alteres posted...

A lot of it was practical effects as well, which very rarely gets mentioned, but is a big part of why it looked so good.

This. Even movies like The Thing and Alien hold up to this day due to quality practical effects.

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EffectAndCause posted...

but if you were at the movie theater in 93 your jaw was on the fucking floor

I gotta be honest, I wasn't. I don't even really remember that being a talking point. I mean, of course it looked great. But I just don't remember anyone having long conversations about how good the CGI looked.

Maybe it's just because we got shows like Land of the Lost in '91. And sure that looks hilariously bad now. But if they could do that on TV, on a Saturday Morning budget, then maybe there was just an expectation that a theatrical release was just naturally supposed to look that good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DyHNugueOs


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Kids? Everyone on this board is 40+ years old

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Practical effects don't get outdated tbh. Elf is a great example actually, almost all the shots of Buddy with other elves are forced perspective instead of green screen. It looks real because it is.

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The book had better special effects.
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Yeah, it was nuts. Crazy story about Jurassic Park-- when the movie was being made, Utahraptor hadn't been discovered yet, so the largest raptors we knew about were about the size of chickens. The paleontologist on consult for the movie told Spielberg so, and Spielberg just said "yeah, that's not scary" and decided to go with big raptors instead. Before the film got released, film-sized raptor fossils were discovered in Utah.

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You know I never could get into that movie.

I'm not sure why, it could have been all down to timing.
So that's my confesion.

Wii_Shaker posted...

I think part of why it works so well is because CG was an untested method of creating special effects. They didn't lean into it the way modern studios do and the movie looks so much better because of it.

Even Jurassic World has that oversmoothed CG shimmer to the dinosaurs that breaks cinematic immersion.

I totally get what you are saying here.
Also, I am pretty sure they brought in old stop-action artists and or puppeteers etc to help with the animation.
For some, it saved what had become a dead carrier. Which is pretty cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTGQ_K0DBPo
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I still feel like Jurassic park was the loudest movie I've ever heard in theaters.

That movie was something else. It still is something else. No sequel has captivated me like that first movie.

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vigorm0rtis posted...

Yeah, it was nuts. Crazy story about Jurassic Park-- when the movie was being made, Utahraptor hadn't been discovered yet, so the largest raptors we knew about were about the size of chickens. The paleontologist on consult for the movie told Spielberg so, and Spielberg just said "yeah, that's not scary" and decided to go with big raptors instead. Before the film got released, film-sized raptor fossils were discovered in Utah.

That's a little bit misleading. The velociraptors were based on deinonychus, which were a fair bit bigger than a chicken, unlike actual velociraptors. But yeah, they were still small enough that any large mammal could easily kill them.

This is a good comparison:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Dromaeosaurs.png

Also, there were some predatory dinosaurs that were likely unfeathered and of a decent size, like the movie raptors:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herrerasaurus

That and its kin lived in the Triassic during a time when the earliest dinosaurs and mammals first appeared, though neither were not yet the dominant animals on earth.


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EffectAndCause posted...

Now everyone blows their CGI wad in every blockbuster movie, but if you were at the movie theater in 93 your jaw was on the fucking floor wondering how the images on your screen could possibly exist in this reality.

And you know what? It STILL holds up.

As somebody who saw it in the cinema at the time, I always thought it was massively overhyped.

As for holding up? No way.

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TrowaBarton7 posted...

Kids? Everyone on this board is 40+ years old

Tens of thousands of years, give or take. Our unnatural long life and slower aging compared to mortals gave us an edge in battle. @Lokison

IloveJesus posted...

As somebody who saw it in the cinema at the time, I always thought it was massively overhyped.

As for holding up? No way.

I remember it being a big deal in theaters but I remembering it also being a huge deal for rentals.

I remember my friend rented it for his birthday party and everybody being excited for it.

It's held up better than movies released last year, don't know what you are even talking about.

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Wii_Shaker posted...

It's held up better than movies released last year, don't know what you are even talking about.

What I mean is that it has aged badly. Time has not been kind to it. If you watch it with a critical eye now, it's absolutely shit.

Films released last year that don't hold up now never did.

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Back then as a kid every movie blew my mind heck even mortal kombat annihilation was impressive to me

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the best scene was a giant puppet dinosaur.

i think the only real cgi dinos were the herbivores in big wide angle scenes.

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TrowaBarton7 posted...

Kids? Everyone on this board is 40+ years old

The average age of this board goes up five years every day, I swear.

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IloveJesus posted...

What I mean is that it has aged badly. Time has not been kind to it. If you watch it with a critical eye now, it's absolutely shit.

Films released last year that don't hold up now never did.

What's bad about it? I was never super into it but haven't seen it in years

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Jurassic Park still looks better than 99% of CGI today

IloveJesus posted...

Time has not been kind to it. If you watch it with a critical eye now, it's absolutely shit.

If you want people to take your argument seriously you can't just go and say things like this. It's hyperbolic to the point of immediately devaluing everything else you've said
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I still think practical effects and models look much better than CGI.
The space battle in Return of the Jedi hasn't been topped for me in any scifi flick and the original Jurassic Park blows the new ones out of the water.

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According to my dad, that was the movie I was most excited about. I was 7 at the time and dinosaurs were my favorite.

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nativengine posted...

According to my dad, that was the movie I was most excited about. I was 7 at the time and dinosaurs were my favorite.

i was 5, and i begged my mom to see it. i remember the t-rex scene scared the hell out of me, and afterwards i had my first experience with lucid dreaming.

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UnholyMudcrab posted...

If you want people to take your argument seriously you can't just go and say things like this. It's hyperbolic to the point of immediately devaluing everything else you've said

Argument? I'm just stating facts. Regardless of how you felt about it when it came out, it isn't a good film now.

Some of the kids I taught last year watched it for the first time and thought it was hilarious.

Balrog0 posted...

What's bad about it? I was never super into it but haven't seen it in years

I'd rather not type an essay about it, but seriously, watch it again now and I think you'll see what I mean.

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It literally still looks better than most modern cgi, and thats because they used real animatronics as well

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IloveJesus posted...

Regardless of how you felt about it when it came out, it isn't a good film now.

I actually hold it in higher regard now than I did when it came out.

At the time of it's release, it was simply an oddity and spectacle.

I have grown to appreciate the pacing and character development. Beat for beat, it's pretty much the perfect film and the actor's performances (Laura Dern in particular) are nothing short of cinematic magic.

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