Cody's Top 30 Favorite Movies of All-Time: #6 - Jurassic Park

This movie was released the same year I was! *Pause for applause*

Jurassic Park was a 1993 science-fiction adventure movie directed by Steven Spielberg at the same time he was making his Oscar-winning picture Schindler's List. Jurassic Park was a Michael Crichton novel about a Walt Disney-esque mogul named John Hammond who whisks paleontologists Alan Grant, his grad student Ellie Sattler and mathematician and chaotician Ian Malcolm to his island of Isla Nublar. There, the group discovers that he's been able to successfully clone and recreate living, breathing dinosaurs.

In the movie, basically the same thing happens, but there was a few changes to some of their characters. Ellie is no longer Alan's grad student but of a fellow doctor of paleontology and John Hammond is no longer an angry billionaire with cunning schemes but a gentleman who looks out for both his employees, his guests and his family. It was Richard Attenborough's kind-hearted portrayal of this character that necessitated the changes. Everybody remembers Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm, the mathematician who dresses in all black and spouts this-and-that about chaos theory regarding the island its too many automated systems.

Well naturally, it wouldn't be a movie about dinosaurs if something didn't go haywire. Turns out Wayne Night's character Dennis Nedry isn't a very nice guy. He agrees to commit corporate espionage for another character simply named "Dodgson" (Lewis Dodgson in the novel) to steel embryos and return them to him for money. Dennis writes a backdoor into the park's systems, deactivating security long enough for him to make the embryo hand off and return to his seat to restore power after fifteen minutes. Well, he gets lost on the way and eaten by a Dilophosaurus, leaving the park's systems off and the dinosaurs start running haywire. Including the imfamous, well-paced, well-acted suspense scene of the Tyrannosaurus Rex breaking from her pen.

I won't spoil too much more of the thrill ride, but just know the movie is one of Spielberg's finest. It's up there with Jaws, ET: The Extra Terrestrial, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Jaws as some of the best work Spielberg's ever done. It's another fun adventure film, and considering what we get in his Indiana Jones movies, we're in for something great. All the characters scramble to restore order to the park as dinosaurs roam free and attack them. Quite a spectacular movie. If you haven't seen it yet, get out there and see it. You won't regret it a single second. Unless you're terrified of raptors. In which case, view with a parent or significant other.