The adapted from the novel by Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park pulled off a near-impossible feat with its incredibly realistic portrayal of dinosaurs. Released in 1993, the film's masterful use of visual effects remains the gold standard nearly 30 years later.
In 2015, Jurassic World revived the franchise successfully, receiving generally favorable reviews and setting the record as the first film to earn over $500 million at the box office in one weekend. 2018's sequel Jurassic Park's timeless dinosaur effects.
The oversaturation of CGI dinosaurs in the Jurassic World movies highlights the ways Spielberg truly succeeded in the original Jurassic Park: a precise sense of how to best use the dinosaurs on film and an effective balance of practical and computer effects. Spielberg knew how to maximize the power of dinosaurs appearing on-screen; in the entire 127 minute movie, only about 14 minutes actually depict the dinosaurs themselves. Much of the dinosaur-centered action occurs by brilliantly suggesting what is occurring just off-screen, denoting a sense of restraint in showing the creatures that none of the Jurassic World films have mirrored. The recently released prologue for Jurassic World: Dominion contains around five minutes of technically impressive dinosaur footage that simply fails to recapture the wow factor of the original.
Steven Spielberg was incredibly wary of using any CGI at all in Jurassic Park, which makes sense particularly given the limitations of the technology in the early nineties. In the end, he limited its use as much as possible, as only about 6 minutes of the dinosaur footage - less than half of their show time - actually made use of computer-generated effects. Even then, some of that footage was created by supplementing practical dinosaur effects (animatronics, puppets, or costumes) with CGI. While the Jurassic World films feature an ever-expanding dinosaur roster, including some hybrid species imagined for the franchise, they lean so heavily on CGI that they come off slick and polished without the grounded charm and wonder of Jurassic Park.
The truth is, the Jurassic World series is caught between a rock and a hard place. Returning to the strategies of the original would no longer be groundbreaking and may leave audiences let down by the spectacle, but continuing to escalate and maximize the CGI dinosaur action on-screen continues to remind viewers that Jurassic Park simply did it better. Looking ahead to the release of Jurassic World: Dominion next year, the continued success of the franchise depends upon its ability to draw on the triumphs of the original film while forging ahead to create a new kind of excitement about dinosaurs.
