The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

The Lost World: Jurassic Park - 1997

Our next film is the second installment in the Jurassic Park series.  1997's "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" finds us on a second island filled with dinosaurs that exhibit behaviors no one thought they were capable of.

The film's cast includes Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Pete Postlethwaite, Richard Attenborough, Vince Vaughn, Arliss Howard, Vanessa Lee Chester, Peter Storemare, Richard Schiff, Joseph Mazzello, and Ariana Richards.

Dr. Ian Malcolm is summoned to the home of John Hammond, creator of the dinosaurs that wrecked havoc on him in the first film.  He's unsure of why he's been asked to the Hammond residence.

It soon becomes clear to Dr. Malcolm.  There is a second island used to create dinosaurs in Costa Rica.  Hammond wants Ian to go there and lead a team that will document these creatures and allow them to stay in a biological preserve setting.  Ian is dead set against it.  When Hammond tells him that his girlfriend Sarah is already there, Ian agrees to go so he can extract Sarah from a potentially deadly situation.

As Ian prepares to leave, his daughter stows away on board some of the field equipment they will be using.

When they get to the island, Ian's crew can't help but feel overwhelmed when they see dinosaurs for the first time.  A herd of stegosaurus walks right by them.  Ian says, "Oh, yeah, ooh...ahh...that's how it always starts.  Then later there's running and screaming."

They succeed in locating Ian's girlfriend Sarah, who is busy documenting the stegosaurus herd and their habits.  Ian tells her that coming to the island was not a smart thing to do.  "I'll be back in five or six days," Sarah tells him.  "No, you'll be back in five or six pieces," Ian responds.

She ignores him and goes back to taking pictures of a baby stegosaurus.  While she's taking pictures, she inadvertently causes a stegosaurus stampede that they all barely escape from.

When Ian discovers his daughter on the island, he wants to get her off of it.  He tries to flag down some passing helicopters.  They aren't stopping, and members of the team notice a familiar logo on them.

It seems that Hammond's nephew is interested in more than a biological preserve.  He wants to capture dinosaurs and send them back to a sort of zoo in San Diego.

Sarah, Ian and the team free the captured dinosaurs and bring an injured baby T-Rex back to their camp to treat a broken leg.  Things go all right until Mommy T-Rex is knocking on the door and wants her baby back.

After she gets her baby back, the mother T-Rex destroys the camp and eats one of the team members.  Ian, Sarah, and the rest of their team join up with the other people on the island in an effort to find a way to get off of it alive.  In the process, the mother T-Rex and her baby are captured and put on a ship bound for San Diego.

All hell breaks loose once the ship docks in San Diego.  It turns out that the adult T-Rex ate the crew, which sends the ship careening into the dockside.  Then, she escapes and runs freely on the streets of the unsuspecting city.

She terrorizes one family and eats their pet dog.  No one seems to have any ideas on how to capture her.

Sarah and Ian decide to get the baby T-Rex and use it to lure the mother back to the ship.  The plan seems to work, and they have to move fast to outrun the angry mommy dinosaur.

Once they are safely aboard, Sarah uses a dart gun to tranquilize the mother.  Then the armor plated doors are sealed and the boat can return to Isla Sorna.

After everything is over, Hammond comes on TV and tells how these creatures need our absence not our help.  The T-Rex family is shown reunited on the island along with other species of dinosaurs.

Cast rundown:

   Jeff Goldblum.................................Dr. Ian Malcolm

   Julianne Moore...............................Dr. Sarah Harding

   Pete Postlethwaite...........................Roland Tembo

   Richard Attenborough......................Dr. John Hammond

   Vince Vaughn..................................Nick Van Owen

   Arliss Howard..................................Peter Ludlow

   Vanessa Lee Chester........................Kelly Curtis Malcolm

   Peter Storemare..............................Dieter Stark

   Richard Schiff..................................Eddie Carr

   Joseph Mazzello...............................Tim Murphy

   Ariana Richards...............................Lex Murphy

And that's all for The Lost World: Jurassic Park.  It's a bit darker in subject matter than its predecessor.  A dinosaur that was featured heavily in the film was the stegosaurus.  Steven Spielberg made sure to put it in as it was a "popular demand" inclusion.  The baby stegosaurus was eight feet long and weighed 400 pounds.

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Jurassic Park (1993)

Jurassic Park - 1993

Our next film is 1993's mega-hit "Jurassic Park", that iconic film which introduced us to the world of dinosaurs in the modern era.  A group of scientists visits Jurassic Park and soon discover that they will be lucky to escape with their lives.

The film's cast includes Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Joseph Mazzello, Samuel L. Jackson, B.D. Wong, Wayne Knight, and Ariana Richards.

Wealthy scientist Dr. John Hammond has found a way to bring back dinosaurs from extinction by extracting preserved dino blood from mosquitoes that were covered in tree sap many, many years ago.

He gets paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant and paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler to come to his island to help sign off for the insurance company.

Unbeknownst to Hammond, plans are afoot to sell dinosaur embryos to the highest bidder.

Hammond flies his scientists (now joined by a more New Age scientist Dr. Ian Malcolm and an insurance company lawyer) to his island off the coast of Costa Rica, where he has bred the dinosaurs and where he plans his theme park to be.

The group is stunned when they get their first sighting of the dinosaurs.

A brontosaurus leaves them speechless, and they observe the wonders of what Hammond has created.

At the headquarters of Jurassic Park, Hammond shows his guests just how he's been able to achieve what it takes to open such a park.

They are lucky enough to observe the hatching of some velociraptors, which happen to be a favorite of Alan Grant.

Hammond even lets them observe some adult raptor feeding techniques at the velociraptor paddock.

Now joined by Hammond's grandchildren, the group begin to tour the park in a couple of jeeps that run on a track.

Lots of dinosaurs are no shows.  The T-Rex isn't even interested in a goat that's been offered to tempt him.

They get out of the jeeps and help a vet with a sick triceratops.  Dr. Ian Malcolm is shocked at the size of its poop pile.

Unfortunately, a hurricane is fast approaching the island.  Everyone is ordered off.

Denis Nedry (the man who is organizing the sale of the dino embryos) decides to debug some computer code in order to give himself time to collect the specimens.  He begins a computer program that has disastrous consequences beginning with power lines for a great many of the dinosaur paddocks going out.

This terrifies the group tour when they stop right in front of the T-Rex paddock.

The T-Rex escapes its enclosure and the group barely has the chance to get out of their vehicles before the T-Rex demolishes them.

The T-Rex discovers the lawyer while he's sitting on the toilet and eats him for a quick snack.  (He gets my vote for the worst death in the movie.)

Denis Nedry doesn't get the chance to spend the money he's collected for the dino embryos.  He's killed and eaten by a spitting dinosaur called a dilophosaurus.

Alan Grant and Hammond's grandkids get separated from the rest of the group, who go to look for them.

Things get even more scary for them when the T-Rex starts chasing their jeep!

Alan and the kids end up spending the night in a tree.  They are awakened the next morning by a friendly brachiosaurus.

To undo all that Denis Nedry set in motion, Hammond needs to authorize a complete system reboot.  "Hang on to your butts," says employee Ray Arnold as he switches the power back on.

In the morning, Alan and the kids get caught in the middle of a running herd of gallimimus, and they witness yet another T-Rex attack.

A downside of the complete system reboot was that the velociraptor paddock was briefly unarmed, allowing them to escape.  These small yet ferocious predators cause quite a scare inside the main Jurassic Park compound, coming very close to killing several of our main characters (and in some cases succeeding).

Hammond pulls up in a jeep with Dr. Ian Malcolm and everyone gets whisked away to a helicopter.

The T-Rex defeats a bunch of velociraptors in a final showdown inside the now abandoned compound.

Inside the helicopter on their way home, Hammond, Malcolm, Alan, Ellie, and the kids are exhausted and grateful to be alive.

Cast rundown:

   Sam Neill.................................Dr. Alan Grant

   Laura Dern...............................Dr. Ellie Sattler

   Jeff Goldblum...........................Dr. Ian Malcolm

   Richard Attenborough................Dr. John Hammond

   Joseph Mazzello........................Tim Murphy

   Samuel L. Jackson.....................Ray Arnold

   B.D. Wong................................Dr. Henry Wu

   Wayne Knight...........................Denis Nedry

   Ariana Richards.........................Lex Murphy

And that's all for Jurassic Park.  One of my favorite lines in this movie comes when Dr. Hammond is telling everyone, "All major theme parks have delays.  When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked."  Without missing a beat, Dr. Ian Malcolm responds with, "Yeah, but John, if the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down the pirates don't eat the tourists."

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