Almost arriving four years after it hit the US shores the UK finally gets its teeth into
'The Jurassic Park The Ultimate Collection' . This is a great set and now out of print in the US, although you can still pick this up via Amazon’s Market Place from anywhere between $150 to $200 ! So for a tidy little sum of under £30, why not go for this awesome Region 2 set which contains exactly the same content, there's just a little difference on the packaging side of things.
All three movies come in the same versions that they have done previously, loaded with around 60 mins per disc of special features. It might even surprise some that there are more extras from the vaults from Universal and there are, here on the Bonus fourth disc, entitled ‘Beyond Jurassic Park’ . This disc is not exactly great or showing anything new so if you have already got yourself movies 1 to 3, I would recommended that you keep your fossilised DVDs, but to anyone with one missing or such, on the whole this is a handsome buy.
It seems shocking to think that the first
‘Jurassic Park’ burst on to our cinema screens almost 12 years ago, and today it still looks as hungry as it did then, easily the best of the three (a fourth is in production, with a working title of
‘Jurassic Park: Extinction’ ). Here Spielberg breathed life into Michael Crichton’s theme park run amok novel and wowed audiences worldwide. The book had not even been published before pre-production had started on the movie, it was assumed it would be a hit and how right they were.
This is a great action adventure tale, creating that jump in your seat feeling that he got with
‘Jaws’ all those years previously. We see John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) invite a group of scientists including Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill and Laura Dern, and his own grandchildren to test ride his latest theme park, and one filled with large things with large teeth. And as you already know, things don’t go to plan. Crichton has a thing with theme parks having toyed with them before in
‘Westworld’ (now being touted for a remake) and it’s sequel
‘Futreworld’ . The action and the dinos are great and ILM and Stan Winston’s crew changed the face of cinema. Good solid acting placed icing on the cake with standout turns from Bob Peck as the raptor faced hunter Robert Muldoon and Attenborough’s naive Hammond, with some support from ‘lesser-knowns' of the time, Samuel L Jackson and B D Wong, this aside it was the dinos that stole the show.
Sadly in the sequel ‘The Lost World: Jurassic Park’ , things were not as wholesome. Yeah the dinos were just as good but this lacked the freshness of a decent plot but managed to hold it’s own in a few well constructed scenes. One in particular with a plucky heroine moving on top of a breaking glass window is the movie’s standout, and in a world filled with the big toothed ones that is a poor show indeed. Yes they had another island and more big toothed ones roamed around. Jeff Goldblum reprises his role as Dr. Ian Malcolm but with a sprog in tow, and it felt that folk were cast to fill the shoes of similar characters in the first one, Pete Postlethwaite playing Bob Peck for instance. Basically remaking ‘The Lost World’ (1925) and ‘The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms’ (1953) we end up with a cringeworthy T-Rex on mainland US of A at the end of the pic. But hey, it was still better than the other big lizard on the loose pic, Roland Emmerich’s ‘Godzilla’ !
In part 3, catchilly entitled ‘Jurassic Park 3’ we have a new director on board in the shape of Joe Johnston. A Spielberg colleague and director of some of the ‘Indiana Jones’ adventures, Johnston dispels with the plots and goes all out for a great action romp. We even have bigger and badder dinos than before, and a top notch cast with William H Macy and Tea Leoni, playing the Kirbys, helping out Sam Neil’s Dr. Alan Grant to get grips with facing off the more beasties that want them for dinner. There are great scenes in this one, the plane crash and the wreck rolling that follows, and the bird cage, but on the whole it is hard to catch your breath, and before you know it, it is all over. The only possible negative comment here for this instalment is perhaps just that, it ends far too quickly and neatly.
For each of these movies there are heaps of extras to wade through, various featurettes and makings of and mostly things of a technical variety. It seems the biggest lack is of a commentary from Spielberg himself.
Now we get to that special, ‘Beyond Jurassic Park’ , it’s not quite special in that you get more of the same for all three movies with the added bonus of some self promotion for Universal’s theme park, Mediterranea, featured in all three of the sections. The most noteworthy extra on show here is an interview with scribe Crichton from 1997.
So what are we going to do with all our other boxed sets ? There were lots and lots for the VHS editions including brief cases and fossilised rock boxes, there have even been a parts 1 & 2 DVD boxed set and a shiny clawed box for part 3 with some stills, storyboards and a film cell, so calling this box ‘Ultimate’ with only a booklet and an extra bonus disc might be a slight exaggeration, but it’s still great set.
'Jurassic Park - The Ultimate Collection' is available to pre-order via
AmazonUK and is listed as currently unavailable at
Amazon .
You can read more about the DVD in our
database .
USA
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