Rating: Summary: Jurassic Park Fever Review: This has got to be one of the best boxed sets ever! I can't wait to get it! I didn't buy the first boxed set, which contained Jurassic Park and The Lost World, because I knew Jurassic Park III was coming out! That was like a year ago or so and I knew they'd put out a trilogy boxed set when JP3 was released so I decided to wait! Well don't worry, because if you have already bought the first two films, you can still get the trilogy collector's box by simply buying the third film on DVD! Yep that's right, the reviewer who mentioned it before me said Universal was being nice, and it's true! All you have to do if you already own Jurassic Park and The Lost World, is Buy Jurassic Park III and inside the DVD case they're is a form or something that let's you order the trilogy box case that comes with the fourth disc I suppose! So You can still get the Trilogy Box Set wether you've bought the first two films or not!
Rating: Summary: Jurassic Park Trilogy Review: This DVD set is an excellent opportunity to obtain the three movies inexpensively and with a free bonus disc of special features. The trilogy is terrific fun, with some of the most groundbreaking SFX you are likely to ever see, and an infectious sense of wonder and adventure. All three movies have had mixed reviews, but like the Die Hard series they are all different and strong movies in their own right. Personally, I like the second film the best - it gets straight into the action and never lets up, is more hard edged and genuinely scary than the other two, devotes more screen time to the wonderfully sardonic Jeff Goldblum, and is a real rollercoaster ride. The first film is almost as good, and will always be a favourite of mine since I will never forget seeing the T-rex for the first time at the movie theater and being awestruck (I still am). I think it takes too long to get going and to explain the premise, but once it picks it up, it is relentless. The third movie misses Spielberg's touch (he allowed Joe Johnston his dream to direct a JP sequel) and is far too short, but is an enjoyably straight forward action picture, if a little too similar to the first (down to the return of Sam Neill). With some great extras (documentaries, SFX featurettes, trailers, interviews etc) that actually may increase your knowledge of all things dinosaur and SFX, and a DTS mix for the third flick, this is a great set (almost as good as the Die Hard set) that is indispensable if you love the movies. And finally, the picture and sound on each disc is top notch too.
Rating: Summary: Good DVD, Lousy movie, WHOOPS! I mean good movie. Review: ...Jurassic Park, 1993, So popular at the time, Greatest special effects in the entire world. Michael Chrichton's the Lost World 1997, WOW, this movie was even more popular than the first, it was the biggest thing in the world, But it was a much lousier film. Finally Jurassic Park 3, 2001 It was the most talked about, & the most anticipated movie in 2000, But it was'nt as popular as the Lost World, & it just went down once it hit theaters, Pretty lousy name, But it was an awesome movie, If you feel like taking a little walk in the park, You should definatly check out Jurassic Park 3, An awesome bonus in this boxed set is a disc full of Special features, Beyond Jurassic Park!, The other DVD's had more than 90 minutes of special features, Jurassic park 3 had 4 hour's of features,but this DVD has 3 hours of special features that are not on any of the other DVD's, Buying this box set would be a wise thing to do, instead of buying the movies individualy, ...
Rating: Summary: This is great fun. Review: With the first "Jurassic Park," ILM broke new ground in CGI special effects. They created dinosaurs that looked incredibly real, and at the time people really didn't know how it was done. I figured it had something to do with computers and the same technology that was used for The Abyss, Terminator 2, and one of the Sherlock Holmes movies back in the 80's ("Young Sherlock Holmes" perhaps?), but still had no idea how it was done, and had never seen anything like it before. This was truly a unique experience. This film told many other film-makers, like George Lucas, Peter Jackson, etc., that anything that could be imagined could be made into a film, which is the reason why we now have the Star Wars Special Editions, the Star Wars Prequels, The Lord of the Rings, and countless other great sci-fi/fantasy films being made. For this reason, as well as the great thrill ride of a story that the first Jurassic Park gave us, this movie is among the greats. "The Lost World: Jurassic Park," gave us an even better dino flick than the first one did, raising the bar in what could be done with CGI and animatronics as well as creating an even more fun story. And the story got even scarier at times than the first one. I especially liked it when the T-Rex got loose in San Francisco. With "Jurassic Park III," we got a pretty good dinosaur movie. I didn't think it was as good as the first two, but it was a lot of fun. And we got Pteranadons this time! Well, we got one at the end of The Lost World, but we got a bunch of them this time, and they were sweet! Hopefully in JP4 they'll have the Quetzalcoatlus, which is even larger than the Pteranadon! The whole smart Raptors think got a little carried away I think, but it wasn't as weird after the second viewing. But ultimately, this movie has some amazing special effects shots of both dinos and landscapes, and it's a lot of fun. The only real problem I have with it is that the story isn't as involved as the other two, and it's too short. It's approx. 40 minutes shorter than the previous two films, which is a dramatic change in length of time. Terminator 3 did the same thing too. Also, I thought there were some shots (but not many) of the CGI dinosaurs that weren't rendered as well as the others. The fourth disc contains special features for all three films. I haven't checked out all the special features, but one that was really cool for JP3 was the ILM show or whatever it's called. They had a cool comparion shot reel where they show you the regular shot a couple of times, asking you to guess what's CGI and what's animatronic. I could usually tell, but that was more because of the movement capable with a CGI dinosaur vs. the movement capable with an animatronic dinosaur. We all just know that animatronics are limited in their movement, so they'll bring in a CGI dinosaur when they need more movement and overall capabilities from a creature. But the light, shadow, texture and overall look of both the CGI dinos and the animatronic dinos looked identical to me. It's pretty amazing. Another special feature I watched was the JP2 Compi dance. That was pretty amusing. And of course each film disc also has special features included. Good/Great films, great DVD set.
Rating: Summary: The Jurassic Park Trilogy Review: Steven Spielberg's 1993 blockbuster is still the best of the Jurassic trilogy, and the film retains all the amazement and anticipation it had when it was first released. Taken from Michael Crichton's thrilling novel, Jurassic Park is one Spielberg's most expertly-crafted films. The special effects are from FX maestro Stan Winston, who did the special effects for Aliens (1986) and Terminator 2 (1991). The seamless combination of CGI and robotic creatures creates some truly terrifying action set- pieces. Despite what some critics thought when the film was released, I feel that all the principal actors give good performances, especially Sam Neill as Alan Grant and Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm. But admittedly, the dinosaur creations are the main attraction, and Winston's monsters (which won him another Oscar after Terminator 2) are truly frightning. Great entertainment. The Lost World is an exciting adventure starring Jeff Goldblum, Vince Vaughn, Julianne Moore and Pete Postlethwaite. The film picks up four years after the incident at Jurassic Park, where a corporate businessman Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard) plans to take dinosaurs off the second island (Isla Sorna, where dinosaurs have been breeding) and bring them to a theme park in San Diego. Spielberg knows what the audience wants; the film has more dinosaurs, even better CGI and impressive animatronic dinosaurs from the maestro Stan Winston. The action throughout the film is exciting and while not as astonishing as Jurassic, the effects are first-rate. Although the action is good, the story isn't one of Spielberg's best. That said, the principal cast are fine, especially Goldblum as Malcolm ("Ooh, aah, that's how it always starts, and then later the running and screaming") and Postewaite as Roland Tembo, a game hunter intent on shooting one of the Tyrannosaurs. Silly in parts, it's still an exciting adventure movie, with enough action and light humour to satisfy audiences. Joe Johnston, taking over the reigns from Spielberg, has created an adventure that starts off quickly and hardly ever lets up. Sam Neill, returning to the role which made him famous in the original, is a stronger presence than in the first Jurassic, and the supporting cast of William H. Macy and Tea Leoni manage not to get lost amidst the barrage of CGI dinosaurs. The special effects are, of course the main stars, with Stan Winston's excellent dinosaurs surpass the ones for the original. And the plot (a bunch of people get stuck on an island with dangerous dinosaurs) provides plenty of great scares (a scene with nasty pterodactyls is the high-point) and fast-paced action to satisfy audiences. Great fun. The trilogy DVD extras are first- rate, with superb picture and sound for all the discs. The special features are exceptional, with a 50 minute 'making of' of the film. Most interesting, however, is the footage of early pre-production meetings with Spielberg and the FX team discussing how certain shots and effects should be done. Also there are storyboards, production photos and web links. The extras for The Lost Wolrd are fantastic, with a comprehensive 'making of', deleted scenes, trailers and ton of production info. The highlight on the JP3 Disc is the Commantary from the special effects team of Stan Winston, Michael Lantieri and some of the crew. Also, you get a series of 'making of's and trailers. Best of all is Disc 4 "Beyond Jurassic Park" featuring over two hours of never-before-available bonus material from all three films. Excellent entertainment that is a must-have for Jurassic fans.
Rating: Summary: An Aventure 65 Million Years in the Making Review: "This is just a delay. All major theme parks have delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked." "Yeah john, but if Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't EAT the tourists." - John Hammond and Ian Malcom When Steven Spielberg makes an adventure movie, you can be assured that whatever comes on the screen, it's going to be exciting. Since seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark, I had waited to see a movie that evoked the same feeling of wonder, adventure, character, and adrenaline that made Dr. Jones's first adventure a classic. Then, once the first trailer for Jurassic Park rolled before Aladdin in 1992, I knew I had found one. An avid dinosaur fan since toddler age, any sort of dinosaur movie sounded like a good idea in the early ninteies. However, Jurassic Park was in a class of its own when released, and remains so today. Based on the Micheal Crichton book of the same name, Spielberg's Messazoic adventure centers around a theme park where dinosaurs have been cloned through fossilized DNA found in mosquitos. Sure, the science isn't rock-solid, but it's more than a usuable base for a fantastic adventure yarn. The action picks up when a greedy employee causes a power outage, and the dinosaurs get loose, terrorising the visitors. All the principal cast in the first movie was fantastic, bringing life and distinct personality to the characters. However, the real stars are the dinosaurs. Created by both Industrial Light and Magic and Stan Winston, the creative geniuses behind Terminator 2, the digital and animatronic creations were absolutely mind-blowing in 1993, and still hold up today. It could have overwhelmed the movie, but Spielberg has always known how to use special effects to enhance the story, and use action and character to advance it. Jurassic Park is a case study in fantastic pacing, fun characters, and tense action/adventure. 5/5 In 1997, Universal released a sequel, again based on a Micheal Crichton novel. The Lost World: Jurassic Park, again helmed by Spielberg, featured more characters, more dinosaurs, bigger effects, and bigger action. Jeff Goldblum returns as Dr. Ian Malcom, a man who has fallen on hard times after the incident on Isla Nublar. When he finds that there is another island with dinosaurs on it, one there there are no fences to constrain them, he is appalled, and wants nothing to do with the operation to doccument the animals until he learns that his girlfriend is already on the island. Once we reach the second site, the movie hits the ground running, providing thrills and chills from both the dinosaurs and the greedy human hunters who want to expoit the island to bail out their failing company. However, though the action is solid, the story is a little on the weak side, and Sam Neill's Alan Grant is sorely missed, as he brought so much to the first film. However, The Lost World is still a good way to spend an afternoon if you're looking for some good prehistoric fun. 4/5 Jurassic Park III saw far less hype and a smaller scope than either of its predecessor's. Helmed by Jumanji's Joe Johnston, Jurassic Park III features the return of Sam Neill as Alan Grant, an aging scientist who sees his field's support dimishing quickly. When a wealthy magnate offers him a large sum of money to give them an arial tour of Site B, he accepts. What he doesn't know is that the couple is, in reality, looking for their lost son, who disappeared on the island two weeks earlier. In their race to find the boy, Grant, his assistant, and the parents get in a mess of trouble with a T-rex, an over-sized Spinosaurus, and a vengeful pack of Velociraptors. Though the story is fairly weak in the third outing, the narrative is focused. Johnston uses tight direction and the character conflict along withe hungry dinosaurs to keep the movie going. The action begins in the opening sequence, and for the next hour and a half, it rarely lets up. There are some great set pieces including some high-flying antics with some nasty pterosaurs, and a tense stand-off with the raptors. The best thing about this movie is that it doesn't overstay its welcome. It builds to a great climax, and once it's over, the movie is done, keeping everything tight and fun all the way through. 4/5 Overall, these are some fatnastic dinosaur movies, and the extras on the DVDs are well worth the wait. Overall: 4/5
Rating: Summary: This is great fun. Review: With the first "Jurassic Park," ILM broke new ground in CGI special effects. They created dinosaurs that looked incredibly real, and at the time people really didn't know how it was done. I figured it had something to do with computers and the same technology that was used for The Abyss, Terminator 2, and one of the Sherlock Holmes movies back in the 80's ("Young Sherlock Holmes" perhaps?), but still had no idea how it was done, and had never seen anything like it before. This was truly a unique experience. This film told many other film-makers, like George Lucas, Peter Jackson, etc., that anything that could be imagined could be made into a film, which is the reason why we now have the Star Wars Special Editions, the Star Wars Prequels, The Lord of the Rings, and countless other great sci-fi/fantasy films being made. For this reason, as well as the great thrill ride of a story that the first Jurassic Park gave us, this movie is among the greats. "The Lost World: Jurassic Park," gave us an even better dino flick than the first one did, raising the bar in what could be done with CGI and animatronics as well as creating an even more fun story. And the story got even scarier at times than the first one. I especially liked it when the T-Rex got loose in San Francisco. With "Jurassic Park III," we got a pretty good dinosaur movie. I didn't think it was as good as the first two, but it was a lot of fun. And we got Pteranadons this time! Well, we got one at the end of The Lost World, but we got a bunch of them this time, and they were sweet! Hopefully in JP4 they'll have the Quetzalcoatlus, which is even larger than the Pteranadon! The whole smart Raptors think got a little carried away I think, but it wasn't as weird after the second viewing. But ultimately, this movie has some amazing special effects shots of both dinos and landscapes, and it's a lot of fun. The only real problem I have with it is that the story isn't as involved as the other two, and it's too short. It's approx. 40 minutes shorter than the previous two films, which is a dramatic change in length of time. Terminator 3 did the same thing too. Also, I thought there were some shots (but not many) of the CGI dinosaurs that weren't rendered as well as the others. The fourth disc contains special features for all three films. I haven't checked out all the special features, but one that was really cool for JP3 was the ILM show or whatever it's called. They had a cool comparion shot reel where they show you the regular shot a couple of times, asking you to guess what's CGI and what's animatronic. I could usually tell, but that was more because of the movement capable with a CGI dinosaur vs. the movement capable with an animatronic dinosaur. We all just know that animatronics are limited in their movement, so they'll bring in a CGI dinosaur when they need more movement and overall capabilities from a creature. But the light, shadow, texture and overall look of both the CGI dinos and the animatronic dinos looked identical to me. It's pretty amazing. Another special feature I watched was the JP2 Compi dance. That was pretty amusing. And of course each film disc also has special features included. Good/Great films, great DVD set.
Rating: Summary: Jurassic Park - 5! Lost World - 3 Jurassic III - 1 Review: This trilogy gets a 3 because I have averaged the three films together: Original JP - 5 stars, Lost World - 3 stars, JP3 - 1 star. The original Jurassic Park movie rocked! It set a new standard for film making and proved that the extensive use of CGI can be awesome. The Lost World was ok. Not great, but definately entertaining. JP3 just plain stank! I feel robbed of the time and money I spent renting this movie. The worst part is the end with the military coming for a last minute nick-of-time rescue. Please! So deux ex machina! Oh well, at least I didn't buy it! I would recommend purchasing the Original Jurassic Park individually instead of this set. The only reason to buy this is if you are just plain a hard core fan.
Rating: Summary: They are doing Jurassic Park IV.... Review: Before anyone tells you otherwise, Steven Spielberg has pretty much made up his mind to do a fourth Jurassic Park movie, largely because he was disapointed by the thrid movie, and also feels that there is enough story material in Michael Crichton's two books; Jurassic Park and Lost World, for one more movie. How this relates to the movies in this DVD set, well if you only stick with the first two movies, you kind of get an idea of where JP4 will go, following the full consquences of what happens when you have dinosaurs living the modern world. Steven has promised a more hands on approach to this movie. Perhaps not a return to directing it, but he has written the story out line for it, and is producing it. If so, we look forward to one more trip in the park.
Rating: Summary: DTS missing? Review: This is more a review of the box set. My room-mate has the 2disc box set (before JIII came out) and I have the DTS edition of Jurassic Park. The difference between the DTS 5.1 on mine and the Dolby Digital on his is astounding. Remember that Steven Spielberg pioneered DTS (Digital Theatre Sound) and this was the first movie to have it. Do yourself a favour if you have a home theatre system and make sure you buy these movies separately with the DTS track on them. It's unbelievable. And with Spielberg signing on to direct Jurassic Park IV and Michael Crichton possibly writing it I would suggest staying away from box sets for the most part unless, like Godfather, you can be sure another sequel is impossible.
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