The Lost World – return to a different Jurassic Park.

Title: The Lost Word – Jurassic Park

US Release: 5/23/1997

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Written by David Koepp based on Michael Crichton’s novel

Distributed by Universal Pictures

Cast:

Jeff Goldblum - Ian Malcolm

Vince Vaughn – Nick Van Owen

Arliss Howard – Peter Ludlow

Pete Postlethwaite – Roland Tembo

Julianne Moore – Dr. Sara Moore

Richard Schiff – Eddie Carr

Peter Stormare - Dieter Stark

Vanessa Lee Chester – Kelly Curtis

Richard Attenborough – John Hammond

The Skinny:

                Set some years after the conclusion of the first film, a second island is introduced, not far from original island that hosted Jurassic Park.  This island is later revealed to be “Site B”, the genetic breeding ground for the bulk of the dinosaur population of the park.  Meant to be a habitat to nurse the dinosaurs to a certain age before moving them to park itself, it too was abandoned after a storm struck the island, the same storm that lead to the catastrophic failure of Jurassic park.  Its soon stumbled upon by a wealthy family vacationing on their private yacht.  The only child of the family, a little girl (Camilla Belle, in one of her earliest big film appearances), wonders off and encounters Compsognathus, very small dinosaurs that appear cute and friendly, but soon turn vicious as many more suddenly arrive and swarm the little girl.

                Ian Malcolm (Goldblum) is summoned to the mansion of John Hammond (Attenborough), who’s lost control of his company Ingen after the failure of Jurassic Park, to his greedy and pretentious nephew Peter Ludlow (Howard).  Its revealed Ludlow used his extensive influence to bury the tragedy of Jurassic park, leading the media and ultimately the public believe that its failure was due solely to human error, placing blame on Hammond, Malcolm, and the few other survivors of the park.  Now with the attack on the little girl, her wealthy parents are suing Ingen.  Its assets almost gone from the massive loss of the original park, and fearing bankruptcy, Ludlow intends to re-open Jurassic Park on Site B due to the higher dinosaur population so the company can start generating revenue and start turning a profit to become successful again.  Hammond sees this as his last chance to retake control of Ingen. 

Needing to prove that the dinosaurs still on the island have been living on their own without any outside help, and with said evidence can lobby for a policy of non-interference from Ingen investors and hopefully the public as well.  Hammond requests Ian lead a team on the island, based off his previous experience at Jurassic park.  The team consists of photographer Nick Van Own (Vaughn) and heavy equipment specialist Eddie Carr (Schiff), and assisted by field vehicles outfitted for the primitive terrain and encounters with the dinosaurs.  Ian flat out rejects Hammond request, but is horrified when he learns the 3^rd member of the team is his girlfriend Dr. Sarah Harding (Moore) who’s already on the island.  Ian reluctantly agrees, using the expedition as a rescue mission to get Sarah off the island as soon as possible.

                Ian’s troubles get worse when his daughter, Kelly (Curtis), turns out to be on her own when her mother (Ian’s ex-wife) leaves for Europe with her new boyfriend, and ends up stowing away on one of the field vehicles.  The team finds Sarah on the island, who, along with Nick and Eddie, are awestruck at the sight of real-life dinosaurs, much to Ian’s chagrin.  The situation is further complicated when they witness chinook helicopters bearing the Ingen logo bringing another team to the island.

                The second team turns out to be a big game hunting party, lead by veteran hunter Roland Tembo (Postlethwaite), and Ludlow in tow.  Using their own specially outfitted vehicles and weaponry, they set out to catch dinosaurs alive, and turn out to be very efficient at it.  Despite the carelessness and incompetent attitude of Roland’s second in command, Dieter Stark (Stormare), Roland’s hunting party captures enough live dinosaurs to stage a teleconference with Ingen investors, straight from the island.  Ian’s party, not wanting to see the dinosaurs hurt or a repeat of the mistakes of Jurassic Park, set the dinosaurs free in the middle of the teleconference, leading to panic, confusion, and destruction.

                Roland, wishing to kill a Tyrannosaurus Rex a trophy, wounds a T-rex hatchling to use as bait.  However, he must return to the camp as the other dinosaurs were released.  Sarah and Nick rescue the injured baby rex and take it back to their mobile base camp to patch up its wounds.  The baby rex’s parents however, follow them there.  Seeking to save their offspring, they overturn the vehicle and push it nearly off a nearby cliff.  Ian, Nick and Sarah are trapped inside and narrowly avoid falling out of the vehicle as the rear half dangles over the side of the cliff.  Eddie arrives with another specialized SUV and attempts a rescue.  Securing a lead rope for the three to use to climb to safety, he also has to rig a tow cable to the much larger vehicle as its slowly sliding off the cliff.  Flooring this much smaller vehicle in reverse to keep the mobile base vehicle from falling off the cliff, he’s soon beset by the male and female T-rex, who destroy his vehicle and eventually eat him alive.  The mobile base and the smaller SUV slide over the cliff.  Ian, Sarah and Nick hold tight to the lead rope and climb up to safety after the vehicles fall around them and down to the coast below.  Found by Roland’s party, Ian must work with Ludlow and his cohorts to get off the island before the dinosaurs descend on them all and eat them alive. 

                Not only will getting off the island be perilous, the reality of dinosaurs being exploited for profit will prove to be a much bigger problem, one that will follow the survivors even after they make it off the island.

On the Surface:

                Obviously with the huge success and visual breakthroughs of the first film, and a sequel novel to the original novel written by Crichton himself, a sequel was pretty much guaranteed for this film.  Expanding on the CGI techniques pioneered in the first film, along with partial scene compositing, John Williams returning to score the film and Stan Winston’s animatronics, this film was setup to be a bigger spectacle than the first.  Like Spielberg’s first summer blockbuster hit, Jaws, fans lined up for this sequel with eager anticipation, much like Jaws 2 back in 1978 (though Spielberg wasn’t involved much with that sequel), and would be successful at the box office. 

                Unfortunately, this film couldn’t escape the curse that seems to beset most if not all sequels of blockbuster hits.  Critics and fans alike felt the film tried too hard to one up its predecessor.  The ending sequence with the T-rex loose in San Diego felt too much like a rip off of Godzilla, and even a reference or two can be found in some scenes.  The formula of leaving human characters without their modern technology to protect them as they tried to evade the dinosaurs, was reused from the first film, but did update it by adding more people, with most of them armed and not totally without modern technology.  With the addition of more dinosaur species seen on the screen, other species had to be cut, which die hard fans did not like.  For example, the velociraptors were the villains of sorts of the first film, but in this film had only one sequence. 

The underlying message, though it felt more like an afterthought and haphazardly thrown into the script, of preservation of nature and leaving it untampered came off as heavy-handed, and still felt like a PSA in retrospect after many watched the film for the 1^st time.  Fans were scratching their heads asking what went wrong, and critics just thought that Spielberg was just having fun with his success by making big-budget movies for the sake of making big-budget movies.

               

Production Wise:

                Some parts of this film were shot in northern California, not far from the town I grew up in.  Even one of the extras was the husband of a friend to my mom.  Additional shooting was done in Costa Rica, Hawaii, and the city of San Diego for the ending sequence.

                Mercedes-Benz vehicles were used for Ian’s team, painting in jungle camouflage and outfitted with top rack search lights, protection bars for the front and read lights, and heavy-duty front-tow wenches.  The mobile base was an extra long Fleetwood Southwind Storm, with hinged bellows in the middle for turning, was also painted in camouflage, and given an all-terrain outfitting.  Military grade Humvees were also outfitted with elaborate “capturing” accessories: such as outrigger frames on either side for seats, a sniper’s nest on top, and a giant containment claw that would fold down in front.  A customized Jeep Wrangler YJ with a retractable side seat was also made up for the film.

                Spielberg wanted more variety of dinosaurs in this film, after receiving many letters from young fans asking why Stegosauruses were not in the first film.  Other species of dinosaurs to debut in this film are the Pachycephalosaurs, Compsognathus, and Pteranodon, along with several others seen mostly in the hunting caravan sequence.

Why I like the film:

                The main reason I still like this film is because it combined realistic dinosaurs with modern devices.  The hunting party was state of the art with their vehicles, hunting scopes, and weapons.  I remember a former roommate saying he liked the sequel Aliens more than Alien because it took a step further from the first film.  I think that’s what this movie did as well.  The dinosaurs were already established as ferocious and ruthless predators, so to repeat leaving a small group of humans at their mercy would have been stupid.  So logically, other humans would need to be introduced into the storyline.  Make them skilled, efficient, confident, equipped with the necessary vehicles and arm them with the firepower to take down big game.  I still like the look of the Mercedes All terrain SUV’s, as well as the military grade Humvees (this film was one of the first to use them in a non-military setting, before that element was used to death in many other films to follow).

                Pete Postlethwaite’s character as the veteran big game hunter was necessary for such a plot.  My only complaint is the theatrical cut left out his best scene.  So, I recommend watching the extended version where available (which restores the scene and a few others) or watching it in the deleted scenes menu if available on your copy of the DVD.  He’s introduced at a bar where he defends the honor of a female waiter who’s being harassed by stereotypical American tourists.  His performance of him defeating the much younger guy with his hand tied behind his back is comical and on point, showing this guy is old but far from defenseless. 

                Vince Vaughn’s performance as Nick Van Owen was good.  His performance in “Swingers” impressed Spielberg which landed him the role in this film, and his career took off as a result. 

                I still love the sequence where the parental T-rex’s attack the mobile command and nearly push it off a cliff.  As I’ve said in previous posts, adventure movies are a rare breed, and this sequence definitely had an adventure feel to it.  Most wrote it off as over the top, I think it’s the right dosage of adventure injected into the film.  If I don’t have enough time to watch the whole film, I will scene skip to this sequence and watch all the way through.  It’s an underappreciated element that gets forgotten too easily by regular movie-goers.

The film is rated PG-13 for sci-fi terror and violence, namely dinosaurs eating and tearing people apart.  Stream or rent where available for a Jurassic Park movie with a slightly different feel.  The adventure tone and different mix of characters will entertain as long as they are given an honest chance.