Ep. 49: Jurassic Park (1993)

Should They Watch It?

The new Jurassic World: Dominion movie has finally hit theaters, so Laura and Kara decided to take things back to 1993 and discuss if the original Jurassic Park movie still holds up in today's world. Join the ladies as they whistle along to the Jurassic Park’s classic theme that became an distinctive song for kids during that time.

Summary
Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park, released in 1993 and directed by Stephen Spielberg, is about a scientist who is brings Dinosaurs back from extinction. He keeps them on an island, but things go awry when one of his employees turns off the power on the island, thus giving the dinosaurs free rein on the island and endangering the scientists invited to the island, along with head scientist’s two grandchildren.

Jurassic World: Dominion
Humans and dinosaurs coexist in the future with this star-studded throwback cast. We struggle to make any sense of the plot.

The Positives
Jurassic Park
The technology still holds up decades after it came out! This was the first CGI movie, with some groundbreaking puppetry mixed in. Notably, those terrifying raptors were people in costume.

Strong female characters.

Samuel L Jackson(!) being the most mild form of himself. But still, it’s fun to see him in his earlier career.

Classic scenes that are burned into our brains like the T-Rex and the cup entrance scene

Peak sexy Jeff Goldblum professing chaos theory, laughing strangely, and being right about everything. We love him.

In a movie about man vs. nature, audience members are left with the question: who is the real villian here?

Dominion
Great culturally diverse cast that included almost all of the stars from previous Jurassic franchise movies.

Dewanda Wise, we bow down to you.

Potentially Problematic
Jurassic Park
Violence and death.

Cursing.

Constant smoking by Samuel L.

Intense visuals. If your child is scared of dinos and/or loud noises you might want to rethink showing them this movie. We still think it’s appropriate for 5+.

Dominion
Plot was terrible and confusing. Martin scorsese’s quote about Marvel movies being theme parks not cinema holds true here. It seems like all of the focus was on action sequences instead of plot and script.

Chris Pratt is the lead and has been surrounded by controversy recently.

Should They Watch It?

Jurassic Park
Kara: yes

Laura: yes

Dominion
Kara: No

Side Conversations
We talked about childhood fears. Why aren’t kids afraid of dinosaurs like they are other monsters? Is it because they’re exposed to them more as kids? Kara and Laura take a deep dive.

We also discussed the most common fears that parents pass down to their kids and found that, at younger ages kids are afraid of external things and grow to be afraid of more internal, existential threats.

Check out our 90s wedding announcement photo of E.T. and Spielberg on Instagram.

If you enjoyed this podcast, give us a five-star review on your favorite platform and check us out on Instagram. Thanks for checking out Should They Watch It!