Video TapesThe 1990’s. I can’t express how thankful I am that this was the decade that I spent my childhood. While today’s innovations are truly amazing, there’s just nothing like going to Blockbuster and renting a VHS.
Growing up in Virginia, one of my favorite things to do was peruse the video stores. Mostly, I got to do this when my mom went to the grocery. You see, back in the good ol’ days, places like Kroger had video rentals inside them. These should not be confused with the vending machines cluttering convenience stores today. These were actual brick and mortar stores with aisles full of VHS tapes...and I loved them.
While my parents would shop for groceries, they would often let me look at the tapes to pass the time. I was not allowed to see 90% of the movies in the store but that didn’t stop me from studying every inch of the box art and imagining what these “forbidden” films were all about. It fascinated me. I remember the covers for films like Jason Goes to Hell, Child’s Play and The Good Son. My imagination went wild thinking about these films. And as great as Disney cartoons are, there came a day when I looked through my pile of clamshell VHS boxes and said, “This is not enough.”
You see, I felt this way because I had been given a taste of what lay beyond the world of children’s cinema. For one night, I wasn’t a child but just one of many moviegoers on a Friday, experiencing something extraordinary.
June 11, 1993It was a wedding and I was five. A family friend was getting married and at this point, I couldn’t tell you who. All I knew was I had to dress in uncomfortable clothes and be on my best behavior. I was a good kid so I didn’t act up, but inside, I was screaming.
My sister was the “flower girl” in the ceremony but I was just another patron sitting quietly in a pew, desperately wanting to leave. The “ringbearer” was a boy about my age and he too, wanted nothing to do with this wedding. He, on the other hand, didn’t mind showing it. He was running around causing as much trouble as he could, kicking and screaming, rolling on the floor, etc. His mom was terribly embarrassed and was ready to do anything to get him to behave. It actually got to the point where she had to say, “If you walk down that aisle like a good boy and stop this nonsense, I’ll give you whatever you want.” Not the best parenting move but I suppose she was desperate. The kid looked to his mom and agreed to behave under one condition...he was to be allowed to go see the new movie that came out that day. A movie titled Jurassic Park.
Let me back up for a minute. Yes, this was the day of a wedding, but to many, it was the release date of the highly anticipated film, Jurassic Park. I knew about the movie. How could you not? It was the one being advertised everywhere you looked. It was the one being labeled on the news as NOT FOR CHILDREN. It was the one that every kid on earth wanted to see but was not allowed to. It was the movie about dinosaurs.
As much as I desired to see the movie, I was FIVE YEARS OLD. There was no way I was going to see it. It would give me nightmares. I wouldn’t sleep for months. It would scar me for life if it didn’t kill me first. I wanted to see it more than anything.
Back to the kid who knew how to get what he wanted. He had given his mother an ultimatum. With the ceremony about to start, what choice did she have? She gave in. She agreed. The kid was going to see Jurassic Park.
Well, good for him. Congratulations on finding a loophole. I, like most kids, would have to wait another eight years until I was “old enough” to see this PG-13 horror the world was talking about. I would get to go back to Aladdin and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and continue to dream about this mysterious new film just out of reach. And this would have been the case were it not for another player in this story. My uncle Randall.
My uncle was also at the wedding. He sat next to me and we joked around while we waited for the ceremony to start. It wasn’t like we were very close or anything, I lived an hour and a half away from my extended family and only saw them on special occasions, like weddings. My uncle is great but when he said we were going to skip the reception and go see Jurassic Park, I knew he was joking. Thanks for the thought but my parents will make me go down with this ship. I’m not allowed to see the movie, but even if I were, we drove a long way to be at this wedding, leaving would be rude, it just isn’t a possibility. My uncle kept talking about it but I never gave it a second thought.
The wedding ended. Congratulations to the happy couple. I don’t know anybody and I don’t care. I want to go home. It’s past my bedtime. I hate this.
I arrive at the reception with my family when my uncle comes over to talk to my parents. I’m geared up to watch some old people dance and try to stay entertained for the next four hours of torture. But I had nothing to dread because my parents informed me that I was not going to be staying. That I would instead be getting in a car and driving out of town to the nearest theatre. I was, in fact, going with my uncle to see a movie. And that movie was Jurassic Park.
I couldn’t believe it. If this was a joke, it wasn’t funny. But soon I realized that nobody was joking. My mom and sister would be staying for the reception but my uncle, cousin and father were going to be joining me to see the film.
It wasn’t until years later that my mom told me the reason she agreed to let me go. My uncle had asked if it was alright and she just couldn’t tell him “no”. It was rare that I got to spend time with him and if he wanted to do this with me, she was going to let him. My parents did think it would scare me and give me nightmares but on this night, I suppose, they just thought, “what the hell”.
I’ll never forget it as long as I live. The drive to the theatre late at night. I had never seen a real movie in a theatre before, and certainly not at this hour.
I remember thinking about the title of the film on the drive. “Jurassic Park”...the only “park” I knew about referred to the park my mom took me to with a jungle gym. I imagined dinosaurs going down a slide and swinging on monkey bars. Needless to say, I had no clue what I was about to see.
The ScreeningAdrenaline pumped through my veins with an aggression I had never experienced. My uncle sat beside me and acted like he was scared and I would have to hold his hand to help him get though the scary parts. This made me feel big and I couldn’t wait for the movie to start.
The screen went black and the score began to “thump” rhythmically as the title cards displayed...
Universal Pictures Presents.
An Amblin Entertainment Production.
JURASSIC PARK.
To this day, these titles along with John Williams’ score send shivers down my spine. Cold chills, hairs on end and shivers. This is as good as it gets. And before the movie even got going, I was hooked.
It’s a rare and amazing moment when you discover, in an instant, how you want to spend the rest of your life. I had this moment when I was five in a small theatre in Virginia. There are no words to express the way I felt coming out of that theatre. Whatever happened in that room I was just in...I had to be a part of it. I didn’t know how or in what capacity but I knew that I would spend the rest of my life trying to bottle up the feeling I just experienced.
The FilmThere is no question that Jurassic Park changed my life. This movie has more to do with who I am today than anything else beyond my upbringing. First, this was the movie that introduced me to movies. It was pure magic. The late night screening on opening night showed me that movies were not something to pass time but were instead something to experience. This was an event more than a film.
Second, it redefined filmmaking. This was an aspect I wouldn’t really appreciate until later in life but this film was something never before seen.
Third, the story is unique and well acted. Take away the hype and special effects and you still have a great film. This becomes more rare with each passing day.
To me, movies are experiences that filmmakers create to put an audience through. These are sometimes good experiences and sometimes bad experiences but the goal should always be for the audience to take something away. This is just the coolest thing. An awesome art form.
Most blockbuster movies today fall flat because they rely so much on CGI and spectacle. If you watch Jurassic Park today, you will see that it not only holds up but truly puts to shame so many of the attempts at summer blockbusters that we have seen since. Jurassic Park was the movie made on the edge of two styles of filmmaking. It was a hybrid of physical animatronics and puppetry combined with the newest in computer generated imagery. These two styles were used to complement each other and bring to life something that was previously impossible. It was ground-breaking.
The toys that were made for this movie also hold a special place in my heart. I had many of them and played with them often. It is strange, I suppose, that I never had any interest in the dinosaur toys. At the time, for some reason, I only wanted the characters, the people. It was only until the past few years that this came to mind and I really wondered why that was. My friends, also Jurassic Park fans, had all the dinosaurs and they were their favorites. I never owned a single one by choice. While I didn’t think this way as a child, I think subconsciously I was pointing to something that I currently feel about the film.
I take a lot of heat for this thought because on the surface, it doesn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense. But, I will explain.
“Jurassic Park isn’t about dinosaurs.”
There. I said it. I said this recently and got many responses. None were agreements. “Of course it’s about dinosaurs, Keenan, are you stupid?” Well...yes, I am a little stupid, but allow me to explain. The movie, to me, is about the sense of wonder and seeing something impossible. This is what attracts me to the film and why I’m not fond of the sequels. I believe that the “dinosaurs” could be replaced with a number of things (most wouldn’t be as cool or marketable) that would allow the story to retain its best attributes. These people, the paleontologists, have lived their entire lives studying bones, imagining what these creatures must be like in real life. They are then, given the opportunity to see them, impossible as it may be. They no longer have to imagine, they are given the chance to live it. And yes, the dinosaurs attack and lead the characters on a great adventure. This rounds out the movie but doesn’t make the movie. The action is not the heart of the story.
This is why the sequels don’t work for me. They involve too much of the “real world” off the island. They involve corporations and money and villains. I like how the original film is self contained on the island. When they leave, the movie is over. It’s like a dream. We don’t need to see them back home and shouldn’t. There are no big villains in the first film either. Some characters want to take advantage of the science for profit but they are not the overall threat of the film. The dinosaurs can’t be purely antagonists because they are only acting the way they were designed. The problem is that man and dinosaur, by nature, were not meant to coexist.
I love the fact that the film is not about some evil scientist trying to make money by bringing back the dinosaurs from the dead. Most approaches to the subject would turn out this way I feel. Instead, John Hammond is a man that wants to show the world something they’ve never seen. That’s it. That’s his motive. The characters dealing with what they are seeing, something that cannot be yet are allowed to experience, is what the movie is about.
I’ve always felt that Jurassic Park was in itself an allegory for filmmaking. Intentional or not, I see John Hammond as a character very close to that of Steven Spielberg. He wants to give an audience an experience they could never have elsewhere. This is what Spielberg did for me. He made dinosaurs real. He gave me that experience. I don’t think it was lost on Spielberg when he cast Richard Attenborough, a film director, as Hammond.
So yes, to me, Jurassic Park isn’t about dinosaurs but the feeling you get from seeing something spectacular, experiencing something impossible. And until somebody does bring dinosaurs back, films are where we will be able to have these experiences. And that is why on June 11, 1993, I decided I wanted to be a filmmaker.
Just so you know: Keenan Porterfield and I went to film school together. He became one of my favorite people when we sat next to each other on a train ride from New York to Greensboro and talked about life and movies for nearly 8 hours straight.
