it's not about seeing, it's about believing

Stated Clear: Review of: the sentiments of Jurassic Park

The first time I saw Jurassic Park was during its initial movie run in the endless year of 1993. I was 6 going on 7, which means endless. I mean that's when you first not caring that swearing is bad. En-da-lessss. Anyway, JP was literally a monster of a movie and was the first blockbuster movie experience of my life. Terminator was too violent and, being of that age, all I had to know was that Arnold Schwarzenegger said I'll be back. But Jurassic Park was different. I wasn't the first to see the movie in my 2nd grade class, so I experienced the monster quality of the movie in: merchandising. The dino action figures were cool, and they had JP logo's on them so we couldn't accept imitation. Also, and this is insane in retrospect, for a movie with no discernible hero, the action figure of the actors were bankable items. Sure we only used them to die, but after the gold rush of Jurassic Park I still had a Jeff Goldblum in all black and a Sam Neil with adventure hate action figures. I eventually made them into wrestling managers during my wrestling phase of 8-11. But my continued digression keeps me away from really mind wrapping how huge a movie Jurassic Park was. I saw the movie for the first time at a drive in theater. It was a finally moment when I saw it, and I got to see it outside and my parents brought a cooler and I could chew loud. This was PG-13 too. So take all into account: the merchandising, dinosaurs in general, violence in general, knowing the name Steven Spielberg, a rating system I don't fall under, outside watching a movie with a cooler- this was a monumental day. But the thing I remember most of that day was realizing and understanding how big a movie can be and the overall impact a blockbuster can have. See, at the end of the credits, the drive in theater played "Walk Like a Dinosaur" over the loud speakers and invited people to come up and dance. Yes they did. "Walk Like a Dinosaur". A cheesy 80s novelty dance song. I knew, as a 6 year old, this wasn't appropriate, and I knew it was dumb. But that dumbness had an underling spirit of capitalism underneath it. Of course you're going to play "Walk like a Dinosaur", it makes things fun and it makes your audience do something. You're not here for dignity- you're here to make sure people will continue to see your movie. And how do you do that? By playing a song that has the word Dinosaur in it! Jurassic Park, something I found profound in my life, was capitalized upon and turned into a pre-teen girl walking-dance party. That's when I learned that nothing is sacred. Jurassic Park - you taught me to love the hype, but not to fear it.