The fact that Jurassic Park
is twenty years old makes me feel older than I’d like to think I am. It’s hard
to believe that it was two decades ago that a wide eyed seven year old me took
a trip to the local cinema for what was only my second cinematic experience at
the time. The film was a sensation with children, adults and critics and became
the highest grossing movie of all time. Although I loved the film, there was a
part of me who secretly hated it as it opened children’s eyes to the dinosaur
world, something which I naively thought only I liked. Suddenly all my friends
had dinosaur toys too and it annoyed me that they’d stolen my thing. It was the
equivalent of that cool, underground band you like appearing on TV and going
mainstream. Despite my anger over the film taking dinosaurs mainstream, it was
pretty much the best thing my seven year old eyes had ever seen.
Twenty years, two sequels and
about a dozen viewings later I heard that Universal were bringing Jurassic Park back to the big screen in
3D. Part of that sentence made me very happy but I was rather sceptical about
the ‘3D’ element. I was even offered the chance to join a critics screening in New York City of all
places, six months ago while on holiday there. I was unfortunately unable to
make it though as I’d left my girlfriend shopping somewhere and knowing that
she never notices her phone ringing and wouldn’t be able to make it to the
theatre in time anyway, I had to decline, something which was deeply
disappointing. All was not lost though as although I had to wait nearly half a
year, I was eventually able to see the film on one of the largest screens in
the country, the IMAX screen in Manchester.
