Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Jess Dunne and Alex Towers, The 250 is a fortnightly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.
This time, Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park.
Billionaire Richard Hammond is building a new sort of theme park. However, when an accident on site makes the investors nervous, Hammond is forced to invite a panel of experts to his remote island for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, one that doesn’t go exactly according to plan.
At time of recording, it was ranked the 165th best movie of all time on the Internet Movie Database.
Show Notes:
- Recorded 25th January 2021.
- Note: Due to the COVID-19 situation, this episode was recorded remotely. We suspect, going forward that a lot of our episodes will be until the crisis resolves.
- Jurassic Park at The Internet Movie Database.
- The Top 250 at time of recording.
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- Sam Adams at IndieWire invites critics to discuss the worst movie accents ever, August 2015.
- Nick DeSantis at MTV looks at the diverse accents of Colin Farrell, March 2013.
- Terry Pristin at The Los Angeles Times reports on the question of whether Jurassic Park is for children, June 1993.
- Bernard Weinraub at The New York Times reports on the outrage around marketing Jurassic Park to children, June 1993.
- Roger Ebert reviews RoboCop 2 for The Chicago Sun Times, June 1990.
- Donna Britt at The Washington Post reports on parental outrage over the sex and violence in Batman Returns, June 1992.
- Eric Levenson at The Atlantic reports on the real life science of “de-extinction”, February 2014.
- Carl Zimmer at National Geographic discusses the ethical quandaries of “de-extinction”, April 2013.
- Nathaniel Rich at The New York Times reports on the public fascination with “de-extinction”, March 2014.
- Kevin Fallon at The Atlantic reports on NASA’s claim that Jurassic Park is “scientifically plausible”, January 2011.
- Cracked argues that Jurassic Park is essentially a gigantic swindle on the part of Richard Hammond, September 2017.
- Michael Crichton recalls the development of Jurassic Park as a novel.
- Kevin B. Lee at Vimeo discusses the ubiquity of the “Spielberg face”, December 2011.
- Tom Breihan at The A.V. Club discusses the use of the “Spielberg face” as its own special effect in Jurassic Park, August 2020.
- A.A. Dowd at The A.V. Club discusses Jurassic Park as “the quintessential special-effects movie”, November 1993.
- Malcolm W. Brown at The New York Times discusses the making of Jurassic Park, June 1993.
- Kristen Acuna at Insider looks at how the special effects of Jurassic Park were rendered, November 2014.
- Kayleigh Dray at Stylist looks back on the influence and legacy of Ellie Statler in Jurassic Park, September 2019.
- Jeff Vice at Deseret News argues that Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla is heavily indebted to Jurassic Park, May 1998.
- Roger Ebert reviews Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla for The Chicago Sun Times, May 1998.
- Nathan Rabin looks back at Congo for The Dissolve, September 2013.
- The staff at Rotten Tomatoes debate whether Jaws or Jurassic Park is the better Spielberg blockbuster, May 2020.
- Sam Kashner at Vanity Fair looks back on Michael Crichton’s influence on nineties pop culture, February 1997.
- Mark Lawson at The Irish Times discusses the art of the airplane thriller, December 1996.
- Aylin Woodward at Insider looks at the many dinosaurs that Jurassic Park got “wrong”, July 2020.
- The Guardian reports on the errors that Jurassic Park made in its depiction of various types of dinosaurs, February 2009.
- Knvul Sheikh at National Geographic looks at the modern arguments that dinosaurs actually had feathers, April 2016.
- Olivia Rodrigues at Frieze looks at how the Jurassic Park franchise has changed the way that dinosaurs are exhibited, April 2019.
- Keith Phipps at Vulture reflects on Jurassic Park altered the depiction of dinosaurs in cinema, June 2018.
- Robert T. Bakker at Scientific America looks at the “dinosaur renaissance” of the seventies, April 1975.
- Olivia B. Waxman at Time looks at Jurassic Park as the culmination of the “dinosaur renaissance” that began in the seventies, June 2018.
- Darren Mooney discusses Jurassic Park as a metaphor for itself, and the pop culture that it created, at The Escapist, January 2021.
- Nell Minow reviews Jurassic Park in post-conversion 3D for RogerEbert.com, April 2013.
- Scott Mendelson at Forbes discusses how the 3D re-release made Jurassic Park the slowest movie to break a billion, June 2020.
- Anthony D’Alessandro at Deadline reports on Jurassic Park being re-released as a drive-in movie, June 2020.
- Alexander Huls at The Atlantic looks at how Jurassic Park reinvigorated computer-generated special effects, April 2013.
- David Crow at Den of Geek celebrates the use of computer-generated special effects in Jurassic World, June 2019.
- The BBC reports on the deaths at an Australian theme park, September 2020.
- James Rodger at The Birmingham Mail looks back on the horrific crash at Alton Towers, June 2020.
- Marie Rossiter at NBC reports on the tragic deaths that have occurred at Walt Disney World, June 2016.
- Darryl Fears at The Washington Post reports on the death of a toddler killed by an alligator at Disney World, November 2017.
- Kristin Schwab at MarketPlace reports on Disney’s efforts to reopen its theme parks in the middle of global pandemic, July 2020.
- Graeme Wood at The Atlantic reports on the experience of Disney World during the pandemic, July 2020.
- German Lopez at Vox reports on the infamous court case about the McDonalds coffee cups, December 2016.
- Eric Hoyt writes about the dangers posed to trainers who go into the tanks at Seaworld in The Performing Orca, 1992.
- David Kirby at Take Part reports on Seaworld’s efforts to get its trainers back in the tanks, despite the risks, April 2014.
- The Los Angeles Times reports on injuries sustained on the Jurassic Park theme park ride at Universal Studios, August 1996.
- Catherine Clepper at Film History discusses the marketting and showmanship of William Castle, June 2016.
- Alfred Hitchcock’s original theatrical trailer for Psycho, 1960.
- Robert Weintraub at Slate discusses the horrific accident that occurred on the set of The Twilight Zone, July 2012.
- Kayleigh Donaldson at SyFy reports on the way in which the deaths on the set of The Twilight Zone changed how movies are produced, July 2018.
- Paul Feldman at The Los Angeles Times reports on Robert Landis’ testimony about the deaths on the set of The Twilight Zone, February 1987.
- Marc Green and Stephen Farber at The Los Angeles Times discuss the legacy of the Twilight Zone tragedy, including on Landis and Spielberg’s relationship, August 1988.
- Ryan Vlastelica at The A.V. Club discusses how the film adaptation of Jurassic Park softens the character of John Hammond, June 2015.
- Matthew Herper at Forbes recounts his experience of lunch with Martin Shkreli, September 2015.
- Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott at The New York Times debate whether Spielberg is too gentle to the character of John Hammond, July 2020.
- Anthony Breznican at Entertainment Weekly looks back at the relationship between Steven Spielberg and Richard Attenborough, August 2014.
- Michael Dwyer at The Irish Times looks back on Steven Spielberg’s variable career, June 2005.
- Philip Oltermann at The Guardian looks back on how Ian Malcolm became the breakout star of Jurassic Park, June 2015.
- Emma Stefansky at Screencrush looks at how Jurassic Park almost cut the character of Ian Malcolm, April 2018.
- The cast and crew of Jurassic Park talk about the film’s development, production and legacy with Entertainment Weekly, April 2013.
- Bernard Weinraub at The New York Times looks at the production of Jurassic Park, April 1993.
- T.S.J. Harling at Storgy dissects the feminist themes of Jurassic Park, June 2018.
- Susana Polo at Polygon reports on how Hasbro made all its Jurassic Park dinosaur toys male, June 2015.
- David Sims at The Atlantic praises Ray Arnold as the unsung hero of Jurassic Park, June 2018.
- Bilge Ebiri at Vulture argues in defense of The Lost World as delightfully dark Spielberg, August 2020.
- Steven Spielberg talks to Entertainment Weekly about filming Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List back-to-back, April 2018.
- Ed Power at The Independent reports on Spielberg’s simultaneous work on Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List, November 2018.
- Jennifer Lee Rossman at Den of Geek discusses the television spin-off Camp Cretaceous, January 2021.
- Brian Ross, Rhonda Schwartz and Maddy Sauer report on the scandal around teflon for ABC News, January 2006.
- Bijan Stephen at The Verge reports on the strange world of Elon Musk fanboys, June 2018.
- Scotty Bryan at Buzzfeed reports on how Phil Tippett became a meme, June 2015.
- Steven Spielberg talks to Entertainment Weekly about recreating The Shining inside Ready Player One, July 2018.
- Peter Sciretta at /Film explains why the triceratops is sick in Jurassic Park, December 2014.
- Joshua Rivera at GQ argues for the music as the best part of Jurassic Park, June 2018.
- Patrick Shanley at The Hollywood Reporter discusses the original planned death sequence for Ray Arnold, January 2018.
- JurassicCollectables unboxes Ray Arnold’s detached arm and leg, February 2012.
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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: alex towers, capitalism, dinosaurs, ellie statler, entertainment, horror, Ian Malcolm, jess dunne, john hammond, jurassic park, laura dern, monsters, podcast, pop culture, richard attenborough, sam neill, steven spielberg, The 250, the twilight zone |
the m0vie blog 
T. rex WAS a predator. The scavenger T. rex theory was always a fringe view based on shaky evidence. It was definitively disproven in 2013 with the discovery of hadrosaur fossils showing partially healed wounds from a T. rex bite. Since the healing couldn’t have happened posthumously, this means the hadrosaurs had to have been attacked by a T. rex while still alive.
Hyenas are also more predators than scavengers, by the way. It’s actually impossible for any walking animal of that size to sustain itself just on scavenging. The only way animals larger than an insect can survive off scavenging is if they search for food by gliding for long distances on air currents, like vultures, rather than moving under their own power.