We had a movie afternoon with the kids and watched Jurassic Park. This was brought on by the fact that I finally watched Jurassic World last week and was so unimpressed by it. The only thing it delivered on was dinosaur/dinosaur fights and dinosaur/people fights. Otherwise, it was stupid. I hated the main female character so. much. I was dying for a dinosaur movie fix featuring a lady scientist wearing hiking boots and 90s pleated high-waist khaki shorts.
So we watched Jurassic Park. More than any other movie I can recall, realizing that Jurassic Park came out almost 23 years ago made me feel old. That movie was iconic for me. I was almost 12 when it came out and I remember feeling so grown-up to see such a scary movie in the theater. It was thrilling.
We watched it with the kids on VidAngel, so I was able to cut out the swearing (including, somewhat sadly, Jeff Goldblum's well-placed "that is one big pile of ****") and the two or three most violent character deaths. And we had a blast! Magdalena got a little scared sometimes, but once I whispered to her that the kids and good-guy adults would be fine, she settled down. She doesn't yet understand that American movies almost always have happy endings for their well-behaved characters.
The on-island parts of the movie have aged fairly well (I remember being bored by the prologue scenes a little as a kid and I still am), even though there are some ridiculous tech-y moments featuring computer security systems. I still love that electric fence scene, and the "clever girl" scene, and, best of all, the scene with the raptors and the kids in the kitchen. The iconic soundtrack moment where the scientists see the dinosaurs for the first time is completely tainted by this video, though - but in the very best way. And those dinosaurs! They still look so real! Jurassic Park definitely holds up, even if it's not quite as good as my imagination remembers it being.
What movies from childhood or young adulthood have you re-watched recently? How do they hold up?
