30 Years of Jurassic Park: How It Changed the World – Entertainment Focus

Universal Products and Experiences are currently getting ready to celebrate 30 years of ‘Jurassic Park’. This movie became one of the biggest hits in film history and spawned a massive number of sequels and spin-offs, so in what ways has it changed the world since its release?

The Jurassic Park Franchise

Technically, this franchise was kicked into life in 1990, when Universal Pictures bought the right to the soon-to-be-published Jurassic Park novel by Michael Crichton. The movie was created by Steven Spielberg and was then released in 1993 to critical acclaim and such commercial success that it’s now the eighth highest-grossing movie of all time.  

It led to a series of books and movies that carried on with the story. The latest to be released was 2022’s ‘Jurassic World Dominion’, which is set four years after Isla Nublar was destroyed, in a setting where dinosaurs live in many parts of the world. It was another commercial success although reviews were mixed and some critics felt it failed to live up to the best parts of the earlier films.

We can also see the ‘Jurassic Park’ brand in many places, from toys to theme park rides and video games. The PokerStars Casino includes a ‘Jurassic Park’ slot along with others inspired by the dinosaur disaster movie genre that this film arguably created. There’s a welcome bonus for new players and you can get it from here after reading a review of the site. ‘Jurassic Park’ is one of the few movie franchises to make this switch to being used as the basis for a casino slot, with ‘The Goonies’ and ‘Ted’ as other examples from the same site.

The Popularity of Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs have long been part of popular culture and we can find movies featuring them all the way back to examples such as 1914’s Brute Force and Gertie the Dinosaur from the same year. Yet, the astonishing success of ‘Jurassic Park’ in 1993 meant that these prehistoric creatures were lifted to a new level of popularity.

One of the most interesting aspects of this film’s legacy is that it has led to more dinosaur discoveries being made around the planet. Many people were encouraged to become paleontologists after watching Jurassic Park and this book review lets us see how the search for dinosaur DNA also intensified thanks to its role in the plot.

The Use of Special Effects

Another huge impact this movie had was in the field of special effects. While computer-generated effects weren’t new at the time of its release, ‘Jurassic Park’ was one of the first movies to seamlessly integrate digital sequences that slotted in perfectly to the overall story. It led to a new era of special effects in movies, with the subsequent films in this franchise raising the bar with some impressive computer-generated sequences.

Few movies have had such a big impact on the world in different ways as ‘Jurassic Park’ has. Although 30 years have passed since the first film in the series was released, it remains a huge part of popular culture that has changed our perception of dinosaur and disaster movies.