******BRACHIOSAUR-SIZED SPOILERS!******

My wife and I recently invited our longtime friend Kathy over for another of our ‘garage theater’ movie nights with her 12-year old son, Joshua, who is like a nephew to us (he cosplayed as “Luke” to our “Uncle Owen” and “Aunt Beru” for 2022’s Star Wars Celebration). 

Joshua was born well into the 21st century, but he has a genuine curiosity for ‘older’ movies (cough cough), and my wife and I are only too happy to oblige.  Previously, we’d introduced him to the original “Star Wars” trilogy, “The Princess Bride” and, more recently, to some of the “Harry Potter” movies (Joshua loves to cosplay as Harry Potter during conventions and at Halloween, though he hadn’t actually seen the movies until last year).

A month or so ago, Joshua came over wearing a Jurassic Park t-shirt and expressed a curiosity to actually see this now 31-year old film. I was surprised that he hadn’t.  Of course, we were more than happy to engage our new Epson EF12 laser digital projector and put our trusty 80″/2-meter collapsible movie screen to good use…for the sake of Joshua’s ongoing cinematic education, of course. 

Note: I’ve already reviewed “Jurassic Park” for this site, about six years ago, and I’m not reviewing it now; this column is more about the experience of introducing the movie to a new generation.

We also put our powerful little Bose Bluetooth speaker on the garage’s cement floor, which gave a decent but clean approximation of bass-heavy ‘movie sound.’ After taking our thickly-cushioned patio furniture indoors for our ad hoc garage theater, I also anchored a black sheet over the side window to mask out as much light as we could, in order to make the garage as dark and theatrical as possible. My wife whipped up popcorn, too. To quote the movie’s own John Hammond (the late Sir Richard Attenborough), “Spared no expense.” 

Note: Yeah, we could’ve decluttered the place a bit more perhaps, but hey…it’s still a garage, not the NuArt.

So, after a nice dinner at a local restaurant, we came back to our house, fired up the projector and went to work. Almost from the opening frames, Joshua gave his full attention to the movie; his curiosity piqued during the carefully staged opening sequence featuring the bungled, fatal transfer of velociraptors to their paddock (where we hear, but never see the attacking creatures).  The high-pitched screeches and dolphin-like whistles of the unseen raptors is all but impossible to ignore.

Soon came the character-establishing stuff at the Montana paleontological dig, and Joshua got a giggle or two out of Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) instilling a fear of raptors into a precocious kid (Whit Hertfordat). Grant’s deliberately blood-chilling warning provoking a humorously cringey reaction from his colleague and girlfriend, paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Satler (Laura Dern). By modern standards, the movie is perhaps a bit slow-paced in its opening act, but Joshua ate it up. He never seemed bored or fidgety, not once.

The scene I was anticipating, the one that held the most power for me back in 1993, was when Alan, Ellie and Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) are taken in a gas-powered jeep by their host Mr. Hammond to see their first dinosaurs at the titular park… beginning with a massive, awe-inspiring brachiosaur using its 30-ft neck to munch foliage from the highest treetops.  Steven Spielberg’s expert direction, along with Dean Cundey’s upward camera sweeps and John Williams’ majestic music combine to create a genuinely powerful cinematic moment.  ILM’s then-groundbreaking CGI visual effects still hold up beautifully today (arguably better than the sequels, in fact).

That iconic moment was not lost on Joshua.  Even at age 12, he’s already become a huge fan of composer John Williams’ music.  My wife and I take a wee bit of credit for Joshua’s fascination with John Williams, since we first introduced him to the original Star Wars trilogy in our garage during the pandemic (see: A personal Star Wars celebration for an early “May the 4th”).

Note: After the movie, he dialed up a few of his favorite selections of Williams’ music on his mother’s phone; eager to share his enthusiasm for his favorite composer.  

During the remainder of the movie, I’d occasionally glance over to see Joshua’s reactions to the various scenes, such as the introduction of Hammond’s grandkids (who were in Joshua’s age bracket), the philosophical debates at the lunch table over Chilean sea bass (which Joshua easily followed), and the beginning of the park tour itself. The movie definitely has an amusement park aspect to it that is a dream combination for kids; amusement parks and dinosaurs! Honestly, I wish I were 12-years old when this film came out in 1993, instead of the ripe old age of 26…

I have to admit, my wife and I were a bit concerned that the scene with the Tyrannosaur breaking free from the deactivated electric fences surrounding its paddock might’ve been a bit too intense (in my own childhood, we used to watch R-rated movies all the time, but that was another era).  Joshua was clearly caught up in the danger of the T-Rex’s escape, yet he was grinning in the same ‘scared-but-loving-it’ way one experiences a white-knuckle rollercoaster.  Aside from its messages about the dangers of genetic engineering and the hubris of humanity, the movie really is a big, dinosaur-packed thrill ride, after all…

From then on, Joshua was fully absorbed in the film. I didn’t see him yawn once.  He giggled when the brachiosaur sneezed on Lex (Ariana Richards), and he gripped the side of his seat when the electric fences were being reactivated; which nearly fried poor Tim (Joseph Mazzello) to death. Joshua, a proud Boy Scout, was empathetically and audibly willing the characters onscreen to “Do chest compressions! Do chest compressions!”  You know a movie is really firing on all cylinders when audience members actually talk back to the characters onscreen, as opposed to texting, tweeting or playing games on their phones.  Luckily, Dr. Grant somehow managed to hear Joshua, and took the Scout’s off-screen advice…

Personally, I enjoy hearing some audible enthusiasm expressed during a movie, so long as attendees aren’t providing endless chatter as commentary.  Spontaneous comments directed at characters onscreen are an active barometer of audience engagement. Such empathy demonstrates when a movie is truly working. Hell, I’d rather hear an occasional audible audience reaction to what’s happening onscreen than see a bunch of glowing (distracting) smartphone screens…

Note: One of the more colorful audience comments I remember in my youth was when I first saw 1980’s “Friday the 13th,” where an audience member screamed at the movie’s endangered heroine (Adrienne King) to “grab a can of tuna fish and smash that bitch’s face in!”  The audience roared with laughter! Another came during a 1979 viewing of “Moonraker,” as Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles) delightedly shouts to 007 (Roger Moore), “James!” to which an audience member replied with a perfectly-timed “Bitch!”  Both comments drew more laughter than most comedies I’ve seen.  While some might’ve been annoyed by such remarks, I knew those audience members were 100% engaged with what they were seeing on that screen, instead of playing with their as-yet-nonexistent smartphones (ah, simpler days…).

The scene with the velociraptors stalking Tim and Lex in the visitor center kitchen was a scene my wife was concerned about, for its harrowing depiction of two preteen kids in great peril.  Once again, Boy Scout Joshua kicked in, murmuring sotto voce directions to the kids on what they should do next.  How refreshing it was to see a Gen Z kid so into the movie, instead of scattering his attention across other distractions.  Joshua was the same way with the original Star Wars trilogy, and the other movies we’ve shown him.

By the end of the movie, there was a satisfied grin on Joshua’s face.  It once again reaffirmed my faith in the power of movies, and of new generations to appreciate them.  My wife and I try to make these ‘garage theater’ events as theatrical as possible; we move the cars out, darken the window, take in our comfy chairs from the patio, and top it off with a little popcorn.  My friend Kathy texted me the following day to tell me how her son enjoys seeing how enthusiastic we get at having them over to share these cinematic gems.  That’s the payoff; to experience these films anew with an appreciate audience.

By the end of the evening, my wife and I promised Joshua and his mother that we’d do a marathon of the “Back to the Future” trilogy (another series of movies on Joshua’s must-see list) during Spring Break next month.  I can honestly say that I’m as eager to re-experience these films through his eyes as he is at seeing them for the first time.  What began three years ago as a COVID pandemic-era means of enjoying movies again has now become a benign obsession.

From seeing the return of creatures that existed 65 million years ago to going ‘back to the future,’ my wife and I always look forward to hosting Joshua and his parents for more of these homespun movie night adventures for as long as he’s interested. 

Where to Watch

As of this writing, the Jurassic Park movies are available for digital rent & purchase on Amazon Prime Video, while the later sequels (“Jurassic World” on up) can be streamed on Hulu and Peacock (including 2022’s disappointing “Jurassic World: Dominion”).  For this column, I sourced the movie from my own Blu-Ray, partly because I’m a huge fan of owning physical media, and because I prefer the permanence and accessibility. Not to mention that I got my Blu-Ray copy of “Jurassic Park” during a sale at my local Barnes & Noble for less than half the price of a movie ticket, and for only a few bucks more than a streaming rental.