In case you don’t know, to kvetch is “to complain, grumble, or whine about trivial matters.” So my kvetch today is about the mistreatment of a 33-year-old, classic, much-loved movie. I’m talking about Jurassic Park.
NITPICKING: ALIVE AND WELL
Just today, on my MSN home page, the headlines of two articles caught my eye. One said, “Jurassic Park Got It Wrong About Venomous Dinosaurs.” A second wanted you to know “What Velociraptors Really Looked Like.”
And these weren’t the first articles like that over the course of the past two-three weeks. Articles about dinosaurs from different prehistoric periods being thrown into the Jurassic Park mix; articles about dinosaurs other than velociraptors not looking anything like they were portrayed in the film. And so on.
All of this more than likely had to do with the release of a new dinosaur film, The End of Oak Street, earlier this month. (Haven’t seen it yet.) According to some reviews, this movie “got it right” with regard to what its dinosaurs looked like, and in what prehistoric period they existed. While true, some of the nitpickers acknowledged that paleontological research of the past three decades has revealed much more about dinosaurs than previously known. Steven Spielberg and the others who created Jurassic Park were just going with the information available to them at that time.
Alan Grant (Sam Neill) sees his first live dinosaur.
And really, why are we even having this conversation? Jurassic Park, as I said earlier, is loved by so many. The sense of wonder it engendered was palpable, right from the start. Like Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler when they first laid eyes on a living, breathing Brachiosaurus, my jaw dropped just as far.
I often joke about having fifty or sixty movies in my Top Ten, given that there are so many I enjoy. But if I had to create a true Top Ten, Jurassic Park would be in there.
So enough nitpicking, please! Cease and desist maligning one of the greatest films ever. Okay, end of kvetch.