History Film / JurassicPark

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[[redirect:Film/JurassicPark1993]]

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[[caption-width-right:350: ''[[SignatureLine "Welcome... to]] [[TitleDrop Jurassic Park."]]'']]

->''"Life, um... finds a way."''
-->-- '''Ian Malcolm'''

''Jurassic Park'' is a 1993 Science-Fiction/Adventure film directed by Creator/StevenSpielberg and the first of its [[Franchise/JurassicPark eponymous film franchise]], [[FilmOfTheBook based on]] the [[Literature/JurassicPark novel of the same name]] by Creator/MichaelCrichton, who was also brought on to pen the screenplay for the film.

Scientists funded by billionaire John Hammond (Creator/RichardAttenborough) have discovered how to bring extinct animals back to life via a complex cloning process. To make a profit off of this technology, Hammond and his company, [=InGen=], decide to build a theme park featuring living dinosaurs. This in itself would not be such a bad idea — except the organizers are rushing to get it open, have built it on a remote island, and have almost no security personnel, deciding instead to automate the whole thing with unreliable computers — even refusing to tell the software designer what the system is for.

Naturally, [[GoneHorriblyWrong everything that can go wrong]] [[FinaglesLaw does go wrong]]. And Hammond's invited guests to this soft opening — paleontologist Alan Grant (Creator/SamNeill), paleobotanist Ellie Sattler (Creator/LauraDern), chaotician Ian Malcolm (Creator/JeffGoldblum), lawyer Donald Gennaro (Martin Ferrero), and Hammond's own grandchildren Tim and Lex Murphy (Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards) — are caught in the middle of it all.

The film also stars Creator/BDWong as Henry Wu, Creator/SamuelLJackson as Ray Arnold and Creator/WayneKnight as Dennis Nedry.

Beyond being Spielberg's biggest hit since his late 1970s-early 1980s run, the movie was a landmark in cinematic special effects technology. The extremely convincing animatronic dinosaurs created for the film were combined and enhanced with groundbreaking, realistic CGI ones. The results were so spectacular that it rendered [[JustForPun virtually]] all PracticalEffects like puppetry and stop motion obsolete overnight, to the point that it's impossible to find any wide-release feature film today which ''doesn't'' use digital effects. Meanwhile, in spite of the requisite Hollywood mistakes, many paleontologists and dinosaur fanatics also loved it. The moment where the visitors first come across a dinosaur in full view and are just blown away ("...it's a dinosaur!") could be the 1990s equivalent to the Star Destroyer flying overhead from ''Franchise/StarWars'': ''Film/ANewHope''. Speaking of which, the highly memorable soundtrack by Music/JohnWilliams also played its part in making the picture iconic.

Perhaps the most enduringly popular blockbuster film of its decade, it cemented {{dinosaurs}} as the American CyclicNationalFascination of the time, as it and its source novel rode the wave of the scientific "Dinosaur Renaissance" of the late 1960s onward which [[ScienceMarchesOn overturned earlier conceptions]] of cold-blooded, slow and DumbDinos in favor of agile, fast and intelligent warm-blooded creatures. While it had a few predecessors like ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'' (which Spielberg himself co-produced), ''Jurassic Park'' was the biggest factor to date in spreading these concepts to the masses.

It spawned a [[Franchise/JurassicPark franchise]] that includes several film sequels: ''Film/TheLostWorldJurassicPark'' (1997), ''Film/JurassicParkIII'' (2001), ''Film/JurassicWorld'' (2015), ''Film/JurassicWorldFallenKingdom'' (2018), and ''Film/JurassicWorldDominion'' (2022). It also won all three of its Oscar nominations; Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects. On top of that, the film celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2013 with a theatrical re-release that upgraded it into a UsefulNotes/ThreeDMovie.

'''Character tropes (including dinosaurs) go on to the [[Characters/JurassicParkFilm Characters Sheet]].'''

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!! The article you are reading is proofread by Creator/RichardKiley (we spared no expense)!:

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[[folder:A - E]]
* OneDimensionalThinking: When Alan is rescuing Tim from the park car caught up a tree, and the car starts to break through the branches above them and fall, how do they escape? By rapidly climbing ''down'' the tree. Not, say, ''around'' to the opposite side of the tree trunk where the vehicle is ''not'' falling.
* AbortedArc: The subplot of the sick ''Triceratops'' doesn't come to anything (beyond getting Dr. Sattler off the tour) or get mentioned again, while in the book it was revealed the dinosaur got sick because it was swallowing gizzard stones to help with digestion and accidentally ate some poisonous berries with them. The movie leaves out this explanation (in fact it's explicitly stated to be wrong), so it's never made clear why the ''Triceratops'' is sick.
* ActionFilmQuietDramaScene:
** In the middle of the first film, Sattler and Hammond eat melting ice cream and talk about flea circuses. It's really quite touching.
** The equivalent scene in the book happens with Hammond and Dr. Wu eating ice cream and chatting, [[MoodWhiplash right after the chapter where Dennis Nedry's death is described in gruesome detail]]. The exchange is also a little more sinister, as Hammond monologues about how inventing things that would save mankind could never turn a profit. Crichton's tone vs. Spielberg's, in a nutshell.
** The scene in which Grant and the kids climb into a tree to rest for the night is a break in the action after the intense ''T. rex'' attack from just minutes earlier. The characters are given some time to get to know each other better, and the brachiosaurs show that there are some things in the park that can be beautiful and peaceful.
** The film also ends on a very quiet note, where the characters silently reflect in their helicopter while it flies away.
* ActionPrologue: The first scene of a ''Velociraptor'' being transferred to an enclosure and killing a guard as opposed to the novel, which focused solely on the aftermath of the attack.
* ActionSurvivor: For being children, Tim and Lex conduct themselves well in the climax. [[spoiler:They manage to distract the raptors that came to hunt them in the kitchen, with Tim managing to lock one in the freezer and Lex luring several away from eating her brother. When the raptors corner them in the control room, Lex successfully reboots the systems and the locks, getting the parks back online]].
* ActivationSequence: As the third act begins, Hammond orders the park's system shut down so it'll reset and stop what Nedry's program did. Once the main breakers are switched on they have to go and activate the breakers for the individual systems. Ray Arnold goes first, but when he doesn't come back, Ellie and Muldoon go to take care of it. Hammond walks Ellie through powering up the breaker switches and she then brings each system back online one by one. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, Grant and the kids are at that moment climbing over the perimeter fence to get to the visitors center and Tim is caught on the fence as she activates it. He survives, barely.]]
* AdaptationalSkill: Lex is given Tim's hacking skills, which come in handy [[ChekhovsSkill during the climax]].
* AdaptationDeviation:
** In the book, the opening scene is set in a continental Costa Rican hospital and features a mortally wounded worker from the park being brought to the emergency ward after suffering from an unspecified accident, instead of showing the actual incident like the movie's opening.
** In the movie, [[spoiler:Grant understands the dinosaurs are able to breed]] fairly late, while he's fleeing the park. In the book, the discovery happens before the power is cut and the park goes to hell. The cause of the discovery (Grant finding [[spoiler:some broken egg shell]]) is the same.
* AdaptationDistillation:
** Many side plots from the book are written out in the movie and several characters are combined and their fates change. Several of these sequences were revisited in an altered state in the sequel films (such as the pterosaur aviary, riverboat attack, ''Procompsognathus'' beach encounter, dinosaurs escaping to the mainland, and hadrosaur stampede).
** There's also the way the park is viewed as a whole. In the book, it had numerous problems in addition to [[spoiler:the dinosaurs finding a way to breed, such as the fact that several of the smaller ones had escaped and were attacking children on the mainland]], to the point of where one might think that [[spoiler:Nedry's sabotage]] only sped up the inevitable. In the film, we get the implication that everything would have worked out fine if not for [[spoiler:Nedry]]. Notably in the book the final breakdown of the park isn't [[spoiler:Nedry's]] fault at all, but because [[spoiler:Arnold]] forgot to turn on the main power after the system reboot, leaving it on auxilary power for hours.
* AdaptationExplanationExtrication:
** The film is still a very good adaptation, but compressing the book meant removing most of the exposition of the book, which contained some explanations that filled multiple small logic gaps present in the movie, such as why the ''Triceratops'' was sick. In the book it's a ''Stegosaurus,'' and they figure out that while the animals don't eat the toxic plants on purpose, they inadvertently ingest some of the fallen berries when they periodically take in rocks for their gizzard.[[note]]In an earlier version of the script, the explanation was changed from the novel, now explaining that gene contamination from trace quantities of mosquito DNA in the cloning process caused the ''Triceratops''' illness, and that it would eventually fatally affect every animal in the park.[[/note]]
** In the book, Ian Malcolm's criticisms of the park were based on the sheer complacency on display and the fact that the park was completely unequipped to deal with anything unexpected, which would inevitably occur given the dinosaurs were an unknown random element. In the movie this part of the story is downplayed, so he's reduced to vague ideological [[PlayingGod "You tampered in God's domain"]] arguments.
* AdaptationInducedPlotHole:
** The use of frog DNA is more justified in the book, where it's indicated only a few select species have fragments of frog DNA, and the majority of the DNA used to fix up dinosaur DNA is avian or reptilian; the other justification given is that DNA only has minor genetic differences across all forms of life,[[note]]The genetic difference between the DNA of a bacterium and a human is about 10%[[/note]] with the implication that they thought they were patching missing code to parts where it wouldn't matter. The movie removes all this explanation, leaving the use of frog DNA as something of a VoodooShark, as you'd wonder why they didn't use DNA of an animal more closely related to dinosaurs.
** Early on Dr. Sattler is enthusing about an extinct plant she found on the island in a scene absent from the book. There's no explanation on how they could have recreated it or why, and it's never mentioned again.
* AdaptationInspiration: The book is very clearly against the idea of Jurassic Park, portraying it as a [[{{Postmodernism}} postmodern]] simulacrum where a thin veneer of fabricated wonder masks corporate greed and scientific incompetence. Although it follows the same basic plot points, the film goes to the complete opposite end of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism, presenting Hammond as a benevolent father figure and earnestly reveling in the scientific miracle that's happened, even as chaos theory takes the reins and the park starts breaking down.
* AdaptationPersonalityChange:
** In the original book, Gennaro ends up turning into TheLancer for Alan Grant, and he even punches out a ''Velociraptor''! The film turns Gennaro into a DirtyCoward that gets eaten by a ''T. rex'' whilst sitting on a toilet. Gennaro's characterization (and manner of death), mirrors Ed Regis, [=InGen=]'s PR guy from the book, making him more of a CompositeCharacter.
** John Hammond in the original book is TheScrooge and a tyrant who shortchanges people (giving fat programmer Dennis a reason to betray him), has a NeverMyFault mentality, and then suffers a KarmicDeath. The film turns Hammond into a kindly old man who truly thinks that what he's doing is a good idea (which it isn't), and one result of the change is that Dennis comes off as more of a {{Jerkass}} for betraying him! The film did drop hints that maybe Nedry got the job because he put in an unrealistically low bid (probably in the hopes that he could jack up the price once he had his foot in the door), and is disgruntled because Hammond is holding him to the original bid he tendered (hence the remark about "financial debates"), but it's never made explicit and Nedry could just as easily be a greedy selfish jerk. [[CompositeCharacter Hammond's greed was also given to Gennaro]].
** Alan Grant's arc of overcoming his dislike of kids is exclusive to the movie; in the book, he finds children's fascination with dinosaurs endearing and is friendly to Tim and Lex right off the bat.
* AdaptationSpeciesChange:
** In the novel, the sick dinosaur was a ''Stegosaurus'' instead of a ''Triceratops'' (the former of which does not make an appearance in the movie outside of its misspelled name in the embryo tubes).
** The sauropod that the characters see first when they arrive at the part is changed to a ''Brachiosaurus'' from ''Apatosaurus''/''Brontosaurus'' (the former of which does not appear in the book).
** The dinosaur stampede that Grant and the kids get caught in and ends with the ''T. rex'' eating one of the dinosaurs is changed from hadrosaurs to ''Gallimimus''.
* AdaptationalDumbass: Downplayed. In the book, Muldoon was the one who spotted the raptor ambush, i.e. the classic hunting strategy of an animal he's an expert on. In the film he was the one ''ambushed'' by the raptors.
* AdaptationalHeroism:
** In the film, John Hammond is a kindly old man and loving grandfather who just wants to share the wonder of Jurassic Park with people; he's not even all that interested in the financial benefits, shooting down Gennaro's suggestion that they overprice admission. In the novel, he's a manipulative huckster who really just wants money, and won't listen to anyone's advice about how dangerous the situation is. [[spoiler:And he gets eaten by a flock of chicken-sized ''Procompsognathus'']]. Apparently this change was because Spielberg saw a lot of himself in Hammond.
** When the ''T. rex'' breaks out of her enclosure, the literary version of Ian Malcolm simply jumps out of the car and runs, much like Regis in the novel and Gennaro in the film. Jeff Goldblum suggested that he instead distract the ''T. rex'' so that Grant can get the kids to safety (though it ends up being a StupidSacrifice since Grant had already succeeded in distracting the ''T. rex'', and gets Gennaro killed). That being said, in the novel, the attack went FromBadToWorse incredibly quickly and was apparently over before either Alan or Ian could help; Malcolm only books it when the ''T. rex'' comes for their car.
** The ''T. rex'' itself, to an extent. While still a terrifying presence, the film version acts more like a real animal reacting to noise, movement and new settings, while the book version is a SuperPersistentPredator fixated on killing humans. While the novel ''rex'' chases Grant and the kids all around the island, the film version seems content hunting ''Gallimimus'' and never directly attacks any humans following the paddock breakout and car chase. It even gets an iconic BigDamnHeroes moment at the climax, whereas [[spoiler:[[SparedByTheAdaptation the novel version drowns after being tranquilized by Muldoon]]]].
** Ellie is the character who gets the power turned back on, in the novel, Arnold and Gennaro both try before Alan Grant ends up succeeding.
* AdaptationalIntelligence: The film version of Lex is made older than she was in the book and given knowledge of computer systems. Contrasting, her brother Tim was made younger and loses the computer systems scene, but maintains his knowledge of dinosaurs.
* AdaptationalJerkass: Grant is a minor example: his character arc involves him starting as a (mild) ChildHater and growing out of it through CharacterDevelopment. His book version ''loves'' children (he finds their curiosity and love of dinosaurs endearing). Steven Spielberg's AuthorAppeal at work.
* AdaptationalModesty: Dr. Sattler in the novel was very much MsFanservice, with frequent attention given to her skimpy clothing and how the male characters admire the skin she's showing off. In the film, she dresses much more conservatively and any obvious MaleGaze is absent.
* AdaptationalVillainy:
** Gennaro, a reasonably fit, brave, and definitely-not-''Tyrannosaurus''-chow protagonist, is more-or-less turned into Ed Regis from the novel, a spineless lawyer/PR rep who abandons two helpless children and gets eaten soon after. Taking it further, Book!Regis actually has a MyGodWhatHaveIDone reaction when he realizes that he abandoned the children and keeps kicking himself for it afterward (although Gennaro never really gets the chance to reflect, unlike Regis).
** In the book, Dennis Nedry had a reason for [[spoiler:sabotaging the park and stealing the dinosaur DNA]] beyond sheer greed: [=InGen=] had essentially blackmailed him into adding extensive modifications to their already-extensive computer systems for no pay. In the movie, outside of an offhand mention about Hammond "getting cheap" on him, he's given no such justification and is [[OnlyInItForTheMoney in it for the money.]]
* AdaptationalWimp:
** Gennaro. In the novel, he goes along with Muldoon to catch the ''Tyrannosaurus'', manages to fend off a ''Velociraptor'' attack, intimidates a ship captain with TechnoBabble, and survives to the end. In the film, he becomes a DirtyCoward who dies a particularly embarrassing death and the scene where he fights off the raptor in the novel gets transferred to [[ActionGirl Ellie]].
** More downplayed, but the movie's ''Dilophosaurus'' compared to the book's version. While both are vicious predators, in the novel, [[spoiler:Nedry]] is terrified of their calls, and tries to flee before he even sees them. It helps that the novel's ''Dilophosaurus'' are more accurate to the real animal, described as standing ten feet tall and capable of lifting a man with their jaws, while the version in the film is only about dog-sized and gets treated like an annoying stray puppy...[[spoiler:until she literally reveals her true colors]]. She's a baby, though, while the one in the novel was an adult.
* AdaptedOut:
** Several characters present in the novel are removed in the movie, such as Dr. Marty Gutierrez and Ed Regis (although many of Regis' traits were put into Gennaro's character).
** In the novel, there were two ''T. rex'', an adult and juvenile, but in the film there's only the adult. The venomous ''Procompsognathus'' which actually [[spoiler:kill Hammond]] in the novel as well as the pterosaurs are also entirely absent.[[note]]The compies and the pterosaur aviary would both appear in sequels however.[[/note]]
** This is played with for Dr. Henry Wu, Dr. Gerry Harding, and Dr. Ian Malcolm. In the movie, Wu has one scene and leaves the island before the park breaks down, in the novel, he’s one of the main characters. In Harding’s case, he’s a main character who ends up being Malcolm’s primary caregiver after Malcolm’s leg is broken, since he’s the only one with any medical experience. In Malcolm’s case, he’s very vocal after his leg injury, spouting page long monologues from his sick bed, whereas in the film, after he’s brought back from the park, he has a couple of lines of dialogue before the film ends.
* AdmiringTheAbomination:
** Muldoon sees the ''Velociraptors'' as {{Worthy Opponent}}s, to the point his last words are complimenting them for sneaking up on him.
--->'''Muldoon''': Clever girl.
** And when Grant, Tim and Lex see the ''T. rex'' hunt down and kill a ''Gallimimus'', Lex is freaked out and immediately wants to leave. Grant and Tim, however, stare utterly ''fascinated'' by how the big predator moves and eats its prey.
** When Grant sees the ''T. rex'' for the first time he can't help but smile just slightly, despite the imminent danger.
* AgeLift: In the novel, Tim was the older sibling and Lex was the younger. Steven Spielberg swapped their ages so Creator/JosephMazzello, who he had to reject for ''Film/{{Hook}}'' for being too young, could play Tim.
* AirVentPassageway: Alan, Ellie, Lex and Tim do a variation of this. They're in the Visitors' Center kitchen, and can't get out the doors because of the raptors running around. So, they make their way to the center's lobby by removing ceiling panels and climbing up inside. Not into the actual air vents, though.
* AllAnimalsAreDogs:
** Nedry assumes this about the ''Dilophosaurus'', and tries to distract her by throwing a stick. It doesn't work, so he figures she's just stupid. [[spoiler:Then she eats him.]] Even dogs will prefer a meaty steak to a bone.
** In a far less comedic instance, there's Grant luring the ''T. rex'' away from the kids by throwing a road flare off of the road, which depends ''a lot'' on the ''rex'' wanting to chase after something like a dog would in a similar situation. Thankfully it works...and then [[SubvertedTrope Malcolm attempts to do the same thing with less success]].
* AllNaturalGemPolish: Someone pulls amber out of a mine, and it's shiny already. All the miners did was grind off some of the rock in which the amber was encased.
* AlwaysABiggerFish: The heroes are about to get eaten by ''Velociraptors'', but the ''T. rex'' shows up, trounces the raptors, and saves the day. How it appeared there without anyone noticing, or why the protagonists are now less terrified than they were earlier, remains completely unexplained (there was a barely noticeable hole in the wall it possibly came in through). According to the producers, they were struggling with the ending when they came to the realization that it was really the hero of the movie, and that was when everything fell into place.
* AmbiguousSituation: Nedry's financial situation. Hammond claims that he is not responsible for Nedry's money problem while Nedry complains that the automated system required to run Jurassic Park is far more expensive and difficult than what he bid for. While it's easy to see Nedry as being greedy, there are several indications throughout the film that [[JerkassHasAPoint Hammond has been cutting corners]] contrary to his catchphrase "Spare no expense."
* AmoralAttorney: Donald Gennaro, though much more lacking in morals than in the original novel. Highlighted when he abandons the kids when the ''T. rex'' shows up, only to then be eaten by said ''rex''.
* AmusementParkOfDoom: Not intended to be one, but thanks to a combination of human pride and treachery mixed with a healthy dose of Nature's wrath, it succeeds in doing so.
* AnAesop: Humans playing God is a bad idea.
* AnalogyBackfire:
** John Hammond tries to compare the park's problems to Disneyland not working when it opened. Goldblum's character points out that nothing in Disneyland is as deadly as a dinosaur.
--->'''Dr. Ian Malcolm:''' Yeah, but John, when ''Ride/PiratesOfTheCaribbean'' breaks down, the pirates don't ''eat'' the tourists.
** Hammond compares his bringing back dinosaurs to reviving condors. Dr. Malcolm points out that the bird species went extinct through human meddling, but dinosaurs died out naturally and thus [[AppealToNature their being brought back was throwing out the natural order of things.]]
--->'''Dr. Hammond:''' I simply don't understand this Luddite attitude, especially from a scientist. I mean, how can we stand in the light of discovery and not act?\\
'''Dr. Malcolm:''' Oh, what's so great about discovery? It's a violent, penetrative act that scars what it observes. What you call discovery... I call the rape of the natural world.
* AnimalNemesis: "The Big One" to Muldoon, who knows just how monstrous the former is and is determined to stop her. He fails.
* AnimalStampede: Alan, Lex, and Tim get caught in a stampede of ''Gallimimus''; they survive it by hiding behind a log.
* AnimalsNotToScale: Early in the film ''Velociraptor'' is described as resembling a "six-foot turkey". The comparison to turkeys is rather interesting, considering that turkeys are the modern birds most comparable to ''Velociraptor'' in ''size''. Yes, the real thing was more of a [[ShapedLikeItself turkey-sized turkey]].
* AppealToNature: Malcolm states that bringing back dinosaurs is bad partly because that's going against natural selection.[[note]]While he may have had a point if he meant to refer to the ethics of suddenly introducing genetically altered megafauna to a region with existing wildlife, his actual point is just that "they had their chance"[[/note]]
* ArcWords:
** "Life finds a way"
* ArtisticLicenseAnimalCare: The ''Velociraptor'' pen is absolutely tiny, only about fifty feet by thirty feet ''at best'', and we're supposed to believe it was meant to contain at least ''nine'' tiger-sized predators together. No wonder they kept trying to break out.
* ArtisticLicenseBiology:
** In-universe. Arnold mentions a "Lysine contingency" as a last-resort method of bringing the park under control. According to him the dinosaurs are genetically engineered to be unable to manufacture the amino acid lysine, and will die in 24 hours if not supplied with it in their food. The thing is there are many organisms alive right now who are incapable of synthesizing lysine and who are dependent on dietary lysine to survive -- namely, all living animals, including humans. Fortunately for us, there are plenty of food sources that are lysine-rich, including fish, beef, chicken, and various kinds of beans. As the sequel later points out, there is nothing stopping the escaped dinosaurs from adopting a lysine-rich diet and surviving, too.
** Also, all vertebrate embryos are ''not'' "inherently female" by default. Mammal embryos may ''look'' externally more like females than males, but internally the reproductive system of nascent males and females is rudimentary and neuter in its early stages.
* ArtisticLicenseGeography:
** The scene where Nedry makes the deal to sell the embryos is supposedly in San Jose, Costa Rica, at a restaurant next to a beach. In reality, San Jose is completely landlocked, surrounded by mountains and isn't near any large bodies of water. With Nublar located in the Pacific, it would have been better to use Puntarenas (the place where the supply boat comes and goes from in the book proper) for that scene, but Puntarenas also doesn't have restaurants that look so rustic so close to the beach (it ''does'' have restaurants which are on the beach, just none with buildings made of bamboo).
** At the end of the movie, the helicopter flies off into the sunset. As in, ''west and away from the mainland.'' The fact that doing this should ''blind'' the pilots notwithstanding, there's nothing but Pacific Ocean in that direction for about five thousand miles; unless they made an immediate course correction after fading to black or had infinite fuel, they wouldn't see land again until ''Kiribati''.
* ArtisticLicenseGunSafety: The very first shot of Muldoon is him standing with his shotgun raised, ostensibly ready in case the raptor in the approaching container breaks out. He does have his finger off the trigger as one should, but there's also at least one security officer standing almost directly in front of him.
* ArtisticLicenseLinguistics: During his lecture about the relation between dinosaurs and modern birds, Grant states that "raptor" means bird of prey. While "raptor" is indeed a colloquial used to refer to birds of prey, it has nothing to do with "raptor" referring to the kind of dinosaur. The two share the same origin; "raptor" is the Latin word for "robber", itself derived from the word "rapere", which meant "to seize", but this evolving into the names of the dinosaur and the modern bird occured separately.
* ArtisticLicensePaleontology:
** There's an in-story reason for this, as the genetic scientists had to fill in gaps in the dinosaurs' DNA sequences. None of the creatures are 'real' dinosaurs, but "genetically-engineered theme park monsters" (Dr. Wu himself would [[Film/JurassicWorld lampshade]] this years later). For instance, ''Dilophosaurus'' did not spit venom or have frills and ''Velociraptors'' were approximately 1.5 feet tall and had feathers.
** One inexcusable example is that ''Tyrannosaurus'' "eyesight is based on movement", since Grant mentioned before he even knew of the park's existence. While at the time, not much research had yet been done on ''T. rex'' eyesight, the statement was still pure speculation, and has now long since been debunked (''Tyrannosaurus'' is currently believed to have had exceptional eyesight, better than those of humans or even birds of prey). This is an example of artistic license only in the film, as in the novels it was retconned similar to the examples above.
** Grant is seen carrying an actual ''Velociraptor'' toe claw around in his pocket for much of the film. Grant, an eminent paleontologist, more than anyone would know how fragile and valuable (both monetarily and for research) something like that is and would not be carrying it like that nor would he casually toss it away halfway through the film, well ''before'' the ''Velociraptors'' give him a reason to.
** For that matter, the claw should have been reduced to fragments/dust by the punishment it had gone through from Grant hurriedly climbing down a tree, if not from hitting the ground when he threw it. It could be a cast replica and not an actual fossil.
** When the ''Velociraptor'' sees Lex's reflection, it snarls and squints its eyes. While the status of lips on dinosaurs is still contentious, there are few that have ever suggested that dinosaurs could bare their teeth like a mammal (never mind that predators usually don't bare their teeth at prey, since it's meant to be a threat display).
** The film and the park itself is called "Jurassic Park," but save for the ''Dilophosaurus'' and the ''Brachiosaurus'' from the start, the most memorable dinosaurs are all from the Cretaceous period (although embryos of Jurassic dinosaurs ''Proceratosaurus'', ''Metriacanthosaurus'', and ''Stegasaurus'' [sic] can be seen when Nedry steals them from the cryogenic vats). In fact, the Cretaceous period was when dinosaurs truly were the dominant creatures on land, appearing in the largest variety of species ever.
* ArtisticLicensePhysics:
** Tim getting electrocuted by the fence actually wouldn't happen in real life the way it does in the movie; his entire body was touching the fence at that point, thus he wasn't grounded and the electricity had nowhere to go (this is the same reason birds can perch on a wire). If he had stepped foot on the ground while holding on to the fence as it was on, he would have realistically faced an electrical shock then, but the movie foregoes that in order to create suspense. Additionally, even if he would have been shocked in that position, he would likely not have been blown off the fence as shown, but instead have involuntarily gripped the fence even tighter as the electricity caused his muscles to contract.
** The scene of the ''T. rex'' chasing the Jeep, while awesome and iconic, is physically impossible since (a) it doesn't have anywhere near the required muscle mass in its hindquarters and (b) there's no way an animal heavier than an elephant could keep pace with a speeding car without its legs exploding from the energy being released every time a foot hit the ground.[[note]]The scene's main animator, who downright noted that he chose to "throw physics out the window", added that the dinosaur's "hollow bones would have busted if it ran that fast". In order to make the scene work, the effects crew also cheated by using visual illusions to make it look as if the ''Tyrannosaurus'' is keeping up even though her stride appears to be barely faster than walking speed (which is considered a more likely maximum speed for large theropods).[[/note]]
* AsHimself: Actor Creator/RichardKiley provides the voice of the park tour narrator, which Hammond proudly notes. This is a reference to the fact that Kiley was a go-to narrator for nature documentaries during the '80s and '90s. Incidentally, he was specified as the ride's narrator in the original novel, and the film then made it real.
* AwesomeMomentOfCrowning: Rexy — after throwing the last ''Velociraptor'' into the ''T. rex'' skeleton — turns around and roars in triumph while the "When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth'' banner falls down as if it's a crown bestowed upon her.
* BadVibrations: The famous "shaking glass" scene when the ''T. rex'' realizes the fence is no longer active.
* BaitAndSwitch: In the opening scene, we see armed guards and Jurassic Park employees watching warily as trees in some kind of jungle are pushed aside by a massive, unseen force... which turns out to be not a beast, but a forklift. Though we quickly learn it's a forklift carrying a cage holding a beast inside -- a ''very'' vicious beast.
* BeepingComputers: After the protagonists basically reboot the entire park to get the power back up, the computers come on with a "System Ready" prompt and a blinking cursor. A blinking cursor that also beeps. This would get really annoying on a real computer. However, this was the only point where such a contrivance was used in the back-end systems, and was conceivably put in as a "The multi-billion-dollar theme park is ready to go, please get off your butt and get started" reminder for easily distracted computer operators. Or put in by Nedry in one of his less-destructive {{Jerkass}} moments.
* BehindTheBlack:
** The big reveal of the ''Brachiosaurus'' has a massive dinosaur hiding just off-screen until Grant and the others notice her, whereupon she starts making loud calls and huge, thumping footsteps they couldn't possibly have missed; even if they could, there turns out to be an entire ''herd'' of dinosaurs just off to one side they would ''have'' to have seen on the drive in.
** Rexy's BigDamnHeroes moment relies on a huge dinosaur somehow only being noticed when she snatches a lunging raptor.
* BeingWatched: Muldoon notices that there's a ''Velociraptor'' waiting for him and Ellie in the bushes near the shed. What he doesn't spot, though, is the ''other'' ''Velociraptor''... until it's too late.
* BigBad: No, not the ''[[DiscOneFinalBoss Tyrannosaurus rex]]''. The Big One, the alpha ''Velociraptor'' is the cause of the film's premise, by killing the worker at the beginning of the film, she made the investors nervous about the park's safety, which causes Hammond to invite experts like Grant and Malcolm to the island in order to quell their fears. Although locked in a cage, her presence is felt throughout the movie, with Muldoon fearing a potential breach at any moment. And when her pack finally breaks out, the rest of the film revolves around the protagonists trying to get the power back on and escape the island before she makes a meal out of them.
* BigDoor: The park has a big, impressive gate whose sole purpose is to look impressive for park visitors. Malcolm jokes about it looking like the gate from ''Film/KingKong1933'' (which is a joke on how it mimics its design).
* BigEntrance: The ''T. rex'' is introduced this way, starting with her audible footsteps leading up to her tearing through the (no longer) electrified fence and culminating with her MightyRoar.
* BigEyesLittleEyes: Used with a twist. The dinosaurs have little eyes, like they did in nature. Then the ''T. rex'' gets right up next to the jeep and peers in, and that eye that looked so small from a distance turns out to the size of the kids' heads, which re-emphasizes the sense of scale.
* BiggerOnTheInside: When Grant and Sattler enter their trailer, from the outside it's simply a camper that looks like it barely has enough headroom. Once inside, it's as big as a double-wide, and the ceiling extends a good 2-3 feet above their heads.
* BilingualBonus: At the beginning, when Gennaro is being pulled on the raft-thing, the miner says, in Spanish, "I bet you a thousand bucks he falls!" Then he does fall.
* BioPunk: Arguably the TropeCodifier. The story focuses heavily on the themes of scientific ethics, man's hubris and the force of nature being beyond our control.
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Dr. Alan Grant, Dr. Ellie Sattler, Lex and Tim, Ian Malcolm, and John Hammond manage to escape Jurassic Park alive after the dinosaurs are released, but five other people have died, three of whom were overall decent people, and Hammond's dream has been destroyed. Even Gennaro and Nedry, while both were greedy cowards, didn't truly deserve what they got.]]
* BlackAndNerdy: Ray Arnold is the park's chief engineer, a nerdy field, though he displays no nerdy characteristics. Contrasting him is Dennis Nedry, who is a standard, fat, white computer nerd.
* BlackDudeDiesFirst: Played straight right off the bat with the black [=InGen=] worker, Jophery, who gets killed in the first scene. Later averted when [[Creator/SamuelLJackson Arnold]] is among the last to die after everything goes to hell.
* BlindWithoutEm: {{Averted|Trope}}. At one point, Dennis Nedry loses his glasses. He looks for them for about a second before saying "I can afford more glasses", being in a hurry to drop the embryos off and return to the control room. His sight is not drastically affected. However, not having his glasses leaves his eyes vulnerable to the spat venom of the ''Dilophosaurus''.
* BloodlessCarnage: The goriest death in the whole movie is probably that of the goat eaten by the ''T. rex'', and even that is fairly mild. If the human deaths that occur onscreen have any blood at all, it's far less than one would expect from someone getting ripped apart by teeth and claws.
* BookEnds: The crisis at Jurassic Park begins with the ''T. rex'' breaking loose and attacking the guests. It ends with the ''T. rex'' breaking into the Visitors' Center and attacking the ''Velociraptors'' that threaten the surviving guests.
* BreakTheScientist: A benign version would be Ellie and Alan's miniature freakout the first time they see a dinosaur. They're more broken by the sense of awe than anything else, and a few minutes later Alan is observing the movement patterns to confirm one of his theories.
-->They ''do'' move in herds.
* BrickJoke: Alan at the end:
-->'''Alan:''' Mr. Hammond, after careful consideration I have decided ''not'' to endorse your park.\\
'''Hammond:''' [[SelfDeprecation So have I.]]
* BuffySpeak: A very subtle instance, while Nedry is trying to dislodge his Jeep from the log using a winch.
-->'''Nedry:''' Winch this sucker off the thing, then I ... tie it to the ... that thing there, then I ... pull down this thing here and I pull it back up again...
* BullyingADragon: Dennis comes across a ''Dilophosaurus'' while tying a rope to a tree, and proceeds to treat the creature like a dog and mock it. This comes back to bite him in the ass, [[CruelAndUnusualDeath in more ways than one]]....
* ByWallThatIsHoley:
** A car is falling upside-down onto Dr. Grant and Tim, but luckily, they are only covered by the cabin portion of the vehicle, the top of which had previously been removed by a ''T. rex''.
--->'''Tim:''' Well...we're back...in the car again.
** Near the end, Tim nearly gets crushed by a dinosaur ribcage, but thankfully, the ribs fall perfectly around him so he ends up unharmed in the middle of the ribcage.
* CallBack:
** When they first encounter the ''T. rex'', Lex inadvertently draws her over to her and Timmy by switching a flashlight on. Later, when they head to the kitchens to escape the raptors, she makes a point of switching all the lights off.
** Grant’s description of how raptors hunt. Later, Muldoon dies exactly like Grant describes. It’s the raptor Muldoon can’t see that attacks first, not the one in front of him.
* CampingACrapper: [[spoiler:Gennaro]] ends up being eaten by Rexy while sitting on a toilet.
* CaptainObvious:
** Used after the system reboot to emphasize that things are finally going right for a change.
--->'''Alan Grant:''' ''[on the phone]'' Mr. Hammond? The phones are working.
** And earlier, when he and Ellie have seen the first ''Brachiosaurus'':
--->'''Alan Grant:''' ''[pointing at the ''Brachiosaurus'', barely able to believe what he's seeing]'' It's... it's a dinosaur.
* TheCassandra: Malcolm predicts that things will turn wrong and chaotic. His concerns are dismissed by other characters, though Grant and Ellie are willing to listen to him, before they are vindicated by the dinosaurs.
-->'''Malcolm:''' Boy, do I hate being right all the time!
* CasualDangerDialogue: Ian gets one before Rexy's DynamicEntry:
-->'''Ian:''' Does anyone feel that? That's an impact tremor, is what it is. I'm [[{{Understatement}} fairly]] alarmed here.
* CentralTheme: What happens when men play God?
* ChekhovsHobby: Lex insists she isn't a computer-nerd, preferring to call herself a hacker. Later in the film, she is the only one not fighting dinosaurs to work the park's security system that is run by computers.
* ChekhovsLecture: Early in the film, Grant gives a lecture about Raptor hunting tactics: using one in the open as a distraction while others attack unseen from the sides. He probably should've told [[spoiler:Muldoon]] about that...
* ChewingTheScenery: How Robert Muldoon is introduced. '''''"SSSSHOOOOOOOOOOOOT HHHHHHEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!"'''''
* ChromaticArrangement: The film gives color-coded wardrobes to all of the characters in the initial party. Alan Grant wears blue, Ellie Sattler wears pink, John Hammond wears white, Ian Malcolm wears black, and Donald Gennaro wears grey. In the context of the film, the color choices all clearly fit their roles: Grant and Sattler are the OfficialCouple who act as parental substitutes to Lex and Tim, Hammond and Malcolm have opposing ideological viewpoints, and Gennaro is a neutral AmoralAttorney whom Hammond and Malcolm both try to sway to their side.
* ClassyCane: Hammond carries a cane in many scenes (also walking with a slight limp), holding the hardened amber that contains a mosquito. This mosquito carries preserved dinosaur DNA which lead to the creation of the dinosaurs in the park.
* CloserThanTheyAppear: The TropeCodifier is the view of the charging the ''T. rex'' in the rear view mirror, with the hilarious {{lampshading}} caption "objects in mirror are closer than they appear".
-->'''Malcolm:''' Must go faster.
* ColorCodedCharacters:
** Hammond - White
** Sattler - Pink
** Grant - Blue
** Malcolm - Black
** Muldoon - Beige
* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: The movie uses certain color conventions, according to a fan analysis on the ''Jurassic Park Legacy'' website. Dr. Grant, the hero, wears the "hero colors" of red and blue, while Dr. Sattler wears similar but more feminine shades of pink and purple. Hammond, the park's creator, and the one accused of "playing god", wears all white and has a white beard, while Malcolm wears black to emphasize his opposition to Hammond and his "chaotic" nature.
* CombatPragmatist: ''Dilophosaurus'' thoroughly blinds her prey before eating them. [[spoiler:Nedry found out the hard way.]]
* ComfortFood: Hammond and later Ellie indulge in ice cream for stress relief. Later, Tim and Lex dive into junk food since they haven't eaten in a day.
* ComicallyMissingThePoint:
** Ellie in one scene when Hammond is explaining the park's appeal:
--->'''Hammond:''' Our attractions will drive kids out of their minds.\\
'''Alan Grant:''' What are those? (referring to said attractions)\\
'''Ellie Sattler:''' Small versions of adults, honey.
** When a panicking Gennaro runs to the outhouse upon seeing Rexy for the first time, Grant and Malcolm (not seeing what he just did) completely misread his intentions.
--->'''Grant:''' Now where does he think he's going?\\
'''Malcolm:''' When you gotta go, you gotta go.
* CompressedAdaptation: The "Mr. DNA" show/ride compresses many chapters worth of InfoDump on the science behind dinosaur cloning. Amusingly, Grant and Sattler briefly request to see several of the less dramatic parts of the dinosaur development process that are seen in the book, but are skipped in the movie.
* CompositeCharacter:
** Gennaro was basically Ed Regis (a {{Jerkass}} publicist from the book), with Gennaro's name and law degree. He's also ''supposed'' to be muscled, but in the movie, that went to Malcolm. He is also motivated solely by potential profit, as was [[AdaptationalNiceGuy John]] [[AdaptationalHeroism Hammond]].
** The movie reduces the number of dinosaurs by combining their parts. For example, in the book the jeeps pass a herd of ''Triceratops'' before coming across a sick ''Stegosaurus''; in the film they just find a sick ''Triceratops'' (and Malcolm complains that they aren't seeing enough dinosaurs in the dinosaur park). The novel opened with several attacks by unidentified ''Procompsognathus'' and ''Velociraptor'' while in the film it is just one ''Velociraptor'' (implied to be the pack leader). Grant was digging "Velociraptor antirrhopus" (''Deinonychus'') in Montana but the park had ''Velociraptor mongoliensis''; in the movie they are the same species (called ''Velociraptor mongoliensis'', but modeled after ''Deinonychus''.)
* ContentWarnings: “''Jurassic Park'' has been passed ‘PG’ (Parental Guidance). Parents are warned that this film contains sequences which may be particularly disturbing to younger children or children of a sensitive disposition.”
* ContrivedCoincidence:
** When the power goes out, the Jeeps stop right in front of the ''T. rex'' paddock. This is especially weird because the Jeeps had already passed by the ''T. rex'' enclosure, so did it go backwards or loop all the way around again?
** Tim, Lex, and Grant just happened to be climbing the giant electric perimeter fence at the exact same time as Ellie was struggling to turn the power for the park back on.
** During the famously frightening "Raptors In The Kitchen" scene, one of the raptors knocks over some pots and pans with its tail, happening to hit Tim and Lex who are crawling past it one aisle over and they panic, making more noise. Tim hides just around a corner next to a bunch of hanging ladles and other utensils, hitting most of them and barely avoiding detection by the raptor. And then the ''one'' ladle that he ''didn't'' touch falls off its handle ''all by itself'' and clangs on the floor. Improbable? Yes. Scary? ''You bet it is.''
** [[spoiler:The ''T. rex'' showing up at the end to bust into the Visitors' Center, kill the raptors and, inadvertently, save Alan, Ellie, Lex, and Tim. In the original script, Grant was going to operate a man lift in the lobby to crush a raptor into the ''T. rex'' skeleton while Hammond takes care of the second with a shotgun, but Spielberg felt they needed to bring the ''T. rex'' back one more time. And he was ''right''. (As a possible nod to the original climax, the ''rex'' does send one of the raptors flying into her skeletonized counterpart.)]]
* CoolVsAwesome: At the end, the ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' vs. the particularly large, aggressive, and ruthless ''Velociraptor'' known as The Big One. The Big One doesn't make it.
* CoveredInGunge: Lex, after a ''Brachiosaurus'' sneezes on her.
-->'''Tim:''' God bless you!
* CPRCleanPrettyReliable: After Tim is electrocuted by the fence, Dr. Grant spends a few moments trying to bring him back, which works so well that Tim finishes his last sentence. Though they did make some token gestures indicating that he was not completely fine, such as burnt hands, bleeding ears and a limp for the rest of the movie.
* CreatingLifeIsBad: The film initially shows us that CreatingLifeIsAwesome. But, not all the characters agree. When the dinosaurs are released, the film falls cleanly into CreatingLifeIsBad.
* CriticalStaffingShortage: Most of the usual staff go home for the night/weekend, leaving Hammond and a few others behind, about half of them visitors and away from the main facility. They still expect to be okay, but then the power goes out and all hell breaks loose. In the book the park is ''intentionally'' understaffed to save on personnel costs.
* CurbStompBattle: [[spoiler:''Tyrannosaurus rex'' vs. ''Velociraptor.'' Guess who wins.]]
* CuttingCorners: Like in the book, Hammond does this by relying on cutting edge automation to cut down on personnel. For another, [[spoiler:the dinosaurs are still able to breed, but even that can be attributed more to Dr. Wu's arrogance rather than Hammond being cheap]]. There's also [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking no locking mechanisms on the vehicle doors]].
* DangerTakesABackSeat: Well, technically, a passenger seat (the ''Dilophosaurus'' with Nedry).
* DarkReprise: At the end of the movie, [[spoiler:a somber piano reprise of the main theme is heard as John Hammond looks back at the encased mosquito as he reflects on how his entire dream has been completely crushed and shattered. It also fits in with some of the bittersweet elements too though, such as how they all made it off safely and Dr. Grant has warmed up to the grandchildren.]]
* DavidVsGoliath: The ''Tyrannosaurus'' takes on the last two raptors, allowing the humans to escape.
* DeadpanSnarker:
** Ian Malcolm.
--->'''Ian:''' Now eventually you might have ''dinosaurs'' on your, on your ''dinosaur'' tour, right? Hello? Yes?\\
'''Hammond:''' ''[watching on camera feed]'' I really hate that man.
** Later:
--->'''Ian:''' ''[After surviving being knocked down by a ''T. rex'']'' Remind me to thank John for a lovely weekend...\\
'''Ian:''' ''[after being chased by the ''T. rex'']'' Do you think they'll have ''that'' on the tour?
** Another one:
--->'''Hammond:''' I don't blame people for their mistakes, but I do ask that they pay for them.\\
'''Dennis:''' Thanks, Dad.
* DeadHandShot:
** When Jophery the worker is killed at the beginning, his death is signified by a closeup of his slowly relaxing hand slipping free from Muldoon's grasp in dramatic Slow Motion.
** A much more, uh, literal variation is done with Arnold. After being attacked by a raptor, Ellie bumps up against a cabinet, and Arnold's hand comes down and appears to grab her shoulder. She sighs in relief, only to turn and discover it's ''just'' his arm.
* DeathByAdaptation:
** [[spoiler:Gennaro and Muldoon]] survive in the first novel but are killed in the first film.
** In the book, [[spoiler:Tim survives while Lex drowns, and Grant revives her. Tim in the film gets electrocuted, and Grant revives him]].
** More like death before the adaptation, but the park bred eight ''Velociraptors'' only to have "The Big One" kill five of them off-screen before the raptors are even introduced. All eight are alive in the book.
* DeathByIrony: Happens less so than in [[Literature/JurassicPark the book,]] but it does happen:
** Like in the book, Dennis Nedry gets eaten by a ''Dilophosaurus'' sometime after he shut down the park's security systems.
** When the ''T. rex'' shows up, Gennaro flees the car and leaves Lex and Tim to their fate while he hides in a bathroom stall so as to not get hurt. After Malcolm gets Rexy to chase him, she destroys the bathroom stall, and kills Gennaro.
** Gennaro's death is doubly-ironic as he was originally sent to the island in the first place to investigate the viability of the park after a worker was killed in an accident handling one of the raptors. The instant he sees a real dinosaur for the first time all that goes out the window and all he can think about is just how much money they're going to make. He allowed the spectacle of the park to blind him to its danger and paid the ultimate price.
* DeathByPragmatism: Just before the ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' breaks out of its paddock, Gennaro panics at the first sight of the beast and flees into a nearby toilet, leaving Hammond's terrified grandchildren in the car by themselves. The giant predator begins attacking the car and ends up flipping it, trapping them inside, and prompting Grant and Malcolm to try and distract it with flares. The ''T. rex'' catches on to Malcolm and begins chasing him towards the toilet where Gennaro is hiding, demolishing the straw structure and knocking Malcolm under the bales, leaving Gennaro to face a particularly well-deserved and humiliating death when the ''T. rex'' finds him sitting on the can and devours him. He's the only person who ''doesn't'' survive the encounter.
* DeathlyDiesIrae: The cue "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsTgzA9_SnQ High Wire Stunts]]" has a repeated ''dies irae'' as Grant and the kids are scrambling over the perimeter fence just as Ellie starts powering them back up, nearly killing Tim as the power surge catches him still on the fence. And then Ellie finds herself confronting a ''Velociraptor''.
* DecoyHidingPlace: Lex tricks a ''Velociraptor'' into charging her reflection in a stainless-steel kitchen counter.
* DemotedToExtra:
** Lewis Dodgson's role is reduced to a single scene, while in the book, he was arguably the closest thing to a human BigBad.
** Gerry Harding, who is a prominent character in the later half of the novel and the park's leading veterinarian, is reduced to a single scene.
** Dr. Henry Wu, who leads Jurassic Park's genetics team in cloning the dinosaurs, only appears in one scene in the first third of the movie, is given a much bigger backstory and lasts until nearly the end of the story in the book. Since the movie had all non-essential staff moved out before the storm and had very little exposition in comparison, Wu's backstory was lost and he ended up SparedByTheAdaptation.
* DentedIron: Tim repeatedly survives what grown adults would be lucky to survive, but because of this, he has a limp, his hair is singed, one of his ears is bleeding, his arm is bandaged up, and he generally looks dazed. In his brief appearance in the sequel, he still has a bit of a limp, the poor kid. Also, [[https://twitter.com/the_tim_murphy according to this]] CharacterBlog, [[ShellShockedVeteran he's also severely, hilariously, traumatised]].
* DescriptionCut: "[[TemptingFate We'll be all right as long as they can't open doors]]."
* DeskSweepOfRage: Arnold sweeps a whole lotta crap from Nedry's desk while trying to fix the damage that Nedry's sabotage caused.
--> '''Arnold:''' Look at this workstation! What a complete slob!
* DeusExMachina: It appears the protagonists [[spoiler:are about to be killed by the raptors when the ''T. rex'' appears and attacks the raptors, allowing them to escape]]. This in itself isn't that far fetched but what is is the fact that [[spoiler:the ''T. rex'' appears rather suddenly and is already in the Visitors' Center, despite there being no way she could have appeared by surprise the way she did]]. The original ending had the characters use their wits [[spoiler:to kill the raptors themselves, but Spielberg decided having the ''T. rex'' return to kill them would've been [[RuleOfCool a cooler ending]], and few would disagree.]]
* DevelopingDoomedCharacters: The early scenes — the stuff before the dinosaurs break out — are actually some of the more interesting scenes of the movie, since they focus on the idea of a dinosaur zoo rather than on simple survival. Given how many of the video games have been about managing such a park and ignoring the movie's themes of chaos theory and dinosaur breakouts, it looks like these scenes had a surprising impact.
* DevelopingNationsLackCities: San Jose, the capital of UsefulNotes/CostaRica, is portrayed as a coast town rather than the inland metropolis it is in real life.
* DidntThinkThisThrough:
** Grant grabs a road flare to distract the ''T. rex'' that is attacking the kids' car. The ''T. rex'' roars at Grant in response, which causes him to falter slightly. He recovers quickly when he realizes that the ''T. rex'' is seeing the flare and throws it off and watches as she follows the thrown flare. What he didn't think about was Ian grabbing another flare and leading her away. By the time Ian threw his flare away, he was running so the ''T. rex'' ignored the smaller moving target to get the larger one (Ian).
** Hammond and Arnold shuts down the entire park's system for a full manual reboot to bypass Nedry's hacking. Unfortunately, this shut down power over ''everything'' that was still online, including the electric fence that was keeping the ''Velociraptor'' pack contained.
* DidntSeeThatComing: Two-fold for the same reason; Hammond's tour really goes pear-shaped when a tropical storm hits right as the guests are out, forcing it to be postponed. Meanwhile, Nedry's attempt to steal the embryos is waylaid by the storm when he gets lost trying to drive to the port and the car skids on the slippery road, causing him to crash near the ''Dilophosaurus'' enclosure...
* DigitalHeadSwap: During an action scene, a stunt double who was suspended over a mat (which later became a raptor's mouth) looked directly up at the camera. Normally this would have ruined the shot, but the effects team were able to splice the normal actress' face over that of the double, turning an otherwise unusable piece of film into a particularly heart-stopping moment.
* DisasterDominoes: [[spoiler:Nedry's]] greed inspires him to shut down park security to steal some embryos, which in turn causes an (admittedly already shambolic) tour in progress to grind to a halt right next to one of the most dangerous exhibits, which leads to said exhibit attacking and killing several of the tourists. The deteriorating situation then prompts the only remaining engineer to turn the park's systems off and on again, which causes the park to switch to emergency power, resulting in the total failure of ALL security, including the raptor fences which even [[spoiler:Nedry]] wasn't stupid enough to disable, facilitating the escape of the raptors whom then run amok, killing several more guests, including the aforementioned engineer. Meanwhile, the protagonists discover that other measures put in place to control the park's population are ineffective.
* DisastrousDemonstration: John Hammond, who boasts that he "spared no expense," invites renowned paleontologists Allan Grant and Ellie Settler to endorse the park on behalf of the paleontological field. Chaotician Ian Malcolm is brought in to oversee/calculate the potential shortcomings and risks of the park. Lawyer Donald Gennaro is sent by the company to reassure investors that the enterprise is not a waste of money or time. Hammond's grandchildren, Timmy and Lex are on the island to test the interest of the parks target demographic. As the story progresses, a monetary dispute results in lead programmer Dennis Nedry shutting off the park's security, which leads to Malcolm, Grant, Lex, Timmy, and Gennaro getting attacked by an escaped ''T. rex'', which seriously wounds Malcolm, and eats Gennaro. A ''Dilophosaurus'' then has a chance encounter with Nedry and eats him. The ''Velociraptors'' also escape their enclosure and kill another programmer and the park's game warden, and nearly kill the survivors if it wasn't for the ''T. rex's'' timely intervention. Grant then tells Hammond he refuses to endorse the park as they flee in a jeep.
* DiscOneFinalBoss: The ''T. rex'' causes the first human death and sends Grant and the kids running. However, while she pops up several times after her breakout, the Raptors become the bigger threat to the cast once they break free when the plan to reboot the park's computers ends up cutting power to their paddock's fences; after their escape the focus of the film is the casts' attempts to avoid them.
* DisconnectedByDeath: Subverted, but just barely. At the end, when they finally restore power and communications to the park, Grant phones Hammond to tell him that he and the kids are okay and to call in the evac helicopter. At that moment, the raptor that was trying to break in realizes it can smash through the window, and Hammond last hears three shots ring out before the call ends. They manage to survive, but only by a timely BigDamnHeroes moment from the ''Tyrannosaurus''.
* TheDogBitesBack: Nedry, who has been abused by his boss Hammond (by his own reckoning at least) is able to get his revenge at a time when Hammond's life's work is suddenly rendered vulnerable by the incoming storm.
* DoomedContrarian: Gennaro first disagrees with the scientists, then abandons the party.
* DoorHandleScare: After being chased through the facility by a group of raptors, the two kids run inside a room and close the door. Grant claims they are safe [[TemptingFate as long as the raptors don't learn how to open doors]]. Cue the doorknob turning.
* DoorOfDoom: John Hammond deliberately invokes this by having the guided tour of the island begin by entering a large, impressive door, but it's more for show than anything.
-->'''Ian Malcolm''': What have they got in there, King Kong?
* DramaticIrony: Hammond and Arnold are unable to crack the code that Nedry used to compromise the island's security system, so Hammond decides they have reboot the whole system since "it's obvious now he's not coming back". The audience knows he's ''technically'' correct in an ExactWords kind of way because [[EatenAlive one can't come back from death]].
* DrawAggro: Both Alan and Ian try to get Rexy to go after them when she's attacking the kids. They succeed, but Ian is injured and separated from the rest and Gennaro is killed.
* TheDreaded:
** ''Velociraptors'' are treated as such by Grant and Muldoon. They are also presented that way in the opening scene to drive home to the audience that modern predators have absolutely ''nothing'' on ancient predatory dinosaurs. It's even noted that Nedry of all people made sure that the raptor paddock was exempted from his shutdown program.
** The ''T. rex'' is treated this way by Muldoon and Hammond even before she breaks out. Then after she does, everyone and everything quickly learns to run like hell at the first sign of her approach. [[spoiler:The raptors are the only things that don't seem to fear her. It doesn't end well for them.]]
* DroppedGlasses: [[spoiler:Among other bad things that happen to Nedry during his death scene, this is one of them. Partially justifies his [[FailedASpotCheck failing the spot check]] of not noticing the ''Dilophosaurus'' entering his jeep and also adds to the Karma (if he ''had'' been wearing his glasses, they would have saved him from being blinded by the venom spit)]].
* DudeNotFunny: Lex reacts this way when Grant pretends to get zapped by an electric fence. Tim, however, doesn't.
--> '''Lex:''' That's not funny.\\
'''Tim:''' ''(snickering)'' That was great!
* DumbDinos: Averted — the human characters often underestimate predatory dinosaurs like the ''Velociraptor'' and the ''Dilophosaurus'' with fatal results.
* DungeonBypass: After finally getting the lock systems working so they can seal the control room from the raptor trying to kill them, she just jumps through the giant window right by the door.
* EatenAlive: Several humans get eaten by dinosaurs and all of the others kept getting threatened to get eaten. Other dinosaurs got eaten as well, including a ''Velociraptor'' as the ''T. rex'' appeared Just in Time.
** Donald Gennaro, after abandoning the Hammond children in a car to go hide in the bathroom when the ''T. rex'' shows up, gets the ignominious honor of being nommed on the toilet after the ''T. rex'' knocks down the building he's in. In the original novel, it was DirtyCoward Ed Regis, the Public Relations manager of [=InGen=], who did this (and got eaten).
** Worst cases are Robert Muldoon and John Arnold who fall prey to the raptors, of which it was explicitly stated earlier in the film that they don't bother killing their victims first, they just slice them up and start eating them alive.
** Nedry got eaten by the ''Dilophosaurus''. The book describes this scene with gruesome detail, while the movie gives us a nice discretion shot
* EscapedAnimalRampage: John Hammond creates a zoo for dinosaurs. He plans it as a tourist attraction, but when a saboteur shuts off the fences, the animals start attacking people.
* EverybodyOwnsAFord: All the tour vehicles are Ford Explorers, due to Steven Spielberg owning one, which he particularly liked.
* EveryoneOwnsAMac: Dennis Nedry's terminal into the Jurassic Park supercomputer network is a Mac. Although a few Silicon Graphics workstations also exist (the same computers used to render the CGI dinosaurs).
* EvilLawyerJoke: During the discussion over dinner, Grant, Ellie, and Malcolm argue against Hammond's plans for the park. He laments that the only one to side with him is the "bloodsucking lawyer" (Gennaro), who's only concerned with the potential profits. Gennaro takes the joke in stride.
* ExplainExplainOhCrap: Grant and the kids come across a herd of ''Gallimimus'' running together across a field.
-->'''Dr. Grant:''' Look at them, they're changing direction in unison like a flock of birds evading a predator!\\
'''Tim:''' Uh, they're flocking this way...\\
''[enter the ''T. rex'', who kills one of the ''Gallimimus'']''
* ExtinctAnimalPark: Jurassic Park is designed as an open-space zoo stocked with genetically engineered dinosaurs created from samples of ancient blood (plus or minus varying amounts of frog DNA to fill in the gaps), mostly in the form of large Cretaceous species. It falls apart quickly and spectacularly through a combination of sabotage, poor planning and active mismanagement, and the island it was built on is eventually abandoned to its newly feral inhabitants.
* ExtremeGraphicalRepresentation: The film shows a 3D computer interface that is actually a ''real'' program -- FSN (short for File System Navigator), a proof-of-concept file-system manager included with every SGI. (It's no longer available on SGI's site, but someone has made a similar program called [[http://fsv.sourceforge.net/ FSV]].) However, prior to the system reboot, what we see of the computers is a combination of specialized [=UIs=] and plain old command-line.
* ExtremelyShortTimespan: The majority of the film, starting with when the helicopter lands on Isla Nublar, takes place from one morning to the next. And even the moments before it are set in that same month.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:F -- I]]
* FaintInShock: {{Downplayed}} Alan Grant gets woozy and needs to sit down when Hammond's big reveal of living dinosaurs starts to sink in.
* FantasticDietRequirement: The dinosaurs are deliberately given a genetic tweak that prevents them from producing lysine in order to keep them from spreading outside of [=InGen's=] control. Without lysine supplements provided by scientists on the island, they would all die off. At least, that's the plan -- in practice, herbivorous dinosaurs adapted to feed on lysine-rich plants, while the predators get their lysine from their prey. Notably, in real life, no animals can actually produce lysine fast enough to meet metabolic demands, and all rely on their diet to supply themselves with it.
* FearsomeFoot: The approach of Rexy is once shown by her foot coming down into the shot and sinking into the mud.
* FingerWag: Nedry's computer is secured by a patchwork animation of himself condescendingly wagging his finger at unauthorized users and repeating the phrase, "Ah-ah-aah... you didn't say the magic word."
-->'''Arnold:''' PLEASE! Goddammit! I hate this hacker crap!
* FiveRoundsRapid: The park security staff are armed with tasers, assault rifles, and shotguns, and only the last of these are taken out and used when the park's automated systems fail. This is distinct from the novel, where at least a limited supply of munitions more suitable for taking down rogue dinosaurs is present on the island.
%%
%%Absolutely no Five Man Band entries without approval from the Five Man Band cleanup thread
%%https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13401353520A80460100
%%
* FlawedPrototype: Once the power goes out.
-->'''Hammond''': When they opened Disneyland in 1955, nothing worked!
-->'''Malcolm''': Yeah, but John, when the ''Pirates of the Caribbean'' breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists!
* FoodChainOfEvil: The ''T. rex'' eats a ''Gallimimus'' and a ''Velociraptor''.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: The first half of the movie has moments that hint at serious design flaws in the park, as well as scenes of nature just plainly not cooperating with human control:
** The very first scene of the movie has what looks like a high-tech, ultra-secure method of transporting dinosaurs which fails with little effort. Mostly because of glaringly obvious design flaws in the crate (it's got wheels on the bottom and has to be opened manually)
** The amber with the insect trapped inside is shown in a way that suggests to the audience that it's extremely important, but that's not elaborated on any further until the InfoDump about a third of a way through the film that explains how Hammond was able to get viable dinosaur DNA for cloning.
** The threat that the ''Velociraptors'' pose is built up extensively through the course of the film, starting with Grant's description of how they hunt (and the accident at the start, though we don't know that it's a ''Velociraptor'' at the time)
** Hammond landing his helicopter directly upon the paleontologists' dig site seems to hint at the characteristics we see later: good intentions but thoughtless execution without consideration for potential consequences of one's actions.
** Grant's seat belt in the chopper is made of two female buckles ([[spoiler:Grant's resolution of this might be intended as very subtle foreshadowing of the female dinosaurs "finding a way"]]). Ellie seems to have no problem tying hers on, which means he didn't just grab Ellie's by mistake. It also serves to illustrate a safety system with a glaring flaw in it, our first hint that the park's security isn't as comprehensive as may first appear.
** Grant, Ellie, and Malcolm, with a little co-ordination, can easily break out of the restraints during the presentation.
** Ellie points out that one of the species of plant they have in the visitor center lobby is poisonous, indicating that little thought has been put into the park beyond presentation and the dangers posed by the exhibits are not being given their due gravity.
** The first tour is a complete shambles, illustrating both the glaring design flaws in the park and the unpredictable nature of the exhibits:
*** The vehicle lights come on automatically, and can't be turned off. This is one of over a hundred bugs discovered on that day alone. This indicates that the park's software is not fit for purpose and can't be relied on for the safety of the guests or employees.
*** The ''Dilophosaurus'' and ''T. rex'' no-shows, showing that the creatures are wild animals, not performing bears that will appear on demand for tourists.
*** The car doors don't have functioning locks during the tour. This is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by Muldoon.
*** In a similar vein, there's signs on the ''Dilophosaurus'' exhibit telling tourists to keep the windows closed. The fact that they can even open the windows around creatures that spit venom is a pretty serious oversight, one that is merely papered over by putting up a warning sign.
*** The tour is abandoned completely when they come across the sick ''Triceratops'', again indicating what a major unknown quantity the attractions are.
*** The entire tour is rushed to try and beat an approaching tropical storm, rather than waiting for it to pass.
** The early scene where Grant scares a kid who mocks the ''Velociraptor'' fossil has Grant explaining in excruciating details how they hunt in groups, how they kill, how they start eating their prey alive, and the scene ends with Grant asking the kid to show respect for dangerous predator. When the disaster hits the park, Nedry is eaten alive by a ''Dilophosaurus'' after mocking it. Also, raptor's hunting behavior is prominently displayed onscreen later.
* ForScience: Aside from money and dinosaurs being cool Hammond builds the park because he feels obliged to act on recent scientific discoveries and learn how dinosaurs behave in the modern age.
-->'''Hammond''': How can we stand in the light of discovery... and NOT act?
* ForTheFunnyz: When Grant touches the (inactive) perimeter fence and acts as if he's being electrocuted. Alexis is [[DudeNotFunny not amused,]] but Tim thought it was funny as hell.
* FragileSpeedster: The ''Gallimimus'' are among the fastest dinosaurs in the park, but lack any other defenses against predators and as such are easily killed by the ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' (who is a LightningBruiser). Similarly, the ''Velociraptors'' are speedy killers towards similarly-sized prey, but anything bigger than them are perfectly capable of taking them down.
* FreezeFrameBonus: If you look closely, Dennis is watching ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' on his computer.
* FreudianTrio: With Hammond as the Id, Malcolm as the Superego, and Grant as the Ego.
* FriendToAllChildren: Despite Malcolm's issue with Hammond, he likes Hammond's grandchildren and tells Grant he has several of his own. [[spoiler:When Rexy goes after Lex and Tim's car, Malcolm follows Grant's lead to save the children and goes further by trying to sacrifice himself, telling Grant to save the kids]].
* FromTheLatinIntroDucere: Dr. Grant starts describing ''Velociraptors'', mentioning their birdlike qualities. He declares that "Even the word 'raptor' means 'bird of prey'!" That is true.... but only in English. The -''raptor'' in ''Velociraptor'' is a Latin word meaning "seizer" or, a bit more colloquially, "thief" (it just happened to evolve into the meaning "bird of prey" in English somewhere down the line, because birds of prey tend to hunt by ''seizing'' and carrying off small animals)[[note]]The novel even specifically mentions this etymology in the first chapter[[/note]] and ''Velociraptor'' was so named probably because the scientists describing it thought that they raided nests, stealing eggs and hatchlings. ''Velociraptors'' were very birdlike, but the similarity of their name to modern raptors is just a coincidence.
* FunnyBackgroundEvent:
** In his scene with Dennis, Dodgson exits his car he's being driven around in, and neglects to shut his car door. His driver has to get out and shut it for him, throwing him a dirty look and gesture from behind him.
** Just as the tour begins, Hammond is watching a monitor showing the onboard camera views of the Explorers. Just before he switches over to the car Lex and Tim are in, the monitor shows Ian sitting with his arm on the back of the seat across Alan's shoulders, and Alan turning toward him in a "What the hell?" sort of fashion.
* GenderBender: The all-female dinosaur population gradually has some of them turn male. This is due to the fragmented dino DNA that created them being "repaired" with the DNA of a frog species that can change gender.
* GenderFlip: The film switches the roles of Hammond's grandchildren, making Lex the older one and the computer genius. This was done in order to give Lex more characterization. In the original novel, Tim was a TeenGenius that was both computer savvy and obsessed with dinosaurs, while Lex was just annoying.
* {{Gendercide}}: As they're driving through the park, Malcolm starts in on one of his little monologues, before Ellie commandeers it. Also apparently a LampshadeHanging on the fact that women and girls tend not to die in Spielberg's work.
-->'''Ian Malcolm''': God creates dinosaurs; God destroys dinosaurs; God creates man; man destroys God; man creates dinosaurs.
-->'''Ellie Sattler''': Dinosaurs eat man ... woman inherits the Earth.
-->''[Malcolm and Grant give Ellie a vaguely worried look]''
* GeorgeLucasAlteredVersion: While the film got an authentic transfer in the 2012 Ultimate Trilogy boxset, the version released in 2014 was rife with this. It featured a BlueAndOrangeContrast color grade, various odd sizing changes such as the size of Rexy's head and making Muldoon's thighs bigger, removing Rexy chomping on the head of a ''Gallimimus'', or just cleaning up Jeff Goldblum's hair for a specific scene (not to mention heavy use of Digital Noise Removal, removing a lot of the finer details). On the other hand, various infamous goofs are fixed, such as a light in the back of a shot or the cables used to flip the Jeep in the ''T. rex'' breakout scene.
* GlassesPull: When Grant sees his first dino, he takes his hat off, followed by his shades. Then, he puts his hand on Sattler's head and turns it in the direction of the dino, and she does the same thing.
* GoFetch:
** Grant is able to stop a pissed ''T. rex'' from crushing a stalled jeep (with children inside) with a flare. Unfortunately Malcolm decides he's going to do the same thing... it doesn't go as well for him, as he keeps moving after throwing it. Justified in that the ''rex's'' vision is supposed to be so bad in the dark and the rain that all it could follow was the movement of the flare.
** Dennis Nedry tries it with a ''Dilophosaurus''. It looks at him like he's an idiot before it starts spitting venom at him.
* GodzillaThreshold: Arnold and the others realize that the only way to wipe out what Nedry did and get the park back online is a total system shutdown, which will wipe out what little electrical power they have left, resulting in the ''Velociraptors'' being finally let loose. It was either that or wait seven days for the dinosaurs to die from lysine deficiency (which the dinosaurs had managed to overcome, unbeknownst to anyone).
* GoneHorriblyRight: Hammond's dream of creating dinosaurs did work; he succeeds in creating large, unpredictable wild animals, some of which are deadly alpha predators with no competition in the modern world...
* GoneHorriblyWrong: ...And then every safety measure designed to ''contain'' those alpha predators fails in spectacular fashion, from electrical fences to failsafes built into the very creatures' genes.
* GoryDiscretionShot:
** The film opens with a DeadHandShot of Jophery the worker being dragged away by the ''Velociraptor''.
** When Ellie and Muldoon search for Grant and the kids, they find, off camera, bloody evidence of Gennaro's death.
--->'''Muldoon:''' ''[peeks under a palm frond in the background]'' I think this was Gennaro.\\
'''Ellie:''' ''[staring at something at her feet in the foreground]'' I think this was too.
** Nedry's death is conveyed by the Jeep he's in shaking wildly, and a shot of the phony shaving cream can containing the stolen embryos being buried in the mud running down the hillside.
** Although Muldoon's death is mostly obscured through the bushes, there's a FreezeFrameBonus wherein you can see that the raptor has his head in her mouth.
* GreatWhiteHunter: Muldoon is about as close as you'll get to this trope being played straight in the modern day. He was technically a game warden, though, but the look and the 'tude were there; close enough. Muldoon was really something of a subversion in that he leaned more toward the ''anti''-heroic end of the scale. He is not portrayed in a particularly romantic manner, and is in fact an embittered, highly cynical man who hates the raptors and wishes he could kill them all — and considering what happens throughout the course of the film, it's hard to blame him.
* GroinAttack: Between the slash across the chest and stomach, Grant slashes across the kid's crotch with his raptor claw to scare him.
* GunsAreWorthless: Alan Grant's SPAS-12 loaded with slugs proved unable to even hit ''Velociraptors'' behind glass, and the weapon suffered a stovepipe jam in the end. In fact, nobody in this film who has possession of a gun ever benefits from having it, Muldoon's fate being a prime example.
* GuttedLikeAFish: Dr. Grant gives an impromptu lecture about the possible links in ancestry between the ''Velociraptor'' and birds while at an archaeological dig site. He gets interrupted by an obnoxious kid, who quips the raptor, "looks like a big turkey." So Grant, much to the amusement of his students, teaches the boy a lesson in respect by explaining exactly how that "turkey" hunted and killed its prey. Grant shows him the raptor's middle toe claw and swipes it across the boy's belly then down his midsection to illustrate the cutting motion it used to spill the victim's intestines; finishing his tutorial by telling him that, "The point is, you are alive when it starts to eat you."
* HackedByAPirate: Probable inversion, as the hacker screen came up only after Arnold's attempt at hacking Nedry's computer to restore security.
* HaveYouTriedRebooting: When the operators are locked out of the computer system, they restart it entirely and manage to gain access again. [[spoiler:This unwittingly screws things up more by causing the park to switch to auxiliary power, which was insufficient to power the fences - including those protecting the raptor paddock.]]
* HellIsThatNoise: The ''T. rex'' has two hellish noises. One includes the loud, thunderous footsteps she makes to announce her arrival, which all characters treat with quiet dread when they hear it. The other is her roar, which is shown to be deafening up close and likely to strike terror in any human who hears it.
* HelpImStuck: Tim's foot gets stuck under the jeep, preventing him from escaping before the ''T. rex'' pushes the car down the slope and into the tree. This gives Grant a chance to rescue the boy.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Hammond and the whole [=InGen=] team, in some way, but Nedry especially. He disables the park fences so that he can pass through the paddocks on the maintenance roads. He succeeds in getting into the ''Dilophosaurus'' paddock...
* {{Homage}}: The face-to-face encounter atop the tree with the ''Brachiosaur'' nods to the treetop "encounter" against the ''Brontosaur'' sauropod in ''Film/KingKong1933'', only all the sauropods here are harmless.
* HostileWeather: Rainfall due to a tropical storm gets [[spoiler:Nedry killed]] who disabled the park's safety system. The plan was to get the power back on after a couple of minutes but without his intervention the electric fences remain without power and an EscapedAnimalRampage ensues.
* IgnoredExpert: Muldoon. He advises that they don't have enough firepower on the island in case the dinosaurs get out of control, that the ''Velociraptors'' are too dangerous and should be destroyed, that they need to closely monitor the path of the tropical storm, and repeatedly insists that they put locking mechanisms on the vehicle doors so that guests can't simply jump out of the cars. All of which Hammond ignores.
* ImpededCommunication: Nedry's hacking shuts down the park's telephones and radios, preventing Hammond's group from being able to communicate with Dr. Grant and the kids. This almost leads to their deaths when Dr. Sattler restores power to the park just as the three of them are climbing over the electric perimeter fence.
* {{Imprinting}}: Hammond, the creator of the park, insists on being at every dinosaur's hatching so the baby dinos will imprint on him.
* ImprobableInfantSurvival: Lex and Tim go through the most danger of anybody in the movie (that even includes Alan) but survive (although they certainly are in a mess by the end). Other characters face a lot less danger but die. Tim, especially, who falls down a cliff in a half-crushed car and gets shocked by a very powerful electric fence.
* ImprobableTaxonomySkills: Grant is able to perfectly describe the exact hunting methods used by raptors, despite only having their bones to work with. And then there's them knowing that Rexy hunts by motion...
* {{Infodump}}: The "Mr. DNA" animated sequence explains to both the characters and the audience how [=InGen=] was able to de-extinct dinosaurs in a fast and simplified manner.
* InformedAttribute: There's one ''Velociraptor'' said to be "the big one" that is the boss of the other two, but all three raptors seen are completely physically identical, nor are any depicted as being more aggressive than the others, making it impossible to tell which one is meant to be "the big one" other than just assuming. The ''Velociraptor'' are also said to be "cheetah speed", but since most of the raptor scenes only occur indoors, the information never becomes relevant.
* InsideJob: The plot is kicked off by park employee [[spoiler:Dennis Nedry]] sabotaging the park's security systems in order to facilitate his theft of dinosaur embryos to sell to Biosyn, one of [=InGen's=] competitors.
* InstantConvertible: A small version of this happens to the Jeep when Muldoon, Sattler, and Malcolm are fleeing from the ''T. rex'' and hit a tree limb that has fallen across the road. The Jeep was already a convertible and had the roll bars and roof removed, but the branch still breaks the windshield off and would have decapitated everybody if they didn't duck to avoid it.
* IronicEcho: Hammond repeatedly tells everybody very proudly "We've spared no expense." After the park goes completely to hell and his beloved grandchildren and Dr. Grant go missing, he talks with Dr. Sattler. He tries to explain the park to her, and she points out that the park was always doomed. Hammond is clearly completely broken, and she tries to make him feel better by complimenting the ice-cream, and he once again says, without any of his previous pride, "We spared no expense..."
* {{Irony}}:
** Despite Hammond's constant declarations of "We've spared no expense," the park is undone entirely due to the expenses he ''did'' skimp on; notably, leaving the security for the incredibly-dangerous animals entirely in the hands of a single IT guy who is explicitly stated to have been the lowest bidder and has financial troubles of his own.
** Spielberg liked the ending for having the dinosaur bone exhibit getting demolished by the real deal ... and took the irony further by having the ''T. rex'' behind a banner that read "When the Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth".
** Having brought Grant and Sattler to the park intending to have them help assuage the concerns of the lawyer Gennaro, when faced with a meeting wherein the lawyer can see nothing but dollar signs and the scientists are urgently impressing upon him the potential disaster that Jurassic Park is, Hammond can only ruefully reflect:
--->'''Hammond:''' I don't believe it. I don't believe it! You're meant to come down here and defend me against these characters, and the only one I've got on my side is the blood-sucking lawyer!\\
'''Gennaro:'''[[note]]the bloodsucking lawyer in question[[/note]] [[ImStandingRightHere Thank you.]]
* IsleOfGiantHorrors: The film is about a soon-to-be-opened dinosaur theme park on a tropical island, inhabited by cloned dinosaurs.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:J - O]]
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold:
** Ian Malcolm can be described as this. Although he spends most of the movie making critical comments about the park and at one point flirting with Dr. Sattler, he actually nearly sacrificed his life just to allow Dr. Grant save the kids from the ''T. rex.''
** Dr. Alan Grant, who starts out as a child-disliking grouch when we first meet him. Starting with the ''T. rex'' attack, He ends up not only repeatedly [[PapaWolf risking his life]] to save Tim and Lex from danger, but goes out of his way to keep them calm by making jokes, reassuring them, etc.
* JumpScare:
** "Where's the goat?" ''[THUNK]''
** "Mr. Hammond, I think we're back in business—" ''[Cue ''Velociraptor'' attack]''
** The ''Dilophosaurus'''s frill that suddenly opens.
* JustDesserts: [[spoiler:Nedry ends up meeting his death at the jaws of one of the creatures he was attempting to steal and sell to Biosyn.]]
* KarmaHoudini: Dodgson, who essentially set the conflict in motion by bribing [[spoiler:Nedry]] to steal the embryos. [[spoiler:However, this finally changed when he returned in ''Jurassic World: Dominion'']].
* KarmicDeath:
** [[spoiler:Gennaro leaves the two kids for dead to hide from the ''T. rex'', while Grant and Malcolm risk their lives to save them. Of the five of them, guess who ends up being eaten by the T-Rex.]]
** [[spoiler:Dennis Nedry is successful in stealing the embryos, resulting in the ''T. rex'', and later the ''Velociraptors'', getting out and going on a rampage, with the raptors killing Ray Arnold and Robert Muldoon. However, he doesn't make it back to Dodgson; he gets lost, his car gets stuck, and he is eaten by a ''Dilophosaurus''.]]
* KilledOffscreen: Arnold leaves by himself to switch the power back on and doesn't return. Dr. Sattler later discovers he managed to reach the maintenance shed but was killed and torn to pieces by the ''Velociraptor''.
* KillerRabbit:
** "Squeeeeeeeee-hoo-hoo?" Come on, it's only a stupid spitting ''Dilophosaurus'' — ARGH I'M BLIND!
** wht_rbt.obj (the virus that Nedry inserted into the system) also qualifies.
* KubrickStare: When Grant says, "You've bred ''raptors''...?"
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: Some of the merchandise in the gift shop is real, including the book ''The Making of Jurassic Park'' (though the cover is different). It can't be seen in the movie, but the cover of Grant's book that Tim carries has a forward written by Sir Richard Attenborough. In light of the merchandising juggernaut that this film became upon its release, this line applies just as much to the real world as it does the film's universe.
-->'''Gennaro:''' We're gonna make a ''fortune'' with this place.
* LegFocus: Ellie's constantly in shorts, and her legs are the foreground focus of the first shot inside the helicopter on the ride to the island.
%% ** Muldoon is also a rare male example of this trope.
* LighterAndSofter: The film is much, much tamer than the novel; for one, the book starts off with a man who was the victim of a ''Velociraptor'' mauling so brutal, his bones and arteries could be seen through his wounds, and he vomited blood from his mouth like a fire hose as he died. The movie also starts off with a fatal ''Velociraptor'' attack, but it cuts away before the actual death. [[spoiler:Nedry's]] death is also much more descriptive and explicit, as he is disemboweled by the ''Dilophosaurus'' and later, the other characters come across his partly-eaten remains. Also, [[spoiler:Henry Wu]] gets disemboweled by a ''Velociraptor'' in the book, while he survives in the movie.
* LivingMotionDetector: Early in the film, Grant states that the ''T. rex'''s vision is based on movement and won't see you if you stand still. He is proven correct when he and Lex freeze in place and the living ''T. rex'' seems oblivious to their presence. This has been [[ArtisticLicensePaleontology the subject of ridicule for many scientists]] as even with a motion-based vision, the ''T. rex'' would still have a great sense of smell and find them anyways. Later films downplayed this aspect with characters from the first film advising people to not move when ''T. rex'' is present, only for their warning to get ignored.
* LockedInAFreezer: Lex and Tim shove one of the raptors into the Visitors' Center kitchen’s walk-in freezer and shut the door.
* LookOnMyWorksYeMightyAndDespair: Hammond could very well be a textbook example. Guy wants to make something of lasting beauty and appeal, accessible to all, and in the process enrich the world. What does he get? Out of control dinosaurs and several instances of "I told you so"'.
* MajorInjuryUnderreaction: Malcolm's reaction after almost getting killed by the ''T. rex'' and getting his leg injured?
-->'''Malcolm:''' [[SarcasmMode Remind me to thank John for a lovely weekend.]]
* MaleGaze: Briefly. In the scene where Ellie stumbles out of the power station after fleeing the ''Velociraptors'', the camera is pretty blatantly riveted on her butt before she runs toward Alan. Earlier, on the helicopter ride to the island, her legs are prominently in the foreground.
* MightyRoar: After escaping from her paddock, Rexy announces herself quite loudly.
* MoneyDearBoy: InUniverse. Hammond convinces Grant and Ellie to come to park by offering a very generous grant for their digs.
* MonsterDelay:
** Occurs a few times. The film keeps the appearance of the dinosaurs relatively hidden until the full reveal of the ''Brachiosaurus'' twenty minutes in, and then it takes another forty minutes before the first threatening dinosaur, the ''Tyrannosaurus'', appears in full, signalling that [[GoneHorriblyWrong it's hit the fan]].
** The ''Velociraptor'' in particular are kept hidden until the last fifth of the movie. The movie begins with a worker being killed by a raptor, but it's kept hidden in a cage and only its eye is briefly visible. Later, the raptors are being fed a live cow, but are completely hidden in the brush. Then we see that after the power was turned off, the raptors escaped by gnawing through the steel bars of their pen. The ''Velociraptor'' are finally revealed fully in a JumpScare after Ellie is able to turn the power back on, roughly an hour and forty-five minutes into the film.
* MoodWhiplash:
** The hatching of the raptor is quite heartwarming at first, but grows ominous once Grant realizes what it actually is.
** When Nedry gets his jeep stuck, a tiny dinosaur appears and stares at him. Nedry is momentarily relieved that she's small and not attacking, trying to lure her away by tossing a stick. She cocks her head at him with a YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe expression. The Nedry threatens to run her over, and she spits at him, screeching with her frill up. Cue one of the scariest deaths in the film.
* MusicalSpoiler: Averted. The impressive fanfare kicks in ''at the exact moment'' [[spoiler:the ''T. rex'' enters and kills the ''Velociraptors'', who were about to kill our heroes]]; there is no musical build-up whatsoever to the climactic fight. This was actually a decision made by Steven Spielberg in post-production; [[spoiler:as scored by John Williams, it's more of a case of nature in the raw than an unintended rescue. Listen from 6:53 onwards [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wAv5MCL9YI here]].]]
* MrExposition: Mr. DNA, who explains to the audience how they were able to clone the dinosaurs from their DNA.
* MythologyGag: Muldoon says they originally had eight raptors. This is how many they had in the book... well, until the breeding started.
* NeverGiveTheCaptainAStraightAnswer: After seeing the live dinosaurs in the park, Grant asks Hammond how he did this and the only answer he gets is "I'll show you" and the scene cuts to them driving up to the lab.
* NeverWorkWithChildrenOrAnimals: In-universe, this happens during the tour. The ''Dilophosaurus'' fails to appear during their cue, the ''Triceratops'' is sick, and Rexy isn't hungry yet for the goat.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero:
** After Nedry shuts down the fences to steal the embryos and make his escape, the ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' gets out and wreaks havoc. In order to undo what Nedry has done, Hammond wants the computers shut down and restarted. When [[Creator/SamuelLJackson Ray Arnold]] initially refuses, Hammond insists: "People are dying. Would you ''please'' shut down the system." Arnold does so. Nedry was smart enough to program the raptor fences to stay operational during his sabotage; the total system shutdown releases the ''Velociraptors''. Prior to this, the ''T. rex'' had only killed one person and likely preferred snacking on its fellow dinosaurs as opposed to stringy, bony humans; the raptors kill two humans [[ForTheEvulz for the simple sport of it]], and relentlessly pursue the main characters for the rest of the film.
** When Ellie Sattler turns the power back on it also turns on the electric fence that Dr. Grant and the kids are climbing down. Dr Grant and Lex successfully gets down but Tim gets [[HarmlessElectrocution electrocuted]] and flies to the ground. Luckily he [[PlotArmor survives.]]
** When the ''T. rex'' breaks out and attacks the kids, Dr. Grant gets its attention with a flare and then throws it away, causing the ''T. rex'' to forget about the kids and chase after the flare. So far, so good, except Ian Malcolm tries to help with his own flare, which only causes the ''T. rex'''s attention to be turned back to the people instead of Grant's flare. Malcolm's own attempt to throw the flare away doesn't work because he's running while doing so, so the ''T. rex'' focuses on the larger moving target. The result is that it keeps chasing him, leading to Malcolm being injured and Gennaro killed.
* NiceKitty: Nedry tries to pacify the ''Dilophosaurus'' this way... to no avail.
* NightVisionGoggles: Relatively realistic ones, too.
* NoOSHACompliance: Hammond boasts that he spared no expense on the public parts of the park, but he evidently skimped on the behind-the-scenes matters that keep it functioning.
** Jurassic Park is woefully understaffed. Even though the park is not officially open for business, the animals are in place and most of the park infrastructure has been built. In spite of this, Hammond's operational and maintenance staff barely seems to exceed a few dozen at most.
** Animal containment is criminally inept. Herbivores graze near the entrance of the park with no barriers of any kind, allowing the arriving party to walk up to the habitat of a colossal, potentially territorial beast without so much as encountering a sign dissuading them. This is exemplified in the scene where they find the sick ''Triceratops''. Carnivores are kept at bay using electric fences with no backup in case power fails, something even animals in the real world can and do break if they notice they aren't being shocked anymore. The "Keep Windows Up" sign on the ''Dilophosaurus'' paddock indicates that there is nothing to prevent the Dilos from spitting in the guests' eyes other than a warning.
** The only animals in any way reasonably contained are the ''Velociraptors'', but they too have problems. The very first scene of the movie has the staff transferring a raptor into the paddock. As impressive as the system looks, it's defeated by the raptor simply ramming its cage while the door is being opened, causing the unsecured cage to bounce away from the gate and provide an escape route. Had said raptor been more concerned with escape than eating one of the workers, it would have been gone. The cage should have been secured to the gate in some fashion to prevent exactly this scenario. On top of that, the cage must be opened and closed manually by a man ''standing on top of the cage'', resulting in a fatality.
** There are no armed security teams on standby in case any of the dangerous dinosaurs ever escape, and Robert Muldoon is the only guy on the park with any firearms experience.
** Nothing prevents guests from getting out of the tour vehicles while they are moving, though Hammond at least has the good sense to note they should add locks after this glaring oversight is made apparent to him. For that matter, once out of the vehicles, there is nothing to prevent the guests from touching the fences, which have lethal levels of electricity running through them. The tour cars are all remotely controlled with no chaperone. If the control system goes down, the visitors are stranded without anybody to get them back to the Visitors' Center.
** [[AStormIsComing A tropical storm is heading straight for the island]]. Normally, they should have had days of warning and would have therefore rescheduled the tour. It's as if Hammond kind of just expected the storm to kindly swerve out of the island's path just for his sake. Which is quite fitting for his character, actually.
** The park has no emergency evacuation plan off the island whether the park breaks down, a tropical storm like one in the movie comes down, or even if someone has a medical emergency. At bare minimum, there should be a helicopter physically on the island for emergency airlifts which would have solved a lot of heartache once the grid went down and the dinosaurs started to get loose.
** As the fact that the people behind Jurassic Park are shown to be reckless and irresponsible with the untapped power they've unleashed, this is all part of the point. This is discussed in a scene where the scientists basically lecture Hammond at length about the sheer reckless irresponsibility of reviving lifeforms that haven't been seen on the planet for sixty-five million years and shoving them in a theme park to interact with humans without any care for what might possibly happen. As an example, Ellie points out that the flowers used to decorate the Visitors' Center are actually poisonous, but the park operators have scattered them throughout without a care simply because they look exotic and pretty.
* NothingIsScarier: Done ''exceptionally'' well throughout with both the big and small (predatory) dinosaurs. Especially the opening scene where the park-worker gets mauled, and later on when Hammond feeds a cow to the ''Velociraptors''. You don't see ''anything'', but the terrified lowing of the bull (and the [[HellIsThatNoise demonic screeching of the raptors]]) combined with that shot of the ''shredded'', empty harness being lifted out of the enclosure are absolutely chilling. They even went so far as to have the carnivores all be no-shows during the tour (unlike in the book) so they wouldn't make their first appearances until they became a threat. Clearly Spielberg took the one major lesson he learned from ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' to heart.
%% * ObviousBeta: The park itself. %% InUniverse
* OffscreenTeleportation: Throughout the movie, the approach of the ''T. rex'' is announced by earth-shaking steps. At some point, she apparently takes a few levels in Ninja, since she [[DeusExMachina somehow manages to sneak up on the survivors and the Raptors at the end.]] The ''T. rex'' enters the lobby through the Visitors' Center's unfinished side wall, by the main door, which is visible (partially covered in scaffolding and hanging plastic) in a brief shot earlier in the scene — though there's no corresponding hole on the outside of the building.
* OhCrap:
** Donald Gennaro's reaction to Rexy finding the outhouse he was hiding in was a very memorable one. It also provides the [[OhCrap/LiveActionFilms Film sub-page's image]].
---> '''Gennaro:''' Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord be with...AAAAAHHHHHH!
** And just before that, he and the kids react with horror when what's left of the goat lands on their vehicle's roof. And when Rexy first rears her head, Gennaro looks like he's about to piss himself before running to the outhouse.
---> '''Gennaro:''' Oh, Jesus! Oh, Jesus!
** The kids then have this reaction to Gennaro abandoning them.
---> '''Lex:''' He left us! ''He left us!''
** ''"You've bred raptors?"''
** The look on Grant's face when the car starts to slide out of that tree. Not to mention the looks on everyone's faces when they realize what happened to the goat...
** The two kids have gotten back to the main buildings, and are tucking into food... when Lex looks up, and has a classic OhCrap moment when she realizes she's looking at the shadows of raptors in the next room, moving around.
** Tim realizing that the herd of ''Gallimimus'' was suddenly "flocking" into their direction in the first film. "They're, uh... they're flocking this way", indeed.[[note]]This is after Dr. Grant explains that they flock like that when escaping a predator.[[/note]]
** Two in the scene where Rexy chases the Jeep: Ian's classically understated "Must go faster," and Ellie seconds later screaming shit several times at the top of her lungs.
** Stranded right outside the ''Tyrannosaurus'' paddock, Tim notices that the cup of water on the dashboard is vibrating...
** Also happens a few minutes later when Ian notices the vibrating water in the ''T. rex'' footprint.
** Ellie and Muldoon have this reaction when they leave the bunker and realize that the raptors have escaped.
* OhNoNotAgain: When Grant gets ready to {{troll}} the kid who mocks ''Velociraptor'', Ellie mutters "Oh, no... here we go..." which suggests that he's done this before.
* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Sam Neill's American accent holds up pretty well, except for one line during the scene where he throws the stick at the fence.
* OmnidisciplinaryScientist: Satler, Malcolm and Grant show detailed relevant knowledge in areas far outside their specialties: tropical modern botany ("Is this West Indian Lilac?"), veterinary toxicology ("microvesicles", "These are dilated."), amphibian reproductive biology ("Some species of West African frog are known to spontaneously change sex"), cellular biology ("How do you interrupt the cellular mitosis?"), and DNA extraction ("Lloyd extraction hasn't recreated an intact DNA strand." "Not without massive sequence gaps.").
[[/folder]]

[[folder:P - R]]
* PacifiedAdaptation: While there is still plenty of danger and peril in the film, the human characters usually survive dinosaur encounters with a combination of quick thinking and some incredibly lucky breaks, whereas in the novel several characters proactively fight back against the dinos and even manage to kill a few.
* PlotDemandedManualMode: In order to manually restore the power that Nedry foolishly shut down, Dr. Sattler must sneak into the utility bunker that routes power to different parts of the park. This provides for a convenient TrappedWithMonsterPlot situation when Dr. Sattler finds herself alone in the bunker with a dinosaur.
* ProductPlacement:
** The Ford Explorers used on the tour (replacing the Toyota Land Cruisers from the book).
** Barbasol shaving cream is prominently featured as part of the scheme to steal dinosaur embryos. In 2015, Barbasol sold ''Film/JurassicWorld'' [[TheRedStapler themed cans]]! (This is also a change from the book, in which the shaving cream was Gillette.)
* PunctuatedForEmphasis: "People — are — ''dying!"''
* QuizzicalTilt: Rexy gives [[spoiler:Gennaro]] one just before eating him. The ''Dilophosaurus'' gives several to Nedry while it's sizing him up before it strikes.
* RealityHasNoSoundtrack: The film is very strategic in its use of a musical score, and several extended dinosaur encounters, including the ''T. rex'' attack, Nedry's encounter with the ''Dilophosaurus'' and the ''Gallimimus'' stampede, are done entirely without music.
* RealityIsUnrealistic: That program Lex uses to restore the security systems? That's a real UNIX program, used for file system management, called FSN. [[https://web.archive.org/web/20090801095324/http://neosprockets.com/index.php/2009/07/8-embarrassing-hollywood-tech-cliches Try telling that to some people, though.]]
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: When Sattler joins Hammond eating in the cafeteria of the Visitors' Center after everything's gone to Hell:
-->'''Dr. Sattler:''' It's still the flea circus. It's all an illusion.\\
'''Hammond:''' When we have control again—\\
'''Sattler:''' You never ''had'' control, ''that's'' the illusion! I was overwhelmed by the power of this place! But ''I'' made a mistake too, I didn't have enough respect for that power and it's out now!
* RecklessGunUsage: In keeping with the general undercurrent of shoddiness about the park, the security personnel in the beginning almost universally use poor trigger discipline. This is made more apparent when compared to Muldoon, who ''does'' practice it (though he himself is guilty of some ArtisticLicenseGunSafety; see above).
* RedemptionEarnsLife:
** Ian isn't a bad guy, but he is a bit of a gruff grump about the park and self-righteous. He then risks his life to save Tim and Lex, even if it wasn't necessary, facing a ''T. rex'' for them. This merits him as being one of the survivors, albeit injured.
** Hammond could have easily been his sociopathic novel counterpart, stubbornly insists on opening the park no matter the consequences. Instead, after getting an earful from Sattler about the illusion of control, he realizes that his dream is not worth endangering people's lives and thus does everything he can to get the power back on and evacuate the survivors, going as far as disowning the park when all is said and done. Thus, he gets to live in the end [[spoiler:unlike his novel counterpart who gets eaten by his own dinosaurs.]]
* RedShirt: The poor schmuck who gets eaten by a [[RaptorAttack raptor]] in the first scene.
* ReliablyUnreliableGuns: Near the end of the film, Grant wields a shotgun against the ''Velociraptors'' trying to break into the control room, but it jams after only a couple of shots. He drops it and runs.
* RoadsignReversal: Nedry suffers an unintentional version of this while trying to reach the dock — having accidentally knocked down a sign pointing the way, he tries to set it up and find the right direction. Between the inclement weather and the sign being so loosely mounted that it can turn its pole, he can't figure it out. So he gives up and gives the thing one last frustrated spin before wandering off.
* RoarBeforeBeating: Done pretty constantly, with the ''T. rex'' and the raptors vocalizing a lot when attacking humans.
* RunOrDie: Pretty much the only thing anybody can do against the ''T. rex'' and the raptors.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:S - Z]]
* SacrificialLion: [[spoiler:Robert Muldoon, the park's game warden, who is outsmarted and killed by the ''Velociraptors''.]]
* SafeBehindTheCorner: In the famous kitchen hide & seek scene, the raptors fail to notice the kids repeatedly because they don't care to move their heads around the corners behind which the kids are hiding.
* SayYourPrayers: Gennaro frantically babbles the rosary as the T-Rex storms towards the bathroom where he's hiding.
* SceneryPorn: The panoramic vistas in this movie alone are worth watching the film for. The art direction is incredible. Simply incredible.
* ScienceIsBad: Or ''reckless'' science, at least, since most of the problems that happen in the movie stem from the scientists behind Jurassic Park over-confidently plunging ahead and having fun cloning dinosaurs without considering the possible consequences of their actions or stopping to think about the awesome responsibilities and forces they were unleashing.
-->'''Dr. Ian Malcolm:''' Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they ''could'', they didn't stop to think if they ''should''.
* SchrodingersCast: Malcolm died in the novel, but survived the movie, leading to his novel counterpart's death being {{Retcon}}ned and Malcolm being the protagonist of the second book (and thus, film). Hammond likewise survived the film where he died in the book. While the novels show him no such mercy, his survival is important for the second film.
* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjPFyINVxW0 The original teaser]] for the film states that the first mosquito-containing amber was found in "the spring of 1990". So, we're meant to believe they cloned and aged all those dozens, if not hundreds, of dinosaurs in less than ''three'' years? Especially considering that animal cloning (for normal modern day animals at that) has a ludicrously high failure rate.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Gennaro has this reaction when seeing the ''T. rex'' next to the car, swallowing a goat.
* SenseImpairedMonster: The ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' has motion-based vision, and will not perceive you if you remain completely motionless and don't make a sound. This is a major case of ArtisticLicensePaleontology, since ''T. rex'', in fact, had excellent vision, plus also had a great sense of smell, so it would be able to sniff out the humans.
* SeparatedByACommonLanguage: There are a couple of instances where Hammond (a Scot) modifies his language to make himself more understandable to his American guests. He changes his pronunciation of the word "schedule" and replaces "merry-go-round" with "carousel" mid-sentence
* ShoutOut:
** The shot of the ''T. rex'' wolfing down the goat before looking at the cars is modeled after the shot of the Rancor wolfing down the Gamorrean guard before looking at Luke in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi''.
** Malcolm: "What you got in there, Film/KingKong?"
** The scene where the ''T. rex'' bursts onto screen and snatches one of the ''Gallimimus'' is directly modeled on a scene in ''Film/TheValleyOfGwangi''.
** The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHUG7ptg29o creepily ominous opening title]] for this movie seems to have been patterned, fittingly enough, after the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mek_jlr_c4 equally foreboding opening]] to [[Film/Godzilla1954 the very first]] ''{{Franchise/Godzilla}}'' movie.
** Muldoon's "Clever girl" comment when the ''Velociraptors'' trick him into an ambush is lifted from ''Film/TotalRecall1990'' where Quaid says the same to Lori after she attempts to sexually distract him from noticing the armed forces sneaking into the building.
** Nedry's wardrobe seems to be patterned after the title characters in ''Film/TheGoonies'', which Spielberg produced. He wears a Hawaiian patterned shirt with pink flowers like Chunk in his scene with Dodson, Mouth's gray windbreaker when in the operations room, and a yellow raincoat over a denim button up shirt like Mikey when attempting to flee the island.
** The scene with the sick ''Triceratops'' was patterned on a similiar scene in Creator/KarelZeman's ''A Journey to the Beginning of Time'', involving a dead ''Stegosaurus''. Spielberg wanted to recreate that same sense of a dinosaur as something you could reach out and touch, or even climb on.
* ShownTheirWork:
** One of the largest selling points of the film after the visual effects was that ''Jurassic Park'' was one of the standard-bearers of the "Dinosaur Renaissance" in the public consciousness, which began with the discovery of ''Deinonychus antirrhopus''[[note]]ironically, the dinosaur that ''Jurassic Park's'' ''Velociraptor'' was based on[[/note]] in 1964. Considerable press was focused on ''Jurassic Park'' being what was [[ScienceMarchesOn then]] the most scientifically up-to-date depiction of dinosaurs in film, based on all the most current research.
** Setting aside the dinosaurs, so much work was put into the set pieces that Jurassic Park truly looks like a real place going through the dust-up to a grand opening but just not quite there yet. Spielberg spared no expense on little details like the half-painted walls, the part in the movie presentation where Hammond forgets he has lines of his own to say in the script while the show carries on, all those little things add up to convey this amazing scenario to people.
* SignatureLine: While taking Sattler and Grant out to see the dinosaurs for the first time, Hammond says "Dr. Grant, my dear Dr. Sattler... welcome to Jurassic Park".
* SlasherSmile: The Big One, the leader of the raptors, makes one as she catches sight of the kids escaping the kitchen and gets ready to follow.
* SlowElectricity: When the main switch is turned back on, the hall lights come on one at a time. (Mocked by Music/WeirdAlYankovic in the Podcast/RiffTrax.)
* SmarterThanYouLook: The little dinosaur that Nedry encounters seems harmless enough; she's just staring at him and observing. Nedry assumes "he" is dumb when she won't run after a stick. [[spoiler:She was a baby ''Dilophosaurus'' and was evaluating if he was prey or not. ''Dilophosaurus'' gets the drop on him by blinding him and figuring out he would go into his vehicle, hiding there to ambush him]].
* SomewhereAnEntomologistIsCrying: The mosquito in amber from which the dinosaur DNA is allegedly extracted is not only a member of a species that eats only nectar (and thus wouldn't have any dinosaur blood in it), but the individual is male (and thus wouldn't have any dinosaur blood in it ''anyway).'' [[WildMassGuessing But maybe they were aiming to clone a plant]]?
* SoMuchForStealth: When the kids are hiding in the kitchen, the raptors are alerted when a soup ladle drops to the floor next to the boy.
* SoundtrackDissonance: The main theme song is a grandiose and adventurous piece fitting for Hammond's vision for the theme park as a whole. Completely ignoring the real horrors that happen such as feeding live animals to the dinosaurs and of course what happens when the power gets switched off.
* SoundtrackLullaby: The track "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TVWKqfqe28 A Tree For My Bed]]", basically the main theme played on a celesta, plays as Grant and the kids are settling into the (relative) safety of a tree for the night.
* SoundOnlyDeath: That poor unfortunate bull.
* SparedByTheAdaptation: [[spoiler:Hammond and Wu]] die in the first book but survive in the first movie. Also [[spoiler:Ian Malcolm]], until the second book {{retcon}}ned his death. [[spoiler:Wu]] wasn't a major character in the film, and [[spoiler:Hammond]] wasn't a {{Jerkass}} like his literary counterpart. The dinosaurs too; at the end of the first novel, Isla Nublar is napalmed and all the dinosaurs horrifically killed. In the film universe, the napalming apparently doesn't happen, as Rexy survives and is recaptured over a decade later for display in the reopened park, ''Film/JurassicWorld''. The ruins of the original Visitors' Center are seen as well, and while it has been reclaimed by the jungle, it is very clearly un-napalmed.
* StayInTheKitchen: [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] and [[SubvertedTrope subverted]]. When it's time to send someone to the bunker to reset the circuit breaker, Hammond suggests that he go with Muldoon instead of Dr. Sattler. Apparently, the fact that he's elderly and needs a cane to get around and she's young, healthy, and athletic hasn't registered with Hammond.
-->'''Dr. Hammond:''' It ought to be me going, because I'm a... and you're a...\\
'''[[ActionGirl Dr. Sattler]]:''' ''[gives Hammond a DeathGlare]'' Look, we can discuss sexism in survival situations later.
* StealthyColossus: The ''T. rex'' makes its entrance with a series of BadVibrations caused by her footsteps. She would later repeat it again during the jeep chase scene. So it's all the more surprising for the audience when the ''T. rex'' suddenly ambushes a ''Velociraptor'' with no sound cues to tip off either the protagonists or the viewer. Given that she also ambushes a flock of ''Gallimimus'' without warning as well, it seems she can be quiet when she wants to be.
* StockSoundEffect: A rather inexplicable one too. When Nedry slips down the waterfall after his jeep gets stuck you can clearly hear a cartoonish "slip" sound. Kind of out-of-place in an otherwise serious movie. Spielberg, though, insists it's actually the hook belt on Nedry's jeep that's making the noise.
* StressVomit: Tim has an offscreen one in the tree after the first encounter with the ''T. rex''.
* StunnedSilence: Alan, Ellie, and Ian all have this reaction to seeing the ''Brachiosaurus'' for the first time. It takes about a minute after each of their initial viewings for any of them to say anything coherent.
* StupidSacrifice: Unfortunately, Ian Malcolm's sacrifice was not needed. Dr. Grant had already coerced the ''Tyrannosaurus'' into pursuing a flare thrown back into her paddock and away from the scene. Malcolm's sacrifice, while incredibly brave, was unnecessary and ultimately accomplished nothing more than keeping Rexy on the scene, getting himself injured and Gennaro killed in the process.
* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** The idea of a dinosaur theme park is viciously torn apart in many ways throughout the story, as many people point out all the issues either the park has, or that it will have. The lunch scene in particular has everyone save Gennaro pointing out how flawed the park is. For example, Ellie points out that Hammond has poisonous plants in the Visitors' Center because of RuleOfCool, but that they are still ''poisonous'' and are now in an environment completely alien to them. She states that the plants will defend themselves, violently if necessary. The main point that she, Ian, and Alan all make is that there is no way to predict how dinosaurs will work in a theme park, which no amount of expensive technology can fix.
** What kicks off the plot? An employee's death at the hands of one of the raptors causing Hammond's investors to begin thinking of backing out unless the park is verified as safe by experts. Investors are not going to want to invest in something that can make them liable for mistakes or accidents happening, especially with something as unknown as a dinosaur theme park. The employee's family is also filing a $20 million lawsuit, which is also concerning the investors.
** Both Tim and Lex make some pretty stupid choices during the movie, but they are still kids after all, kids who have never seen dinosaurs and unlike the adults, have no remote idea of what to do in a dangerous situation. Naturally, when the two get into situations where they have no idea what they are dealing with, they both make mistakes. Similarly, many of the adults who aren't paleontologists end up making mistakes simply because they have no idea how dinosaurs act, such as when Ian tries to distract the ''T. rex'' with a flare but runs with it instead of throwing it right away, causing her to target him and not the flare.
** Unlike the original novel, the tour goes poorly even before things officially go to hell in the park. None of the dinosaurs show up as the car passes by their enclosures, and attempts to bait the ''T. rex'' with live prey fail (until the worst possible time). It's impossible to get an animal to do exactly what you want, up to and including coming into viewing distance when they've got so much territory to cover.
--->'''Hammond:''' So much for our first tour: two no-shows and one sick ''Triceratops''.
* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: This exchange after the tour vehicles get stranded due to the power outage:
-->'''Alan:''' Their radio's out, too. Gennaro said to stay put.\\
'''Ian:''' Kids okay?\\
'''Alan:''' I didn't ask. Why wouldn't they be?\\
'''Ian:''' Kids get scared.\\
'''Alan:''' What's to be scared about? It's just a little hiccup in the power—\\
'''Ian:''' I didn't say ''I'' was scared.\\
''(beat)''\\
'''Alan:''' I didn't ''say'' you were scared.\\
'''Ian:''' I know.
* SuperSpit: The ''Dilophosaurus'' that kills Nedry spits poisonous venom in his face to blind him.
* SweepingTheTable: Arnold sweeps a load of junk off Nedry's desk while trying to undo his sabotage of the power grid, angrily commenting on what a slob Nedry is.
* SwissCheeseSecurity: Hammond trusts the entire security of his park to mere electric fences, and has no backup plan in place if electricity ever fails. There is also no security force on stand-by for emergencies. Robert Muldoon is the only armed person in the entire island. Lampshaded at the end by Hammond himself when he realizes his mistake.
* TakeOurWordForIt: The raptor cow feeding scene. The raptors themselves are completely hidden in the brush, but the sounds of screeching and flesh-rending along with the disturbed expressions of the characters (and the mangled harness that is lifted from the paddock afterwards) leave little to the imagination.
* TakeThat: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_T._Bakker Dr. Robert T. Bakker]] is dissed when Tim is pestering Dr. Grant about books that he read written by Bakker and Grant himself. Tim is shut up when he first mentions Bakker by Grant promptly slamming the car door of Tim's car. Some of the sting was probably taken out of all this by the fact that book!Grant is an {{Expy}} of Bakker himself. Hardly unexpected. The consulting paleontologist on the ''Jurassic Park'' series is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Horner_(paleontologist) Jack Horner]], who is Bakker's main rival in the field.
* TechMarchesOn: Nicely averted by the movie. The original novels described the Jurassic Park computer network as consisting of multiple Cray X-MP machines. By the time of the movie, those machines weren't the computing behemoths they were considered to be back in the day, and they decided to replace them with Connection Machine CM-5 supercomputers instead. This makes sense in-universe as that's the kind of machine a business that needed ridiculous amounts of computing power at the time would have plumped for, and it made sense visually because the CM-5 computers were utterly festooned with blinkenlights, making them the ideal movie prop.
* TechnologyPorn: The Macs and the SGI workstations in the film.
* TemptingFate: The raptors are contained, right? "Unless they figure out how to open doors." Guess what happens. Taken to ridiculous extremes in the Podcast/RiffTrax.
* ThatCameOutWrong: At one point Gennaro asks "are these characters auto-erotic?" (he was presumably trying to say "automated" or "animatronic" and mixed the words together by mistake). Hammond just says "there's no animatronics here" but is clearly struggling to maintain his composure.
* ThemeMusicPowerUp: The Jurassic Park theme kicks in for the ''T. rex'' herself, who proceeds to kick raptor ass and save the day.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodSandwich:
** The commissary scene, where the main characters are debating the ethics of dinosaur cloning. Did any of them even ''touch'' the food that was in front of them? Justified for Ellie, who seems to have utterly lost her appetite after seeing the raptors feed.
** After the kids are dropped off at the restaurant to eat something, and they load their plates with goodies from the buffet, a raptor suddenly shows up, sniffing for them from behind a decorative screen just as they wolf down some food. Whatever hunger pangs they have go completely ignored from then on to the end of the movie.
* ToiletHumour:
** [[RoadApples "Dino... droppings?"]]
** "[[PrecisionFStrike That is one big pile of shit.]]" Said by Ian as Ellie Sattler goes arm-deep in a gigantic pile of ''Triceratops'' feces, looking for traces of poisonous berries. (Laura Dern said that every day since 1993 there are children asking if she was "the woman who put her hand in dino poop".)
--->'''Ian Malcolm:''' She's, uh... tenacious.\\
'''Grant:''' You have no idea.\\
'''Malcolm:''' ''(to Sattler)'' You ''will'' remember to wash your hands before you eat anything!
** [[spoiler:Gennaro]] dying sitting on a toilet.
* TooCleverByHalf: Ian Malcolm accuses Hammond and his team of genetic scientists of being so focused on whether or not it was possible to artificially create new dinosaurs that they never stopped to consider whether it was ethical.
-->'''Ian Malcolm:''' I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here. It didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now, you're selling it. You wanna sell it. Well...\\
'''John Hammond:''' I don't think you're giving us our due credit. Our scientists have done things which nobody's ever done before...\\
'''Ian Malcolm:''' Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they ''could'' that they didn't stop to think if they ''should!''
* TooDumbToLive:
** It doesn't occur to Muldoon that the reboot may have shut off the raptor fences, despite that being his first concern earlier.
--->'''Robert Muldoon:''' Damn it, even Nedry knew better than to mess with the ''raptor'' fences!
** If Nedry had enough time to use the winch to get his Jeep unstuck ''after'' taking a wrong turn and getting lost on the way to meet his contact at the docks, he should have had enough time to drive a little slower and not crash it in the first place.
* {{Touche}}: Muldoon's famous "Clever girl" line when he see the raptors OutGambitted him.
* TrappedWithMonsterPlot:
** HostileWeather ensures that the group is trapped with the dinos in the park.
** [[spoiler:Nedry and Muldoon]] both encounter dangerous dinosaurs alone. They don't make it.
** After restoring power to the park systems, [[spoiler:Dr. Sattler is startled to discover that a ''Velociraptor'' is inside the bunker with her.]]
* TraumaCongaLine: Lex and Tim. Let's see, their parents are having a rocky relationship, so their grandpa, Hammond, invites them to Jurassic Park to get away from the fighting. Expecting a fun time there, they arrive only to find that Grant doesn't like them (at first); the ''T. rex'' breaks out and nearly eats them, while Gennaro leaves them; Tim, trapped in a car, is pushed down into a tree; Lex is traumatized after Gennaro left them; Grant saves Tim from the tree but they have to out-climb the falling car; they then have to outrun more dinosaurs; Tim gets shocked by the fence as his sister watches in tears; once they make it to a building and finally eat something on their own, two ''Velociraptors'' show up and try to hunt them down; and by the end of the movie, they're both physically a mess.
* TwoDonorClone: The dinosaurs were cloned from degraded DNA samples that were spliced with frog DNA to fill in the gaps. This turns out to allow the all female population to reproduce as some frogs can change sexes.
* UncoveringRelationshipStatus: Malcolm asks Grant if Dr. Sattler is available. Grant asks why and Malcolm apologizes as he understands that Grant himself is dating her.
* {{Understatement}}: "Mr. Hammond, after careful consideration, I've decided ''not'' to endorse your park." Hammond agrees.
* UndignifiedDeath: Gennaro dies cowering on the toilet when Rexy knocks over the hut while pursuing Malcolm and uncovers him. She picks him up off the seat and shakes him around like a terrier with a rat.
* UnPaused: When Tim is stuck on the fence, he gets ready to jump on "three". He gets thrown off on two. When he comes to, he finishes the countdown.
* VillainousRescue: Grant, Sattler, and the kids are cornered by the ''Velociraptors'', who are just about to attack [[spoiler:when Rexy comes out of nowhere and slaughters them.]]
* VillainousValour: The last raptor [[spoiler:attacks the ''T. rex'' despite the ''Tyrannosaurus'' killing her remaining partner with a single bite and outweighing the raptor by several tons.]]
* WhamLine: A light-hearted scene in which the protagonists witness the birth of a newborn dinosaur takes a sharp turn for terrifying with the identification of its species.
--> '''Dr. Grant:''' You bred raptors!?
* WhamShot:
** The ''Brachiosaurus'', the first dinosaur we see in all her glory onscreen.
** During the storm, when the characters see that the chained-up goat used to bait the ''T. rex'' out [[OhCrap is no longer there]].
** When Ellie and Muldoon walk to the maintenance shed to find Arnold and complete the startup routine, they walk past the raptor paddock... and see the hole in the fence...
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse
** We never hear of the sick ''Triceratops'' after her scene, nor do we find out why she got sick in the first place. [[Literature/JurassicPark The novel]] [[AllThereInTheManual explained that]] [[spoiler:while the ''[[AdaptationSpeciesChange Stegosaurus]]'' wasn't actively eating the poisonous berries, she ''was'' swallowing pebbles (to aid digestion, they're called gastroliths); the berries which fell off their bushes left enough residue to sicken her.]] This was dropped from the film (possibly due to time constraints). Instead you hear that it was NOT the poisonous plants, which leaves the poor ''Triceratops''' fate unknown.
** Pretty much the entire workforce of the park just disappeared once the dinosaurs escape. The last we ever get is one employee serving Ellie and Hammond in the restaurant/gift shop if not the helicopter pilot at the very end.
** During the cloning lab scene, a baby raptor hatches from its synthetic egg as Hammond coos delightedly over its birth. None of the adult raptors survive the movie, but the chick's fate is never shown.
* WhatTheHellHero
** Hammond spends much of the movie on the receiving end of these. The dinner scene in particular has him facing a barrage of them from Malcolm, Sattler, and Grant. To be fair, most of Malcolm's dialogue with Hammond throughout the movie are these.
--->'''Malcolm:''' Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet has ever seen, and you wield it like a kid who found his dad's gun. [...] Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they ''should''.\\\
'''Dr. Sattler:''' Well, the question is, how can you know anything about an extinct ecosystem? And therefore, how could you ever assume that you can control it? I mean, you have plants in this building that are poisonous, you picked them because they look good, but these are aggressive living things that have no idea what century they're in, and they'll defend themselves, violently if necessary.\\\
'''Dr. Grant:''' The world has just changed so radically, and we're all running to catch up. I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but look... Dinosaurs and man, two species separated by 65 million years of evolution, have just been suddenly thrown back into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea what to expect?
** Later, Ellie nails him with a particularly poignant one over ice cream.
--->'''Dr. Sattler:''' It's still just the flea circus. It's all an illusion.\\
'''Hammond:''' But when we have control—\\
'''Dr. Sattler:''' [[ArmorPiercingResponse You never HAD control, THAT'S the illusion!]] I was overwhelmed by the power of this place. But I made a mistake, too, I didn't have enough respect for that power and it's out now. The only thing that matters now are the people we love.
* WhooshInFrontOfTheCamera: The ''Dilophosaurus'' that kills [[spoiler:Nedry]] is first seen whooshing in front of the camera. He turns around to see what the sound was but the dilophosaur is already gone and appears behind a tree in the next scene.
* TheWorldsExpertOnGettingKilled: Muldoon is said to know more about the ''Velociraptor'' than anyone, and gives a lot of exposition about how dangerous they are, but [[spoiler:is quickly outsmarted and killed by said raptors after they get loose. Even two injured kids managed to outsmart the raptors than him.]] This is in contrast to his original depiction in the novel, where he actually kills several raptors and survives to the end.
[[/folder]]

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* RoadsignReversal: Nedry suffers an unintentional version of this while trying to reach the dock — having accidentally backed into the sign, he tries setting it back up and seeing where the arrow pointed, but between the inclement weather and the sign being seemingly mounted on a roulette wheel, he can't figure it out. So he gives up and gives the thing one last frustrated spin before wandering off.

Perhaps the most enduringly popular blockbuster film of its decade (turning {{dinosaurs}} into the American CyclicNationalFascination of the time), it spawned a [[Franchise/JurassicPark franchise]] that includes several film sequels: ''Film/TheLostWorldJurassicPark'' (1997), ''Film/JurassicParkIII'' (2001), ''Film/JurassicWorld'' (2015), ''Film/JurassicWorldFallenKingdom'' (2018), and ''Film/JurassicWorldDominion'' (2022). It also won all three of its Oscar nominations; Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects. On top of that, the film celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2013 with a theatrical re-release that upgraded it into a UsefulNotes/ThreeDMovie.

* KarmaHoudini: Dodgson, who essentially set the conflict in motion by bribing [[spoiler:Nedry]] to steal the embryos. However, this may change when he returns in ''Jurassic World: Dominion''.

** Gennaro attempts to run and hide. However, he hides within the same area that all the ''T. rex'' stuff happens and his hiding spot isn't even remotely a good hiding spot. Naturally, he gets found and killed for his troubles.

** Gennaro attempts to run and hide. However, he hides within the same area that all the the ''T. rex'' stuff happens and his hiding spot isn't even remotely a good hiding spot. Naturally, he gets found and killed for his troubles.

''Jurassic Park'' is a 1993 science fiction film directed by Creator/StevenSpielberg and the first of its [[Franchise/JurassicPark eponymous film franchise]], [[FilmOfTheBook based on]] the [[Literature/JurassicPark novel of the same name]] by Creator/MichaelCrichton, who was also brought on to pen the screenplay for the film.

* CasualDangerDialog: Ian gets one before Rexy's DynamicEntry:

* ObviousBeta: The park itself.

'''Alan Grant:''' What are those?\\(referring to said attractions)

'''Alan Grant:''' What are those?\\

* FreudianTrio: With Hammond as the Id, Malcolm as the Superego, and Grant as the Ego.

* KarmaHoudini: Dodgson, who essentially set the conflict in motion by bribing [[spoiler:Nedry]] to steal the embryos. However, this may change when he returns in ''Jurassic World: Dominion''.

* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler: Nedry gets lost, and then [[JustDesserts eaten alive]] by a ''Dilophosaurus''.]]

* KarmaHoudini: Dodgson, who essentially set the conflict in motion by bribing [[spoiler:Nedry]] to steal the embryos. However, this may change when he returns in ''Jurassic World: Dominion''.

* ArtisticLicenseLinguistics: During his lecture about the relation between dinosaurs and modern birds, Grant states that "raptor" means bird of prey. While "raptor" is indeed a colloquial used to refer to birds of prey, that's not the actual meaning of the word. "Raptor" is actually the Latin word for "robber", itself derived from the word "rapere", which meant "to seize".