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Tear Jerker / Jurassic Park (1993)

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In the midst of visually awesome dinosaur action and scares, there's more than a few tearjerking moments in Jurassic Park (1993). After all, it's a movie that was directed by Steven Spielberg, a man who knows how to make us cry.

WARNING: Spoilers are unmarked.


  • Because of his Adaptational Heroism, John Hammond is a pretty tragic character when you think about it. He's worked for years to realize his dream, and it looked as if it had finally come true. Instead, his dream crumbles around him and results in the horrible deaths of about five people, three of whom were completely undeserved, and five others, including his own two grandkids are nearly victim as well. As a result, he's forced to abandon everything he's worked for. In the second-to-last scene, while Alan and Ellie assist Lex, Tim, and Ian into the helicopter to leave the island, it's pretty heartwrenching to see Hammond mournfully take one last look at Isla Nublar and hear a Brachiosaurus call, as Alan briefly stops to look and listen with him, before gently escorting him to the helicopter. Then, on the ride back, all he can do is tearfully look as his mosquito preserved in amber jewel on his cane, the only surviving symbol (for the time being) of his dream.
    • The scene when Hammond realizes that the park is dangerous and explains to Ellie why he wanted to build it in the first place. The way he talks about his old flea circus is just so sad. The man is the archetypal adorable grandfather, and you're watching the dream of his lifetime break right in front of his eyes.
      Hammond: You know the first attraction I ever built when I came down south from Scotland? Was a flea circus, Petticoat Lane. Really quite wonderful. We had a wee trapeze, a carousel...and a seesaw. They all moved, motorized of course, but people would swear they could see the fleas. "Oh, I see the fleas, mummy! Can't you see the fleas?" Clown fleas, high wire fleas, fleas on parade... But with this place...I wanted to show them something that wasn't an illusion. Something that was real. Something that they could...see, and touch. An aim not devoid of merit.
    • His dream gets a bit of a Bittersweet Ending in The Lost World, however. While he wasn't able to build a park and share his dream with the world, and even more people die on Site B, at least his dinosaurs are allowed to thrive there.
    • And eventually, his dream finally comes true, even if he never lives to see it. But then it gets reversed again with how Jurassic World turns out. THEN the knife gets twisted further in Fallen Kingdom, where his old company has since been taken over by unscrupulous scientists (namely Dr. Wu) and is now using non-authentic genetically-engineered hybrid dinosaurs to sell as weapons and make money, corrupting his dream. And Mount Sibo erupts and destroys Nublar, rendering quite a few species extinct again.
      • Hell, the mere fact that the volcano erupts at all, meaning that even if Jurassic Park hadn't failed and had actually opened as planned, it would've been destroyed anyway just two decades later.
      • Fallen Kingdom and Dominion also reveals that Hammond parted ways with his business partner and friend Benjamin Lockwood for ethical reasons, namely because Lockwood's daughter Charlotte (an InGen scientist) created her daughter Maisie with the same technology that both Hammond and Lockwood used to create the dinosaurs.
  • The sight of the sick female Triceratops. One can only wonder what happened to her next.
  • Also during the scene where Hammond is talking about his flea circus with Ellie and he starts talking about redoing Jurassic Park with complete control, Ellie tells him that he never had control of the park to begin with and that it was all an illusion just like the flea circus. She also tearfully mentions that she was completely overwhelmed by the power of Jurassic Park and how she didn't even have respect for the power that it had and now that it's out, the only thing they should be worried about are the people they love and care about (i.e., Alan, Lex, and Tim), who are out there in harm's way.
  • The scene right after Tim has been electrocuted and thrown from the electric fence is heartwrenching, as Lex cries while Alan gives CPR to her unconscious brother. Although Tim does regain consciousness, he is considerably weakened and can barely walk.
  • The third velociraptor that Tim and Lexi lock in the refridgerator probably suffered a long, painful death of starvation, suffocation or hypothermia. While the kids only did so in self-defence it's still a bit sad - especially as its siblings at least got to go out swinging.
    • The trailer for Jurassic Park: Survival hints the raptor may not entirely be gone just yet, however. The door opens, confirming that shortly after the film, the raptor finally managed to escape the fridge, but is now the last of its pack.
  • The fate of Jurassic Park as a whole can be considered one major tearjerker. This is a place that was to be the greatest theme park in the history of the world, with real living dinosaurs, animals that have been extinct for millions of years, on display for the entire world to come and see. The concept alone is magical, but because of one man's selfish greed the entire thing is brought down to ruin before it even has the chance to live. John Hammond created something incredible with just the power of his dreams, something that was unfortunately not to be.

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