Life Imitates Art: Episode 1 (Jurassic Park...I'm Jeff Goldblum...for like 2 minutes)

You know sometimes how certain things in your life, be it at home or work or wherever, can resemble movies? Well maybe because I love movies so much I can see things more than others. Like when something happens I can immediately think of a certain movie that has a similar scene of what I am doing or going through. So I thought I would share some recent stories about my life and movies crossing over to become one.


First story involves Jurassic Park. And before anyone says.."Monty, really you saw actual dinosaurs running around?" No I didn't but there was something that happened that made me think of the scene where Laura Dern and the guy who is like Crocodile Dundee go looking for the others after the T-rex has made it's big intro. They stumble across Jeff Goldblum and load him into the back seat of the jeep with a hurt leg. They take off and soon the T-rex gives chase.

Ok not one of my smartest moves.....

Well at work, where I get to test the golf carts we build, we have this huge test track with lots of obstacles that the vehicles must go over. Like curbs, potholes, huge mounds, a sandpit, a diagonal ditch, gravel, water pit..all kinds of cool stuff. Well we also have this straightaway section where a vehicle came achieve top speed. I was with 2 other people in a vehicle called a 4 passenger car that has a rear seat that faces toward the back. That's where I was sitting while two other people were upfront. And the car was electric so it could only go about 12 mph. Well my boss at the time before our company had a recent layoff came tearing behind us in one of our all terrain diesel vehicles. Those things can go about 25-30 mph. And he got up on us really fast and that's when I turned to the driver, mimicking Jeff Goldbum.."Must go faster!"

I'm trying to be all brave but I was just as scared as Laura was...

Of course no one got the quote because the driver was like "I'm going as fast as I can Monty".
And I tried to say that I was just joking...you know Jurassic Park, chase scene..T-rex...all I got was the sound of crickets.


So this was episode one of my frequent movie/life crossovers. I have tons more. Will be sharing them all. And here is the clip that shows the scene what I am talking about. So just imagine me as Jeff but without a t-rex chasing me! That and no Laura Dern!

Fun Summer Movies: JURASSIC PARK (1993)

Summer Release Date: 11 June 1993. Starring Sam O'Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern, Richard Attenborough, Samuel L. Jackson, Wayne Knight, Joseph Mazzello, Ariana Richards, B.D. Wong. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Written by Michael Crichton (based on his book).

The summer movie season got a big jolt of excitement in 1993 when Steven Spielberg delivered one of his biggest films ever. Jurassic Park showcased truly amazing visual effects than no one had seen up to that point. The too real looking dinosaurs left movie goers in utter disbelief. I remember seeing Jurassic Park when it first came out and everyone in the theater was screaming and cheering and having a great time. I won't go into details of the movie's plot because it has been done enough. But I will say that this is one of the best fun summer movies ever. With relentless action, well timed humor, narrow escapes, chases and just pure excitement, nobody does it better than Spielberg. Case in the point, the scene where the power to the park is disabled and the T-Rex gets loose and attacks the kids in the jeep. Spielberg ratches up the tension to an unbelievable pitch and you don't know if the kids are going to make it or not. That scene shows the T-Rex creation in all it's glory and it's a sight to behold.

Other notable scenes include the attack by the velociraptors and the grand appearance of the gentle Brachiosaurus. The entire cast is solid including Sam O'Neill as the paleontologist Alan Grant who becomes the hero because nobody else knows more about dinosaurs than him. Jeff Goldblum supplies most of the humor as theorist Ian Malcolm, who is just aching to tell everyone "I told ya so". Laura Dern is very good too as Ellie Sattler, a colleague of Grant's. And legendary director Richard Attenborough is on hand as the park's creator John Hammond. Also look for brief appearances by Samuel L. Jackson as a lab tech and Wayne Knight (Newman from Seinfeld) as an unscrupulous technician.

Jurassic Park was followed by two more sequels which were ok, but it's this one by far is the best.

Notable facts:

Harrison Ford turned down the lead role.

The first film to use DTS digital surround sound.

The raptors in the kitchen scene was filmed on Joseph Mazzello's birthday. Due to a misunderstanding, Joseph ran into one of the raptors on one of the takes and was injured.

Briefly held the box office record until it was beaten by Titanic four years later. JP is currently ranked 15th on the all time box office chart with $357 million dollars in North America.

Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) dresses entirely in black in both this film and its sequel. In the book, he tells Ellie Sattler that he only ever dresses in black and gray, so that he never has to waste time thinking about what to wear. Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) gives the same reason for his monotonous fashion sense in The Fly (1986).

It was while supervising post-production on this film that George Lucas decided that technology was good enough to begin work on the Star Wars prequels. Appropriately, Samuel L. Jackson was able to appear in those films as well.

Steven Spielberg was in the very early stages of pre-production for the film "ER" (based on a Michael Crichton novel), when he heard about the "Jurassic Park" book. He subsequently dumped what he was doing to make the film. Afterwards, he returned to "ER" and helped develop it into a hit TV series ("ER" (1994)).