Jurassic Park
Film Characters
By: Kristen Zeimetz
Although my ratings for this may come off as biased, mainly because this film is my second favorite movie of all time. I shall try to remain as critical as possible.
Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill)
Dr. Grant is a world famous paleontologist who is whisked off to Jurassic Park as part of a team of scientists and investors that will hopefully endorse the new theme park packed with genetically cloned real life dinosaurs. As the main character, he goes through the most change throughout the movie. Starting as a child hating curmudgeon to hero of the day, impressing everyone with his dino-fighting survival skills, wearing a super cool hat until it magically disappears. It makes a return in the third installment of the franchise, though no one mentions how he got it back. Was it perhaps a new hat, or maybe it was cloned like the dinosaurs themselves. A
Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern)
Dr. Sattler is Dr. Grant’s much younger (gasp!) palentologist girlfriend. Like every good female role in big budget movies, her character development can be suummed up as such.
- Introduced as hot female sidekick to main character
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Ends up having two men fighting for her attention
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Puts glasses on occasionally to appear as “scientisty”
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Becomes a strong female badass in the end and helps save the day
As generic as that all sounds, the movie would be stale without her. B+
Tim & Lex Murphy (Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards)
We all know you can’t have a movie aimed at children and families without actual children in it (I personally wouldn’t miss them). These grandchildren of the park’s creator (see next rating) were invited to the park because
- Children are the park’s main audience and
- They needed to be there for Dr. Gran’t character development
They are stereotypical kids in any movie - the brainy sister, the annoying brother, blah blah. They would probably be my least favorite characters if not for the epic kitchen scene with the velociraptors. C-
John Hammond (Richard Attenborough)
John is a rich old man who decides to spend billions of dollars to open a theme park. But John goes on next level shit and hires a team of scientists to create dinosaurs. Unfortunately for him, Newman from Seinfeld fucks everything up and the dinosaurs escape and leave a trail of terror behind, killing countless park employees and I can only assume bankrupt the old man and his entire family. You want to strangle him, but he’a a cute old man. So you just feel bad for him. D
Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum)
Dr. Malcolm is basically a too cool for school mathematicians brought along to the park to oversee its approval for opening. I don’t even know if the movie ever explains WHY a mathematician is even needed to be there, but none of that matters, and you know what? Dr. Malcolm is the coolest, funniest, hottest, unnecessary character to ever exist. Ten year old me should NOT have been so head over heels in love with that man, yet here I am, 30 years later, still gushing. This character and the actor who portrayed him are perfection. A+
