The Lost World: Jurassic Park

The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Steven Spielberg
Produced by	Gerald R. Molen Colin Wilson
Screenplay by	David Koepp
Based on	The Lost World  by Michael Crichton
Starring	Jeff Goldblum Julianne Moore Vince Vaughn Arliss Howard Pete Postlethwaite
Music by	John Williams
Cinematography	Janusz Kamiński
Editing by	Michael Kahn
Studio	Amblin Entertainment
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release dates	May 23, 1997 (1997-05-23)
Running time	129 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$73 million
Box office	$618,638,999[2]

The Lost World: Jurassic Park, also known as Jurassic Park: The Lost World, is a 1997 American science fiction action film directed by Steven Spielberg and the second of the Jurassic Park franchise. The film was produced by Gerald R. Molen and Colin Wilson. The screenplay was written by David Koepp, loosely based on Michael Crichton's 1995 novel The Lost World. The film stars Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Vince Vaughn, Pete Postlethwaite, Richard Schiff, Arliss Howard, Vanessa Lee Chester and Richard Attenborough.

Four years after the events of Jurassic Park, dinosaurs have secretly survived and been allowed to roam free on a deserted island. In the time between the two films, John Hammond loses control of his company, InGen, to his nephew, Peter Ludlow. Ludlow assembles a team to bring the animals back to the mainland to bring in revenue and restore the company. Hammond sees a chance to redeem himself for his past mistakes and sends an expedition led by Dr. Ian Malcolm to reach the island before InGen's team can get there. The two groups confront each other in the face of extreme danger and must team up for their own survival.

After the original book's release and the first film's success, Crichton was pressured not only by fans, but Spielberg himself, for a sequel novel. After the book was published in 1995, production began on a film sequel. The Lost World's plot and imagery is substantially darker than the previous film. Despite mixed reviews, it was a box office success, grossing $618 million worldwide.

Plot

A family is on a yacht cruise near Isla Sorna. The daughter (Camilla Belle) wanders on the beach and encounters a Compsognathus, more Compsognathus arrive and attack her, much to the horror of her mother but her father and the sailors rescue her.

Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) publicized the incident at Jurassic Park, but disbelief destroyed his academic reputation. Four years later, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), having lost control of InGen to his unscrupulous nephew Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard), summons Ian to his home and tells him about Isla Sorna. Isla Sorna is the island where the dinosaurs were engineered and nurtured for a few months, before being moved to the Jurassic Park's main location, Isla Nublar. He explains that after the park was shut down, a hurricane destroyed the containment facilities on Isla Sorna, and the dinosaurs have been living free in the wild ever since. Hammond asks Malcolm to join a team that will travel to Isla Sorna to document the dinosaurs in their natural habitat as a way of rallying public support to prevent Ludlow from exploiting the site for InGen and encourage him to leave it as a nature preserve. Ian initially declines, but after learning that his girlfriend - paleontologist Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) - is part of the team and is already on the island, agrees to go.

Ian meets the other two members of the team: equipment specialist and engineer Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff), and video documentarian Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn). Shortly after arriving on the island, they find Sarah and discover that Ian's daughter Kelly has stowed away on the trailer that the group is using as a mobile base. Ian tries to get Kelly home, but they're interrupted by the arrival of an InGen team of mercenaries, hunters, and paleontologists led by Ludlow, which they spot chasing and capturing several dinosaur species such as Parasaurolophus, Pachycephalosaurus, Gallimimus, and Triceratops, for another park Ludlow plans to build in San Diego. Tracker Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite) wishes to hunt and kill a male Tyrannosaurus by luring it to the cries of its injured offspring. That night, Nick and Sarah sneak into the InGen camp to release the dinosaurs, which causes a huge commotion as one of the Triceratops destroys the camp and the dinosaurs escape.

During the commotion, Nick frees the infant Tyrannosaur and takes it to the trailer so Sarah can set its broken leg. Ian takes Kelly to the "high hide", a lift Eddie built to keep them safe above the trees. Ian, after trying and failing to contact the trailer by phone, returns on foot. Shortly after he arrives, two adult Tyrannosaurs - parents of the infant - find the trailer. The team gives the infant back, but the two adults begin pushing the trailer over the edge of a nearby cliff with the team inside. Eddie leaves Kelly in the "high hide" and returns to the trailer in an SUV. With the adults temporarily gone, Eddie is able to tie a rope to a tree trunk and send it down to Ian, Sarah, and Nick to grab onto. He then ties a cable to the trailer and tries to use the SUV to pull it back over the edge. He partially succeeds, but is attacked and devoured when the Tyrannosaurus return. The trailer and SUV fall off the cliff, but Ian, Sarah, and Nick are rescued by the InGen team. With both groups' communications equipment destroyed in the attacks, they team up to reach the old InGen compound's radio station. During the trip, Dieter Stark (Peter Stormare), Rolands second-in-command is killed by a pack of Compsognathus.

The next night, the pair of T.Rexes come across the group's camp, having followed the scent of the infant's blood on Sarah's jacket. One of the hunters notices them and screams, causing everyone to awaken and flee, except Ian, who hides. The female T.Rex chases the group, while Roland stays behind and manages to tranquilize the male. During the chase the female T. Rex crushes Carter underfoot he sticks to the sole of the foot and gets crushed for several more steps as the female T. Rex continues chasing the remaining hunters. The hunters disband into the thick trees, while Sarah, Kelly, and Nick hide in a crevice behind a waterfall. The hunters exit the thick trees into a field of tall grass, and are devoured by a large pack of Velociraptors. Ian reunites with Nick, Sarah, and Kelly, and they continue on toward the compound. Nick breaks off to find the communications room where he can call for rescue. After barely escaping a trio of Velociraptors, Ian, Sarah, and Kelly reunite with Nick and fly away in a rescue helicopter. From the air, they spot the unconscious male T.Rex being prepared for transport.

A freighter carries the T.Rex back to the mainland, but upon reaching San Diego, crashes into the dock. Ludlow and several guards investigate the boat and find that the crew have all been devoured. A guard opens the cargo hold, accidentally releasing the T.Rex, which escapes into the city and goes on a rampage. During its rampage, the dinosaur enters a suburban backyard, drains the pool for water and disturbs the family dog tied to its kennel in the yard. The dog barks but the Tyrannosaurus devours it and departs, inexplicably leaving the parents and their son unharmed. Realizing the T.Rex is likely searching for its infant, Ian and Sarah learn from Ludlow that the infant was captured and is in a secure InGen building somewhere in the city. They rush to retrieve the infant, and use it to lure the adult, who is destroying the city and eating several of its inhabitants, back to the boat. The pair leave the infant in the boat's cargo hold, prompting Ludlow to go and retrieve it. The adult arrives, trapping him in the cargo hold and injuring him when he tries to escape. With the adult's encouraging, the infant pins him to the floor and kills him. Sarah finds a tranquilizer gun and sedates the adult, while Ian seals the cargo hold doors.

Ian, Sarah, and Kelly watch television reports of the cargo ship on its way back to Isla Sorna, surrounded by a convoy of naval vessels. John Hammond explains in an interview that the American and Costa Rican governments have agreed to declare the island a nature preserve. He ends the interview by saying "life will find a way", paraphrasing something Malcolm told him in the first film.

Cast

• Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm, a mathematician and chaos theorist, and a survivor of the events on "Isla Nublar" from the first movie.
• Julianne Moore as Dr. Sarah Harding, a behavioral paleontologist and Ian's girlfriend.
• Vince Vaughn as Nick Van Owen, a well-traveled and experienced documentarian and environmentalist.
• Pete Postlethwaite as Roland Tembo, a big-game hunter from Africa and the leader of his team.
• Arliss Howard as Peter Ludlow, InGen's current CEO and Hammond's conniving nephew. He is the main antagonist of the film.
• Richard Schiff as Eddie Carr, a timid and sardonic field equipment expert.
• Richard Attenborough as John Hammond, InGen's former CEO and the park's original visionary.
• Vanessa Lee Chester as Kelly Malcolm, Malcolm's teenage daughter from a failed marriage.
• Peter Stormare as Dieter Stark, the InGen team's second-in-command, under Roland Tembo.
• Thomas F. Duffy as Dr. Robert Burke, the InGen team's dinosaur expert.
• Harvey Jason as Ajay Sidhu, Roland's immensely loyal and long-time best friend and hunting partner from India.
• Ariana Richards as Lex Murphy, Hammond's granddaughter and a survivor of the events on Isla Nublar.
• Joseph Mazzello as Tim Murphy, Hammond's grandson and also a survivor of the events on Isla Nublar.
• Thomas Rosales Jr. as Carter, Dieter's only friend.
• Geno Silva as Carlos, the Mar Del Plata's captain who took Ian Malcolm and his team to Isla Sorna.
• Alex Miranda as Higo, Carlos' son.
• Robin Sachs as Cathy's father
• Camilla Belle as Cathy Bowman

Dinosaurs on screen returns and new arrivals

• Tyrannosaurus Rex - with return of the T-rex roar is a baby elephant mixed with a tiger and an alligator, and its breath is a whale's blow.
• Velociraptor - with return of the raptor sound, Dolphin screams, walruses bellowing, geese hissing, an African crane's mating call, and human rasps were mixed to formulate various raptor sounds.
• Compsognathus The sounds used for this dinosaur consists of baby crocodiles, frogs, birds, and rats.
• Parasaurolophus Sound for this dinosaur is a cow bellowing into a tube.
• Pachycephalosaurus Sounds include a vulture, a goat, and a bear cub.
• Gallimimus Sounds include a parakeet, a horse whining, and an ostrich.
• Mamenchisaurus - an extremely large sauropod. The sounds of this creature was a whale.
• Stegosaurus Sounds of this dinosaur include a water buffalo, an elephant, cow for the adults and a rhinoceros calf and hyena for the baby Stegosaurus.
• Triceratops Recycled sound of a cow bellowing.
• Pteranodon Sound for this creature was dental floss being pulled out of a package and slowed down for the screeching at the film's end.
• Bones of Apatosaurus and Edmontosaurus are shown in the Tyrannosaurus nest and the worker village.

Production

After the release of the novel Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton was pressured by fans for a sequel novel. Having never written a sequel, he initially refused, until the first film's success prompted Steven Spielberg himself to request one.^[3] After the book was published in 1995, production on the sequel film began in September 1996.^[4]

The Mercedes-Benz W163 used in the film

The Lost World was filmed in Eureka, California, San Diego, California, Burbank, California, and Kauai, Hawaii. Although the ending takes place in San Diego, only one sequence is actually shot there, where the InGen helicopter flies over the wharf and banks towards the city. The other sequences were all shot in Burbank.^[5]

Spielberg suggested the Tyrannosaurus rex's attack through San Diego be added to the film story, inspired by a similar attack scene of a Brontosaurus in London in the 1925 film adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel The Lost World.^[6]

Many elements from the original novel that were not ultimately used in the first film were instead used in The Lost World.^[7] The opening sequence of a vacationing family's young daughter being attacked by a group of Compsognathus was very similar to the novel's opening scene, and Dieter Stark's death is also analogous to John Hammond's compy-related death in the novel. Also, Nick, Sarah, Kelly, and Burke being trapped behind a waterfall by one of the T. Rexes was ultimately taken from the novel, where Tim and Lex are trapped behind a man-made waterfall with the T. Rex attempting to eat them, and Roland Tembo shoots the T. Rex with tranquilizer in the same way that Robert Muldoon did in the novel.

According to Jack Horner, part of the waterfall scene was written in as a favor for him by Spielberg. Burke greatly resembles Horner's rival Robert Bakker. In real life, Bakker argues for a predatory Tyrannosaurus while Horner views it as primarily a scavenger. So Spielberg wrote Burke into this part to have him killed by the T. rex as a favor for Horner. After the film came out, Bakker, who recognized himself in Burke and loved it, actually sent Horner a message saying "See, I told you T. rex was a hunter!".^[8]

Distribution

The Lost World was released on May 23, 1997. The film made its VHS and LaserDisc debut on November 4, 1997.^[9] The DVD, first released on October 10, 2000, includes deleted scenes involving Hammond's ouster from InGen that were incorporated into the Fox broadcast television premiere of the film. However, the deleted scenes are included separate of the actual movie, and are of lesser quality than the corresponding scenes from the broadcast version, despite being released some time after the broadcast. The film's Blu-ray version, released in 2011, also includes the deleted scenes, but they're now of even lesser quality than the DVD version. Universal Studios, Amblin Entertainment, and Spielberg have all declined comment on the matter.

The film was also released in a package with Jurassic Park.^[10] The DVD has also been re-released with both sequels on December 11, 2001 as the Jurassic Park Trilogy^[11] and as the Jurassic Park Adventure Pack on November 29, 2005.^[12] The soundtrack was released on May 20, 1997. On the same day it was first released to DVD, a deluxe limited edition box set was released that included Jurassic Park and The Lost World, soundtracks for both films with packaging made exclusively for the set, two lenticulars, eight 8x10 stills (4 from each film), and a certificate of authenticity signed by all three producers of the set, all inside a collector case.^[13]

Reception

Box office

The T. rex wreaking havoc received an MTV Movie Awards nomination for "Best Action Sequence"

Following four years of growing anticipation and hype, The Lost World broke many box office records upon its release. It took in $72,132,785 on its opening weekend ($92.6 million for the four-day Memorial Day holiday) in the U.S.,^[14] which was the biggest opening weekend at the time,^[15] surpassing the previous record-holder Batman Forever at $52.8 million. It held onto this record for four and a half years, until the release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in November 2001. The Lost World took the record for highest single-day box office take of $26,083,950 on May 25,^[16] a record held until the release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. It also became the fastest film to pass the $100 million mark, achieving the feat in just six days.^[17] However, its total box office gross fell below the total of the original film.^[18] With grossing $229,086,679 domestically and $389,552,320 internationally, the film ended up grossing $618,638,999 worldwide,^[2] becoming the second highest grossing film of 1997 behind Titanic.

Critical response

The Lost World has received mixed reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 52% with 33 out of 64 reviewers giving it a positive review.^[19] Another aggregator Metacritic gives the film a weighted average rating of 59/100 based on reviews from 18 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews."^[20]

Roger Ebert, who gave the first film three stars, gave The Lost World only two, writing that "It can be said that the creatures in this film transcend any visible signs of special effects and seem to walk the earth, but the same realism isn't brought to the human characters, who are bound by plot conventions and action formulas." Conversely, Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times saw improved character development over the original, saying, "It seemed such a mistake in Jurassic Park to sideline early on its most interesting character, the brilliant, free-thinking and outspoken theorist Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) with a broken leg, but in its most inspired stroke, The Lost World brings back Malcolm and places him front and center," calling it "a pleasure to watch such wily pros as Goldblum and Attenborough spar with each other with wit and assurance."^[21] The dinosaurs were even more developed as characters, with Stephen Holden of the New York Times saying, "The Lost World, unlike Jurassic Park, humanizes its monsters in a way that E.T. would understand."^[22] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B grade; he remarked, "Mr. T-Rex was cool in the first Spielberg flick, sure, but it wasn't until [it was in] San Diego that things got crazy-cool. It's the old 'tree falling in the woods' conundrum: Unless your giant monster is causing massive property damage, can you really call it a giant monster?"^[23]

Spielberg confessed that during production he became increasingly disenchanted with the film, admitting, "I beat myself up... growing more and more impatient with myself... It made me wistful about doing a talking picture, because sometimes I got the feeling I was just making this big silent-roar movie... I found myself saying, 'Is that all there is? It's not enough for me.'"^[24]

Awards and nominations

See also

• List of characters in Jurassic Park
• List of extinct genera in Jurassic Park

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Lost World: Jurassic Park

• Official website
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park at the Internet Movie Database
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park at allmovie
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park at Box Office Mojo
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park at Metacritic