Jurassic Park is a 1993 American science fiction action film[5] directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Gerald R. Molen, and starring Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and Richard Attenborough.

The film is set on the fictional island of Isla Nublar, off Central America's Pacific Coast near Costa Rica, where wealthy businessman John Hammond (Attenborough) and a team of genetic scientists have created a wildlife park of de-extinct dinosaurs.

When industrial sabotage leads to a catastrophic shutdown of the park's power facilities and security precautions, a small group of visitors, including Hammond's grandchildren, struggle to survive and escape the now perilous island.

Jurassic Park's disgruntled lead computer programmer, Dennis Nedry, was previously bribed by Lewis Dodgson, a man working for Hammond's corporate rival, to steal frozen dinosaur embryos.

[23] Because of the island setting and abundance of dinosaurs, Spielberg believed it would be advantageous to hire a production designer as soon as possible, choosing Rick Carter about two years before the start of filming.

Sid Sheinberg, president of Music Corporation of America (Universal's parent company at the time) gave the greenlight to Schindler's List on the condition that Spielberg make Jurassic Park first.

While on the set of Hook, Scotch Marmo was reading the Jurassic Park novel and learned from Kennedy about the film adaptation, accepting an offer to work on its screenplay.

[85] Casting director Janet Hirshenson felt that Jeff Goldblum was right to play Ian Malcolm after reading the novel, although Jim Carrey also auditioned for the role.

[107] Industrial Light & Magic, along with veteran customizer George Barris, modified the Explorers to be controlled by drivers hidden in the trunk of the vehicles,[108][109] with front-mounted cameras allowing them to see the road.

[128] Allerton Garden, another NTBG property, was used in two instances: a set depicting the maintenance shed exterior, and a scene in which Grant discovers a dinosaur nest and realizes the animals are breeding.

Jack Horner, the film's paleontological advisor, was consulted to ensure an accurate representation of a dig site,[140] although other paleontologists have found the scene to be overly simplified and unrealistic.

[152] Complications arose when the T. rex began to shake and quiver from extra weight, as the dinosaur's foam rubber skin had absorbed a significant amount of the rainwater.

He felt that audiences would be disappointed if the T. rex did not make a final appearance, and had the ending changed so the dinosaur faces off against multiple raptors in the visitor center, inadvertently saving the humans.

[138] As previously written, Jurassic Park would end with a single raptor pursuing the humans and Grant using a platform machine to maneuver the dinosaur into a fossil tyrannosaur's jaws.

[175][69] Spielberg hired Phil Tippett to create the dinosaur wide shots using go-motion, a variation of stop-motion, with ILM set to refine his work through compositing.

[27] Sound stages were considered the most ideal filming environment for the animatronics, allowing sets to be built on elevated platforms with the mechanics of the dinosaurs concealed underneath.

[185] In addition to wide shots, Tippett was tasked with creating go-motion animatics early on to help develop two major sequences: one depicting the T. rex breakout, and the other involving the raptors in the kitchen.

Other programs were used to animate the creature, with the finished result impressing Spielberg so much that he scrapped the go-motion method, instead tasking ILM with creating digital dinosaurs for full-body shots.

"[27][58] Tippett had assembled a 30-person crew to prepare for the go-motion segments; Spielberg did not wish to lose his expertise, and Muren sought to keep him involved with the project as an advisor to ILM's animators.

[237][238] These included: several Jurassic Park video games by Sega and Ocean Software;[239] a toy line by Kenner distributed by Hasbro;[240] McDonald's "Dino-Sized meals";[105] and a novelization for young children.

[263] Once he saw the 3D version of Titanic in 2012, he liked the new look of the film so much that he hired the same retrofitting company, Stereo D. Spielberg and cinematographer Janusz Kamiński closely supervised the nine-month process in-between the production of Lincoln.

[271] Jurassic Park was first officially released on VHS by CIC Video on October 3, 1994, in the United Kingdom and Ireland, where it had an exclusive seven-week rental window before going on sale on November 21.

[277][278] The film was also first released as a Collector's Edition DVD and VHS on October 10, 2000, in both Widescreen (1.85:1) and Full Screen (1.33:1) versions, and as part of a box set with the sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park and both movies' soundtrack albums.

[319] The film set all-time records in, among others, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Japan (in US Dollars), Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Spain, Thailand and the United Kingdom.

[326] The international release had its most successful weekend in the last week of August, when it managed to climb to the top of the overseas box office with a $28.8 million debut in China.

The site's critical consensus reads: "Jurassic Park is a spectacle of special effects and lifelike animatronics, with some of Spielberg's best sequences of sustained awe and sheer terror since Jaws".

[336] In Rolling Stone, Peter Travers called the film "colossal entertainment—the eye-popping, mind-bending, kick-out-the-jams thrill ride of summer and probably the year [...] Compared with the dinos, the characters are dry bones, indeed.

We see them early and often, and they are indeed a triumph of special effects artistry, but the movie is lacking other qualities that it needs even more, such as a sense of awe and wonderment, and strong human story values".

[364] ILM owner George Lucas, realizing the success of creating realistic live dinosaurs by his own company, started to make the Star Wars prequels;[385] Stanley Kubrick decided to invest in pet project A.I.

Artificial Intelligence, which he later got Spielberg to direct;[364] and Peter Jackson began to re-explore his childhood love of fantasy films, a path that led him to The Lord of the Rings and King Kong.