Jurassic Park Collection 4K UHD (1993-2015)

[DR Herbert West]

It looks great. Shame it's my least favorite of the trilogy.

[Matt89]

Same. I've never been able to get into The Lost World. I've tried to like it, but it just doesn't do it for me.

I remember seeing Jurassic Park III at the drive-in when it was first released. I hated it at the time, but it's really grown on me over the years.

~Matt

[JohnCarpenterFan]

The Jurassic Park 4K releases are strange for sure. It's like they tried to replicate the looks of the initial Blu-rays, magenta and all. The Lost World looked the best of the bunch on Blu-ray and the same applies to the 4K releases. It's the least processed and the grading is a lot better compared to the other two, although it's still a noticeable departure compared to the look of the original prints.

[DigitalDeluge24]

I just watched 2 and 3 back to back and I thought JP3 was better. JP2 is long, laborious and just plain not fun.

[1924]

I remember Lost World looking like a really good Blu ray but packing the detail I expect from 4K

[jess1581]

Originally Posted by DigitalDeluge24

I just watched 2 and 3 back to back and I thought JP3 was better. JP2 is long, laborious and just plain not fun.

That's always been my take with Lost World. Sure it has all the dinosaurs and action that you can muster in grand Spielberg fashion, but it's all so rote and unenthusiastic. The sense of wonder and magic of Jurassic Park just isn't there. Just a cynical movie, with a cynical lead in Jeff Goldblum's stick in the mud character, and yet another bunch of stupid evil corporation dino fodder to get eaten. San Diego was the only fun part about the movie.

Jurassic Park III is meat and potatoes dino fun, no evil corporate scumbags trying to exploit or weaponize dinosaurs, just a desperate family in over their heads doing what they can to rescue their kid with the help of ever so reliable Dr. Grant. Is the divorced couple annoying? Yes, but only in their naivety and out of touch grasp of the situation. It's naturally expected more so than a contrivance of storytelling.

JP3 also brought back the enthusiasm and wonder that the first film had. By no means on the level of Spielberg, but Johnston holds his own considering he was practically a protégé of Spielberg and Lucas and directed solid popcorn fare in his own right. Brisk, to the point, no nonsense, dinosaur mayhem. It did it's job as a summer entertainer.

[BadBone]

I'm surprised how little love Lost World gets. It's not a perfect film, but neither is JP1. JP3 feels rushed. It's watchable, but flawed. To me the best are JP1, Lost World and Jurassic World 1. I can't even rank order them. Still haven't seen Dominion.

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by motorheadache95

Yeah at this point I’m convinced Universal did these in a rush and used some older 4K masters they had (pre-dating the remaster done for the 3D version) and graded it for HDR. Lost World just happened to look the best of the 3. I don’t hate any of them but it would have been nice if Universal did these as well as many of their other catalog titles instead of pumping them out ahead of Fallen Kingdom.

I speculate these are same old transfers used for the original BDs. Universal simply created new 4K masters from those older scans for the UHD BDs. This might have happened with Back to the Future as well (although I think those have the edge over these if memory serves me). Agreed, Lost World always looked the best.

[Kyle15]

Bringing this post back again since the topic is TLW once more.

Originally Posted by Kyle15

The Lost World's score is very underappreciated. It sets the tone along with the aesthetics.

I actually appreciate the film a lot more than I did when I saw it as a little kid. There's so much it gets right as an adaptation of the book (those aesthetics, that mood, the cast) but then it sells itself short by jumping off the island way too soon and lingering so little on the mystery of the island in the first act. The novel's first section is some of Crichton's best work making a setting and how it was turned into a bit of a quick intro note...yea, not the best. The deleted scenes should have been left in too. They round it out much more and are sorely missed. Spielberg's desire to trim it all down to 2 hours did not work in its benefit.

JP's film adaptation was pitch-perfect in that it captured the entire point of the novel and everything about it even though quite a bit wasn't adapted. It's essentially missing the intro like TLW's novel but it doesn't lack at all in comparison.

And a little footnote about JP3: I appreciate that one a lot more than I used to, if only for the darkly comedic bent it has and the direction. Honestly I prefer it over Jurassic World any day because at least it looks the part. Cash-in? Definitely. But not like today's cash-ins.

[Blu-Curry]

Got the limited 4-film set today from Amazon USA. Arrived 8 days earlier than expected! Brand new in shrink wrap; I'm ecstatic to finally check these out in 4K HDR. I'm seeing the 6th film tonight, but I'm sure I won't feel any remorse for not wanting to add the 5th (and then 6th) to my collection lol.

[Blu-Curry]

Random thoughts from someone who isn't an expert.

I scanned through scenes from the 4 films and was eager to see it for myself after reading thoughts on here over the years. The CGI dinosaurs in the first 2 films are now quite out of place and an eye sore. The first film now seems as if there's an overcast sky during outdoor day scenes, making the image appear dimmer than I remembered. Otherwise, practical dinosaurs, close-ups, clothing, vehicles, and colour tones look great at 4K!

Also saw the 6th film today and thought it was pretty bad. I can go on living without 5 and 6 in my collection.

[Kyle15]

Originally Posted by Blu-Curry

Random thoughts from someone who isn't an expert.

I scanned through scenes from the 4 films and was eager to see it for myself after reading thoughts on here over the years. The CGI dinosaurs in the first 2 films are now quite out of place and an eye sore. The first film now seems as if there's an overcast sky during outdoor day scenes, making the image appear dimmer than I remembered. Otherwise, practical dinosaurs, close-ups, clothing, vehicles, and colour tones look great at 4K!

Also saw the 6th film today and thought it was pretty bad. I can go on living without 5 and 6 in my collection.

The CGI scenes are horribly DNR'd, especially the T-Rex at the end. It's like looking at smeary plastic.

[Matt89]

Originally Posted by BadBone

I'm surprised how little love Lost World gets. It's not a perfect film, but neither is JP1. JP3 feels rushed. It's watchable, but flawed. To me the best are JP1, Lost World and Jurassic World 1. I can't even rank order them. Still haven't seen Dominion.

JP1 actually is perfection.

~Matt

[RYJAPE21]

Originally Posted by BadBone

I'm surprised how little love Lost World gets. It's not a perfect film, but neither is JP1. JP3 feels rushed. It's watchable, but flawed. To me the best are JP1, Lost World and Jurassic World 1. I can't even rank order them. Still haven't seen Dominion.

The Lost World is the best of the sequels for me. The T-Rexes attacking the RVs and invading the camp are more thrilling than anything in JP3 (which I still enjoy).

[Oatlord]

The Spielberg ones blow all the others out of the water for me. They’re based on books so everything feels more grounded with more story and richer characters, the others feel like gratuitous dino-porn where they’re trying to outdo the previous film with new super-dinosaurs. I preferred it when the T-Rex was kept as the king of the dinosaurs.

Also, the way Spielberg handles tension is so much more effective. The T-Rex is so intimidating because you feel and hear it, and see how it reacts to the environment with rippling water, shaking trees and bloodied goat legs landing on your jeep before you see anything. I even like how the first T-Rex attack in The Lost World doesn’t even feature a CGI creature, just massive puppet heads peeking into the trailers before they’re smashed off the edge of the cliff.

Spielberg operates on your imagination, like Hitchcock. The other directors are all about spectacle, and their effects are never as good as Speilberg’s because they don’t know how to make CGI ‘touch’ real world objects, and it gets tiring.

The Jurassic Park series ends with Lost World for me.

[1924]

Fallen Kingdom is really frustrating.

The tension is good, there is some iconic imagery in the movie. The opening scene, gyroscope volcano scene, Brachiosaurus death, indoraptor roof/bedroom scene. All worthy of a Jurassic movie and sometimes nearly on par with the first JP. J A Bayona did an excellent job.

But the script is so mind numbingly stupid that it drags the entire movie down. With a decent script and Bayona's talent, this movie could have been great. Now it's merely watchable.

[MechaGodzilla]

Originally Posted by Oatlord

The Spielberg ones blow all the others out of the water for me. They’re based on books so everything feels more grounded with more story and richer characters, the others feel like gratuitous dino-porn where they’re trying to outdo the previous film with new super-dinosaurs. I preferred it when the T-Rex was kept as the king of the dinosaurs.

Also, the way Spielberg handles tension is so much more effective. The T-Rex is so intimidating because you feel and hear it, and see how it reacts to the environment with shaking trees and bloodied goat legs landing on your jeep before you see anything. I even like how the first T-Rex attack in The Lost World doesn’t even feature a CGI creature, just massive puppet heads peeking into the trailers before they’re smashed off the edge of the cliff.

Spielberg operates on your imagination, like Hitchcock. The other directors are all about spectacle, and their effects are never as good as Speilberg’s because they don’t know how to make CGI ‘touch’ real world objects, and it gets tiring.

The Jurassic Park series ends with Lost World for me.

Agree with much of what you say. I enjoy all the sequels to varying degrees, but Steven Spielberg as a director is in a class of his own, and that is what elevates The Lost World above the following installments.

Spot on about how he "operates on our imagination", as you put it. The last few times I've rewatched Jurassic Park and The Lost World, I've been struck by how he doesn't actually show the dinosaurs that much. Even with these (for the time) cutting edge special effects at his disposal, he lets the audience's imagination fill in many of the gaps. The trailer attack is a great example, where we barely even see the T. rexes for most of it. The first full body CGI shots are saved for when they arrive to kill Eddie, at the end of that sequence.

As for the T. rex being demoted from its status as "king" in later sequels, the irony is that Spielberg actually played a part in that. He and Joe Johnston agreed that the T. rex had been played out after the first two movies, especially the second. Spielberg felt that having two adult T. rexes in Lost World was a mistake, that they cancelled each other out. And so they went about finding a new large carnivore to use for Jurassic Park III, which ended up being the Spinosaurus. And when the time came for the fourth installment all those years later, Spielberg once again dictated that a new "big bad" was needed, which of course led to the creation of the hybrid, Indominus rex.

I'm a big T. rex fan, it's my favorite dinosaur (as basic an opinion as I realize that is ), so it's a bit disappointing to see it sidelined.

[MuffinMcFluffin]

Unfortunately they spent the last three films rectifying their killing of Rexy in JP III, which worked great in The Lost World but now the T-Rex has become our hero as opposed to something we should fear. Rexy has only helped our protagonists the rest of the way, so we now cheer her alone. Same is kind of true of raptors, though I enjoyed the Blue arc.

[DigitalDeluge24]

Oddly enough, I didn't mind the gymnastics scene. It was properly set up earlier in the film. Same with the talking Raptor scene from JP3. People like to bring it up out of context to prove that the film is bad, which I think is intellectually dishonest. It is a 3-second dream sequence. Anything can happen. Who cares?

[-JKR-]

Originally Posted by DigitalDeluge24

Same with the talking Raptor scene from JP3. People like to bring it up out of context to prove that the film is bad, which I think is intellectually dishonest. It is a 3-second dream sequence. Anything can happen. Who cares?

That's what movie discussion has become in a nutshell, unfortunately.