Jurassic Park (1993) Remastered 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Review

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What can possibly be said about Steven Spielberg's dinosaur epic that hasn't already been said? Probably not much. The simple fact is that it was awesome in 1993, and it remains awesome today. On the eve of the release of the seventh film in the saga, Jurassic World: Rebirth, it seems there's still no shortage of interest in the series. And why shouldn't there be? The endless fascination with dinosaurs transcends all boundaries in life, with the remarkable fact that we shared the very same earth with them, separated by some 66 million years.

Despite already being released in 4K Ultra HD format in 2018, Universal is now offering a newly remastered 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray steel book set that bundles the three films in the original Jurassic Park trilogy. So, how does the film fare this time around?

Eccentric billionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) has devised a way to genetically clone dinosaurs, using his finances to bankroll a prehistoric preserve on a remote island. When Hammond welcomes a select group consisting of Paleontologists Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie Sadler (Laura Dern), mathematician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), lawyer Donald Gennaro (Martin Ferrero) and his young niece and nephew for a sneak peek at the unfinished park, wonder soon turns to terror when the park's security system is sabotaged, leaving the visitors to fend for their lives against the hungry inhabitants who've been uprooted from their own timeline.

In an era where audiences are increasingly jaded by the limitless possibilities of digital filmmaking, Jurassic Park is an ironic breath of fresh air, a return to a simpler time when art met digital technology for the first time. Director Steven Spielberg not only helmed the film with an interesting visual style, but he also successfully brought photo-realistic digital characters to the screen in such a convincing manner that audiences thoroughly bought into the premise. And whilst you can see the digital seams if you look hard enough, for a film that was on the bleeding edge of experimental technology and now exceeds 30 years of age, Jurassic Park holds up magnificently. That it does is truly a testament to the impressive work of Industrial Light and Magic working in tandem with the team at Stan Winston Studios to forever change cinema.

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Video

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Jurassic Park is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.851:1 in the Rec. 2020 color space, finished with dynamic Dolby Vision and static HDR-10 high dynamic range formats and encoded with AVC H.265 compression.

At odds with the film's wonderful theatrical presentations, Jurassic Park's home video transfers have never properly reflected its status. In the HD and 4K generations to date, we've dealt with a transfer that's been incorrectly colored, digitally noise-reduced, overly sharpened, and too tightly cropped.

For its second attempt in 4K, Universal has returned to the same base 4K scans that were made around the time of the 20th anniversary 3D re-release in 2013. However, this time around, the elements have seen improvements with regard to color grading, less use of (but not entirely absent) digital noise reduction, and more careful encoding, which makes this the best version of the classic film on the market today, even if it still remains compromised.

The biggest improvement this time around shifts the color grading and gamma levels to a more natural and pleasant equilibrium away from the magenta shift that previously turned skin tones into a pink frenzy. It goes a long way to dealing with many complaints of fans and home theatre aficionados, but we're still left with the issue of the base negative scans being almost 15 years old. A contemporary effort would have certainly provided much bigger improvements than simply tinkering around with what already existed.

Still, we can't avoid the fact that even in its flawed state, this is the best version of the film currently available and for the foreseeable future. Choose your poison accordingly.

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Audio

Jurassic Park is presented in a newly remixed Dolby Atmos object-based container.

Originally mastered by legendary Hollywood sound mixer Gary Rydstrom, Jurassic Park also premiered the DTS sound format in cinemas around the world, which replaced analog sound with a digital equivalent played off synchronized CD-ROM. This single biggest upgrade to theatre sound since silent films gave way to 'talkies' in the 1930s enshrined the film as the poster child for digital sound forevermore.

Unlike its video transfer, the many iterations of Jurassic Park's home entertainment mixes have been of a consistently high level, which has seen the film in high rotation in theatre demos for over three decades. And whilst some may express preference for one over the other, for me, this Dolby Atmos re-engineer takes things to a whole new level.

Over and above the addition of object-based discreet height information, there's an overall 'freshness' to the sound mix, which doesn't betray what has come before but presents it in a more contemporary fashion. I'm not sure how exactly it's been achieved, perhaps some utilization of new filtering tools, but crucially, there doesn't seem to be any new Foley effects added.

There are no real problems to speak of with regard to dialogue, and surround and split channel utilization is ever-present. Whilst bass usage is suitably impressive, I'm sure some will wistfully recall the greatly over-cooked version from the original Laserdisc.

Overall, this is a solid improvement over what's come before and won't be controversial for the majority of fans.

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Extras

Whilst there's nothing new or upgraded here, Universal has bundled together pretty much every bonus feature ever assembled, from the first Laserdisc onwards. Let's jump in.

The highlight is the feature-length Return to Jurassic Park documentary, which spans all three original trilogy discs, with the first hour included here. The principal actors Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum return in retrospective interviews (circa 2011) alongside Director Steven Spielberg. There's an abundance of information imparted, including significant time spent discussing the film's pioneering computer-generated effects.

Next up, we have a preservation of vintage features, including the 1994 Making of Jurassic Park documentary hosted by James Earl Jones (in case you're confused, no, he wasn't in the film), which runs at nearly 50 minutes. The Original feature on the making of the film is a fluffy EPK short and pretty pointless at roughly 5 minutes. Steven Spielberg Directs Jurassic Park is another short piece discussing the director's legendary fast shooting methods.

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Next up is Early pre-production meetings, which archive some rough handycam footage of a Spielberg-led table conference discussing how the film's effects would be handled in an authentic 'fly on the wall' manner. Location Scouting is a super quick look at the film's locations, including the Hawaii set.

Raptors in the Kitchen and T-Rex Attacks hint at the abandoned efforts to animate the dinosaurs using go-motion animation - look out for anatomically incorrect tongue movements from the Velociraptors, which were abandoned during production. ILM and Jurassic Park: Before and After Visual Effects looks at the original background plates before the CG dinosaurs were added, and Foley Artists takes a look at the oft-ignored but critical production unit that creates all the sound we take for granted. Finally, we have the original Theatrical Trailer in scratchy standard definition.