JURASSIC PARK: 4K Quadrilogy (Universal 1993 - 2015) Universal Home Video

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to Costa Rica, Universal Home Video unleashes the Jurassic Park quadrilogy in 4K. Personally, I have always held director, Steven Spielberg accountable for the grotesque quagmire of green-screen SFX that have since come to dictate the picture-making biz to the point where virtually nothing we see on our movie screens anymore can be taken at face value. I should point out, Spielberg always considered CGI a tool, not a crutch (a fine line of distinction, wholeheartedly lost on his contemporaries); an additional means to tell stories that, in no other way, could be convincingly expressed to an audience. So, the debut of Jurassic Park in 1993 was not so much the beginning of the end for the next generation of finely skilled cinematographers (as it turned out to be in hindsight), but a golden opportunity for Spielberg’s creative yen and genius in the realm of sci-fi to be given its full reign.

Too bad, virtually all of today’s aspiring Spielbergs (though none possessing Spielberg’s uniqueness) have come to exploit CGI, simply to matte in everything from giant bugs to perfect sunsets when neither are to be found ideally on tap in nature. It took a film maker like David Lean six weeks to photograph the perfect gale for Ryan’s Daughter (1970). Today, some well-intended exec would merely suggest Lean use a couple of dump tanks and a digital matte artist to create his unholy hurricane. Sorry, folks – but it is not the same! The reality of a maelstrom staged by Lean is all the more awe-inspiring because we know it is ‘real’ to ‘reel’ and not the other way around. Because CGI today, apart from making anything possible, has become far too convenient rather than cost-cutting…oh, and quite transparent. I can spot a digital shot within seconds. They take the viewer out of the story. This latter artistic faux pas, again, can be forgiven Jurassic Park and its subsequent installments because – hey – dinosaurs no longer ‘rule the earth’ even if they dominate at the box office. But I digress.

Written as a cautionary tale against mankind’s blind tinkering within the unknown quantities of science, Michael Crichton’s 1990 novel, Jurassic Park was a disturbing, often philosophical critique on greed, ambition and the effective disintegration of high-minded daydreams, spun wildly out of control and into our worst nightmares. Crichton’s great gift for melding DNA fact with sci-fi speculations cleverly masked what is essentially a morality play, using a dinosaur caper to lure in his readership. In translating the book into a movie these debates were ultimately traded for Spielberg's verve to create a money-making blockbuster, the theoretical contemplation distilled into mere sound bites espoused by chaos theorist, Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) or discarded outright in favor of an all-out cinematic roller coaster ride.

The original movie is fraught with all sorts of murky scientific/religious and moral implications, put forth, superbly summarized by Malcolm in a soliloquy that bears quoting. “Gee, the lack of humility before nature that's being displayed here, uh... staggers me,” Malcolm confronts Jurassic Park’s creator, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), “Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet’s ever seen, but you wield it like a kid that's found his dad's gun. If I may.. I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here. It didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox…your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could do it that they didn't stop to think if they should!” And, indeed, shortly thereafter Hammond will rue the day he ever thought he could harness the awesome power of these prehistoric creatures for the mere purposes of marketing a theme park to the unsuspecting world.

At times, Jurassic Park - the movie - teeters dangerously close to the edge of schlock horror. But Spielberg's zeal for good storytelling prevents the more gruesome elements from running totally amuck. The film stars Sam Neill as paleontologist Allan Grant. Together with paleo-botanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), Grant is in the middle of a daring excavation when he is encouraged by billionaire theme park developer, John Hammond to partake of a weekend retreat on the remote island of Isla Nublar off the coast of Costa Rica. There, Hammond and his team of biologists have genetically re-engineered dinosaurs based on DNA found in fossilized mosquito, reconfigured with strands of DNA from the common frog. Grant is momentarily intrigued, although highly skeptical. However, when Hammond offers to fully fund Grant’s current archeological dig to its completion, both he and Ellie giddily agree to be Hammond’s guests for the weekend – a decision they are soon to regret.

Also invited are 'rock star' chaos theorist, Dr. Ian Malcolm and Donald Gennero (Martin Ferraro), the ‘blood-sucking’ attorney representing Hammond’s investors. Once on Isla Nublar, Dr. Grant is forced to confront his own anxieties about having children when it is decided Hammond’s grandchildren, Tim (Joseph Mazzello) and Alexis (Ariana Richards) will accompany the group on their first motorized tour through Jurassic Park; a prehistoric zoological attraction. Unfortunately for all concerned, the park’s chief computer programmer, Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight) has accepted a bribe from outside competing interests. He sabotages the attraction, steals vials of the dino DNA and escapes on the eve that a major hurricane makes landfall. The shutdown disables the park’s protective parameters; the net result being that humans and dinosaurs are suddenly thrust together after an absence of roughly six million years. Fate intervenes, as only it can; the slovenly Dennis receiving his just reward by a poisonous dilophosaurus. After Donald is eaten by the park’s resident tyrannosaurus-rex, Alexis and Tim take refuge with Dr. Grant in a tree to escape a similar fate. Ellie and the island’s doctor, Gerry Harding (Gerald R. Molen) rescue Malcolm who has been injured in the attack. The rest of the movie is essentially a race against time to restore the protective barriers and narrowly escape before the wildest inhabitants devour their human creators. Some make it; some don’t.

Returning to Jurassic Park some eighteen years removed from all its marketing hype and tie-ins, the visual pioneering of digital technologies and puppetry that made the melding of dinosaurs and humans so believable still holds up…even, in 4K. After a rocky start, the screenplay by Michael Crichton and David Koepp is quite successful at balancing the adventurous bits of nonsense with the more intimate drama that plays between Dr. Grant and Ellie with Malcolm feathered in as glib comic relief. Overall, these performances are solid and anchor the fanciful story line to an important thread of credibility. So popular was Jurassic Park that Universal Studios undertook another excursion to the island with The Lost World: Jurassic Park in 1997. Despite having Crichton’s novel to draw from, Spielberg was unable to secure the author’s participation on the screenplay, leaving Koepp to create a patchwork of narratives, becoming so convoluted and meandering, the net result remains a movie painfully marred by false starts and disassembled bits of melodramatic incoherence.

This time out Hammond has bribed Malcolm to visit his auxiliary site for dinosaur experimentation, Isla Sorna, having already sent Malcolm’s girlfriend, Dr. Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) on ahead. Unbeknownst to Malcolm his daughter from a previous marriage, Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester) has managed to smuggle herself along for the trip within the mobile laboratory. Having lost control of his vast holdings to an unscrupulous nephew, Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard), Hammond is determined that Malcolm and Sarah document the validity of his original experiments before Peter transforms them into a freak show for the masses. Too little, too late, Malcolm and Sarah discover Peter and a veritable army of cronies have captured and sedated a female tyrannosaurus and her baby and are en route to San Francisco to debut them as the first featured attraction of Jurassic Park U.S.A. with predictably ill-advised results. Crichton wrote his second novel under considerable duress from Spielberg and Universal who desperately wanted a novelized sequel to their 1993 blockbuster. However, upon publication in 1995, Crichton officially bowed out of the film project and refused to have anything to do with the movie version. It was a wise move. The Lost World is a lost cause. Rarely, does it come to life, despite the advancing technological advantages of having ‘better’ special effects, though perhaps, not quite so special this second time around. The sequences that take place in San Francisco after the female T-Rex has escaped are a shameless patchwork of CGI and obvious miniatures.

Robbed of Sam Neill’s stoicism in the original, Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm spends much of the plot merely running interference and spewing cautionary diatribes never heeded by those in charge until after it is already too late. Whereas there were definite sparks of flirtation between Laura Dern’s Ellie and Malcolm in the original film, there is virtually zero romantic chemistry between Goldblum and Julianne Moore in this sequel, thereby bankrupting the emotional core of the piece. Truly – we really do not care what happens to Ian or Sarah as there is no investment in them beyond their stick figure representations of two people who supposedly care for each other. Surprisingly, given the abysmal reviews and rather tepid box office response to The Lost World, Universal was not ready to retire the franchise and took yet another crack at decoding dino DNA in 2001, this time with Joe Johnston directing and Peter Buchman, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor penning the screenplay.

At just an hour and 33 min. Jurassic Park III is an entirely more successful enterprise on every level. Getting Sam Neill back is a major plus for the picture. This time, Dr. Grant (Neill) and his assistant, Billy Brennan (Alessandro Nivolo) are hoodwinked into visiting Isla Sorna by divorced parents, Paul (William H. Macy) and Amanda Kirby (Tea Leoni). Seems the Kirby’s teenage son, Erik (Trevor Morgan) was parasailing near the island with a custodian when the boat trailing their line was sabotaged by a pair of hungry velociraptors, leaving Kirby to fend for himself on the abandoned natural preserve overrun by carnivorous dinosaurs. Grant thinks he is accompanying Paul and Amanda on a flight over the island but learns the truth too late. Not only are the Kirbys not the millionaire benefactors they reported – and therefore unable to fund Grant’s expedition on the mainland (the only reason he consented to accompany them in the first place), but they are also ill-equipped to provide adequate protection against the onslaught of raging prehistoric beasts. Almost immediately, three crew members are devoured after the plane has crash landed.

Dr. Grant and Billy are separated. Billy decides to steal a few dino eggs he hopes will fetch a handsome price on the mainland. Unfortunately, the theft becomes the focus of the rest of the plot as the egg’s parents hunt for their missing offspring. What is particularly palpable on this third visit to the franchise is the overwhelming sense of desolation created when the best of intension is turned asunder by human greed and corruption. Isla Sorna is not so much a biological preserve as a decaying monument to the errors of one man’s God-complex folly. The massive facilities, including warehouses, visitor’s center and huge bio-chem labs once built to house state of the art technologies are now hollowed out shells; foreboding relics to bad science. The overriding tone is apocalyptic, emphasizing humanity’s smallness rather than exercising its capacity to achieve great wonders. This sense of doom accentuates the immediate dangers presented our heroes even when no carnivorous creatures are present. In the final analysis, Jurassic Park III restored the mantle of quality established by the first movie, rendering the misfire and waning impact of Part II as moot as ever.

One would have thought Universal had had enough of death and dinosaurs after Part III. But no, the franchise officially became something of a reboot with Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World (2015). The biggest gripe I have with Jurassic World is, it is more of the same, or, as Goldblum’s good doctor has already astutely surmised, ‘the next step’. By now, the commonalities between the first and fourth installments should be blatantly obvious to everyone. ‘Psst! Dinosaurs eat people - again!’ Let us forgo the incongruities cobbled together in Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Colin Trevorrow, and, Derek Connolly’s screenplay; as in the genetic Franken-dino, Indominous Rex, supposedly to attack its’ prey based on movement, though in a pivotal scene, velociraptor wrangler, Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) is forced to douse himself in transmission fluid to confuse the Indominus’ sense of smell and escape being eaten alive.  I would also really like to know how a well-connected billionaire fat cat like Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan), CEO of this grandly implausible theme park (looking in CGI long shots like a queasy hybrid of Disney’s Epcot and those insidiously bad miniatures created by Dale Hennessey for Logan’s Run, 1976) and heir to the late John Hammond’s genetic research, has managed to convince any major corporation – much less Verizon Wireless - to sponsor an attraction that has already proven highly unstable three times. Come to the park. Get eaten alive. It's not a good marketing slogan; n'est pas?

Part of the appeal of Jurassic Park III was it returned audiences to Isla Nubar; that failed venture for a dino-themed attraction put forth in the original movie, allowing Sam Neill’s Dr. Alan Grant his own meridian of closure and pontification on man’s arrogant disregard for the natural order of things, or as his cohort, Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) astutely surmised in the original movie, “God created dinosaurs. God destroyed dinosaurs. God created Man. Man destroyed God. Man created dinosaurs. Dinosaurs eat man…woman inherits the earth!” Here, here! Well put and well said!  Yet, Jurassic World undoes virtually all of this didacticism from the first and third movies, if for no other reason, then simply because man has not matured in this outlook one iota, but rather become even more jaded and overweening in his blind ambitions to make nature subservient to his own dictates and profitability. Buried somewhere inside Jurassic World is yet another liberalized bitch-slap against corporate America and the U.S. military, the real baddies of this piece.  Maybe it’s just me, but I have grown rather weary of movies that fly in the face of Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ analogy, blatantly blanketing western civilization as the affront to all free peoples of the world; a derisiveness against white European culture, perpetuated by the laissez faire, pot-smoking, politically correct, polarized and politicized by present-day cultural mandarins. Frankly, it is high time to get on with the business of living together in harmony rather than beat this thoroughly rotting dead horse and straw dog by promoting perpetual discord. So, let us stop the ‘blame game’. It’s old.

There is plenty blame to go around in Jurassic World; the park’s superficial interests perpetuated by front woman, Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard); a scissor-legged operations manager, sporting a lethal Uma Thurman/Pulp Fiction haircut and perpetually antiseptic scowl, denying her rather obvious – if frigid and suppressed – desire to mate with Owen Grady; the alpha male of this piece.  Howard’s performance, stiff and uninspiring and vaguely reminiscent of Sean Young’s replicant in 1982’s Blade Runner (or Sean Young in general) runs the gamut of emotions from A to B; a leaden dead weight, deprived of her sex appeal and a fairly pointless appendage to this horror movie, running around the jungle in high heels and wearing white. Spielberg’s original movie was not thematically interested, or even concentrated on horror, though it did manage to tap into a series of unsettling chills during its second and third acts. Jurassic World, however, is all about scaring the hell out of the audience, assaulting the senses with one interminable chase sequence ladled upon the next: too much overlap of moments done to better effect elsewhere in this franchise, with Chris Pratt assuming the reigns as a younger, more athletic incarnation of Alan Grant; the position vacated by Sam Neill as the sole voice of reason.

In 2009, Pratt, looking more doughy and haggard while starring in the popular TV show, Parks and Recreation (2009-15), made the farcical prediction he would appear in a Jurassic Park movie. Indeed, the actor has come a long way from those days and in just a very scant few years; undergoing a crash course weight loss metamorphosis that, coupled with his formidable acting chops, at least manages to sell his character with magnanimity, hard-pressed to be found in any of the others populating this movie. From a purely technological perspective, Jurassic World outclasses virtually all its predecessors; the visual effects more seamlessly integrated; the audio animatronics more complex and engaging. But what I would have preferred to see in this movie is more originality. Thematically, Jurassic World is frustratingly passé and increasingly a rehash. We get the same ole ‘kids in peril’ scenario regurgitated yet again; brothers, Zach (Nick Robinson) and Gray Mitchell (Ty Simpkins) mere substitutes for Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards from the first movie, and, Trevor Morgan’s prepubescent survivor in Part III.

Herein, the brothers Mitchell are suffering from unspoken anxieties of a traditional American family in crisis; their parents, Karen and Scott (Judy Greer and Andy Buckley) on the cusp of messy divorce; the kids sent away on an all-expense paid ‘family’ holiday, meant to be chaperoned by their Aunt Claire, who has about as much interest in rearing children as she does in peeling a turtle. Zach’s outlet is girls; a clingy gal pal left behind (Kelly Washington) and his perpetually raging hormones that cause him to stupidly moon after anything between the ages of 16 and 20 wearing a skirt. This, predictably, becomes the brunt of his younger brother’s jokes. Claire has assigned her assistant, Zara (Katie McGrath) the thankless task of following the boys on their journey throughout the park. Even more predictably, she quickly loses sight of them – thereby allowing Zach and Gray all sorts of opportunities to make a damn nuisance of themselves. Most predictable of all – neither comes to any real harm. Jurassic World is so formulaic, it hurts.

Not surprising, the picture went through a dreaded period of gestation begun in 2001, when Jurassic Park III director, Joe Johnston vehemently denied rumors another installment in the franchise was already in the works. In hindsight, Part III was something of an anomaly, as Spielberg had hoped for an entirely different movie altogether, involving the mythology of dinosaurs. This never materialized, but the kernel of that idea carried over into Spielberg’s plans to produce the, as yet untitled, Part IV. At this point, Johnston officially bowed out and, shortly thereafter, talks with Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum began. Screenwriter, William Monahan was brought in to begin the first draft, based on Spielberg’s concept; that the dinosaurs had figured out a way to migrate to the Costa Rican mainland and were breeding uncontrollably. From here on, the rumors became even more unwieldy: SFX wizard, Stan Winston leaking information Spielberg would be borrowing scenarios as yet un-filmed from Crichton’s novels, and actress, Keira Knightley letting it be known she was under consideration for two separate roles. Curiously, there was even a rumor Richard Attenborough would return as John Hammond – the originator of the first failed theme park who had died by the time the events in The Lost World take place, suggesting Part IV would either be set in the distant past or, at the very least, entirely ignore the events as unfolded in Parts II and III.

Throughout these permutations, paleontologist, Jack Horner agreed to act as Part IV’s technical advisor. Horner added an even more bizarre spin on the plot, suggesting its scenario would imply humans were genetically derived from dinosaurs. Screenwriter, John Sayles entered the picture. By mid-2004, Jurassic World had a new director, Alex Proyas and a new cast, presumably to costar, Jeremy Piven and Emmy Rossum, with Richard Attenborough reprising his role. But only three weeks later, Proyas made it clear he had made no commitment and once again, Part IV went into turnaround. That same year, Sayles’ first draft script was leaked. Rumors once again abounded, this time, that Buffy/Angel/Bones co-star, David Boreanaz would be cast as a new character; mercenary – Nick Harris, to lead a team of genetically modified human-dino hybrids on a harrowing mission in the Swiss Alps. Mercilessly, as Spielberg had final approval, he quietly vetoed this rather absurd scenario.

Then, in 2005, Spielberg prolifically made references Part IV would include a sequence taken from Crichton’s The Lost World novel, where a character on a motorcycle would outrun a pack of raptors. But the next year, a new screenplay co-authored by Joe Johnston and Horner went nowhere fast; producer, Frank Marshall muddying the waters even further – first, by hinting Johnston would direct the picture, then putting forth Spielberg as the only viable candidate to make any sense of it all. The death of author, Michael Crichton and Jurassic Park film alumni, Stan Winston in 2008 did much to sour producer, Kathleen Kennedy on pursuing the project. Yet, pre-production continued; director, Johnston adding fuel to the fire once again in 2012 after suggesting Part IV would be the beginning of an entirely new trilogy.  A year earlier, Spielberg had engaged writer, Mark Protosevich to prepare just such a treatment. Eventually, two treatments were written. Neither gelled. Finally, Spielberg latched onto Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, while Kennedy and Marshall found their inspiration in nailing down a director to helm their movie: Colin Trevorrow, whose first movie, Safety Not Guaranteed (2012 - about a man who believes he can time travel) was met with great enthusiasm; as was Jaffa and Silver's script about a fully functional dino-theme park. Along the way, a prologue set in China was dropped and several subplots about human-dino interaction either streamlined or toggled back in service of the more box office guaranteeing ‘chase’ narrative.

As all the preliminary footwork neared completion, Spielberg concentrated on the more practical aspects of the enterprise; returning to Hawaii, specifically Kauai, as the fictional Costa Rican isle of Nublar. Nearly two years before the picture’s premiere, it was decided to rechristen the franchise Jurassic World to mark it as a departure from the earlier three movies. Josh Brolin, briefly considered for the part of Owen, was eventually replaced by Chris Pratt, yet to show promise as a box office draw. When Pratt’s breakout performance in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) garnered rave reviews, Spielberg and Trevorrow were left congratulating one another on their good fortune.  Principal photography would take full advantage of locations in Honolulu, Oahu and Kauai; also, New Orleans’ abandoned Six Flags theme park, substituting for Jurassic World’s main thoroughfare.

The events in Jurassic World take place 22 years after the fiascoes encountered on Isla Nublar in the original film. Alas, the picture is, in a word, predictable. It is, however, largely enjoyable as a mindless piece of pseudo-horror/sci-fi, action/adventure. Earning a staggering tally of $1.52 billion, making it the third highest grossing movie of all time (second only to Avatar and Titanic) has practically guaranteed us a Jurassic World Part II with a tentative date for later this year. Personally, I am done with this franchise. After all, it stands to reason any such one-premised endeavor must eventually reach a creative plateau, if, in fact, one has not already been achieved. Jurassic World offers audiences nothing new or even ground-breaking. Indeed, it is mostly a retread. While Spielberg’s original tale was not focused on terror per say – Jurassic World is all about achieving an overriding sense of dread and fear. This, it does. There are cringe-worthy moments scattered throughout.

Question: how much scarier can the franchise get, going into the future? How much more frightening do we want it to be? We have already seen dinosaurs devour humans in the most excruciatingly painful ways; decapitations, dismemberments, eviscerations, etc. et al. Is it really necessary to explore such grotesqueness any further? Haven’t we all had enough spayed guts and bloody entrails strewn across our movie screens to last a lifetime? This query is sincerely proposed to Steven Spielberg, who began his career, not as the grand master of such schlocky nonsense, but a serious and trend-setting entrepreneur of his film maker’s craft, and, with a penchant for illustrating the benevolence behind mankind’s insatiable desire to explore the unknown. Simply because Spielberg did not direct Jurassic World does not absolve him of his responsibility in partaking of this gruesome re-envisioning; nor does it excuse him of the transgression against that legacy he established so very long ago.

Everything here is just a variation on a theme. Chris Pratt is a valiant ‘update’ to Alan Grant – less cerebral, earthier and sexually desirable to the adolescent teen and early twenty-something female attendees (always good for box office). I will reserve my judgements on Bryce Dallas Howard for now – Ron Howard’s daughter (gee, I wonder how she got this gig…no family nepotism at work here); a marginally attractive, though frankly dull and mismatched ‘love interest’, void of any ‘on screen’ chemistry to generate genuine sex appeal. But I really would appreciate it if someone in Spielberg’s camp please inform him he has plumbed the ‘kids in peril’ motif once too often. Children in a Spielberg movie are always more resourceful than most of their adult counterparts. But in Jurassic World we get two defenseless kids trapped in a glass-encased gyrosphere, who survive what a small army of ex-military, loaded with bazookas cannot? Okay, Steven – if you say so. The original Jurassic Park was a cautionary tale against man’s dabbling in creation he neither understood, nor quickly discovered he could not manage. Jurassic World superficially covers the same ground, re-purposing the concept to fit the confines of a horror movie. Ho-hum. Been there. Will likely be there again before this year is out. Boring!

There is better news via Universal Home Video’s quadrilogy in 4K. Virtually all of the Jurassic Park movies benefit from the upgrade to UHD. Color fidelity is vastly improved. One of the biggest complaints about Uni’s old Blu-ray releases was that colors had been artificially bumped. Personally, I never thought so, until I had a chance to spin these 4K discs and see for myself the quantum refinement. Be prepared to be very impressed. Colors are bold without looking like a Mexican fiesta. All of the films in this collection sport renewed visual vigor without looking gaudy or overly bright. Indeed, colors are more nuanced throughout and across all four films, particularly the original and Part III where the heavy use of blue and fog filters for night photography now reveal context of a properly aligned palette with rich and absorbing hues. The image also reveals considerable ‘depth’ of focus and oodles more texture in fine details. Background detail is breathtaking. Wow!   

Aside: I detected a note of edge enhancement during the initial long shots where Hammond’s creations are revealed to Ellie and Dr. Grant for the very first time. It’s just a hint, but it is there. As many of the picture’s SFX in the first film were rendered without the advantage of 4K mastering they also appear slightly softer and/or duller. The technological advances between the original movie and its penultimate sequels, with Jurassic World being the most recent, are also reflected in these upgrades to 4K, with Jurassic World looking the most startlingly crisp, although, as cartoony and artificial. We still have 5.1 DTS audio for all of these movies. For those interested in doing comparisons, the original Blu-rays are also included. These 1080p transfers have not been culled from these newly mastered 4K elements, making the leap to 4K all the more impressive. Extras are not included on the 4K discs but reside in their totality on each Blu-ray: cumulatively, a comprehensive 'Return to Jurassic Park' that provides a retrospective on the making and impact of all four movies. Bottom line: Jurassic Park and its subsequent installments impress in 4K.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

Jurassic Park 4

The Lost World 2

Jurassic Park III 3.5

Jurassic World 3

VIDEO/AUDIO

Overall 5+

EXTRAS

Blu-ray Only  4