The Lost World: Jurassic Park (commonly referred to as The Lost World) is a 1997 American science fiction film and the second Jurassic Park film as part of the Jurassic Park franchise. The film succeeds Jurassic Park directed by Steven Spielberg, loosely based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. The film centers on the island of Isla Sorna, an auxiliary site for the main Jurassic Park island, where dinosaurs have taken over and live in the wild. Ian Malcolm leads a team to document the dinosaurs in their native habitat, while an InGen team attempts to capture them for a second Jurassic Park in San Diego.
After the release of the original Jurassic Park book and the success of the first film, 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.
Plot
Four years have passed since the disaster at Jurassic Park, and John Hammond has lost control of InGen to his ruthless nephew, Peter Ludlow. Despite having signed a non-disclosure agreement about the events of the first film, Ian Malcolm goes public with his story. Unfortunately for him, his stories are not widely believed, threats of legal action prevent him from producing any evidence, and his academic reputation is destroyed.
Ludlow plans to create a Jurassic Park arena in San Diego, using captured dinosaurs from Isla Sorna. These dinosaurs are from Site B, an auxiliary facility used to hatch eggs before the dinosaurs were transferred to the main Jurassic Park facility at Isla Nublar. The island was abandoned after the failure of the park and after a hurricane wiped out most of the facilities, and the creatures have been living in the wild ever since. Hammond requests Malcolm’s help in stopping Ludlow and preserving the dinosaur’s natural habitat. He initially refuses, but after learning that his girlfriend, paleontologist Sarah Harding, is already on the island, he goes along but instead for a rescue mission.
The team consists of Eddie Carr, the engineer who built the solar-powered Mercedes SUVs and the mobile laboratory trailer the team will use, and wildlife documentary producer Nick Van Owen. Shortly after arriving on the island, they find Sarah and escape a Stegosaurus herd. When they return to camp, they find Kelly, Malcolm’s daughter, stowed away on the trailer. He tries to contact the boat to take them home, but they are interrupted by the arrival of the InGen team.
Using their custom vehicles and equipment, the rival team quickly captures several species, including Parasaurolophus, Stegosaurus, Gallimimus, Pachycephalosaurus, Triceratops, and a swarm of Compsognathus. At night fall, Nick reveals an alternate mission: free any captured dinosaurs. He and Sarah sneak into the InGen camp to free the dinosaurs and cut the fuel lines on their jeeps. The freed dinosaurs cause a huge commotion, compounded by the exploding vehicles.
Meanwhile, Roland Tembo, the leader of the InGen team, is hunting for his prize trophy, a male Tyrannosaurus, using a T. rex baby to lure in its parents. When he returns to the camp, Nick frees the baby T. rex, taking it back to their trailer so Sarah can set its broken leg. Eddie and Kelly hide in a tree stand, while Malcolm returns to the trailer. As Tembo intended, the T. rex parents come searching for their son, and after getting it from Sarah and Nick, throw one half of the hinged trailer over a cliff in the process, with Malcolm, Nick, and Sarah inside. Eddie throws down a rope and tries to pull the trailer back up using one of the SUVs, but is killed when the T. rex returned. The trailer falls, but its occupants survive by holding on to the rope and are helped up by the InGen team. With all of the communications equipment destroyed in the attacks, both groups team up to reach the old InGen compound’s radio station, right through a Velociraptor nesting site, while Dr. Harding suspects the T. rex parents will continue pursuing them.
On the way, Dieter Stark, Tembo’s second in command, is eaten by Compsognathus. Just before reaching the InGen compound, a large number of the InGen team are attacked and eaten by Velociraptors and the Tyrannosaurus’, mostly due to the fact that Van Owen disabled Tembo’s rifle so that he was unable to stop the dinosaur until after most of the team had been killed. Oddly, Van Owen’s action is portrayed in a positive light (he takes the bullet he stole from Tembo’s gun out of his pocket at the end of the film and smiles at Sarah). Malcolm and his friends pass through the field unharmed, but are attacked by Velociraptors and go into hiding. All three raptors are either killed or distracted, and the team make a run for the building, where they contact a rescue helicopter. As they fly away, they see that Tembo has finally caught an adult male Tyrannosaurus, preparing to ship it and the baby back to the mainland. When the ship carrying the dinosaurs arrives in San Diego, it crashes into the dock. A boarding party then finds out the gruesome reason why there was no one to slow it down. The entire crew is dead and eaten, which is largely unexplainable, seeing that the only dinosaur on the ship was a T-Rex, and therefore much too large to fit into intact human-sized quarters, though other dinosaurs may have snuck onboard. (N.B during filming, a scene where velociraptors manage to get on board and kill the crew was filmed, but was deleted during the final cut, although the dead crew had to be left to explain why the ship crashed, thus making the scene in the film and DVD version seem unexplainable). While searching for survivors, a guard opens the cargo hold and unleashes the Tyrannosaurus, who storms into the city.
Malcolm and Sarah rush to the Jurassic Park arena to get the baby T. rex, who was brought separately by plane. As the adult runs through the city, causing immense damage, they bait it with its baby, luring it back into the ship’s cargo hold. Ludlow, after all this still believing that a dinosaur park will work, attempts to take the baby out of the cargo hold. When Malcolm and Sarah close the dinosaurs in, Ludlow is trapped as well and eaten. As Malcolm, Sarah, and Kelly watch TV at home, the ship sails back to the Island. John Hammond says in an interview that the island must be preserved to allow the dinosaurs to survive.
Cast
- Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm: A mathematician and chaos theorist. After barely surviving the Incident on Isla Nublar, Malcolm is more cynical and jaded as a result of his experiences. He remains the voice of reason concerning InGen’s plans.
- Julianne Moore as Dr. Sarah Harding: A behavioral paleontologist who is said to be at the top of her field. Sarah is tough and independent, which makes things difficult for her boyfriend, Dr. Malcolm.
- Vince Vaughn as Nick Van Owen: A well-traveled and experienced “documentarian,” photo journalist and environmentalist.
- Pete Postlethwaite as Roland Tembo: A big-game hunter who, although capable of violence, adheres to his own strict moral code.
- Vanessa Lee Chester as Kelly Curtis Malcolm: Malcolm’s teenage daughter from a failed marriage, who often feels estranged and alienated from her father. She tries to get closer to Malcolm by stowing away in the trailers. She is the first and only person to kill one of the raptors in this film, thanks to her acrobatic skills.
- Arliss Howard as Peter Ludlow: Hammond’s conniving nephew. A greedy and manipulative businessman first, last and always.
- Richard Attenborough as John Hammond: The former CEO of InGen who takes steps to redeem himself and preserve Isla Sorna. So far, Hammond is the only primary character to not be attacked by carnivorous dinosaurs.
- Peter Stormare as Dieter Stark: A sadistic hunter, and the second-in-command of the InGen harvesters under control of Roland Tembo.
- Harvey Jason as Ajay Sidhu: An experienced tracker from India, who is the immensely loyal and long-time hunting partner of Roland Tembo.
- Richard Schiff as Eddie Carr: A sardonic “field equipment expert” who heroically gives his life to save his friends.
- Thomas F. Duffy as Dr. Robert Burke: The InGen Hunter’s pompous Paleontologist who is proven to be incorrect more than once.
Production
After the release of the original Jurassic Park book, Michael Crichton was pressured by fans for a sequel novel. Having never written a sequel, he initially refused, until the success of the first Jurassic Park film prompted Steven Spielberg himself to request one.[2] After the book was published in 1995, production on the sequel film began in September 1996.[3]
The Lost World was filmed at Eureka, San Diego, and Kauai. 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 northern California.[4]
Spielberg suggested the Tyrannosaurus rex 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 The Lost World.[5]
Many elements from the original Jurassic Park novel that were not in the first film were used for Lost World. The opening sequence of the vacationing family’s young daughter being attacked by dinosaurs was inspired by a scene where a Procompsognathus escapes to Costa Rica and attacks young children,[6] and Dieter Stark’s death is analogous to John Hammond’s compy-related death in the novel. Also, Nick, Sarah, Kelly, and Burke being trapped behind a waterfall by the female T. rex is taken fom the first novel, where Tim and Lex are trapped behind a man-made waterfall with the T. rex attempting to eat them.
According to Jack Horner part of the waterfall scene was written in as a favor for him by Spielberg. Burke greatly resembles Horners’ rival Robert Bakker. In real life Bakker argues for a predatory Tyrannosaurus rex while Horner views it as primarily a scavenger. So Spielberg wrote Burke into this part to have him killed by the Tyrannosaurus 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!”.[7]
Mercedes-Benz’s new sport-utility vehicle, the M-class, had not yet been introduced and made its first appearance in the film.[8] As a result, on the original VHS copies of The Lost World: Jurassic Park, a Mercedes-Benz ad appears before the film.[9]
Dinosaurs on screen
- Compsognathus
- Stegosaurus
- Parasaurolophus
- Pachycephalosaurus
- Gallimimus
- Mamenchisaurus
- Tyrannosaurus
- Triceratops
- Velociraptor
