Jurassic Park Ultimate Trilogy - Blu-ray Disc Review

10/27/11

In 1993, Director Steven Spielberg and an army of special effects artists unleashed the world of dinosaurs onto the movie going public that generated two sequels and successful releases on DVD. Now, almost four years after the introduction of Blu-ray, fans can now see the entire Jurassic Park Trilogy (Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and Jurassic Park III) in full high definition on Blu-ray Disc with restored video, remastered audio, and a wealth of new and archive bonus features. To find out if the Blu-ray release should be a part of your home theater experience, read my review.

Genre: Adventure, Sci-Fi

Principal Cast - Appearing in one, or more, of the films: Richard Attenborough, Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Ariana Richards, Joseph Mazzello, Julianne Moore. Vanessa Lee Chester, William H. Macy, Tea Leoni, Mr and Mrs T Rex, The Velociraptor Clan, and Spinosaurus.

Director: Steven Spielberg (Jurassic Park and Lost World) and Joe Johnston (Jurassic Park III).

Dinosaur Effects: Stan Winston Studio - Live Action Dinosaurs, ILM - Digital Animated Dinosaurs

Discs: Three 50GB Blu-ray Discs. Each disc contains one complete film and all related supplementary materials for that film.

Video Specifications: Video codec used - VC-1, Video resolution - 1080p, Aspect ratio - 1.85:1 - Special features and supplements in various resolutions and aspect ratios.

Audio Specifications: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 (English), DTS 5.1 (French and Spanish), D-Box Motion Code.

Subtitles: English SDH (Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard-of-hearing), French, Spanish.

Navigation and Access Functions: Advanced Remote Control, Video Timeline, Mobile-to-Go (allows access to online bonus content for both home and mobile devices), Browse Titles (access to free previews and special features that can be unlocked), Keyboard input feature (allows direct keyboard input if your device has keyboard connections).

Jurassic Park

- Return to Jurassic Park: Dawn of a New Era
- Return to Jurassic Park: Making Prehistory
- Return to Jurassic Park: The Next Step
- Theatrical Trailer
- Jurassic Park: Making the Game
- Archived Making Of Featurettes (from previous DVD releases)
- Additional Behind the Scenes Features

The Lost World: Jurassic Park

- Deleted Scenes
- Return to Jurassic Park: Finding The Lost World
- Return to Jurassic Park: Something Survived
- Archived Making Of Featurettes (from previous DVD releases)
- Behind the Scenes
- Theatrical Trailer

Jurassic Park III

- Return to Jurassic Park: The Third Adventure
- Archived Making Of Featurettes (from previous DVD releases)
- Behind the Scenes
- Audio Commentary by the Special Effects Team
- Theatrical Trailer

The Story:

For those that may not be familiar with these three films, here is a quick plot outline of each film:

Jurassic Park: Millionaire adventurer, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), is ready to unveil his new ultimate theme park, located on an island near Costa Rica, but first needs the approval from the scientific, business, and legal communities before he can open his life-long dream "Jurassic Park" to the public. As a result, a select group of people, including noted palentologist, Dr Alan Grant (Sam Neill) are invited to a "special preview" that doesn't go quite as planned....

The Lost World: Jurassic Park Four years after the events at Jurassic Park, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), reveals that a second dinosaur breeding site, also near Costa Rica, exists where dinosaurs roam free. However, there are evil corporate forces that want to capture the animals and bring them to a newly built Jurassic Park spin-off concept in San Diego, Ca. The race is now on to study the animals on the island and find a way to protect them from becoming victims of corporate greed...

Jurassic Park III: A mysterious potential benefactor (William H. Macy) arrives at one of Dr Alan Grant's (Sam Neill) dinosaur fossil digs in Montana to offer him a large financial sum to support his research, if he would just be his guide on an aerial tour of the dinosaur island featured in The Lost World, as a gift to his wife. Dr Grant reluctantly agrees, thinking that an aerial tour would be safe, and he really needs the money, but things don't turn out as expected, when Dr Grant, the mysterious benefactor, his wife, and an airplane crew of dubious reputation, end up stranded on the island fighting for survival...

The video portion of the Blu-ray Disc presentation was very good-to-excellent across all three films, with the quality increasing from oldest to the most recent.

For example, in the first film, Jurassic Park, I did notice some post-production edge enhancement that made cast member and some object outlines a little harsh in some cases, but fortunately, this is definitely not the worse case of edge enhancement use. As an indirect result though, the grain level is a little elevated and in once specific case, where the Jurassic Park jeeps are traveling along through a grass trail before the big Brachiosaurus sighting, the red color patterns on the jeep bleed into jeep's body base color somewhat.

The other main issue, although more of a problem with actual film more than the Blu-ray video transfer, was the softening of detail and texture between the full-size mechanical dinosaurs and their CGI counterparts. This is a case where high-definition Blu-ray can reveal more than you might notice on a DVD version. However, that difference decreases between the first and third films as the technology available to the filmmakers gets more sophisticated.

On the other hand, the location cinematography was not only perfectly done, capturing the forest and jungle atmosphere, but when the dinsoaurs made their appearance in the scenes, the integration was seamless. The high-definition Blu-ray transfer does not detract from that visual experience.

In terms of audio, there is very little to criticize here. The 7.1 channel DTS-Master Audio remix is fantastic with excellent balance between all channels, with just a few instances where the center channel dialog could have been mixed at a slightly higher level.

The second and third films elevated the complexity of sound mixing. The layer of sonic detail in the dinosaur roars and destruction sounds were where excellent, and the balance between ambience and directional sounds gave the impression that all the sounds were natural and not just coming out of foley studio. Also, movement between channels as sound effects moved from speaker to speaker was very well executed, adding to the immersive quality of the soundtracks. Of course, I can't leave out the subwoofer. The approaching Tyrannosaurus Rex sounds in the first two films, and the Spinosaurus destruction in the last film will definitely give your subwoofer a workout.

As a final note on the soundtrack, I can't forget about rousing musical themes written by John Williams. The music part of the soundtrack perfectly blends with what is happening on the screen, providing both effective dramatic impact and a stable backgound tone to each film.

Home Theater Audio Tip: If you have a 5.1 channel audio system, rather than a 7.1 channel audio system, you home theater receiver can downmix the surround back channels into your surround channels. Consult your home theater receivers speaker setup menu for more details.

Proceed to Page 2: Bonus Features, Pros, Cons, Final Take, Equipment List.