I have this theory about how Jurassic Park is one of the films that defined my entire generation. Like, if you were born before 1980, it’s all about Star Wars and Indiana Jones, but if you were born between, say, 1980 and 1985, it’s all about Jurassic Park. We were the absolute perfect age when this film premiered in 1993: the world was big and scary, but we still believed in magic. When I was in third grade, Jurassic Park was THE SHIT — shit, I might add, that I was not allowed to see until later because my mother lived by the doctrine, “What goes in is what comes out.” It was for this reason I was also not allowed to watch Friends, Warner Brothers cartoons, or Rugrats (“Those babies are smart-alecks,” she would say).
If you bring up Jurassic Park in a group of 25-30 year olds, you’re gonna get the same reaction almost across the board. We all have the memories, we all have the same thoughts. Jurassic Park is a cultural touchstone. It brings people together. This is why pop culture is important, not because of the actual thing (whatever that thing happens to be), but because of what it means to us. Normally people on YouTube make me angry, but the comments for the Jurassic Park theme-song aren’t like other comments. They’re happy, respectful, reverent in tone — a group of worshippers gathered in a holy house dedicated to the wonders of the imagination.
“If Earth could have a theme song, I would choose this one.”
“Juarssic park is the best movie ever! I love dinosaurs and john williams is a genius! This song makes me want to cry!”
“If there is a song in this world that i can remember off hand, its this one. Its like when the music plays i can hear the dino’s roaring in the background and John Hammond saying ‘Welcome to Jurassic Park.’”
“Something really precious from my childhood!
- I cannot wait till the day that i can tell me children ”That was from when daddy was a kid”.”
“Even after so long this piece still sends chills down my spine.”
“it feels like jurrasic park was based on a true story and they made it a really good movie”
“if anyone ever bad mouths this song i will murder them”
“Is it normal that when the song spikes at just after 2:35 I look down and have a MASSIVE errection and I’m crying?? Please tell me it is . . .”
Stories are like time machines, not just because they preserve the past, but because they preserve our past. Stories are personal histories, just as important as the regular kind, chronicles of what we hope, fear, dream, and long for. Years from now when we’re all bloated with middle age and the approaching stench of death, we will hear this music and be ten years old again, seeing dinosaurs for the first time. We will see long necks as big as houses stomping through our imaginations and T-Rex’s surrounded by the fluttering wreckage of arrogant men. We will hear this song and it will make pterodactyls. It’s locked in our genetic memories. And when we have babies, they will be born with the glorious knowledge of their ancestors before them, we children of the 80′s. They will know without having to be told the power of Jeff Goldblum, the random forces of chaos, and the indestructible awesomeness of the velociraptor. It’s like, science or something.
You’ll see.
