[Magazine Review] The Ultimate Guide to Jurassic Park

Phew! I can’t remember the last magazine I read… And I’m not sure if I will keep this feature on here, we’ll see… But what a perfect magazine to test it out with!

If you’ve been following me for a while, you probably already know that Michael Crichton is my all time favorite author and that I just LOVE Jurassic Park! So of course when I saw this edition, I immediately grabbed one for myself and one for my friend Amber!

The Ultimate Guide to Jurassic Park was an awesome collection of features in celebration of the 25th anniversary!

Let’s dive in!

My Thoughts on The Ultimate Guide to Jurassic Park

The first few sections of this magazine were short features and then interviews with the cast of the new film. It was fun to read the bits where the actors talked about their characters! I particularly liked the bit where the author of the article poked fun and the internet’s uproar about Claire running through the jungle in high heels.

Then there was The Art of the Fallen Kingdom spread. This was so cool to look at and it was interesting to learn more about certain scenes that they highlighted.

Next up were photos from on the set of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. I think on set photos are always fun to look at and I loved the little captions that gave more info about what was going on.

One of my favorite sections on this magazine was the “Top 10 Beastly Moments.” This was fun to see all the intense scenes ranked!

Next up was a section that discussed Jurassic Park complete with interviews from Steven Spielberg, cast members, and other key people. One of my favorite parts about this was learning that the dinosaur noises were actually recorded using real animal noises! For example, the main attack screen of the raptor was created using a combination of a walrus for the low frequency and a dolphin for the higher-frequency. This whole section especially fun for me to read because I was only three when the high release occurred in 1993 and this gave a great look at that time.

The there was an awesome spread about the map of the park! Gosh, I cannot wait to have a home and order my Isla Nublar map!

The next section was all about the creation of the mechanical or body suits that made the dinosaurs come to life! It was so cool to see that some didn’t rely on any CGI!  Next up was a section about The Lost World.

Then there was a section that made me teary: Remembering Michael Crichton.

“The script was changed and refined a lot after my draft, in ways that I think are really very good, I should add. It all seems very compatible with my ways of thinking- it fits in my mind.” 

There was also a section about the gifts and toys now available from the world, such as the Funko Injured Ian Malcolm figure, inflatable dino costumes, legos, and other such things. This section really should have gone last though. Major missed opportunity there! Especially as it was titled “Exit through the gift shop”…

Then there was a section about Jurassic World, complete with some of the artwork similar to what was shared at the beginning for Fallen Kingdom. And lastly, there was a section about the facts. I really liked that the coloring and missing feathers of the dinosaurs were discussed; they left these things out simply because of the CGI limitations and spook factor.

My Favorite Passages

Chris Pratt, talking about the new movies- At the end of the day, we’re all trying to make something that will be part of the Jurassic empire and tonally match the previous movies, but we’re going off a new direction.

In typical Jurassic fashion, no one listens to Malcolm.

“If I could contextualize each film, I would say Jurassic World was an action-adventure, Fallen Kingdom it’s kind of a horror-suspense film, and Jurassic World 3 will be a science thriller in the same way that the original Jurassic Park was,” Trevorrow says.

My Final Thoughts

Overall, I thought this was a very awesome magazine. I’m so glad I was able to pick one up! The only slight bummer was the organization of the features; if they had just organized a few of them differently, it would have flowed much better in my opinion.

Thanks for reading!
What was the last magazine you read?