Something has survived
Jeff Goldblum <br?>
Julianne MooreGerald R. Molen
The Lost World: Jurassic Park is a 1997 American science fiction adventure monster film directed by Steven Spielberg. It is the second installment in the Jurassic Park franchise.
Synopsis[]
A research team is sent to the Jurassic Park Site B island to study the dinosaurs there while another team approaches with another agenda.
Plot[]
Prologue: A wealthy British family is on a yacht cruise near Isla Sorna. The daughter (Camilla Belle) wanders off and encounters a Compsognathus. As she offers morsels of food for the miniscule dinosaur to eat, this attracts more Compsognathus. Screams are heard as she is attacked; the parents run to her rescue, much to the horror of the mother as she emits a high-pitched scream.
Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) publicized the incident at Jurassic Park, but disbelief destroyed his academic reputation. Four years later, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), having lost control of InGen to his unscrupulous nephew Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard) in the wake of the incident in the prologue, summons Ian to his home. He explains that Isla Sorna (also known as "Site B") is the island where the dinosaurs were engineered and nurtured for a few months before being moved to Isla Nublar, Jurassic Park's location. He also explains that after the park was shut down, a hurricane destroyed the containment facilities on Isla Sorna, and the dinosaurs have been living free in the wild ever since. Hammond requests Malcolm to join a team that will travel to Isla Sorna to document the dinosaurs in their natural habitat as a way of rallying public support to prevent Ludlow from exploiting the site in order to bail out InGen (as the company is facing bankruptcy) and encourage him to leave it as a nature preserve. Ian initially declines but, after learning that his girlfriend—paleontologist Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore)—is part of the team and is already on the island, agrees to go.
Ian meets the other two members of the team: equipment specialist and engineer Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff), and video documentarian Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn). Shortly after arriving on the island, they find Sarah after a brief encounter with a herd of Stegosaurus and discover that Ian's daughter Kelly has stowed away on the trailer that the group is using as a mobile base. Ian tries to take Kelly home, but they're interrupted by the arrival of a motley InGen team of mercenaries, hunters and paleontologists led by Ludlow, whom they spot chasing and capturing several dinosaurs such as Parasaurolophus, Pachycephalosaurus, Gallimimus, and Triceratops. Meanwhile, tracker and team leader Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite) separates from the main group and goes after his big prize: a male Tyrannosaurus rex. He decides to capture it by luring it to the cries of its injured offspring. That night, Ian's team sneak into the InGen camp and learn of the truth: the captured dinosaurs will be brought to San Diego as the main attraction of a newly proposed theme park there, a profiteering enterprise that Ludlow would benefit from, against Hammond's behest. This prompts Nick and Sarah to free the caged dinosaurs; as soon as they are released, they wreak havoc upon the camp, destroying much needed weapons and equipment.
During the commotion, Nick frees the infant T-Rex and takes it to the trailer so Sarah can mend its broken leg. Ian, Kelly and Eddie secure themselves in a "high hide", a lift Eddie built to keep them safe above the trees. Fearing that the infant's parents might be searching for it, Ian rushes to the trailer to warn them. As soon as he arrives, two adult Tyrannosaurus rex emerge from the woods and begin to threaten them. They decide to release the infant, but after a few minutes the adult Tyrannosaurus return and attack the trailer, pushing it over the edge of a nearby cliff, with Ian, Sarah and Nick trapped inside. Eddie decides to rescue them and tries to help pull the trailer back over the edge with his SUV, but is interrupted and devoured by the T-Rex, sending the trailer and Eddie's SUV plummeting down the cliff, destroying both vehicles. Ian, Sarah and Nick survive and are finally found by Kelly and the InGen team. With both groups' communications equipment and vehicles destroyed in the attacks, they team up to reach the old InGen compound's radio station on foot. During the trip, Dieter Stark (Peter Stormare), Roland's second-in-command, is killed by a flock of Compsognathus.
The next night, the two Tyrannosaurus rex come across the group's camp, having followed the scent of the infant's blood on Sarah's jacket. One of the hunters notices them and screams, causing everyone to flee in panic. The female T-Rex chases the group, while Roland stays behind and manages to tranquilize the male. The hunters disband into the thick trees and pass through a field of tall grass, where a troop of breeding Velociraptor attack the hapless survivors. Ian, separated earlier from the group, reunites with Nick, Sarah and Kelly, and they continue on toward the compound. Nick finds the communications room and calls for rescue. After barely escaping a trio of Velociraptor, a helicopter finally arrives and whisks them off the island. From the air, they spot the unconscious male T.Rex being prepared for transport.
A freighter carries the T-Rex back to the mainland, but crashes into the dock at breakneck speed. Ludlow and several guards investigate and find that the crew has disappeared. A guard opens the cargo hold, accidentally releasing the T-Rex, which escapes into the city and goes on a rampage where it devours a dog (but does not harm its owners), rips apart a traffic light, causes a bus to crash into a video store, and kills a man. Realizing the T-Rex is likely searching for its infant, Ian and Sarah learn from Ludlow that the infant was captured and is in a secure InGen building somewhere in the city. They rush to retrieve the infant and use it to lure the adult back to the ship. Ludlow tries to intervene but is trapped in the cargo hold and killed by the young T-Rex. Before the adult can escape from the cargo hold, Sarah tranquilizes it while Ian closes the hold.
Ian, Sarah and Kelly watch on live television as the ship carrying the adult and infant T-Rex is escorted back to Isla Sorna. John Hammond explains in an interview that the American and Costa Rican governments have agreed to declare the island a nature preserve. He ends the interview by saying "life will find a way", paraphrasing what Malcolm told him in the first film. The two adult T-Rex and their baby are shown to have been returned safely.
Cast[]
- Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm, a mathematician and chaos theorist, and a survivor of the events on "Isla Nublar" from the first film.
- Julianne Moore as Dr. Sarah Harding, a behavioral paleontologist and Ian's girlfriend.
- Vince Vaughn as Nick Van Owen, a well-traveled and experienced documentarian and environmentalist.
- Pete Postlethwaite as Roland Tembo, a big-game hunter from Africa and the leader of his team.
- Arliss Howard as Peter Ludlow, InGen's current CEO and Hammond's conniving nephew. He is the main antagonist of the film.
- Richard Schiff as Eddie Carr, a timid and sardonic field equipment expert.
- Richard Attenborough as John Hammond, InGen's former CEO and the park's original visionary.
Production[]
After the release of the novel Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton was pressured by fans for a sequel novel. Having never written a sequel, he initially refused. Discussions about a sequel film began after the successful release of Jurassic Park in 1993. Steven Spielberg held discussions with David Koepp and Crichton to discuss possible ideas for a sequel film, and requested Crichton to write a sequel novel. Joe Johnston offered to direct the film, but the job ultimately went to Spielberg.
A production team was assembled in spring 1995, as Crichton was finishing the novel while Spielberg and Koepp were developing ideas for the screenplay. Production designer Rick Carter traveled to the Caribbean, Central America and New Zealand to scout possible locations for filming, before settling on the redwood forests of Eureka, California.
Filming[]
Filming began on September 5, 1996, at Fern Canyon, a part of California's Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. Filming continued for two weeks in other state parks and on private land in northern California. The film's opening scenes were shot in Kauai, Hawaii. Throughout the fall of 1996, filming continued on stages at Universal Studios Hollywood. The Site B workers village was constructed there and left intact after filming to become a part of the theme park tour. Filming concluded ahead of schedule on December 11, 1996. Filming at New Zealand's Fiordland National Park was originally planned to take place over five days in December. Plans to shoot there were scrapped for unknown reasons.
Spielberg suggested the Tyrannosaurus rex's 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 1912 novel The Lost World.
Many elements from the original novel that were not ultimately used in the first film were instead used in The Lost World. The opening sequence of a vacationing family's young daughter being attacked by a group of Compsognathus was very similar to the novel's opening scene, and Dieter Stark's death is also analogous to John Hammond's compy-related death in the novel. Also, Nick, Sarah, Kelly, and Burke being trapped behind a waterfall by one of the T. Rexes was ultimately taken from the novel, where Tim and Lex are trapped behind a man-made waterfall with the T. Rex attempting to eat them, and Roland Tembo shoots the T. Rex with tranquilizer in the same way that Robert Muldoon did in the novel.
Trivia[]
- 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 Burbank, California.