Me: It’s really interesting to hear someone’s perspective of a film and their build-up to a film. Especially at that age, because I believe then people tend to forget those kinds of things and just go to the nostalgia of the film itself. Is there anything else from that time that pushed you towards loving this film? You talk about the journalism aspect and the dinosaur aspect as well as the simple history aspect. Is there anything else you can think of that attributed to your love for this movie?
Rappe: That was actually a summer that I saw a ton of movies at the theatre. We didn’t have a ton of money so we didn’t go very often and I remember that was an unusual summer that we went quite a bit. My summer basically started with Jurassic Park and I remember that was the first time I was allowed to go multiple times to the same movie and my dad actually worked off duty, he’s a Denver cop, security at this mall so they would let me go in and watch it for free. So I must’ve seen it a dozen times, and you know as a kid the time of summer just seemed so much longer. Actually it’s so much different now. Back then a movie like Jurassic Park stayed in the theatre all summer whereas now you get maybe three weeks, four weeks before it’s gone and in retrospect being able to go and see Jurassic Park whenever I wanted and it being there all summer was pretty weird. It was in the biggest theatre, with the biggest sound and that I think was the first time I started to enjoy seeing things with audiences because I had seen it opening day and then getting to go back and seeing it with people who hadn’t seen it I remember coming home and telling my mom how cool that was. I knew what was going to happen and they didn’t and watching people jump out of their seats and popcorn go all over the theatre and after a while just going to get a sort of buzz off the audience, the people who hadn’t seen it before.
In a way I think that was because a lot of my friends, the two friends who I was oddly playing “let’s interview actors” with weren’t allowed to go see it because it was PG-13 and their parents were really strict and so I didn’t have anyone to really talk to about the movie and how cool the movie was. So that was the closest I had to seeing it and talking with friends about it. It’s just such an odd thing. Of course now I’m on the internet and all the kids saw Jurassic Park opening weekend but in my neighbourhood that was freaky.
I remember that and seeing lots of movies that summer and nothing really matching up to that. I think that was the year that Super Mario Bros. came out.
Me: Time for a Google race…
Rappe: It was. But Mario came out before Jurassic Park so I guess it’s not fair to say that it was a serious let down.
Me: Your Google skills are stronger than mine. I am hurt. The films came out in the same year. Super Mario Bros. came out in May…
Rappe: So it had come out before Jurassic Park. That’s why in my mind I’m really going to be let down, because my sister and I had cooked up this whole plan how a Super Mario Bros. movie would be really cool. They should’ve just had us right the screenplay at 11-years-old because it would’ve been a way better movie. We had it all worked out. How the pipes and everything would work.
I remember just being so excited that something could match my expectations because I know other movies that had really disappointed me then.
Me: I imagine at that point, after seeing Jurassic Park, you think to yourself, “all I want at this point is to put Dennis Hopper in that cage with the T-Rex.”
Rappe: I remember even thinking at the time that it was weird that I had seen two movies with dinosaurs this year and only one was good and only one had real dinosaurs in it. I don’t know what that other thing was.
I almost wonder if Super Mario Bros. had got a whiff that Spielberg was doing Jurassic Park and that’s how they got that little dinosaur Yoshi. It just didn’t make any sense otherwise. They were like, “raptors are going to be awesome this year!” Probably not, but…
Me: You never really know with these things though. You do see nowadays though, looking at it as an industry, when movies come out in pairs.
One question I like to ask as people tend to pick films from their past. Do you think you’d have a different outlook on this film if you were seeing it for the first time today?
Rappe: It’s funny, because I watched it a bunch as a kid from 11 to like 13. Then I got into other stuff and I didn’t watch it as much. I hadn’t seen it for years and then I caught it again on television just randomly while I was staying in the hotel and there was nothing on and I was like, “YES!” I remember watching it and thinking, and I know this would be a criticism I would have as an adult that it’s not a movie that has a lot of suspense once you see it in retrospect because from the very beginning it’s just set up so that everything in the park is going to go wrong. It’s not even a surprise when the power goes out and the dinosaurs go loose because you have Samuel L. Jackson and Jeff Goldblum basically saying, “Everything is going to go really wrong while we’re here.” Samuel L. Jackson even says it outright, “John it could’ve been a lot worse and you know it.” I remember watching it going, “wow,” as a kid at it seemed so much more. It was definitely tense but I think it was really just my anticipation of just really wanting to see those dinosaurs carry me over the obvious lines of, “everything is going to go really wrong in a minute.” That would definitely be a criticism that I would have now because when I watch it again I just kind of roll my eyes because it’s really doom and gloom from the very beginning, instead of it being a genuine surprise when “oh crap” the T-Rex gets out as opposed to Samuel L. Jackson going, “man we’re just lucky it didn’t get out this time!”
Well, now we’ve had so many good effects since then, but giving it 21st Century CG. Its like, would you have to erase everything that came before it because after Lord of the Rings and Avatar it definitely wouldn’t be as mind blowing. The one reason that that movie just blew my mind as a kid was that we hadn’t seen anything like that before, where a computerized image had weight and texture which looked really real, but now that’s an everyday occurrence. So if it were said, “Jurassic Park coming out next summer,” probably wouldn’t be as exciting. Yay, a movie with dinosaurs running around, but that’s it. I guess I probably wouldn’t like it as much. The characters aren’t necessarily that great, Grant is a cranky palaeontologist, Laura Dern is a paleobotanist and that’s all you ever really know about them. Ian Malcolm is a mathematician. It’s just really a pretty thin movie, but as a kid it was the best movie in the world.
Me: You’d be like, “I love those Goonies!”
Rappe: Ye.
It’s kind of sad. It is sort of the definition of a “popcorn” movie and it’s not that isn’t fun to pop on but now it really works on nostalgia. I think we rank it really high because it’s sort of the last of truly popcorn movies that Spielberg did. It’s the last of his: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., kind of movies. I remember even being angry, like, “I can’t believe he does Jurassic Park and just walks away.” Then he starts winning Oscars and I’m just thankful he made that (Jurassic Park).
Me: “Then he makes war films that I can’t watch because I’m only 13.”
Rappe: Actually, I remember really championing to go see Amistad and just being so bored. Even though I really liked history I was just not into that movie then. And they actually took me to see Saving Private Ryan that year, I was allowed to see Braveheart at 13 I had no real restrictions…
Me: You’re a lucky girl. I lived in a restricted household when it came to films. I didn’t see Braveheart till I was like 18.
Rappe: Which was probably best because I saw it at 13 and it was, at that point, the grossest movie I had ever seen. I remember that that was the first movie that I was actually physically sick. I just felt all the blood drain from my body when I saw limbs going ever which way. I didn’t know that could be shown legally.
It’s kind of funny, I look at friends not being able to see Jurassic Park and that movie didn’t scare me, it didn’t gross me out and thinking as a kid, “I really wish I could’ve seen what happened to the guy in the bathroom,” and that really bugged me that it happened off camera. Well, they find his body off camera and bits of him. I was just thinking, “Don’t cover that up with palm leaves.” I wanted to see what a T-Rex does from a clinical standpoint.
Me: Well before we go, I want to ask, since we’re talking about Jurassic Park, of all the dinosaurs they omitted from the film which would you have wished to see in the film and which dinosaur would you want to have for a pet?
Rappe: I remember reading the book as a kid and being really disappointed that they didn’t have the stegosaurus and that’s like our dinosaur, in Colorado. I also remember in the book there were pterodactyls which also sucked they weren’t in the movie. I remember even wondering why they didn’t do one, because I knew they had a robotic one at Disney that’s not too bad, so I was never quite sure why they never did it.
As a pet, it would have to be the “leafy” dinosaur. A brontosaurus would be too big, unless I could get a tiny one. Otherwise, if it were big (but not too big) I would have to get a duck billed one; what are those called? The ones from Land Before Time, the “ducky” dinosaurs?
Me: My dinosaur knowledge has just seeped out of my brain from when I was child…
Rappe: Me too. So whatever those duck billed dinosaurs that are in The Land Before Time because they’re not too big. They’re like the size of an elephant or a horse, so I could have one of those in my backyard and feed it truck loads of lettuce, fish and stuff I guess. Why am I thinking practically?
I used to love these books, Dinosaur Bob, and I used to love that they would ride the dinosaurs. So I’d want a dinosaur that I could ride down the street.
Me: Anyways, thanks so much for joining me for this Elisabeth and glad to talk with you.
Rappe: Me too.
Thanks for reading and make sure to let me know in the comments what you think of the interview as well as your own memories with Jurassic Park.