Find out which film “Jurassic Park” is the symbolic sequel according to Steven Spielberg.
Steven Spielberg envisioned the first Jurassic Park as a sequel to one of his most famous and acclaimed feature films. A film that lastingly changed the American cinema industry and which tells the story of the attack on a beach by a great white shark: it is obviously Jaws!
In an interview with New Yorker in 1994 for the release of Schindler’s List, the director spoke about this “connection” between his shark film and his dinosaur film:
If you don’t speak Spanish, you didn’t understand this joke from Jurassic Park:
Universal Pictures Roy Scheider from “Jaws”
I’m not ashamed to say that with Jurassic Park, I just tried to make a good sequel to Jaws, but on land. I’m not ashamed, I can tell you that today. But lately, I prefer to make harder choices.
It is true that there is a monster (the shark / the T-Rex) endangering a community (the town of Amity / the amusement park) and it will take a trio of courageous people to solve the problem (Brody-Quint-Hooper / Grant-Sattler-Malcolm).
Spielberg also admits to having filmed the two Indiana Jones sequels for money, but it must be remembered that between these films intended for the general public, he filmed more personal or less commercial works such as Empire of the Sun, Always – forever or The Color Purple.
Universal Pictures
Brody, Quint and Hooper in “Jaws”
The filmmaker is therefore a little harsh towards part of his career, even though he is far from having always made easy choices, as he implies in this interview with the New Yorker. After Schindler’s List, he continued with The Lost World, sequel to Jurassic Park, then Amistad and Saving Private Ryan, which won 5 Oscars.