I think about the film Jurassic Park all the time. Which makes sense: it's my favorite movie. Today I want to write about the weirdness of the slide show that shows during the lunch scene (feat: Chef Alejandro's Chilean Sea Bass!) that occurs maybe 30 minutes into the film.

So, in the context of the film, this scene is designed to lay out the overarching theme of the film: the folly of scientific hubris. All the main characters are together in this terrifying room surrounded by a Circlevision of projectors pointing at screens on every damn wall.

It's dramatic! The lighting is moody! The dialogue snaps! You get some all time great JP lines here. But also, the slides projected on the walls are complete nonsense.

As far as I can tell, we can break things down into five phases, which kiiiiiind of make sense with the conversation, maybe:

1) production art from the making of Jurassic Park
2) charts and graphs showing profitability
3) someone's vacation photos
4) science!
5) wordy islands

Here's a couple shots from the first phase. We can see a boat ride, a very pretty building at the base of a mountain, a kind of outdoor thatched roof stall, and a covered bridge at a waterfall. Very cool production art.

This makes sense for the dialogue: Hammond is talking about the future of the park ("spared no expense") and we get to see some of the exciting possibilities. I should mention that in the background you can quietly hear a recording of Hammond that goes with the slides apparently.

Then we segue into the part where Gennaro, the lawyer, starts to talk about making money. And the slides are the most wackadoo bar graphs and pie charts showing ATTENDANCE and PROFITS. SPORTS? ZOOS? Make way for JURASSIC.

(the pie chart shows that Jurassic Park's costs are "7.5 MILLION" while the returns are "4.7 BILLION" if I am reading that correctly. I'm really bummed we don't see the final chart with the projected revenue, since it looks to be one of those excel nightmare 3D plane graphs)

It's here where Malcolm steps in and gets very serious, going on about not taking responsibility ............ for it, etc, and the slides become less distinct.

THAT BEING SAID it's also here where someone just threw in all of their fun vacation shots. The plane in Hawaii! Flowers! Some dork with a tie! It's funny that any time we cut to specific characters who aren't Malcolm, they're framed by these dorky slides.

The best slide in the whole presentation is here, too. Hammond says "our scientists have done things which nobody's ever done before" and this gem pops up. As far as I can tell, it says JURASSIC PARK TENNIS which, let me tell you, sounds de-light-ful. Sign me up for that, please.

Also, you get the ADVENTURE slide, and a few more vacation photos. PAY ATTENTION, since, we actually get Tie Dye Kid, then a quick Family In Front of Jurassic Park Explorer, and then BACK TO Tie Dye Kid in like three seconds, it's simply wonderful.

At this point, we get Ellie Sattler bringing up some interesting points about paleobotany. And the slides get real science-ey as a result. We've got gene sequences and embryos and random science images. Also shout out to Ellie's glasses. Ellie is the best.

Near the end, the slides have some bonus shots of islands and the words JURASSIC or JURASSIC PARK or EUROPE on them. I assume that this is future theme parks? I guess?

After Alan Grant gets real spooky, Chef Alejandro comes BACK, a little less than four minutes after serving everyone, to tell Hammond that his grandkids have arrived (you can barely hear him). Hammond just stands up and tells everyone that LUNCH IS DONE in front of a logo slide.

Anyway, that's it for the slides we see. It's completely bonkers that on a BEAUTIFUL TROPICAL ISLAND FULL OF DINOSAURS this dark ass room of an unending slide show is where Hammond thought to bring everyone for lunch, but I'm glad that at least the slides are super wacky

Jurassic Park is a VERY GOOD movie. It's awesome that the slides kind of follow along with the conversation somewhat and I salute the production folks who put them together. And I salute Chef Alejandro who cooked for these people only to have them leave lunch after five minutes

And finally two things:

1) The ranking of Jurassic Park films is I, then a few miles away, III, II, and there are no other Jurassic Park films.

2) JURASSIC PARK TENNIS PLEASE