Jurassic Park 25th Anniversary Collection (4K UHD Blu-ray Review)

Despite never being the biggest fan of the Jurassic Park movie franchise, there’s no denying the legacy of these suckers, especially that of the first one (hence the 25th anniversary moniker of it all).  There’s also no denying the fact that many Hi-Def/4K UHD enthusiasts have been salivating over the eventual release of these monstrous titles on the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray format.  I can respect all of that.  Heck!  Even I found myself a little giddy the lower and lower they minimized the retail price on this 4K 8-disc set.  With its current price tag here of $50, which equates to roughly $12.50 per 4K feature, it makes it quite difficult to refute the appeal and obligatory addition of this box set to your home media collection.  You’re never too old for peer pressure, right?  Absolutely!  So join me down below in celebration of the groundbreaking Jurassic Park franchise in this all-new limited edition 4K set released on May 22nd.

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment helps us celebrate one of the most groundbreaking franchises of all-time, Jurassic Park, this May with a brand new commemorative 4K UHD/Blu-ray set titled Jurassic Park 25th Anniversary Collection.  The franchise was originally based on the best-selling book by Michael Crichton (the first two at least) and the first film went on to not only become a blockbuster in its own right, but also a winner of three Academy Awards: Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing.  That’s only the first film too and I didn’t even mention the memorable score from John Williams.  There are three more sequels found here with an additional one on the way, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, in theaters everywhere this June.  And if you don’t mind some bad humor, one could almost say the movie-making magic of these four dinosaur films were 65 million years in the making.

Now I’m not going to bore you with exhaustive recaps and summaries of all four of the films here.  If you haven’t seen them by now, that’s your problem to rectify.  However, if you truly haven’t seen them yet, then may I suggest there’s truly no better way to experience them for the first time than the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray presentations contained within here?  So without further ado what I would like to do is give you some pertinent details below in regards to each feature and a film score from yours truly.  That way I can get you on your way down further below to why you’re really all here…the audio/video 4K disc vitals.  Come on!  Let me be your guide through this rough and dangerous wilderness.

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Directed by: Steven Spielberg

Screenplay by: Michael Crichton, David Koepp

Music by: John Williams

Cast: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, B.D. Wong, Samuel L. Jackson, Wayne Knight

Brian’s One-Sentence Take: Welcome to shock and awe of Jurassic Park, now RUN for your lives!

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Directed by: Steven Spielberg

Screenplay by: David Koepp

Music by: John Williams

Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Pete Postlethwaite, Arliss Howard

Brian’s One-Sentence Take: There’s another island of dinosaurs!

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Directed by: Joe Johnston

Screenplay by: Peter Buchmann, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor

New Music by: Don Davis

Cast: Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Tea Leoni, Alessandro Nivola, Trevor Morgan, Michael Jeter

Brian’s One-Sentence Take: Parasailing near a dinosaur inhabited island is always dangerous.

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Directed by: Colin Trevorrow

Screenplay: Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Derek Connolly, Colin Trevorrow

Music by: Michael Giacchino

Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D’Onofrio, Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson, Jake Johnson, Omar Sy, B. D. Wong, Judy Greer, Irrfan Khan

Brian’s One-Sentence Take: Yes it has Chris Pratt and a good reason why you don’t run in high heels, but didn’t they learn from the first park? – – – (my full film review can be found here)

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Video 

So what I decided to do here is grade against the set as a whole with a cumulative score up above.  But fret not!  I did not take the easy way out like I did up above with the films.  Oh no!  I painstakingly watched every 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc with the same amount of accuracy and precision I employ in every review I pen.  My results per movie are as follows below.  Keep in mind that each of these films were remastered for the 4K Ultra HD presentations described in more detail below and housed on UHD-66 sized discs.

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• Encoding: HEVC / H.265
• Resolution: 4K (2160p)
• HDR: Yes
• Dolby Vision: No
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Clarity/Detail: I read a lot of reviews on this 4K title and a lot of people are complaining about the DNR applied here, but honest to God I never thought I would see the first Jurassic Park film ever look this great.  In my opinion this is a huge improvement over the 1080p Blu-ray release.  Everything is so detailed in close-ups such as stubble on faces and the hairs on the legs of the lawyer.  There are some soft shots too, but most importantly the dinosaurs do look faker than ever before in some of the green screen moments.  However, it is what it is. You knew what you were getting yourself into here.
• Depth: The landscapes of the many jungle and island sequences look incredible, but perhaps even more impressive are the three-dimensional pop of the onscreen figures.
• Black Levels: Black levels throughout are natural and deep.
• Color Reproduction: Colors are natural and rich throughout the presentation.  I love the way the greens look in the plush vegetation.
• Flesh Tones: The skin tones all look natural and authentic in appearance.
• Noise/Artifacts: There’s a light veneer of grain christening the overall print and it looks gorgeous in a cinematic loving kind of way.

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• Encoding: HEVC / H.265
• Resolution: 4K (2160p)
• HDR: Yes
• Dolby Vision: No
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Clarity/Detail: Like in the first film close-ups reveal so much detail such as hair on arms, veins, stubble, etc.  Even more impressive here are the textures in leather jackets and sweaters to the forest greens, trees, leaves and more.
• Depth: Depth of field looks equally gorgeous here from scenes on the subway bus, beach, Dr. Malcom’s house, the jungle and more.
• Black Levels: Black levels are also both natural and deep throughout here.
• Color Reproduction: Colors look strikingly natural and rich.
• Flesh Tones: The skin tones are all natural looking throughout.
• Noise/Artifacts: There’s a layer of film noise throughout and a few white specks early on to report.

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• Encoding: HEVC / H.265
• Resolution: 4K (2160p)
• HDR: Yes
• Dolby Vision: No
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Clarity/Detail: Wrinkles and stubble are clearly on display here, but what’s more impressive now more than ever are the fine details in the dinosaurs as the VFX have significantly improved.  The jungle once agains looks amazing too.
• Depth: I could mention the three-dimensional pop throughout again here, but that would be repetitive.  Instead let’s focus on specific scenes like the island, the lecture hall and the jungle’s many left and blades of grass we gaze beyond.
• Black Levels: Black levels are natural and the HDR ensures nothing gets lost in the shadows.
• Color Reproduction: Colors are rich, natural and at times very bright and beautiful.
• Flesh Tones: The skin tones look screen accurate throughout.
• Noise/Artifacts: There’s a light veneer of grain to report on, but nothing that will take away from the enjoyment of how things look.

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• Encoding: HEVC / H.265
• Resolution: 4K (2160p)
• HDR: Yes
• Dolby Vision: No
• Aspect Ratio: 2.00:1
• Clarity/Detail: As one would expect things get even more incredible looking in this feature.  The speckles in the eggs within the opening scene is something to write home about alone.  Close-ups are once again excellent such as stubble and moles in skin.  Textures such as concrete and gravel look outstanding.  However, the scene stealers are the new and improved details in the scales and eyes of the VFX dinosaurs.
• Depth: I could mention three-dimensional pop here til I’m “blu” in the face, but scenes at the airport, island shore, viewing the dinosaur adventure park from a balcony and more all look exceptional.
• Black Levels: It’s the perfect trifecta here.  Black levels are deep, natural and inky throughout the 4K presentation.
• Color Reproduction: The colors are all rich and bold here.
• Flesh Tones: The skin tones are once again natural in appearance, although Pratt does run a tad warm.
• Noise/Artifacts: There’s once again a light washing of film grain here, but more so than that things look very cinematic and film like throughout here.

Audio 

Like what I did up above with the video section I decided to do the very same here with the audio.  That means I am grading against the 4K set as a whole with a cumulative audio score up above.  That also means I painstakingly watched every 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc with the same amount of accuracy and precision I employ in every review I pen.  My results per movie are as follows below (minus the usual Dynamics because well you get the BIG picture already…it’s monstrous).  Keep in mind that each of these films were remastered for the 4K Ultra HD presentations with a DTS:X surround track.  They also all include Spanish, French, Portuguese and Japanese DT Digital Surround 5.1 tracks with subtitles in English SDH, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Mandarin and Japanese.  Trust me too.  Things never sounded better for these films than they do here!

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• Height: The height channels carry some significant weight here with growls and roars, helicopters score, rain and thunder.  One of the gimmicky scenes includes a champagne pop that hits the overhead speakers.  However, my favorite moment here has to be the scene within the Jurassic Park Jeep and the rain falling on the top of it.  It sounded so incredibly authentic.
• Low Frequency Extension: Well, think about it folks.  This is a dinosaur film.  Of course things sound very “heavy” footed here.  The score, roars, gunshots, thunder and more all bump with aggression here as well.
• Surround Sound Presentation: The 4K presentation here immerses you in the middle of everything here with crickets in the beginning to rustling trees, dinosaurs, gunshots, raptors chowing down on a cow, wind, rain and more.
• Dialogue Reproduction: The dialogue levels were always clear and loud throughout.

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• Height: The height channels take awhile to come alive here, but when they do they are appropriately utilized such as a spike forcibly down into a log, helicopters, the score, fires burning, rain coming down, thunder, explosions and more.
• Low Frequency Extension: The score bumps you and the dinosaurs stomp you here.  In addition to the many dinosaur roars there are also motorized vehicles rumbling as well as crashes with them that makes things go BOOM here.
• Surround Sound Presentation: This one is very atmospheric once again here because of the jungle sequences things go down in.  Screams, score, trees rustling, dinosaur action, birds chirping and more keep you in the game here.  This one has a very directional point of view with the action sequences.
• Dialogue Reproduction: The dialogue levels are intelligible and clear throughout.

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• Height: The overhead channels contain the usual moments like explosions, dinosaur action and rain.  However, this one has something the first two didn’t and those are pterodactyls (never knew how to spell those before this review) flapping overhead.
• Low Frequency Extension: A plane crash, explosions, dinosaur roars and hefty action all keep your subwoofer and engaged and fed.
• Surround Sound Presentation: The 4K presentation here immerses you within the score, country bar music, an airplane taking off (fading from behind you to in front of you), birds, action, fires burning and more.
• Dialogue Reproduction: The dialogue levels are always clear and intelligible for the most part.

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• Height: The overhead channels here are once again filled with flapping pterodactyls and also birds, helicopters, trees rustling on top, various jungle sounds, water splashing, smashing glass and more.
• Low Frequency Extension: Once again we have the usual suspects in the LFE department such as the score, stomping, roars/growls, dinosaur action and now cars being thrown around.
• Surround Sound Presentation: The 4K surround presentation has dogs, dinosaurs, ambiance in the adventure park, people hustling and bustling, dinosaurs killing, raptors racing and so much more.
• Dialogue Reproduction: The dialogue levels are clear and intelligible.

Extras 

So there’s good news and then there’s the bad news.  Let’s start with the latter first.  This 25th Anniversary Collection comes equipped with hours worth of bonus content.  They include deleted scenes, storyboards, interviews, behind-the-scenes featurettes, documentaries and so much more.  In fact there are over forty-five bonus featurettes spread across the 4 Blu-ray film discs.  I know you’re still probably wondering what the bad part is, huh?  Well, the bad part about all of this is every aforementioned extra was previously released in prior Blu-ray installments.  It’s an 8-disc set counting each film twice, once on a Blu-ray Disc and another time on 4K UHD, but that’s it. The re’s nothing new nor no opportunities to market the new film bing released this June.  However, with the bad usually comes some good so let’s tackle that next.

The good you’ll find here is not only in the packaging, but also the fact that you’ll get a redemption code (Movies Anywhere) for each film digitally too.  Best of all playback in VUDU gives you 4K UHD HDR presentations.  Bam!  Now let’s tackle this DigiBook (minus the book) packaging in a little more detail.  At first my apprehension got the best of me.  Do you remember The Mummy 4K trilogy set Universal put out not so long ago?  Those discs were a nightmare to get out.  Thankfully that’s not the case here, but I’ll always prefer a case over cardboard sleeves.  However, that’s just me.  Now instead of me boring you with more text and pictures how about I treat you with a video surprise of it all?  The following video that will take you through the unboxing of the set with a rousing score to boot is courtesy of Mr. Brandon Peters here on the site.  Check it all out via the video embed below.

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Just in case though you do want to know from a high level all the extras you’ll find within this set here they are listed below for your reading pleasure.

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Jurassic Park:

• Return to Jurassic Park: Dawn of a New Era
• Return to Jurassic Park: Making Prehistory
• Return to Jurassic Park: The Next Step in Evolution
• The Making of Jurassic Park
• Original Featurette on the Making of the Film
• Steven Spielberg Directs Jurassic Park
• Hurricane in Kauai Featurette
• Early Pre-Production Meetings
• Location Scouting
• Phil Tippett Animatics: Raptors in the Kitchen
• Animatics: T-Rex Attack
• ILM And Jurassic Park: Before and After the Visual Effects
• Foley Artists
• Storyboards
• Production Archives: Photographs, Design Sketches and Conceptual Paintings
• Jurassic Park: Making the Game
• Theatrical Trailer

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The Lost World: Jurassic Park:

• Return to Jurassic Park: Finding The Lost World
• Return to Jurassic Park: Something Survived
• Deleted Scenes
• The Making of The Lost World
• Original Featurette on the Making of the Film
• The Jurassic Park Phenomenon: A Discussion with Author Michael Crichton
• The Compie Dance Number: Thank You Steven Spielberg From ILM
• ILM & The Lost World: Before & After the Visual Effects
• Production Archives: Production Photographs, Illustrations and Conceptual Drawings, Models, The World of Jurassic Park, The Magic of ILM, Posters and Toys
• Storyboards
• Theatrical Trailer

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Jurassic Park III:

• Return To Jurassic Park: The Third Adventure
• The Making of Jurassic Park III
• The Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park III
• The Special Effects of Jurassic Park III
• The Industrial Light & Magic Press Reel
• The Sounds of Jurassic Park III
• The Art of Jurassic Park III
• Montana: Finding New Dinosaurs
• Tour of Stan Winston Studio
• Spinosaurus Attacks The Plane
• Raptors Attack Udesky
• The Lake
• A Visit to ILM
• Dinosaur Turntables
• Storyboards to Final Feature Comparison
• Production Photographs
• Feature Commentary with Special Effects Team
• Theatrical Trailer

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Jurassic World:

• Deleted Scenes
• Chris & Colin Take on the World
• Welcome to Jurassic World
• Dinosaurs Roam Once Again
• Jurassic World: All-Access Pass
• Innovation Center Tour with Chris Pratt
• Jurassic’s Closest Shaves – Presented by Barbasol

Summary 

Well there you have it folks.  I hope you enjoyed this quick prehistoric romp through 65 millions years in the making of Jurassic Park, which is finally home on the 4K ultra HD Blu-ray.  With remastered 4K video and monstrous DTS:X audio presentations the Jurassic Park: 25th Anniversary Collection is a HUGE bang for your buck on the 4K UHD format (currently at $49 at the time of this writing).  Sure you get the same old supplemental features you already had, but you also get peace of mind knowing you now own these classics in the best looking and sounding presentations ever released.  You can sleep easy knowing that now!

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DISCLAIMER: This 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray review was judged and graded using the following 4K certified Ultra HD Premium television set found here and player here.  Make sure to check out all our 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray reviews archived here.

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Jurassic Park: 25th Anniversary Collection

Rips Apart and Stomps All Over The Place

on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

Released May 22nd

ORDER NOW!

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