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When Jurassic Park Was Named One of the Most Realistic Sci-Fi Movies Ever By NASA
We still don't have a dinosaur theme park, but Jurassic Park is at least semi-plausible.
This month marks 30 years since the release of Jurassic Park, and that means a month (or more) of celebrations centered on Steven Spielberg's highly influential adventure spectacle. We've got everything from special screenings to theme park attractions to new merch celebrating three decades of Jurassic Park. We've also got plenty of looks back at the original film and its impact.
RELATED: Why Jurassic Park Might Be The Most Rewatchable Movie Ever
Which reminds us: Do you remember when Jurassic Park was named one of sci-fi's most realistic movies?
Jump back to 2011, when the film was just a wee 18-year-old and the franchise hadn't yet gotten its major revitalization with Jurassic World. NASA scientists had a little get together during which they voted on the science fiction movies that were the most and lease plausible according to their actual scientific minds. The results are, largely, not all that surprising. Roland Emmerich's disaster extravaganza 2012 hit the top of the list (where would Moonfall rank if they took a vote again now) of least realistic movies, while Andrew Niccol's Gattaca, with its tale of genetic engineering and discrimination, took the top spot in the "best" most plausible films.
You can read the full list on both sides of the argument preserved over on Smithsonian Magazine's website, but we'll go ahead and spoil one aspect for you: Landing on the most plausible list, in the seventh spot below sci-fi greats like Contact and The Thing From Another World, is Jurassic Park.
Which isn't all that surprising. After all, before we got into the full-on dinosaur adventure of it all, complete with velociraptor attacks and a murderous T. Rex, Jurassic Park was all about the plausibility of how far cloning technology could go. Thanks to the presence of the always-delightful Mr. DNA, moviegoers got a crash course in how the process could work, from harvesting dinosaur blood from prehistoric mosquitoes to combining old dino DNA with the DNA of frogs to make all-new living, breathing dinosaurs. Honestly, at times the theme park logistics seem less realistic than the science.
Jurassic Park, one of the most realistic sci-fi movies ever, is now streaming Peacock.
