1993’s Jurassic Park is a classic Steven Spielberg film and one of the best dinosaur movies ever made. Its themes of power and survival permeate the film and the franchise that came after it, and it’s hard to find another film like it.
While no movie can match what Jurassic Park accomplished, there are more than a few sci-fi movies that have given audiences amazing journeys. From alien movies to shark movies, there’s a little bit of Jurassic Park in the sci-fi movies that remind fans of it.
Kong: Skull Island Is Even Scarier Than Jurassic Park
The MonsterVerse made a statement with Godzilla (2014), and it seemed almost impossible to recreate. That’s why Kong: Skull Island offered something new with Vietnam War soldiers heading to Skull Island on a secret mission only to find an island where everything could kill them.
Kong: Skull Island is a brutal movie and takes the idea of a dangerous island with carnivorous beasts even farther than Jurassic Park. There’s nothing quite like what Kong: Skull Island delivers, and it is a great companion piece to Jurassic Park.
Aliens Is All About Surviving a Place Overrun by Monsters
On the surface, there’s absolutely nothing that compares with a perfect sequel like Aliens and Jurassic Park. But the key element of people surviving in a scientific location overrun by monsters is in the DNA of both films.
Xenomorphs are scarier than velociraptors by a long shot, but what makes the movie so interesting is seeing how the humans survive while also seeing corporate greed try to capitalize on the deaths of innocents. It’s not unlike Jurassic Park in that sense and makes Aliens an even more entertaining movie.
Primitive War Shows the Brutality of Dinosaurs in the Wild
Primitive War is very much like Jurassic Park in the sense that it’s about people surviving in an area with dinosaurs. But knowing that this is a story set during the Vietnam War and that these dinosaurs are coming from a portal changes everything.
The story balances soldiers trying to make sense of the situation while also showing dinosaurs acting as the brutal animals they likely are. Primitive War is a bloodier film than Jurassic Park, but also a story that offers something new and exciting based on the foundation of the 1993 film.
Godzilla (2014) Brings Kaiju Terror to Civilization
Jurassic Park has tried on two occasions to integrate dinosaurs into society, and at worst, it fell flat, and at best, it was passable. Godzilla (2014) showed what could happen if these prehistoric entities reached the mainland to devastating effect.
Bringing the classic Toho universe to the West meant that Godzilla had to pack a punch and cause destruction, and he did. But showing it from the human perspective changed everything and made the movie feel like Jurassic Park, but much bigger.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day Shows the Danger of a Stalking Terror
The first Terminator leaned heavily into horror by depicting the T-800’s relentlessness, but there wasn’t room for excitement. Terminator 2: Judgment Day gave viewers that extra level of excitement that balanced with the terrifying T-1000, in a way that mirrored Jurassic Park.
Jurassic Park’s velociraptors feel like an intelligent and unstoppable force that won’t stop until it gets the prey it’s hunting, and it’s hard not to see a similar trend in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The T-1000 is cold and calculating and is just as clever as the deadliest raptor.
Twister Turns Nature Into a Monster
Twister is a natural disaster movie that treats that disaster like a creature of its own. Starring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton, the film sees a scientist working to create technology that can predict twisters to save lives. However, as they get closer to their goal, the storms only get stronger.
Twister is all about exploring the wonder of nature, mainly its ugly side, and it’s incredibly effective. Twister can be as terrifying as it is beautiful and feels like a wonderful connection to Jurassic Park, aside from the fact that the author of the book, Peter Benchley, also co-wrote Twister‘s script.
Deep Blue Sea Is Jurassic Park Underwater
While Deep Blue Sea doesn’t balance the themes and nuance of Jurassic Park, it definitely knew how to pervert science into something terrifying. The film follows a group of scientists who raise super-intelligent sharks in a remote sea lab to cure Alzheimer’s. But everything goes wrong when a storm leads to a domino effect, where the sharks go free in the flooding lab as the team tries to escape.
Deep Blue Sea is all about making the super-smart sharks some of the scariest movie monsters ever. The film is filled with incredible death scenes, including Samuel L. Jackson’s iconic death scene. All in all, there’s nothing that feels more Jurassic Park than Deep Blue Sea, just with more water.