"Jurassic Park" at 25

Shortly after I graduated from high school, the first Jurassic Park movie hit theaters.  As a bonafide blockbuster hit, it made everyone a pseudo-dino expert (there are worse things), packed folks into theaters, made Sam Neill a bankable actor who sort of shrugged that off and went off to be Sam Neill, taught us that young girls imprinted on Jeff Goldbum as a sex symbol, made us all wonder where cliffs begin and end in dinosaur paddocks, and convinced me khaki shorts were an excellent look on paleontologists.

It's now 25 years on.  Yesterday, June 11, marked the release of Jurassic Park in the U.S.

SW Watches: Jurassic Park (again)

If one thing is clear by your 40th viewing of this movie, it's that John Hammond spared no expense.

In 1993, an 18-year-old me went to his first midnight, opening-night screening of a movie to see the technical marvel that is Jurassic Park.  We got our tickets early, hit the Taco Cabana, had some nachos and then went back to the theater and saw the closest thing to real dinosaurs we'd ever seen before cross the screen to John Williams' tremendous score.

hope you brought a change of undies, doctor

During that first viewing, I drank my large Coke, then chewed apart the straw, then chewed apart the lid, and was making my way down the cup when Sam Niell looked out the window of the helicopter at the flock of pelicans.  I'll bag on a lot of crowd-pleasing directors, but I will fist-fight you over Steven Spielberg.  Not every one of his movies is my favorite, but the man knows how to make an entertaining-as-hell two-hour movie.

When I left for college that fall, it was with a Jurassic Park pillowcase and an even firmer idea that pursuing a film degree was a totally keen idea.

Buy Tim's Shirt: Jurassic Galaxy

Tim Doyle - famed artist and maker of late night drunken promises - has created the shirt that should speak volumes to this audience.

Here's the graphic:

bask in its glory

here's what it looks like as a t-shirt that will make anyone look better and totally cover your muffin top: