The ending of Jurᴀssic Park may not be as complicated as some sci-fi blockbusters, but there are layers to Spielberg’s “theme park gone wrong” disaster thriller that not all fans caught on first viewing. Released in 1993, Jurᴀssic Park was a mᴀssive hit for Steven Spielberg and became a rare blockbuster to earn both critical acclaim and commercial success. The simple story of a theme park populated with cloned dinosaurs that soon turns into a nightmare, the movie fused commentary on scientific experimentation with action to great effect.

Jurᴀssic Park was a family-friendly blockbuster with engaging characters and great set pieces. But beneath the movie’s tense, fun action is plentiful symbolism and commentary on science, technology, and humanity’s hubris from both the original author and Spielberg. The ending of Jurᴀssic Park ties its loose ends together neatly and repeatedly revisits the recurring idea that “life finds a way.” It’s the individual flaws of characters like John Hammond that Jurᴀssic Park’s ending condemns while celebrating the dinosaurs’ survival.

Why The T-Rex Saves The Humans In Jurᴀssic Park’s Ending

The T-Rex Has To Survive & Accidentally Saves The Humans

The T-Rex’s surprise reappearance at the close of Jurᴀssic Park makes for a deeply satisfying bit of blockbuster action as the music swells and the movie’s main monster accidentally saves the remaining humans from the raptors. It’s a great bit of subverted expectation, as the viewer has by now likely forgotten about the T-Rex, thanks to the tense raptor chase through the visitor’s center. But the scene serves more than just a narrative purpose.

In thematic terms, the image of the T-Rex standing in the destroyed remnants of the visitors’ center as the welcome banner falls is symbolically significant, as it displays that life will indeed “find a way,” with the T-Rex surviving even as the theme park it was created for crumbles. The life created for Jurᴀssic Park thrives, but the hubris and arrogance that tried to contain this life fall asunder.

Alan Grant’s Jurᴀssic Park Ending Is His Greatest Find

Alan Grant Finally Found His Comfort Zone

Dr. Alan Grant’s character arc in the first Jurᴀssic Park mirrors what the film is trying to say about “life finding a way.” The sH๏τ of Sattler looking approvingly at a sleepy Grant as the kids rest on his shoulder represents his growth as a character. In the film’s opening, Grant terrifying a kid visiting the archaeological dig proves he’s not good with children, but during the action of Jurᴀssic Park, the kids come to rely on him, and Grant rises to this challenge.

Their sleeping on his shoulder shows he’s a stable father figure now, and Neill’s previously stand-offish character has shown a lot of skill in the parental caregiving role he was forced into. As the movie leaves Jurᴀssic Park’s islands behind, life has found a way to mature and develop Grant’s character.

What Happens To Ray Arnold In Jurᴀssic Park

Ray Is Killed Off-Screen By A Raptor

Although his death isn’t seen onscreen, Ray Arnold is very much ᴅᴇᴀᴅ by the end of Jurᴀssic Park’s action. The reason he isn’t seen after leaving to reboot the island’s system manually is that the raptors managed to hunt him down and kill him, a fate heavily implied by Sattler’s discovery of his severed arm.

In an odd coincidence, a real-life tropical storm prevented the production from filming the death scene of Samuel L. Jackson’s character, leaving some viewers to wonder about his fate. Although his dismemberment was never staged, the character is still canonically deceased, according to the Jurᴀssic Park franchise.

Jurᴀssic Park Was A Failure (But Still Has A Future)

With The Bad Seeds Gone, Hammond Still Has A Chance

The end of Jurᴀssic Park leaves not only Grant, Sattler, Dr. Ian Malcolm, and the kids alive, but also park proprietor John Hammond (the eccentric billionaire who funded the entire endeavor). This is important, as the movie portrays the park’s failure as being caused specifically by Dennis Nedry’s dangerous, malicious decision to compromise the internal systems rather than because the entire idea of a dinosaur theme park is inherently lethal.

Nedry is killed after he causes the park’s failure, and there’s no reason to think the park wouldn’t have worked if he hadn’t intervened. The actions of a handful of bad actors, such as Dennis Nedry and Dodgson (who returns in Jurᴀssic World: Dominion), led to the failure of the eponymous park, so with Nedry neutralized, the ending sets up the possibility of returning to the islands to try to fix his failures in the sequels.

What The Birds At The End of Jurᴀssic Park Mean

They Represent That The Dinosaurs Aren’t Monsters, But Also Animals

The flock of pelicans seen by the survivors sitting in the helicopter at the end of Jurᴀssic Park serves two metaphorical purposes. They’re the first normal animals the group has seen since the goat devoured by an offscreen T-Rex early on in the movie, so their presence is a comforting reminder that the characters are returning to normality from the madness of the eponymous park. However, earlier in the film, a comparison was also drawn between dinosaurs and birds that evolved from them.

Jurᴀssic Park is also using this sH๏τ to illustrate that, like the pelicans, the dinosaurs aren’t necessarily monsters, but rather just another of nature’s majestic creations (albeit one of the more dangerous ones), and with the humans gone and the island to themselves, they’ll soon be returning to “normality” too. Also, in terms of practical storytelling, seeing the birds fly away from the island reminds viewers that the helicopter is not the only thing able to leave Isla Nublar, thus setting up the sequels.

What Jurᴀssic Park’s Ending Really Means

Jurᴀssic Park touches on the dangers of people trying to play God, but in Spielberg’s movie, Hammond’s experimentation isn’t explicitly condemned as much as his profit-spinning is. His decision to trust embittered, underpaid staffers such as Dennis Nedry leads to the theme park’s failure rather than the act of cloning dinosaurs itself, and his choice to clone more “exciting” (read: profitable) predators such as the T-Rex endangers the park’s occupants.

The survival of Jurᴀssic Park‘s dinosaurs suggests that life will “find a way,” regardless of whether Nedry’s malicious intent or Hammond’s money-spinning compromises the experiments. Sattler, Grant, and the rest of the cast frequently describe the dinosaurs as beautiful, and they have a real reverence for them and are awed by their presence.

Thus, Jurᴀssic Park suggests that the dinosaurs aren’t monsters, but the humans cloning them must be careful, as life will always survive even if the humans trying to control it aren’t so lucky. Hammond’s attempts to profit off the majesty of the dinosaurs are punished through the destruction of his park, while Nedry’s attempts to steal the dinosaur DNA are more directly punished with his gruesome death.

How The Jurᴀssic Park Ending Was Received

The Movie Was Universally Beloved By Fans & Critics

Fans and critics alike loved Jurᴀssic Park​​​​​, with the Rotten Tomatoes scores identical at 91% for each group. One audience reviewer praised most of the climax, writing, “The T-Rex breakout is iconic and awe inspiring. Dennis Nedry’s death is horrifying. Everything that happens in the power shed is awesome. And Robert Muldoon’s death scene is one of the coolest in any movie.” Peter Travers of Rolling Stone loved the movie and praised its handling of the dinosaurs throughout:

“If Jurᴀssic Park lacks the emotional hold of E.T., it still forges a bond between the animals and the audience that allows the beauty and terror of Crichton’s vision to come through. Spielberg never turns the dinosaurs into huggable Barneys or B-movie monsters; they retain a primitive dignity… Jurᴀssic is a grabber for the best of reasons: You won’t believe your eyes.”

There were also some great fan thoughts about the very end of Jurᴀssic Park, with the birds. On Reddit, one thread was dedicated to the scene, and the OP had great thoughts about its meaning. “Upon seeing the birds (evolved dinosaurs), Alan smiles because he realizes that in becoming a Dad to the kids, he has evolved too. And that‘s how the movie ends,” they wrote. “Its him being reminded of his own evolution theory and realizing he is a part of it. Just like Dinosaurs into birds, Alan has evolved too.“