Jurassic Park is without a doubt one of the most influential films of all time, but it is not just on movies where the Steven Spielberg classic has had such a big impact.

Not only was Jurassic Park one of the first big blockbusters to make merchandising another massive revenue stream for film companies, it has resulted in huge changes to culture too.

With five films having already been released and a sixth, named Jurassic World: Dominion, set to be released in 2021, it is clear that Jurassic Park is not going anywhere any time soon.

Jurassic Park

Dominion's plot is being kept firmly under wraps but key actors from the franchise like Laura Dern, Chris Pratt, Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum and Bryce Dallas Howard are all on board.

Here, we take a look at how the release of Jurassic Park has helped to shape generations.

A game-changer for paleontology

Perhaps it should not come as a surprise to learn that there has been a massive increase in interest in paleontology in the years since the release of Jurassic Park in cinemas.

A new generation of scientists who got interested in dinosaurs as youngsters as a result of seeing the film has helped to move paleontology forward.

Indeed, the Natural History Museum in London's Paul Barrett told the Guardian a couple of years ago that he thought a "golden age of paleontology" was ongoing.

More paleontologists are now thought to be working in the industry than ever, which has naturally had a knock-on impact on the number of vital discoveries that are being made.

Jurassic Park is directly cited as a reason for the explosion in people going into paleontology over the course of the past decade, with the fact it is not expensive to enter a key factor.

The difference between how paleontology is presented in Jurassic Park and Friends, where Ross works in the sector, could hardly be more different.

The fact that new things are still being learned about dinosaurs many generations after they were wiped from the face of the earth shows Jurassic Park will continue to encourage new paleontologists for a lot of years to come in the future.

Influence on games and online slots

While Jurassic Park will always primarily be known as a film franchise, there are plenty of other options out there for fans of the series, such as online slots and video games.

The Jurassic Park franchise is available on Dogslots, with one from Microgaming undoubtedly towards the top of the tree. Various dinosaurs feature in the Jurassic Park slot, which takes its inspiration from the first movie.

All the leading characters from the film are also featured as symbols that appear on the reels, with free spins games and the retriggering T-Rex feature giving people reasons to come back and try their luck on the slot again and again.

When it comes to Jurassic Park video games, fans are still waiting for the franchise's defining title, though it might be on the way in the form of the upcoming Jurassic World Aftermath.

Though it has been reported for many months that the game was on the way, it was only recently confirmed that the virtual reality game for the Oculus Rift is coming out soon.

In the game, which is set to come out just before Christmas, gamers will have to navigate their way through the wreckage of Jurassic World, two years after its collapse.

A new route for film-making

Jurassic Park is a rare blockbuster film that does not rely particularly heavily on CGI, with computer generated imagery only thought to make up around six minutes of the film.

Jurassic Park Film Maker

Wow

Instead, the dinosaurs are mostly animatronics that are lit especially carefully in order to maintain the 'wow' factor from movie-goers who were desperate to see lifelike creatures.

Famously, a full-size animatronic T-Rex was created for the film, making the dinosaur a much scarier proposition than if CGI had been used in its development instead.

What this means is that they really feel like they are as real living creatures, while the lack of CGI has helped to ensure that Jurassic Park has dated better than other big films of the era.

Spielberg is still one of the most influential film directors around, even if the quality of his output is widely accepted to have declined. His refusal to lean heavily on CGI in movies like Jurassic Park shows what can be done on the big screen, with lessons learned even to this day.