"It was the story that justified doing a sequel, not the technology," Spielberg comments. "CGI has improved since the first movie and the artistry of the people involved has also improved. So there was a good chance that the dinosaurs would look even more believable than they had in the last adventure. But it was really the story that compelled me to make this movie."

The notion of a lost world, a window on earth's distant past, inspires the imagination. The occasional real-life discovery of a prehistoric link - such as the ancient coelacanth: the 400 million-year-old fish found still to be alive or prehistoric insects found perfectly preserved in amber - fuels these dreams. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle visited the subject in his turn of the century Professor Challenger series. Somewhere beyond Doyle's vision of an evolutionary anomaly and John Hammond's technologically marvelous Jurassic theme park is The Lost World.

On another island off the coast of Costa Rica, in a chain called Los Cinco Muertas (The Five Deaths), dinosaurs are living and breeding in the wild. This is Site B. "A genetic laboratory, the factory floor, so to speak," explains Spielberg, where once upon a time experiments and cloning attempts not suited for public exhibition were conducted by InGen scientists.

The behind-the-scenes laboratory was knocked out of commission, but nature found a way. For four years now, dinosaurs have flourished in a perfect ecological system unfettered by man.

As The Lost World begins, the balance of nature is about to be tested once again. Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard), John Hammond's mercenary nephew, has taken over the nearly bankrupt InGen. In a presentation to the board of directors, he unveils a plan to restore the corporation's financial health by harvesting the "significant productive assets that we have attempted to hide." For him, Site B is a giant cash cow just waiting to be milked.

Hammond (Richard Attenborough) is well aware of the commercial potential in Site B. But he sees another opportunity: a chance to redeem himself by preserving a record of the dinosaurs living in their natural state.

"Finally, what he will have done will not be a terribly tragic thing, but a contribution," says actor Jeff Goldblum.

"He's a dreamer," says Lord Attenborough of his character. "He's not unlike Mr. Spielberg, to a certain extent, in that he is fascinated by the infinite capabilities of human endeavor. Hammond just goes that much farther." The Jurassic Park founder is somewhat chastened and tempered by what has happened before. "But the old temptations and the old adrenaline comes up and he takes risks again."

Hammond organizes an expedition to reach the island before Ludlow lands his own, less noble mission led by Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite), a leathery adventurer and hunter. To accomplish this he commissions Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn), a daring video-documentarian, to chronicle the trip; Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff), a field equipment systems specialist, to outfit the team and keep the operation running in the field; and Dr. Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore), a pioneering paleontologist specializing in the nurturing behavior among carnivores - especially carnivorous dinosaurs.

"Sarah is opening up a new field of study, and she uses this as an opportunity to explore her beliefs," Spielberg observes. "She has an insatiable curiosity." Which is exactly why Sarah mentioned none of this to her boyfriend, Ian Malcolm, who would have tried to stop her had he known. When Hammond asks Malcolm to lead the venture, he refuses - until Hammond informs him that Dr. Harding is already there.

The revelation that his girlfriend is alone on an island with dinosaurs drives Malcolm into action. "It's a very monumental moment for me," Goldblum explains. "I go down there with a head full of steam and a gut full of passion."

Of the people who reach the Lost World, only Malcolm comprehends the danger. He knows from experience that people shouldn't be where dinosaurs are. "It's going to be bad for people," Goldblum says dryly. Among these people is Kelly Curtis (Vanessa Lee Chester), a young stowaway, whose presence on the island raises the stakes even higher for Dr. Malcolm.

In Jurassic Park, Malcolm was more of the moral, conscience-driven intellectual drawn to the exotic park out of curiosity. "This time," says Goldblum, "I've got a very emotional, passionate and driving reason to bring me back. I am a force of nature."

"Drama is often like rubbing two sticks together and watching what it sets aflame," notes Spielberg of the confrontation between the two philosophically-opposed expeditions - one sent to protect the sanctity of the habitat and the other to roundup the animals for commercial exploitation - who "end up having to band together just to survive. That creates more than just a lot of running from dinosaurs - there's a great deal of emotional drama, as well."

Screenwriter Koepp remembers a conversation in which Spielberg told him, "I think this movie is about hunters versus gatherers." Koepp adds "that when the two groups are thrust together into survival situations is when it gets really fun."

Jurassic Park raised the question of man's role in trying to control nature. "You decide you'll control nature and from that moment on you're in deep trouble because you can't do it," says Michael Crichton. "You can make a boat, but you can't make the ocean. You can make an airplane, but you can't make the air. Your powers are much less than your dreams would have you believe."

The debate continues in The Lost World; this time the argument is framed by setting the story in the dense forest wilderness, where man's impact on life and the environment is clearly evident. As the Native American Chief Seattle observed a century ago, "Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."

"The Lost World is exactly what it implies," says Spielberg. "A lot of people who think they can control nature are very presumptuous about their role in the scheme of things and wind up on the short end of the food chain. You have to band together to live and go on."

"It's important in these movies that animals never be characterized as villains, because they are not," Koepp points out. "They're just doing what they do. It's when the humans come into conflict with one another that they may find themselves at the mercy of the animals."

"On one level, this story evolved into one about parenthood and the instinct to protect your young," he continues, echoing a theme that applies to the films human and animal characters. On a more superficial level, the story evolved into one of survival.

Then there is the moral question explored in Jurassic Park. "DNA cloning may be viable, but is it acceptable?" asks Spielberg. "Is it right for man to do this or did dinosaurs have their shot?"

The controversy over cloning - it's possibility implied in Jurassic Park and proved in real life in February 1997 when researchers in Great Britain announced their success in cloning a sheep - raged anew on the front page of newspapers just as The Lost World was in post-production.

Spielberg always respected the science behind Jurassic Park as real, much as he respected real-life research as the basis for his other projects, such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind .

Contained in those news stories was another point that confirmed what Crichton, Koepp and Spielberg suggested in their latest adventure. The failure rate in cloning an animal is presently staggering: on the order of 300 to 1. For every success, there were numerous failures, from death to deformity, if the cloning procedure took at all. As Hammond tells Dr. Malcolm, he needed a factory, Site B, to overcome this ratio and stock Jurassic Park with the perfect specimens visitors saw there.