What made the first movie fascinating to me as a kid was the science.  The movie was a springboard into the books.  The ideas in Crichton's novels had legs and were a point of intellectual/scientific reference for me up to the age of around 17.  Sad as it is, I got a lot out of it.  The meaty ideas are hardly touched on in the JP1. 

Ideally, JP2 would have been a reboot with directing and screenwriting reigns handed over to, of all people, Christopher Nolan.  Not much of a fan but he is perfectly equipped to craft a Jurassic Park sequel I would like to see. Lofty theory and debate and moments of dinosaurific consequence.

Since that will never happen, Spielberg's King Kong cum Dinosaurs works well enough.