The Jurassic Park Franchise

The last thing I had heard was that John Sayles had either wanted to or actually wrote a JP4 script. Honestly, I don't know where the franchise is supposed to go. It really should have stopped at the first one (And it improved on the book quite a bit in my view).

The novel The Lost World bears only a passing similarity to the movie. There's a whole bunch of stuff with a species of dinosaur that can camouflage itself, and the hunt through the dino stampede is a much bigger set piece. And the San Diego rampage is not in the book at all.

And I for one love that part of the Lost World. It's a throwback to the original Lost World, and it's the one time the film actually feels like a fun ride, regardless of the logical problems with how it's set up.

The first and third film have a similar problem -- they don't end, they just stop. The first film needed just something a little more than "Oh look, pelicans" to wrap up with, while JP3 needed to do something with the spinosaurus one final time. They get away from the raptors, and then oh good, the Army's here. One final attack by the spino felt like it was needed.

Oh, and JP3 totally shot the T-rex vs. spino was WAY too soon. That would have been a great running battle, first the T-rex chasing Grant and company, then the spino, then the fight continuing as the humans escape, all the way to the end of the film.

JP4 strikes me as an insecure ex-girlfriend. She'll tease you whenever she needs attention, maybe keeping you as a back up plan, but for the most part you just know it aint happening.

Still love the first film - It's endlessly rewatchable, and I was squarely in the prime age demographic when it was released. I quote the first JP fairly frequently, too - Everything from "spared no expense" to "loading team, step away!"

The Lost World is... meh. Goldblum is great, and some of the dino action is cool, but the film just doesn't have much life to it.

Jurassic Park 3 is terrible when it focuses on its threadbare plot and characters, but when the dinosaur action is going, it's a hell of a fun movie. Sam Neill's presence also improves the fun factor immeasurably.

JP3 turned out surprisingly well for a film that was basically made up as they went along.

Still love the original. Would like to check it out in HD. (In fact, I think one of the pay-cable nets may be showing it in HD this month. Not sure which one.)

To this day, the T-Rex attack on the science trailers -- where Julianne Moore (I think it's Moore) is stranded on the breaking glass as the trailer hangs off a cliff -- is one of the best action sequences ever stranded in such a terrible, terrible movie.

The third one is just all bad.

The first one is fun any time, but the second two are really made for theaters. I've found them both pretty terrible at home, and that's with a relatively good home theater.

Easy -- you just take the final shot from Lost World. You have a ground level shot of the helicopter flying over the island, then pan down and there's all the dinosaurs in the park all mixed together. Nature wins. Throw in a final roar from the T-rex if you want. The dinos were the real stars of the film, give them the final shot.

I might be confusing concepts, but I remember reading a script review ages ago that involved 'intelligent' dinosaurs (IIRC, they were talking, sort of a dino squad something or other). I believe this may be the one Sayles was on. I don't remember specifics, but I remember thinking it sounded crazy, and the action beats seemed fun. Crazy in a good way, because I don't have any deep love for the franchise, although I think the first is a fine thrill ride.

Whatever it was that I read, I'm talking at least four years ago, I'm sure it's gone through a million permutations in that amount of time.

EDIT: Here is what I read:

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=18166

Yeah, my memory was fuzzy.

I think in the third movie it's sort of explained. It's implied that he doesn't really like dinosaurs anymore. The kid mentions that his book after his experience on the first island has a different tone.

"I read both of your books. I liked the first one more. Before you were on the island. You liked dinosaurs back then."

Which would explain why he doesn't want the claw anymore.

I just assumed it was "why keep a fossil of something that's alive & running around trying to fuck my shit up this very second" or something along those lines. As Malcom jokes, the idea of paleontology just became extinct at that point.

The first movie is, flaws and all, still one of my favorite films. I was obsessed with dinosaurs as a kid and caught JP at the absolute perfect age not only for the youthful dinosaur love, but to really become aware and amazed at the technical leap the film made with CGI. A true "oh my god anything is possible" moment that was a huge factor in developing my love of cinema.

The sequels are definitely sub-par in comparison, but each have some great moments and I'll repurchase the box set on Blu Ray when it's on the shedule.. I-I mean schedule.

The original hit my sweet spot in regards to summer movies and being the exact right age. It also signaled to everyone that Steven Spielberg still had it, which at the time was in doubt, if I remember correctly. It felt very original and new, with it's CGI dinos.

The second two are superfluous in all the worst ways. They bring virtually nothing new to the table, and really, how could they? The concept is pretty much a one and done. If they hadn't been made, I think people would still place the original up nearish the best of Spielberg, simply because it was audacious fun we hadn't seen before, akin to maybe Terminator 2.

I haven't seen it in a long, long time. But I remember loving it. The rest of the movie ... bleeech.

I don't know about being the 'right age', I was eighteen when I saw this in the theater, but I remember getting goosebumps during that final shot of the T Rex roaring, and the banner floating down from above. Masterful adventure filmmaking from Spielberg.

I really don't belong in this thread, though. Trying to recollect things from the sequels, and I realize that I don't think I've ever even seen them in their entirety.

"Billy and the Cloneasaurus."

If I remember correctly, the first film was the film movie to try out Digital Sound, and it was wonderfully deafening in the theater when the T-Rex roared. I still think the first T-Rex attack on the cars is the closest Spiels ever got back his Jaws ruthlessness.

The second film works for me. It's goofy, but enjoyable. Its also one of my favorite unsung John Williams scores.

I have no use for the third one, mainly because Tea Leoni is never devoured.

Read the books, so I'll fall into that camp of the books being better than the movie.

I like how Lost World decided to just copy King Kong and piss over the book which was better. Just goes to show that Spielberg sometimes just sucks (yes I'll go there).

Wow, dissing Spielberg on a movie message board! You be careful out there, you Maverick.

I gotta disagree on the books being better. The original book is actually quite good, simply because it's a great hook, and some of Crichton's best fake science and action scene writing. I think the movie lives up to it, mostly because it's as close to a summer movie as a book can possibly get (well, maybe Meg is a little closer). But I do think possibly the best decision made in regards to Lost World the movie was to jetison as much of the book as they could. It's an incredibly lazy follow up, offering absolutely nothing but more of the exact same, with broader characters. Plus, it revives a character that died in the original book because he was popular in the movie. That's pretty damn silly.

Absolute love for the 1st JP flick, everything about it worked for me when I was a kid, still have my Young Tyrannosaurus (with the removable dino damage chunk) and will always keep that glorious son of a bitch.

Personally I think the Tyrannosaurus Roar is one of the best sounds i've ever listened to in a film. it's so primordial.

Needless to say this film helped keep me as a dinosaur fanatic for life.

The Lost World had a couple of good bits, the Stampede, The Rex Assault on the trailer-truck-mobile-base (poor tech guy who I didn't want to die, got torn in two ;_; ) and the Long Grass scene. But that is about it, anything without dinosaurs is lame and some parts are so bad that the dinosaurs make it barely tolerable (how is that even possible? thats like dividing by zero)

JP3, I always call bullshit on the Spinosaurus killing a Rex (yeah he's bigger but the motherfucker is a fish-eater and a rex would snap his spin with one jaw chomp), apart from that, the beastie is rather awesome and disapears after the night river scene, lame. Also finally got the bird cage scene from the 1st book in. And Tea Leoni should have been a snack.


One question though? how did the Dilophosaurus get into Newman's Jeep? Raptor open the door for him?

One thing that always struck me as odd was how upon escaping from the island alive with Goldblum, his daughter and Moore, Vince Vaughn is never seen or heard from again for the rest of Lost World.

Love the first one, saw it again very recently and it has aged very well. The approach of the TRex when the power is down is still one of the best bits of suspense filmaking I have seen.

As for the other two, part of me thinks the whole site b thing was rubbish and they should have just claimed it was the same island. In the first film there is no mention of them nukeing the island ( like in the book) so there was no real need for a site b.

Isn't the only reason that Steven Spielberg did The Lost World was so that he could do the T-Rex in San Diego bit? I remember hearing about that somewhere...

I think the dilophosaurus just jumped through the passenger side window. I don't know why it would be open.

Nedry is great ('Nedry!', the Attenborough version of 'Newman!'), I love the sleazy scene where he's talking to the shady intelligence guy about stealing dinosaur embryos.

The effects are still massive. I remember seeing a TV trailer for the movie way back when, with a shot of the T-Rex moving off from one jeep to another. Looked revolutionary then, still looks better than anything being choked up out of Hollywood today (except maybe Transformers?).

Dodgson, Dodgson, we have Dodgson here! See? Nobody cares. Nice hat! What are ya tryin' to look like - a secret agent?


WHat I like about the JP films is the use of practical effects along with this ground breaking cgi, clever camera cuts etc and the 2 work together so beautifully (the Rex Attack and the kitchen scene for the best example)

Phil Tippet and Stan Winston working together, match made in heaven.


I think they were gonna go with GO-motion effects for the dinosaurs, with Tippet in lead, but alas. They did use his stuff to educate the animators as to how they would move etc.

The lovely Kitchen scene test in go-motion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UID63...eature=related

EDIT: haha two brains thinking the same shit 2 min apart

Just so that we learn something today:
Phil Tippett the lead animator on this (Robocop, StarWars, etc) made lots of early testing the traditional way. They first wanted to use Go-Motion for the movie, basically Stop-motion with motion blur.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEK9mitagS8
They even had detailed animatics using stop-motion. Here is the raptor-kitchen scene in stop-motion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UID63Bzi80A

As you can see it's exactly the way they shot it.
Somewhere during the production process Spielberg was so giddy to do it CG that Phil first wanted to jump off, but they kept him as their supervisor and the CG just reeks of quality, especially for that time.

If you do a direct compare of any dino scene in Jurassic Park (1992) with the dino stampede in King Kong (2005) you might faint. It's that bad.

The most remarkable scene to me in JP is when the T-rex jumps out and attacks the gallimimus herd. No rain, darkness, distance haze or trees to hide the seams on the CGI, just broad daylight out in the open and it looks like they just wrangled up some actual dinosaurs and went at it. For all the wizardry going on in this film, that was the scene that really dropped my jaw.

Yup! The dinos' CG feet actually making the tree log shake was a nice little touch. Most people would do the tree CG too nowadays.
I have a 720p version of JP at home and those hand painted mattes in broad daylight look better than the King Kong stampede stuff.

Yeah, it's weird.. the T-Rex in Jurassic Park is STILL the best looking T-Rex or even "animal creature" from the past 15 years regardless of the advancements of CG.

The main problems with the dino stampede were that the scene was a bad decision in the first place, and the compositing was AWFUL. The large dinos looked decent, but throw actors and (poor by comparison)CGI raptors in the mix and it just didn't look very hot.

The only bit of CGI in Jurassic Park that didn't work completely was the first shot with the big guys munching on that tree. It looks "soft". That said, it still holds up remarkably well. The nighttime scenes haven't aged a bit.

In terms of CGI, I'm not sure if JURASSIC PARK has been topped. The effects still hold up perfectly, which is more than you can say about the Star Wars prequels or Lord of the Rings.

Maybe T2.

Jurassic Park holds a special place in my heart as the movie I've seen the most times in the theater. I absolutely adored that film as a teenager. That said, I haven't watched it in at least a decade, possibly because I'm afraid my memories are faulty and it won't hold up. Glad to see everyone saying that it still plays well today.

As for the other two, they're instantly forgettable. Also, didn't Crichton magically resurrect Ian Malcolm for The Lost World even though he killed him in the Jurassic Park book, or am I remembering wrong?

I love the first, don't mind the second, and remember little of the third. And Muldoon is, indeed, a legend, Brendan.

Yep. Malcolm mentions he had 'extensive(or expensive) surgery with the worlds best doctors' or something. Its been a long time since I read it, but just thinking about it makes my eyes roll.


Jurassic Park was the first film I saw in theaters. I dont think I have seen a blockbuster that tops this. If I had to make a top 10 favorite list, this would be top spot. My mom always says she wishes she had a camera in the theater because the look of awe on my face during the Brontosaurus bit and the paddock attack was priceless.

I enjoy The Lost World more than most. It has its share of problems, but the safari scene, the Rex attack on the survivors camp, the Raptors in the grass bit, and the San Diego attack forgives most of its shortcomings (the girl). Plus the score is pretty kickass.

JPIII has some decent ideas, like the Spinosaurus and T-Rex fight and the birdcage scene. But the kid in this one is somehow more obnoxious than the last and there never is really a sense of danger to the characters after the plane crash. I think what, one character dies after the crash? You think Billy dies in the birdcage, but its revealed in the end that he survives. Almost too lighthearted after the second one.

Till today the first shot of the Brontosaurus munching on trees in Jurassic Park gives me a shiver. The score, the build-up, the awestruck expressions, and then you see it... simply great. Even though the special effects in later scenes beat it.
But yes, Jurassic Park is one example of a movie which doesnt seem to age. While the CGI effects in modern movies are great, detailed, more daring, the natural understatement of JP is its biggest strength: They dont enhance via CGI, they just create, and let reality to the rest. I think that is where movies like LotR or Prequels show their seams... its trying too hard to not just fill in something that isnt there, like an alien, or a great tower or something, but to enhance what is on screen already. Sometimes I swear these people get all giddy with CGI at their hands, and try to "improve" the normal shots to a level where it just doesnt improve, it just heightens, and makes it artificial.

Mind you, these are both still first-class franchises. There has been a lot of shoddy CGI work.
But its almost as if Jurassic Parks CGI effects upgrade over time

Someone mentioned it earlier, but "Journey to the Island" may just be the finest piece of blockbuster scoring Williams has ever done. It fits the visuals perfectly, and it builds up such a sense of adventure that by the time the helicopter lands, you're completely jazzed.

I remember working in the Universal park during the lead-up to this being released. They built a little hut that sold JP merchandise and had the trailer running on a continuous loop. The line to watch the trailer was longer than some of the lines for the rides. Employees would go watch it on their lunch breaks. Then when it went from the teaser trailer to the first full trailer, fever pitch broke out. I was working at the Alfred Hitchcock Theatre at the time, and they announced they would be doing employee previews of the film there, so I got to work one of the first ever showings of the film. There was a bunch of Universal people (not Spielberg or any other Hollywood types though) and tons of state and local government people and our park brass. The collective gasp they gave out when the brachiosaur first appears was one of the best audience reactions I've ever seen. Spielberg could have followed that with ninety minutes of rocks rolling downhill and people would have still left satisfied. All told, working the previews, I saw the film about six times before it was even released, and the reactions were through the roof every time. I don't think anything since then has really matched that level of excitement.

And that is pretty much where the John Sayles version of the JP4 script supposedly went: Dino Commandos.

Frank Marshall says that Crichton's death is what has killed JP4 for the most part, but I'd say it was pretty much dead before that. If it wasn't it would have happened not too long after the third one. From what I understand, they could never really come up with a scenario that everyone (Spielberg, Crichton, Universal, etc.) was happy with. I've seen all the scenarios below mentioned before in reference to all the different screenplays that have been commissioned:

- Another adventure on Isla Sorna (Site B).
- A return to the island in the first film.
- Dinosaurs rampaging through modern day cities & towns.
- A story set in post apocalyptic world where the Dinos have regained control of the Earth.
- The oft-mentioned Dino Commandos script by Sayles

Also, just about every cast member you can think of whose character survived has been touted as returning at one time or another. Anyway, I have no doubt that we'll eventually see some sort of reboot for this franchise, but it doesn't look like it will happen anytime soon.



In response to some of the questions above....

1. The dead crew on the ship in The Lost World?

I always thought it looked like result of a raptor attack and that maybe some had stowed away and escaped onto the mainland (which happened in the novel version of the first film), but it was never brought up in the third.

2. The rewriting of the JP3 script?

From what I understand, it was only slightly reworked. Supposedly Jeff Goldblum was actually originally supposed to be in the film, but due to an injury he dropped out..................and thus a rewrite was called for.

3. Did Spielberg only do Lost World for the city sequence?

This one is false as far as I know. In fact, I think the original plan was to have the final shot of the film be the one of the T-Rex roaring along the San Francisco shoreline...............leaving the third film to focus on a dino rampage through SF. However, once they cut out the already storyboarded rooftop Raptor chase and the Pterodactyl attack sequences from the shooting schedule, they decided to go ahead and do the T-Rex rampage. Also, Joe Johnston campaigned very hard for the chance to direct The Lost World, but lost out because Steven wanted to do it himself. So Steve promised him directorial duties on the inevitable third film.

4. Did Steven force Crichton to write a second book?

Nope. Anyone that has read the novel version of The Lost World would know that, as it has very little at all to do with the finished film. Besides, Crichton loved the franchise and even talked off & on over the years about writing a prequel novel dealing with the cloning process (specifically mess-ups/aberrations), as well as all the deaths and problems that occurred when initially setting up the park & island from the first book.

5. What's up with the Spinosaurus disappearing after the river attack in JP3?

No clue. If you read the novelization though, it was actually supposed to reappear after the scene with the Raptors and the eggs. It chased them to the beach where the military ended up driving it away with a ton of firepower. I don't know if they ever intended on filming this or not, but they should have. Also in the novelization, I believe it actually had a sequence where an aquatic prehistoric reptile (Loch Ness-style) was the one that ate the boat crew manning the glider sequence at the beginning. Again, not sure if that was ever meant to be filmed either.



On a side note, I absolutely love how the toys from the first film seem to be based more off of the novel version than the movie itself. The injured "Young T-Rex" for instance distinctly reminds me of Muldoon taking it out with what I believe was a small rocket launcher(!) in the novel.

That toy was fantastic. It was destroyed in a house fire though, along with my MANY other JP toys. Muldoon got his wish.

In the book, Muldoon used a missile launcher that fired oversized darts meant for large animals.

I remember really disliking the change of Hammond from asshole entrepeneur to kind grandfather blind to consequences. The second half of JP1 keeps it from being a really great film, storywise. Props to Sam Jackson for showing up, leaving. Spielberg, endings, etc.

But I watched some of JP1 this year and I really liked Hammond's "creation is an act of will" speech and Laura Dern being pissed at him over ice cream.

I also really like this youtube guy, playing all the characters in one of the JP1 conference room scenes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6etg_fX1Pw

Being 16 at the time, Jurassic Park was one of my most unforgettable experiences in a movie theater. When the movie ended, I remember looking down and my right leg couldn't stop shaking - so fucking jazzed I was! (that and the fact that the guy sitting next to me had been eating sunflower seeds and left a mound on the floor akin to George Kennedy/ Ed Hocken's in the car stakeout gag from The Naked Gun). 17 years later, it's still one of the most perfectly executed summer blockbusters ever... that yes, ends too abruptly.

The Lost World, indeed, is a good-to-great movie, until right after the tall grass scene. Then the San Diego sequence happens and it's nigh unwatchable for me (there's one great sequence though - the T-Rex waking up the little girl and using her dog as a toothpick). The Mobile HQ setpiece is fantastic as is the 2 competing teams setup. And John Williams definitely creates one of his better scores here. The secret weapon of the flick, though: Pete Postlethwaite's Roland Tembo, a guy so badass he makes Bob Muldoon an NRA hick.

JPIII - well, I liked it! Short, tense and to the point, it pretty much recaptures the spirit of those adventure B-movies and serials of yesteryear in true Joe Johnston style. The cast is good -Michael Jeter!- the setpieces work, especially the aviary one; and I didn't hate Tea Leoni that much. It truly is fluff and forgettable, but I'd also agree there's nothing much to say outside the themes of the 1st movie (Sam Neill's subplot is... OK, I guess). Oh, and it also ends too abruptly indeed.

However, one small thing:

Not that I'm aware of. In the script I got*, the plot follows closely the book. IIRC Spielberg publicly stated that it was the mountains of fanletters on his desk that had him change the 3rd act setting to San Diego. That's also what motivated David Koepp's** cameo, originally proud of his draft, as a way of implying he'd gotten chewed & spit by the dino-craze himself.

* And that you can easily find on the web, but PM me should anyone wanted to check it out.
** David Koepp, who everyone loves shitting on too much, but who actually turned in a miles better script than God Almighty Brian Helgeland's for the remake of Pelham 123.

Just because

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prgm4...layer_embedded

God bless you.

I showed my kids Jurassic Park just last week, and they both loved it. They're 3 and 5 years old and found it just the right amount scary. The raptors in the kitchen scene seemed to make the biggest impression on them. It's a great movie and has barely aged at all.

The most interesting thing about JP1 and JP2 is seeing the change shooting "Schindler's List" had on Spielberg. JP1 was very much the last film in what I'd like to call Spielberg's Golden Age from Jaws to Jurassic Park. After Schindler's List, it seems Spielberg just didn't have that x-factor he had in the late 70's and 80's and to this day hasn't been able to regain in full. The first sign of that was with "The Lost World". While the special effects were even more amazing, it just wasn't as much of a blast and certainly didn't feel as effortless as Jurassic Park was. Am I off base on this theory?

As for the first movie, I saw it in 720P and was still floored by the special effects. The scenes with the brachiasaurs were not nearly as amazing as I remember but the Galimimus stampede and the T-Rex emerging in full daylight is still jaw dropping in how realistic it is. It literally looks like someone rounded up some real dinosaurs and set them loose. The fact that the effects of this movie have yet to be topped is both amazing and depressing. Great thread!

SciFi (I'm NOT typing that other name) is showing Lost World, and it struck me how Richard Schiff's character deserved so much better. The poor guy works his ass off to try and save the three people in the trailer and what thanks does he get? Bitten in half by two T-Rexes.

And Pete Postelthwaite seems convinced he's in a different, better movie.