Hold on to your butts: Jurassic Park 4 (known as Jurassic World) has entered production and is currently slotted for a Summer 2015 release. This announcement should have left me in a drooly nerd-coma, but honestly, it’s left me fraught with worry. I’m talking Timmy-on-the-electric-fence worried. Here are ten sources of my worry, and why I’m not assuming this Jurassic World movie is going to be the second-slash-fourth coming we’re all hoping for.
1. Dinosaurs
This is not a typo. I genuinely am worried no one cares about dinosaurs anymore. The Jurassic Park franchise is about the only one that can get away with using these beasts of old; we haven’t seen dinosaurs on the silver screen much over the last decade (save for Terrence Malick’s great but tiny bit about them in Tree of Life, some comedy business in Land of the Lost, and their regrettable appearance in the atrocious film version of A Sound Of Thunder), so it’s safe to say they’ve been forgotten about — like Jurassic Park III. You guys don’t remember that, right? Am I the only one who watched it?
2. It’s a Theme Park
Rumors and early indications from the production hint that the story takes place in a theme park. With dinosaurs. Questionable originality and also questionably intelligent characters toying with the dinosaur theme park idea again.
3. None of the Original Cast
Call me a softy, but about the only thing that saved The Lost World and Jurassic Park III from bursting into sheer hellfire was their inclusion of some of the original cast. I know, I know, you guys want new blood, and I can respect that, but considering the series is still somewhat popular, you’d hope we could get at least one of them into it (Sam Neil is literally not doing anything right now. I think I played a game of Call of Duty against him the other day). There is a rumor B.D. Wong is in it (he played an InGen scientist in the first one), but it’s not like people are clamoring to see his character back again.
4. The Director
Now, I’m going to be a little lenient on this one, but I’m not impressed with their choice of director. Colin Trevorrow, who directed (what I consider to be) the abysmal Safety Not Guaranteed landed the gig — surely after impressing the producers with his collection of tiny, plastic dinosaur figures. He has only really directed one movie, so, I’ll reserve complete judgment until I finish this senten– nope, it’s still there.
5. No Samuel L. Jackson
He went down like a bitch in Jurassic Park, yes, but TECHNICALLY, we never saw his body, just his arm, so he could still be alive. This is the pipeiest of pipe dreams here, but if we got a cyborg-enhanced Samuel L Jackson in the movie, I’m pretty sure I could die a relatively happy man.
6. It’s Been Too Long
The last sequel came out thirteen years ago and for many people, the sweet memories of the first film seem like a lifetime ago. All we can remember now from the last installment is Alan Grant dreaming of a raptor talking to him in Jurassic Park III. (It really happened. Look it up.)
7. Chris Pratt
Please, refrain from mailing me anthrax; I genuinely like Chris Pratt. Thing is, the guy is type-cast, and I’m afraid I already know what his character is going to be like — a klutzy, comical but earnestly enthusiastic dude — so I’m worried we’ll be given a helping share of the same thing we’re used to seeing (and may be seeing as soon as two months from now in Guardians of the Galaxy).
8. John Williams May Not Do The Score
Williams did the first two films, but (I imagine) read the script to the third movie and said, what the fuck is this shit? and ran away faster than a raptor trying to catch Laura Dern. It’d be cool to have him do the score, but the likelihood if it happening, given his age and the greater likelihood of him scoring the new Star Wars movie, isn’t good.
9. I Will Probably Be Too Busy Watching Avengers: Age Of Ultron
Yeah, it comes out a full month and a half before Jurassic World, but let’s be honest to ourselves here: we’re all going to see Avengers 2 like a hundred times, right? I ain’t got time for Jurassic World.
10. They Didn’t Say the Magic Word
All this aside, I will probably be there opening weekend to see this movie. I just hope I don’t walk out of the theater acting like Ian Malcolm screaming about how much I hate being right all the time.
- Liam Neeson and The ReNEESONance - January 27, 2015
- Slow Your Roll, Nerds: Ten Reasons a New Jurassic Park Might Not Be So Good - June 11, 2014
Things, in reverse order:
-I share your general trepidation with Chris Pratt. I like him, but I feel like he’s on the razor’s edge of becoming overexposed.
-Safety Not Guaranteed is a delight (even if it has a skewed view of the world of regional publishing).
-Sam Neil is in Peaky Blinders! (Regular SportsAlcohol.com readers know that’s my No. 1 most anticipated show that I will never get to see because it’s the one BBC show that isn’t coming to America.) So, right now, he’s probably hanging out with Tom Hardy and Cillian Murphy while you play video games 😛
Of those three, I picture Hardy being the gamer.
Jurassic Park is such an odd franchise in a lot of ways because it has both a BELOVED original and a couple of sequels that made money, but takes such long periods in between movies. Even at the time of The Lost World (which I kind of love; it doesn’t have the wonder of the first one but it compensates with fantastically high levels of dinosaurs eating the hell out of everyone), it had been four years where it seems like three is your best bet for maximum anticipation. Then it was another four before we got JP3, and as you point out it will have been a solid fourteen years since a JP movie hit theaters when the new one comes out. I guess that’s better than running it into the ground a la Spider-Man, but it makes the sequels feel very sequel-y. Also, I like Safety Not Guaranteed but I think anyone directing a Jurassic Park movie should take a cue from Spielberg, who paired the first one with Schindler’s List and the second one with Amistad — make sure you’ve got a total-180 prestige movie coming out within six months of your dinosaur movie, just for the challenge.
Dinosaurs
I care about dinosaurs! And I think the success of things like Walking With Dinosaurs (both television and live versions) and The Jim Henson Company’s Dinosaur Train show that they’re still present in our culture. You even missed some relatively recent dinosaur appearances like Peter Jackson’s King Kong and Journey to the Center of the Earth, or animated films like Meet the Robinsons or the third Ice Age (and Pixar is even supposed to have The Good Dinosaur out next year). And the reason they seem to think audiences will flock to a fourth terrible Transformers movie this summer (aside from Mark Wahlberg, of course) is because they’ll have dinosaur robots. It seems like dinosaurs might be even more prominent in current pop culture than they were before that wave of dino-mania that accompanied the original Jurassic Park. Maybe (almost certainly) that’ll mean that Jurassic World‘s dinosaurs won’t feel as special as Jurassic Park‘s. And I confess that, while I probably understand it as an aesthetic decision, I’m a little saddened that these dinosaurs won’t be designed to reflect more up-to-date understanding of their biology (feathers!). But, for my part, Jurassic Park III really taught me something about myself. Specifically, I learned that no matter what they did (alter beloved characters’ relationships in ways that make me sad, kill the T-Rex and try to get me to accept its murderer as a replacement, make a movie that weirdly peters out at the end), as long as they have a couple of good set-pieces and new dinosaurs, I would gladly see a new one of these each year!
It’s a Theme Park
I haven’t been keeping up with story rumors, but I’d say that if there’s an actual up and running theme park in the movie, that sounds like it could be a more fruitful avenue for story options than another “journey to the lost world” version. It could certainly end up feeling like a repeat of the original with more people to chomp, but I’m a little more intrigued than I was before.
The Director
I’m pretty willing to do a wait and see here, since he’s another of this weird trend of pulling dudes who had a successful or buzzed about indie debut for these big franchise movies. For my money it paid off big with Gareth Edwards and Godzilla, but has weirdly failed with Mark Webb. My assumption had kind of been that these guys were being picked because they could get the non-action stuff through production and work well with the actors, while the regular pre-vis teams build all the big action beats and provide the Summer Movie scale. But then Webb’s Spider-Man movies fail primarily on the character level, and there were descriptions about how Edwards designed the big set-piece beats in Godzilla, so it seems hard to know what Trevorrow is meant to provide until we get the “making of” stories with the movie’s release. I assume the dinosaur action will be at least Cool Enough, but aside from that…who knows?
It’s Been Too Long
I would have probably agreed with this as probably being a concern for them commercially (though not for my own interest, so what do I care?), before the successful re-release of the first film last year. I was surprised by how much excitement there was for Jurassic Park on its 20th anniversary, and maybe they’ll ride some of that to success next year (though this could be where they’d have been well served by having Grant, Malcolm, or Sattler to put in a trailer).
Chris Pratt
I’m still firmly Team Pratt for these big-budget movies until I see any actual evidence it’s a bad idea. Near as I can tell, he’s got one big movie this year, one big movie next year, and we’ll presumably see him in thirteen more episodes of Parks & Rec between them. Sounds great to me!
John Williams May Not Do The Score
John William’s won’t do the score, but Michael Giacchino will. Perfect.
I Will Probably Be Too Busy Watching Avengers: Age Of Ultron
Yeah, I wonder what this will mean for the box-office fortunes of all these movies next summer, but I’m happy to have a (fingers crossed it’ll be good) Jurassic Park movie to slot in to the (hopefully awesome) run of Fast & Furious, Avengers, Mad Max, Tomorrowland, Jurassic World, Inside Out, etc?
I don’t think the lack of movies with dinosaurs in them necessarily reflects a lack of public interest or desire, so much as it reflects a lack of Jurassic Park movies. From the minute Jurassic Park came into existence, it really became impossible for anyone else to do a movie with both dinosaurs and people co-existing in any way that wouldn’t seem like a rip-off, or a poor man’s version of a very great thing. Maybe it’s just the circles I run in, (me, by myself, in my apartment), but dinosaurs have been forgotten about?? pshhhhhhhh.
Now I know this is crazy, but they could put out a “Jurassic Park” every year, with different director, cast, etc. and say, “hey guys, it’s our annual people being eaten by dinosaurs” and make that shit work. The biggest issue with the 2nd and 3rd Jurassic Park movies, was that they weren’t the first movie. There are certainly big shoes to fill, but maybe they don’t need to be completely filled to still be VERY ENTERTAINING.
Maybe this much time needed to pass before this movie could happen. And I hope it’s the start of something. Because I am an optimist. (Only as it pertains to movies about dinosaurs.)
Also, Safety Not Guaranteed was CHARMING.
I’m featuring this to commemorate the first time Jackie commented on something on this site.
I just have a lot of feelings… about movies featuring both dinosaurs and people.