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The Jurassic Park 4 that almost happened

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Small Update 10-11-12

ILM says the 3D renders aren't "official":

Not sure where this stuff came from but it’s not from a production we’ve worked on. Looks like someone’s personal work – ILM doesn’t put © lines on our work like in those images – we don’t own the work – the clients do.

I know for a fact the art it was based on was official though, so its possible a guy at ILM just did the render and sculpt for fun? Also, the picture of the render showed up originally at a talk Andrew Cawrse gave about anatomy while representing himself and ILM, so I think there still may be more to it.


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So, a few days ago some new JP4 art turned up and has been discussed a bit in the JP OT. After thinking about it, I figured it deserved a thread of its own since the content is some crazy, incredibly fascinating stuff... but also fucking bizarre. Also, some of it is news worthy since it implies the project was further along than originally speculated before the plug got pulled.

But first, the script review (written by William Monahan and John Sayles) that the art is from, via AICN:

I’m pleased to report that this second Sayles draft of JURASSIC PARK 4 sees him working in full exploitation mode. I’ve talked to a number of people about this draft, and it seems to radically divide them in terms of reaction. Some people adore the premise and get excited as soon as they hear it. Some people (including the person who gave it to me) are convinced it’s the worst thing they’ve ever read and a signpost on the road to Hollywood Hell. Personally, I think it’s well-written and certainly inventive, but I also think it just might be the single most bugfuck crazy franchise sequel I’ve ever read, and I’m not sure we’re ever going to see this thing onscreen. It just doesn’t seem possible that Universal would make something this vigorously whacked out.

I spent the entire first act of the script thinking I had it figured out. I knew where it was going. Problem was, every time I thought I had it figured out, something happened that seemed to change the entire premise of the movie.

The script starts at a Little League game somewhere in America, an idyllic scene that quickly goes bad when pterosaurs attack the kids and their parents. It’s a cool scene, and I couldn’t help but immediately anticipate what might lay ahead. Dinosaurs in America. All-out warfare on home soil. This should be fun. In a series of television clips, we learn that this is the first attack on North American ground following months of this sort of thing in Central America and Mexico. The UN has created a task force to exterminate the dinosaurs. Awesome, I thought. A bad-ass heavily-armed United Nations task force versus the dinosaurs. Bring it on! But then the script throws its first major curve ball, introducing Nick Harris, an unemployed soldier of fortune. Nick’s the lead in the movie. Not Alan Grant. Not Ian Malcolm. Despite all the rumors to the contrary, those characters are not back for this film. Instead, we meet Nick as he watches those same reports on TV that we are. He’s approached by an ex-commander of his and offered a meeting about a job. He’s warned that the guy he’d be working for is a little bit strange...

... which brings us to John Hammond. It’s a great cameo role for Richard Attenborough, and he’s said several times that he is looking forward to it. In the script’s single wittiest scene, we catch up with the eccentric ex-billionaire who is now the most-sued man in history according to the Guiness Book Of World Records. He’s been declared incompetent by his heirs and his company has been taken over by other corporations. Technically, Jurassic Park isn’t even his problem anymore, but he still feels responsible for the dinosaurs and the damage they do. Hammond’s got a big idea: breed some new dinosaurs that can’t reproduce and introduce them into the wild population. A Judas strain that will kill off the dinosaurs within one generation. Easy enough, except the UN has outlawed any breeding of new dinosaurs by anyone and they’ve prohibited the sale, mining, or possession of amber worldwide. Hammond’s got scientists ready and waiting to go, but he needs genetic material to work with. As soon as Hammond mentions where that material might come from, I thought for sure that I was ahead of the script again. Oh, of course! The shaving cream can that Nedry stole. He’s going to hire this guy to put together a team of mercenaries, and they’re going to spend the whole film on Isla Nublar getting picked off one-by-one while trying to find the samples.

After all, the first three films are all pretty much carbon copies of each other, excuses to turn people loose on the island. I almost set the script down at that point, disappointed that they’d do something so predictable again after all this talk about how they were going to turn things upside down. Page sixteen, and I was sure I knew the rest of the script without even reading it.

But I was wrong... again.

Nick Harris does indeed got to Isla Nublar, but he goes alone. He does indeed track down the shaving cream can that Nedry stole, but that’s a mere five pages later. And as soon as he finds it, he’s attacked not only by excavaraptors (think trapdoor spiders), but also by security rangers who work for Grendel Corporation, the mysterious Swiss holding company that took over Jurassic Park from Hammond. Seems they want those genetic samples for their own purposes... whatever those may be. Nick has to get off the island, evading his pursuers, human or otherwise. He manages to make it back to the mainland just long enough to hide the shaving cream can before the security team catches up with him and gasses him into unconsciousness.

All of that happens by page 39, at which point I realized I had no idea where this thing was going, and I quit trying to guess. It kept confounding my expectations. It certainly didn’t feel like it was just another rehash of the same formula. When Nick wakes up, he’s in the tower of a medieval castle in the Alps. Seriously. That’s the precise moment when the entire enterprise goes so over-the-top loony that you’ll either go along with it for the entire insane ride or reject it roundly as a big bag of ludicrous. Nick is introduced to Adrien Joyce, the major domo henchman of Baron von Drax, CEO of the Grendel Corporation. Joyce isn’t a moustache-twirling bad guy bent on torturing Nick into revealing where he hid the shaving cream can. Instead, he offers Nick a job, and in order to explain the job to him, he has to take him on a tour of the entire castle, which turns out to be a fairly sophisticated genetics lab where Grendel Corporation has been breeding some dinosaurs of their own design, cross-breeds that never existed in any era of nature with all sorts of custom modifications.

I want to tread lightly on what happens over the course of the rest of the film on the off chance that Mary Parent or someone at Universal is seriously going to make this thing. There’s the eight-year-old-boy side of me that thinks that a DIRTY DOZEN-style mercenary team of hyper-smart dinosaurs in body armor killing drug dealers and rescuing kidnapped children will be impossible to resist. And then there’s the side of me that says... WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! Nick is put in charge of training these five dinosaurs, X1 through X5, and the first thing he does is name them. “Any soldier worth his pay has a name to answer to, not a number,” he says. So we are introduced to Achilles, Hector, Perseus, Orestes, and Spartacus, each of them a specially created deinonychus, which is sort of like a miniature T-rex. They have super-sensitive smell and hearing, incredible strength and speed and pack-hunting instincts, and they have modified forelegs, lengthened and topped with more dextrous fingers, as well as dog DNA for increased obedience and human DNA so they can solve problems well. All of this is topped off with a drug-regulating implant that can dose them with adrenaline or serotonin as the situation demands.

And go ahead. Look at the calendar. We’re a long, long way from April 1st right now.

By the end of the film, there are set pieces that are much, much bigger than anything we’ve seen in the other films, and much crazier. They’re all well-written, and there’s a glee to the bloodletting that you have to admire. There’s also a blatant set-up for a JURASSIC PARK 5 that is just too good for the studio to pass up. That is, of course, if they actually decide to make this one.

In the end, this represents an enormous gamble for Universal and Amblin’, and I admire them for at least exploring this as a possibility. They’ve thrown some damn good writers at it so far. If they make it, it’s anyone’s guess how fans of the series so far are going to react. This is no-holds-barred SF/horror/action with none of the staring-up-at-a-special-effect-in-awe tone of the first three films. This is a drive-in movie, slightly unhinged from page one, with some truly hissable human villains and some outrageous monster characters. Will it work? Will we ever see it onscreen to find out?

Its kinda crazy how long it has been, that article went online in 2004.

Anyways, if that wasn't fucking weird enough, check out the art that turned up in 2009:

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These were all uploaded by Carlos Huante to his personal gallery with no information other than they were from an abandoned JP4 attempt. It blew my mind that concept art was made for this idea.. I had always assumed it would have been thrown away before it got that far since it was so bat-shit crazy. Apparently it wasn't. And not only was some art made, but apparently..



ILM got involved:



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ILM, 2005. Crazy. Thats also after the script review went up, so at that time they were moving forward with the idea. Who knows how far it got before the idea got thrown away, but it blows my mind that any material was made for it. It also makes me wonder if there are any more pics floating around out there and just aren't labeled as Jurassic Park 4 art.



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Anyways, what do people think? Was this the fresh start JP4 needed? Was it fucking stupid as hell? My personal opinion is the idea is a stupid fuck JP movie, and completely ignore what the franchise is about...however I still want to see it. I just think this idea should have never been JP4 and rather be its own standalone franchise. The artwork is a mix of bizarre and awesome, and I really think it could make a fascinating sci-fi monster movie. Those hybrids are terrifying and I really could not see them being in a film that wasn't trying to be scary as hell.
 
For me, Jurassic Park is a film about 'animals' and not 'monsters'.. I really don't think this idea belongs in the JP universe, at all. I mean, I always liked the science and genetic side of the story, but I this goes way too far. The rumor that JP4 was set in the future with InGen terrafarming planets and cloning Dinosaurs on them felt a lot more JP than this.

I mean seriously, dinosaurs with guns rescuing hostages? I still would see this movie day-1 if it was done right, but please remove JP from the name of that ever happens. :lol
 

Fari

Member
By the time you get to the fourth in a series things are supposed to get stupid.

Rocky IV had Paulie's robot and it was still a fantastic film.
 
Hasn't this been known for years? The only thing new I got out of this was they actually went past the script and had concept art done for it.

edit: beaten
 

njean777

Member
The premise of the Original was insane, why people would have a problem with it becoming even more insane is beyond me.
 
Hasn't this been known for years? The only thing new I got out of this was they actually went past the script and had concept art done for it.

edit: beaten

Yep, I remember reading about this years ago, I think we even talked about it here on GAF. Pretty crazy that pre-production stuff was done on it, though.
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
This is so batshit mental that I kinda want to see it simply because it's insane.
 

pxleyes

Banned
Something like that should go Nolan's way. If he can pull of Inception and make it decently easy to follow, he could pull this off. Needs a cerebral element from the director to help hold in all the crazy.
 

black_13

Banned
I wouldn't mind it. What else can you really do with JP without repeating the same thing done by the last 3 movies? Not much other than a rehash.
 

UltraMav

Member
So everyone in here is joking right? This sounds terrible. I mean, it sounds "so bad it could be good" territory, sure, but as a Jurassic Park film? It sounds like a SyFy original movie.

This is totally not in the spirit of the JP films. (JP III excluded 'cause it is awful.)
 
So, how common is it for ILM to do pre-production renders like that? I just wonder how far along the film was, what the renders were made for, etc.

I noticed you're a member on JPLegacy now Demoncarnotaur.

Good stuff.

Tbh, I'm surprised I didn't sign up sooner.. I mean I have been on JPToys since 2003.
 
So everyone in here is joking right? This sounds terrible. I mean, it sounds "so bad it could be good" territory, sure, but as a Jurassic Park film? It sounds like a SyFy original movie.

This is totally not in the spirit of the JP films. (JP III excluded 'cause it is awful.)

It's totally not. I don't think it'd fit a JP movie, but it still looks crazy awesome.
 

WillyFive

Member
So everyone in here is joking right? This sounds terrible. I mean, it sounds "so bad it could be good" territory, sure, but as a Jurassic Park film? It sounds like a SyFy original movie.

This is totally not in the spirit of the JP films.

Why not? What is holding it back?
 

ZeroGravity

Member
I hated the premise when it was rumored years ago, and I still hate it now. I hope this never comes to light. It's so fucking far off of what Jurassic Park is supposed to be about that it's a joke. Michael Crichton would be spinning in his grave if this ever got made.

I also like how it completely misses the fact that the embryos in the shaving can were only good for 48 hours. They wouldn't be viable 20 years later.
 

WillyFive

Member
Jurassick Park is about dinosaurs, not human/dinosaur hybrid monsters. Call it Monster Park if you want, but not Jurassic Park.

Is that it? Then this movie should fit right in, since there are dinosaurs aplenty.

Jurassic Park is half about the awe of nature and respect for these animals in addition to the fear of their power. "Life will find a way." etc. etc.

"CommandoSaurs Elite Squad" is not in that spirit.

I don't see anyway from the depiction of the script above that would contradict that. Genetic engineering played just as big a part in bringing back the dinosaurs in JP1 as it seems it would done to making them more advanced in JP4.
 

double jump

you haven't lived until a random little kid ask you "how do you make love".
I say make it but call it something else. kinda want to see
 

Sulik2

Member
I don't even... what? This is insanity. Who would make this? But I would be there to watch it. Terrible or great.
 
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