Sneak Peak: 'Jurassic World'
“All major theme parks have delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked!
“Yeah, but, John, if The Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists!”
Name one person that hasn’t heard of or seen Jurassic Park. The Steven Spielberg classic has a timelessness and freshness about it that refuses to fade. Even 21 years on, JP still makes me jump, I can recite most of the lines, and the grand entrance by the T-Rex and the first Brachiosaurus appearance in the film still gives me goosebumps.
Was Jurassic Park the best film ever made? That’s debateable. The characters were weak and the kids especially, were irritating to the core and poorly enacted. But by and large, this film still remains one of Steven Spielberg’s finest — not because of its plot or script, but for the simple fact that it was Jurassic Park that changed the game and made special effects what they are today. It made the audience believe in the magic of cinema and allowed us to visualise those magnificent creatures that once ruled our planet.
I’ve watched many films, but this one easily takes the cake as one of my favourite summer blockbusters.
The sequels that followed were not a patch on the original. The Lost World was watchable enough but painfully long and the climax where the T-Rex causes mayhem in the city was ludicrous and completely unnecessary. If that was a travesty then the third one which wasn’t even directed by Spielberg was worse. It reduced the main star of the first two (the T-Rex), and instead focused on a completely made up “superdinosaur” that causes mayhem for Dr Alan Grant and his clueless cohorts on a remote island.
Now after all this time, with all the improvements in technology and visual effects, they’re making a fourth one, Jurassic World, and this one isn't directed by Spielberg either, but instead by a relative unknown Colin Trevorrow, who’s responsible for a comedy — 2012’s Safety Not Guaranteed. The choice of director is dubious — we hardly need a funny man helming a sequel to JP, but regardless, I’m looking forward to whatever little I’ve heard and seen of this film.
Movie Stills: Jurassic World
Jurassic World's plot unfolds twenty-two years after the events of the first film with Isla Nublar now a fully functioning dinosaur theme park, unsurprisingly called Jurassic World, as originally envisioned by John Hammond. What’s different this time round is that the park doesn’t really exist to make a huge profit, but rather is more of a biological preserve.
Guardians of the Galaxy’s Chris Pratt will be playing a scientist conducting behavioural research on Velociraptors and trying to "figure out the limits of the relationship between these highly intelligent creatures and human beings."
"We were hoping audiences could discover this on their own, but yes, there will be one new dinosaur created by the park’s geneticists. The gaps in her sequence were filled with DNA from other species, much like the genome in the first film was completed with frog DNA. This creation exists to fulfill a corporate mandate—they want something bigger, louder, with more teeth. And that’s what they get," said Trevorrow in an interview earlier this year.
Not much else has emerged about the film and Universal are keeping much of the shoot in Hawaii under wraps. Initial stills (courtesy Superhero Hype), have just hit online though and we have them for you right here. There are no visuals of dinosaurs, but instead shots of most of the cast members looking stressed and/or startled. Understandably.
Even if Spielberg's not in the directors chair, I’m quite excited about this one. The cast is talented and unique and I’m sure Trevorrow will bring a fresh new take to the proceedings.
Jurassic World stars Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jake Johnson, Nick Robinson, Ty Simpkins, BD Wong and Irrfan Khan and hits cinemas June 2015.
Are you looking forward to Jurassic World?
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