An excerpt from my script review for Jurassic Park 4 which will be available 6/22/15:
2.) Plot Stability
To say that this script is “dead’ isn’t entirely true.
Jurassic Park 4 reads like Jurassic World 2, in that we’re seeing the practice of using dinosaurs as soldiers.
The whole idea of Owen Starlord training the raptors and using them for search/rescue was in this script too, which makes me think Jurassic World evolved out of certain plot points presented in the Jurassic Park 4 script.
The second major one was the geneticists combining multiple DNAs to make super species. (In this script it was two types of raptor DNA, canine DNA, and a splash of homo sapiens.)
But my favorite?
The Barbasol Can.
In 1993, Dennis Nedry bites the big one, and we watch a mock can of shaving cream get covered in mud, burying priceless dino DNA.
A fantastic setup for a sequel, but no one EVER uses it!
Jurassic World teased us with previews, hinting that this was where the DNA for the new park came from, but was merely a cheap nostalgia ploy to get us to come see the movie.
Jurassic Park 4 delivers though, having Hammond (yes, John’s still around) send the main character, Nick, on a retrieval mission to find the shaving cream can.
(Sure, I’ll suspend my disbelief that the embryos were “technically” only able to stay frozen for 48 hours or so, and I’ll suspend it even further by believing Hammond knew where Nedry died when they were all fleeing the island in the first movie.)
It’s just awesome we’re finally making use of an original setup!
The MAJOR Problem
So The Grendel Corporation has taken over Isla Nublar and tasked with exterminating the dinosaurs left there.
Of course any corporation out to turn a profit will do the right thing…wait, they don’t?
Oh, it turns out they’re breeding the dinosaurs for some sort of mercenary-for-hire program?
And you say this is all in some remote mountain facility in Switzerland?
Okay, hold up…why the fuck are we in Switzerland?
Did the “dinosaur soldier” plot feel very Jurassic Park-esque? No, but it may have if the training program was happening on the original island.
This one simple fix (combined with JW’s nostalgia) may have been enough to salvage this project.
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