Jurassic Park

The Lost World

Jurassic Park III

Jurassic World


Joe Johnston had been interested in directing the sequel to Jurassic Park and approached Spielberg, a friend of his, about the project. While Spielberg wanted to direct the first sequel, he agreed that if there was ever a third film, Johnston could direct.

Johnston never had any concrete concept for the third film, other than stating the film would be "more stand-alone" and feature a lot of flying reptiles.

The third film was greenlit in August 1999 and Craig Rosenberg wrote a script involving teenagers who get marooned on Isla Sorna. An earlier storyline by Spielberg featured Alan Grant living in a tree on one of the islands and studying the dinosaur population.

New writers were brought in to scribe a story involving Pteranodons escaping from Site B and causing a spate of mysterious killings on the mainland, which was to be investigated by Alan Grant and a number of other characters including Billy Brennan, a naturalist named Simone, a tough military attaché, wealthy Paul Roby, and Roby's teenage son Miles.


Grant's group crash-lands on the island, while a parallel investigation is being carried out on the mainland. The aviary sequence and laboratory set piece were initially much longer and more complex, including Velociraptors stealthily entering the hatchery as the team spends the night there.

Sets, costumes, and props were built for this version, before Johnston rejected the entire script five weeks before filming in order to pursue the "rescue mission" plot, which had been suggested by David Koepp.

Johnston said that the script was never finished during production: "We shot pages that eventually went into the final script but we didn't have a document". During the pre-production phase, concept artists created advertising for the film using a number of working titles including Jurassic Park: Extinction and Jurassic Park: Breakout.


After a teaser trailer debuted with Pokemon: The Movie 2000 on July 21, 2000, Production began on August 30, 2000 without a finished script, with filming in California, Oahu, and Molokai.

The storyline contains minor scenes from Crichton's Jurassic Park and The Lost World novels that were not featured in the film versions, such as the Pteranodon aviary and the use of the boat.

In a deviation from the previous films, the Spinosaurus is considered the primary antagonist: Johnston stated, "A lot of dinosaurs have a very similar silhouette to the T-Rex ... and we wanted the audience to instantly recognize this as something else."

The silhouette of the Spinosaurus is also on the poster behind the Pteranodon, taking the place of the Tyrannosaurus which had been used in the previous films' posters.


Baryonyx was originally considered to be the "big bad" before Spinosaurus was chosen. Within film dialogue, Billy interprets the animal encountered as a Baryonyx or Suchomimus, but Dr. Grant corrects his analysis based on its sail.

The special effects used for the dinosaurs were a mixture of animatronics and CGI. Due to new discoveries and theories in the field of paleontology, the portrayal of several dinosaurs differed from that of the previous films. Discoveries suggesting that Velociraptors were feathered prompted the addition of quill-like structures on the head and neck of the males in the film.

"We've found evidence that Velociraptors had feathers, or feather-like structures, and we've incorporated that into the new look of the raptor", said paleontologist Jack Horner, the film's technical adviser.

Given John Williams was busy writing the music for Spielberg's own A.I. Artificial Intelligence, he recommended Don Davis to write the Jurassic Park III score. Williams' original themes were integrated into the score as well as several new ones, such as one for the Spinosaurus that focused on low sounds, with tubas, trombones and timpani.

The fight between him and the Tyrannosaurus, compared by Davis to King Kong fighting a dinosaur in the 1933 film, had a juxtaposition of the Spinosaurus theme with the one Williams wrote for the T. rex. In addition, "Big Hat, No Cattle", a song by Randy Newman, was used in a restaurant scene.




Resources: Wikipedia.org, imdb.com




Jurassic Park III - 2001

Young Erik Kirby (Trevor Morgan) is tandem parasailing with his mom's boyfriend Ben Hildebrand (Mark Harelik) near a lush island west of Costa Rica. The tow boat drives through a mist, and the tow line is jerked several times. Emerging from the mist, the two men operating the boat are gone, so the boat crashes into rocks. The parasailers unhook their line from the boat and try to control their descent to the uninhabited island.


Toddler Charlie (Blake Michael Bryan) is playing with dinosaurs in his backyard sandbox. Paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) tries to correct him as to which dinosaurs are predators, so his baby-toting mom (and paleobotanist) Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) has to point out that he's a little young for that much information. Her husband, Mark Degler (Taylor Nichols) appears on the scene, and they have dinner together.

As Mark checks on the kids, who've nicknamed Alan the Dinosaur Man, Alan reveals his new research findings to Ellie, who was his former dig partner and fellow survivor of the ill-fated visit to Jurassic Park. When Alan leaves, Ellie tells him to call if he needs anything.


Alan is garnering scant interest in his latest auditorium lecture, speculating on sonic abilities and thus possible communication between raptors, because his lecture audience only wants to ask about Jurassic Park or the San Diego Tyrannosaurus incident. In one answer, he states that nothing could induce him to return to the dinosaur islands.


On a desert airfield slash junkyard, men-for-hire Cooper (John Diehl) and M.B. Nash (Bruce A. Young) test out a powerful large caliber weapon, while booking agent Mr. Udesky (Michael Jeter) reassures Mr. Kirby by phone that he has hired the best team and that everything will be taken care of.


Returning to the digsite, Alan tells his assistant Billy Brennan (Alessandro Nivola) that money is running out. Billy shows him a model he's created of the sounding space in a raptor skull - it produces a noise when he blows through it. They are interrupted by Paul Kirby (William H. Macy), who invites them to dinner.


Billy accepts on behalf of a reluctant Alan. At dinner, adventurous Paul and Amanda Kirby (Téa Leoni) ask Alan to be their guide in a flight over the "second island" of Jurassic Park, and offer a generous donation to continue funding the dig.


A small plane flies over the water towards the second island, Billy sorts his camera equipment, explaining to Alan how the camera bag once saved his life in a gliding incident. Alan falls asleep, and wakes to see the plane empty of people, and a talking velociraptor calling his name ... the voice is Billy's, startling Alan out of this nightmare.


As they get over land, the Kirbys and the crew start looking out the windows, while Alan innocently tries to point out the paleontological sights. When he realizes they intend to land, Alan rushes towards the cockpit to stop them, and one of the men knocks him unconscious. When he awakens, they are on the ground, shouting in the brush for someone. Alan tells them the shouting is bad, causing more shouting ... and loud growling is heard.


Billy thinks it's a tyrannosaurus, but Alan says it's something bigger. As the group rushes to board the plane, they notice Cooper is missing. Shots are fired in the brush. They start the plane and rev down the runway, when a bleeding, injured Cooper suddenly appears in their path, waving and sobbing for them to stop.

Pilot Nash knows he cannot stop - and suddenly a huge dinosaur emerges from the trees and devours Cooper, spattering blood on the plane as it tries to avoid a collision. With the fuel lines severed, the plane crashes through the jungle, losing wings and tail before finally stopping up in a tree.

As the group is recovering their nerves, they find the radio is broken and try to use Paul's satellite phone to call for help, but can't get through. Nash securely snaps the phone into a vest pocket. Moments later, the front of the plane is torn away by a tall dinosaur, who grabs Nash, screaming. He falls to the ground, but the dinosaur scoops him up and eats him.


As the monster returns his attention to the plane, everyone rushes to the rear, causing the wreck to overbalance and fall to the ground. The dinosaur rolls the fuselage over and over, tumbling the occupants, and finally tears a hole in the side. As it pokes its snout inside, they run away - and encounter a feeding tyrannosaurus rex. Alan orders everyone to hold still - but they all run!


The two giant dinosaurs meet, then duel it out as the humans flee again. Finally given some breathing room, Alan's punch knocks Paul to the ground. They finally learn about Erik, and how the boy went missing eight weeks previously. Disgusted, Alan plans with Billy to head for the coast and hope for rescue rather than look for the boy, and given the limited chance for survival either way, the group follows along.


Back at the crash site, the group salvages things for the hike, and Alan explains the first dinosaur was a spinosaurus. Billy observes Paul fumbling with his backpack, and confronts him about his adventurous claims - finding out he's not wealthy, but just a small businessman. So much for the dig funding. The group soon finds the parasail, and Erik's lifejacket and video camera, which proves that Erik was still alive when they landed.

Alan suggests they keep the parasail for later use, but as they pull it down, Ben's rotting corpse swings down and entangles Amanda. Hysterical, she runs to a nearby stream, and as Paul comforts her she explains she's more concerned for Erik than Ben. They call Alan over ... and he sees dinosaur eggs in several nests along the river. "Raptor", he whispers, and the group quickly moves on. Alan notices Billy's absence and has to come back for him.

They find the park building complex and go inside, but a shadow of a raptor runs past a window. Billy smashes a candy machine open while Paul fumbles for change, and as they snack they walk into the incubation room. Amanda walks past the tanks, seeing bigger and bigger dinosaur fetuses, until she sees a full grown head - as she gets a closer look, a raptor jumps out from behind the tank!

They run into a cage area where the raptor pins Billy and Amanda behind a cage door - but when it sniffs the air upward and begins to climb, they push the door around and trap it. Outside, the raptors scream to each other. Alan leads the humans into the brachiosaur herd. As the herd starts running, the people are occasionally knocked down - Billy drops his old camera bag, but Alan picks it up for him.



NEXT > > >



Jurassic Park

The Lost World

Jurassic Park III

Jurassic World


Home | More Sci-Fi | Site design by SFMZone. Copyright 2010 - 2024 All Rights Reserved. | Site Info | TOP^