Jurassic World Rebirth‘s immense box office success solidifies that this franchise isn’t going anywhere, 32 years after the original Jurassic Park. However, Rebirth, even while providing minor improvements over its three predecessors, was a feature largely on autopilot. This was a title, rigidly going through the motions of giving people what they want. Any of the fun or distinctive creativity defining that seminal, inaugural Jurassic Park title from 1993 has long vanished from this franchise. All that’s left for titles like Jurassic World Rebirth is distracting product placement and hollow callbacks to better days.
However, there is a way to rejuvenate this saga and give it some energy again. It would ensure the saga leaves the world of even remote “realism” once and for all – but then again, didn’t the D-Rex in Rebirth already do that? An abandoned wild idea from Jurassic Park IV could be the key to sustaining these movies.
Jurassic Park IV Almost Went in a Bizarre Direction
In the 14 years between Jurassic Park III and Jurassic World, Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment went through tons of ideas for what a fourth Jurassic Park movie could look like. One particularly enticing idea was from screenwriter John Sayles, a man most famous for his grounded, socially conscious Western dramas. Once he got the reins to the Jurassic Park franchise, Sayles went off the wall and crafted a Jurassic Park IV story about dinosaur soldiers who are enhanced with human DNA.
This unrealized version of the production went in incredibly outlandish directions and inspired equally bizarre concept art of bipedal dinosaurs with guns for arms or gigantic lizards with human heads. It was an insane detour for the Jurassic Park saga (at the time), but now, it’s exactly why Jurassic World movies, after Rebirth, need to embrace the concept.
For one thing, it would finally offer something new for a saga that’s become obsessed with either nods to yesteryear or creating new mutant dinosaurs for human characters to fight. Instead of going back to the Indoraptor or D-Rex, why not unleash some truly unhinged dinosaur/human hybrids for audiences and fictional World characters to grapple with? The climax of Fallen Kingdom opened a window of possibility that dinosaurs would be used for black market experimentation – hybrids seems like a logical endpoint to those experiments.
It’s Time For The Jurassic World Movies to Go Full Silly
This saga has played it safe for so many installments that taking on ludicrous storytelling would be an ideal maneuver. Embracing the abandoned Jurassic Park IV concept for future Jurassic World installments would also provide a mea culpa to the franchise’s 21st-century installments, for constantly dropping the ball on going full silly. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’s cliffhanger ending teased all kinds of exciting possibilities for dinosaurs permanently living in the human world; tragically, Dominion and Rebirth backed off this concept, presumably out of concern for jumping the shark. The result was tons of unrealized storytelling potential and dreary stories always too afraid to go full-tilt ridiculous.
Stifling imagination and more absurd storylines hasn’t served the Jurassic World films well. Instead of focusing on big locusts or Scarlett Johansson being sad on a boat, how about shifting the Jurassic World features to focus on dinosaur/human hybrids? It wouldn’t be curbed in “realism,” but who cares? It’s time for this saga to recognize that prehistoric beasts are Jurassic Park‘s bread and butter; human/dinosaur hybrids would provide new levels of weirdness and storytelling potential, while touching upon real current concerns about science and biotech run amok. If audiences could survive three movies focused on Chris Pratt’s Owen Grady, surely at least one Jurassic World installment enamored with these hybrids won’t alienate audiences.
Granted, given that this concept for Jurassic Park IV was jettisoned in the mid-2000s and has since become a punchline online, it’s doubtful it ever comes to the silver screen. Plus, with Jurassic World Rebirth proving to be such a moneymaker, Universal and Amblin won’t fiddle with anything that could alienate audiences. Still, even if it doesn’t make sense for shareholders, a Jurassic World installment that puts the pedal to the metal on dinosaur/human hybrids would be just the ticket for restoring a pulse to this franchise. These movies will never reach the creative highs of Jurassic Park. Thus, why not embrace ludicrous new material instead of trying to recreate a once-in-a-lifetime movie?
Jurassic World Rebirth is now playing in theaters.
The post Jurassic World Movies Must Embrace The Wild Idea That Jurassic Park IV Never Used appeared first on ComicBook.com.
