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hold on to your butts

There is An Alternate Universe Where James Cameron Made Jurassic Park As a Horror Movie

by Susana Polo | 11:01 am, September 14th, 2012


Terrifying as a pre-teen me found the opening “SHOOOOOT HAAAARRR” scene of Jurassic Park, the movie can’t really be seen as a horror flick. The book, on the other hand, is full of babies being stolen from cradles to be devoured in the Caribbean jungle, grown men being torn apart by swarms of chicken-sized dinosaurs, and an ending that doesn’t so much imply as outright state that the shockingly intelligent velociraptors have figured out how to get lysine in their diet without human aid, have gotten off the island by taking over a passing ship, and are now migrating across habited farmland in South America.

So… lets just say that a movie adaptation could have gone a number of ways. James Cameron revealed one possibility last weekend: apparently, he missed the film rights to Jurassic Park by less than a day.

“I tried to buy the book rights and [Steven Spielberg] beat me to it by a few hours,” he told Huffington Post. “But when I saw the film, I realised that I was not the right person to make the film, he was. Because he made a dinosaur movie for kids, and mine would have been Aliens with dinosaurs, and that wouldn’t have been fair.

“Dinosaurs are for 8-year-olds. We can all enjoy it, too, but kids get dinosaurs and they should not have been excluded for that. His sensibility was right for that film, I’d have gone further, nastier, much nastier.”

So, probably, imagine if the entire movie was like the opening sequence. Probably there would have been a lot more Muldoon, which I would have been okay with. Probably there would have been way less Lex, which would have been sad. It should come to no surprise to anyone who knows me that I hold Jurassic Park in pretty high esteem, but it’s always fun to have a look down the other legs of the Trousers of Time.

Read the whole article at HuffPo.

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  • http://twitter.com/WhatKateDoes Kate Lorimer

    I liked the film a lot, but I sure would have liked a closer adaptation of the book (without quite so much Crichton SCIENCE, admittedly) as I found its scenes much more frightening. The scenes with the T-rex in particular in the book are ironically much more Jaws like, in that its *very* determined to get at Grant and the kids.. The waterfall scene! *shudder* :) – and entering the Raptor nest at the end!

  • Anonymous

    I wonder how Cameron would have handled the Dinos/what sort of effects that would have had on future film making. We all know he loves his CGI so I wonder if there would have been no practical effects at all. Personally I would like to see Cameron ditch his Avatar sequels and jump into help with JP4. Horror reboot of the best “dinosaur” series ever? YES PLEASE!

  • Anonymous

    Jurassic Park isn’t already a horror a movie? I don’t know what else I’d call being chased (in the slippery, slippery rain) by a Tyrannosaurus Rex but horror. Deep, abiding horror.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1101354435 Kate Renee Cochran

    I was allowed to watch Jurassic Park for the first time with my dad after my older sister watched it with her friends the night before (in broad daylight with the appropriate stuff animals beside me). I begged my dad to let me watch it. I was 7. I LOVED IT. Glad Cameron didn’t do this one. I wanted to be a paleontologist after I saw it. Deep down, I still kinda do…

  • http://twitter.com/StevenRayMorris Steven Ray Morris

    David Fincher for a Jurassic Park remake. If you read the book it totally makes sense.

  • Anonymous

    The line between thriller and horror is very fine indeed …

  • Anonymous

    Ditto. First big scary movie as a kid, my dad sneaked me to the theater against my mom’s orders after I begged him. Super into paleontology now. Also glad it’s exactly the way it is.

  • http://www.facebook.com/Travis.K.Fischer Travis Kyle Fischer

    Oh yeah. I still remember reading the book and getting to the part where they were trying to cross the river and the T-Rex was in the freaking water waiting for them…

  • TKS

    Admittedly, I am not a big fan of Cameron. (Avatar’s an overblown white-messiah story where every plant and animal looks like it has the same texture.)

    Is it ever a classy move for a director to say “I totally would have done that differently. The movie he made was fine for him, but I would have blahblahblahhhhh”?

    (Also, the “Dinosaurs are for kids” line. eff that guy.)

  • http://twitter.com/10000_buckets Ten Thousand Buckets

    I’ve been listening to the audiobook lately, and yesterday they got to the part where Regis is pulling the giant leeches off his face, taking big chunks of flesh with them… Just listening to that made me want to barf, I can’t imagine seeing it on screen.

  • Anonymous

    Ok, so maybe it got a little toned down from the book. But the scene in the kitchen is top shelf slasher scariness, and it still makes me cowar no matter how many times I see it.

  • frodobatmanvader

    He didn’t say “That movie was fine for him. Here’s what I would have done….” He said “The movie he made was the better movie. Mine would have gone too far.” If there’s anyone who likes to jump Cameron’s shit, it’s me. Alas, this is one of his rare humble moments.

  • Anonymous

    Please Teh Internets, make a mashup of Jurassic Park that reflects what a Cameron version would have looked like!
    kthxbye

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