Jurassic Park IV: The Comeback!

Welcome back everyone! Around here lately we’ve had lots of progression with many different things. For starters, as many of you might recall, we went over groundhogs last week so I thought it would be cool if I mention what Punxsutawney Phil’s latest prediction is. Will spring be coming soon, or will we have six more weeks of winter? On the 2^nd of this month he predicted (drumroll please) . . . :

EARLY SPRING!!!

This little guy has a thing for style!

. . . of course, this is all just something fun to do. Because even Punxsutawney Phil can’t predict the weather (he’s only been right 39% of the time), this is something only God can do! To find out if winter is ending sooner or later, we shall have to wait and see what God has in store! Now let’s move onto some updates.

The Easter production, “The King on a Cross” is coming along! Last Thursday we had our very first rehearsal and for now at least, this is going to be the day we do the rehearsals. As the date of the production come closer, we might be doing two days a week. There are still quite a few parts that need to be filled:

• Angels
• Simon Peter
• Roman Soldiers
• Pilate

If you’d like to help with the production, please send an email to animaladventures@aol.com. And remember, if you don’t like acting, that’s ok too because we also need behind-the-scenes people. Lord willing, this will be best play we’ve ever completed (my family and I anyways. I have been in numerous plays before this one, but I had no part in writing or co-directing them like I do on this one). You know, my family has a verse we’ve memorized that we use whenever we do a play, or I’m writing a book, when I’m doing chores (or I should be when I’m doing chores) or whatever. That verse is Colossians 3:23: “In whatever ye do, do it heartily as unto the Lord and not unto Men.” This sums up everything we should do in life pretty well.

This past week, I have been working on the third episode of my latest stop-motion series: Planet of the Dinosaurs. As you might recall, the third episode is entitled, “Back to the Jurassic”. I’d say it’s about 30% finished, meanwhile the episode as a whole is about 19% finished. In my spare time (the time when I’m not working on a book, doing school, chores, playing with Halle and etc.) I have completed a little demo clip for you to watch. This clip is taken from the second episode of my series: “The Tropical Poles”. I think it is quite enjoyable. So please sit back and be transported 4,900 years into the past, back to prehistoric Antarctica, which wasn’t so cold that long ago:

What did you think of my British-sounding accent? Do you think it would fit this documentary? Do you think I should just use my normal-sounding voice like I did in the previous series I made: “Animal Face-Off”? Please take the polls I have provided on the right side of the page or post a comment or send me an email (or do all three) to voice your opinion!

What is your favorite movie series? For some it would be Star Wars, or Lord of the Rings or Star Trek. For me it has always been the Jurassic Park trilogy (of course, that’s just one of my favorite movie series, I have lots of others. . .). But you know what’s really cool? Universal Pictures has recently decided to make a fourth film! A lot of people have seen Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park (JPII) and Jurassic Park III, but I think it’s safe to say that most people couldn’t tell you what a fraction of what the story is about. The story of Jurassic Park goes much, much deeper than what most people know about (excluding Jurassic Park fans such as myself, of course). And the story might continue with a fourth movie, but we’ll get to that later. First, I’ll reveal the overall plot of this franchise in a few paragraphs

The plot of Jurassic Park starts in the 1980’s when InGen (a fictional company that works with biogenetics) figured out how to clone dinosaurs using DNA found in mosquitos that had once sucked dinosaur blood and ended up getting stuck in fossilized tree sap, called amber. Using sophisticated techniques, they created dozens of these reptiles and made a kind of prehistoric zoo called Jurassic Park which is located on Isla Nublar.

Isla Nublar, for a guide to this island, visit this link

After a few incidents, the park’s safety was put in question, the CEO of InGen, John Hammond invited Dr. Ian Malcolm, a hilarious mathematician (actually, his area of study is the “chaos theory”), Dr. Alan Grant, a paleontologist and Dr. Ellie Sattler, a paleobotanist (a scientist who studies ancient plants) because the park’s investors wanted opinions of people outside InGen. Hammond also brings his grandchildren, computer-nerd Alexis “Lex” Murphy and dino-enthusiast Tim Murphy along for the weekend. Unfortunately, this is when a Jurassic Park employee, Denis Nedry agrees to smuggle dinosaur embryos out of the park by putting them in a phony canister of Barbasol shaving cream and sell them to a rival company called BioSyn. To do this, he must turn the park’s power off so he can sneak past the security systems, sell the embryos and get back and turn the power back on without anyone notices anything. But this isn’t how the plan works out because Denis becomes food for an inquisitive Dilophosaurus and the canister is lost. Before you know it, the dinosaurs escape and the remaining people must try to survive against T. rex and packs of Velociraptors.

The ferocious Dilophosaurus in Jurassic Park has a potent venom that can be shot at its enemies from as far as 20 feet away! (The real one didn't really have venom)

Rexy, the awesome Tyrannosaurus rex has escaped!

In Jurassic Park, occasionally the Triceratops will get sick.

I don’t wish to give away the ending, so I’ll skip that part. What a lot of people think is that after the events of the first movie, the second movie comes next. Normally, this is true, but in 2011, TellTale made a game that bridges the gap between the first and second movie called Jurassic Park: TheGame. This video game takes place during and just after the events of the first movie. The game starts off when Gerry Harding, a veterinarian at Jurassic Park brings his 14-year old daughter, Jessica “Jess” Harding for the weekend. Meanwhile, when Nedry isn’t able to smuggle the embryos, two backups named Miles Chadwick and Nima Cruz try to get it back. They manage to find it, but are attacked by a voracious pack of venomous Dilophosaurus and Nima is wounded by an unknown dinosaur with yellow-glowing eyes. When the power goes out, an unconscious Nima, Jess and Gerry must struggle to survive a T. rex encounter as night drags on. They seem trapped in the park until a scientist at Jurassic Park, Dr. Laura Sorkin brings them back using an electric-powered Jeep. Things go on without a hitch until the survivors of the movie leave in the helicopter and the survivors from the game are trapped on an island full of carnivorous dinosaurs. I could blabber on and on about this game, but I’ll save that for a later article.

Now we’re to the second movie in 1997, four years after the events on Isla Nublar, Ian Malcolm is called by John Hammond to help him save another island, Isla Sorna, where the dinosaurs were actually cloned (Isla Nublar was just a tourist attraction, Isla Sorna was where the real research took place). InGen has been taken away from Hammond and was given to his money-worshiping nephew named Peter Ludlow. InGen has been on the verge of Chapter 11 ever since the incident on Nublar and to save the company, Ludlow has decided to take dinosaurs from Sorna and make a new Jurassic Park in San Diego. Ian, his girlfriend, Dr. Sarah Harding (Gerry’s other daughter and Jess’ older sister), Nick Van Owen, a nature photographer, Eddie Carr, a mechanic-guy and Ian’s daughter from a failed marriage, Kelly Malcolm venture to Sorna and try to save the dinosaurs from InGen. Unfortunately, both Ian’s group and InGen become trapped on Sorna and must come together to find a way off while avoiding dangerous raptors and a pair of Tyrannosaurus rex. For the sake of spoilers, I’ll skip going into detail.

A picturesque view of some of the dinosaur life on Isla Sorna including T. rex (left), Stegosaurus (right) and Pteranodon (upper right)

We have finally reached the events of the third movie. It is now 2001 and Alan Grant and his assistant Billy are longing for a new dig site, but they lack the funding. Their prayers seem to be answered when a rich couple (Amanda and Paul Kirby) offer to give them money as long as Alan and Billy will act as tour guides on their for their wedding anniversary – an aerial flight over Isla Sorna. However the Kirby’s make the fatal mistake of landing on Sorna, despite Alan’s warnings not to (he remembers all too well what happened in the Isla Nublar Incident) and they become stranded. As if this weren’t bad enough, the Kirby’s then reveal they aren’t as rich as they claimed to be and are actually a divorced couple (so Alan still can’t get the money!). The Kirby’s actually lured Alan to the island to help them search for their lost son, Eric. But worst of all perhaps, is that they are going to be exposed to a whole new cast of dinosaurs!

Spinosaurus, one of the new carnivores of Jurassic Park III

Velociraptor male (right) and female (left) from the third movie

We have finally reached the end of the Jurassic Park story. After JPIII, naturally some JP fans would be excited about the release of JPIV. This movie was at first due to be released in 2005, but for some unknown reasons, this didn’t happen. So the series had a brief pause from about 2005-2008 and then finally Universal Pictures showed interest in making the fourth movie. The reason for this delay was that the movie makers couldn’t think of a good story. Then in 2009 they started going through scripts again, and again, and again. This went on until 2011 when they finally thought they have a good story, different from all the other movies in the series. In 2012, Frank Marshall (one of the people working on the series) said that this film was likely to come out really soon. Keeping us fans on the edge of our seats, the next big thing for Jurassic Park came on January 11, 2013 when finally, after 11 years of waiting, Universal Pictures has declared that the movie’s due date – June 13, 2014. Oh boy! It’s about time!

I haven’t been able to track down anything on the plot of the new film, but just to show how tales spread so fast, some rumor has been going around for a few years that the plot would involve animals that were half-dinosaur/half-human and would be able to carry weapons and shoot stuff. Boy, I was hoping that this wouldn’t be the plot! Because a plot like that isn’t even Jurassic Park, that’s called “Star-assic Park Wars”! Fortunately, Universal  declared this a myth. 

Dino-men were rumored to be in Jurassic Park IV! Fortunately this  was disproved by Universal Pictures!

So what will Jurassic Park behold? What new cast of dinosaurs will be unfurled? Only time will tell. You can be sure that I’ll keep you posted! I hope you enjoyed this unique post; stop by next week for some another really good read and updates on the stuff going on around here. Bye for now!

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