With studios seemingly losing all their creative faculties these days, it’s no surprise classics such as Jurassic Park are being re-released in 3D. In a recent interview, James Cameron gave his own inflated opinion on the Spielberg classic as reported by The Huffington Post.
In the interview, James Cameron reveals how he attempted to purchase the book rights and that he had plans to make a “much nastier” adaptation of Michael Crichton’s novel. He claims Steven Spielberg beat him to it.
“When I saw the film,” says Cameron, “I realised that I was not the right person to make the film, [Spielberg] 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 from that. His sensibility was right for that film. I’d have gone further, nastier, much nastier.”
Perhaps it’s the 8-year-old in me, but I can’t help but feel the need to defend Spielberg’s work here, even against the likes of someone as gifted as James Cameron. I find it hard to see Samuel L. Jackson’s severed arm slung over Laura Dern’s shoulder as anything other than nasty. Jurassic Park created in me the first sense of dread I can ever remember. There was nothing scarier or nastier than seeing Newman from Seinfeld being attacked by screeching dinosaurs or that man being eaten straight off the toilet. Even the cow being lowered into the raptor pit had my stomach turning in knots.
Those things will always be frightening, no matter how old we get or how many times we’ve seen the film. I can’t say the same thing for formulated military groups being picked off one by one, James Cameron. The sequels tried your formula – and it is a formula – and failed to live up to the original.
A dinosaur movie for kids? Audiences should revisit Jurassic Park and attempt to write down the philosophical nuances being tossed around every second. Even as an adult, it’s hard to keep up. Most kids flat out can’t catch on, probably because they’re mid bowel movement andwondering why on Earth their parents would take them to see such a frightening film.
It’s difficult to see why James Cameron would throw around such claims. Dollars and appraisal have in no doubt increased the size of his ego, but not his common sense. Tell us what you think. What would a James Cameron Jurassic Park have looked like?
