We doubt the American Film Institute will ever do a salute to Jurassic Park III, and we know a Criterion Collection blu-ray release is unlikely. Nonetheless, JP III remains a favorite of our hosts.
Jurassic Park III managed to survive a very troubled development, obvious in the final film. This was the first installment in the franchise not adapted directly from a
Michael Crichton novel. Some early drafts of the script had Dr. Alan Grant living on the island like Robinson Crusoe or like Tom Hanks in that movie with the volleyball.
A separate draft featured a group of teenagers stranded on the island, which makes us assume the velociraptors wielded machetes, and the T-rex donned a hockey mask. Foreshadowing Jurassic World, there was even a scene involving a motorcycle chase. (Here's hoping it was the dinosaurs actually driving the motorcycles.)
Ultimately, these supremely moronic ideas were abandoned for less moronic ideas.
Sam Neill (Alan Grant) and Laura Dern (Ellie Sattler) return to the franchise after both sat out the second film, thus making the Jurassic Park franchise one of the strangest when it comes to cast reprisals. (JP 1: Grant, Sattler, Ian Malcolm; JP 2: Malcolm; JP 3: Grant, Sattler -- just weird)
Newcomers include: a totally out of place William H. Macy, a megaphone-toting Teá Leoni, Dickie Moltisanti aka Alessandro Nivola, and the late, great Michael Jeter, portraying the only character you don't want to punch in the mouth.
Director Joe Johnston — a favorite of our hosts — does his very best to salvage a hackneyed, uninventive, hodgepodge of a screenplay into a mostly entertaining jungle adventure.
Perhaps the film’s greatest contribution to world history is that it inspired this entire podcast!
Join Taylor and Nick as they delve too deep into Jurassic Park III, with an analysis no one— and we mean NO ONE— has ever wasted so much time on.
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