Jurassic Park IV

Courtesy of Boxoffice.com, currently paying my bills, comes the information that Jurassic Park IV -- last rumored to be dead as a doornail -- is very much alive and kicking, and, in typical 21st century fashion, it brought two sequels along for the ride.

Since I just endured all six American Pie movies, I immediately applied Universal's auto-sequel "system" to the new Jurassic Park movies and became instantly amused. Imagine: DTV-quality CG dinosaurs tormenting a bunch of well-meaning but utterly interchangeable actors, running around spouting the same "don't play God" plotline in each one, all joined by a doom-and-gloom cousin of Sam Neill's character, each individually suckered back in for "one last look" at the park and all the scientific secrets held within. And no direct-to-video Park sequel would be complete without a requisite cameo from Wayne Knight -- even though his character is dead -- in a retconning flashback sequence where he mentions he's stealing embryos for Dodgson and ends up privy to some dark secret about the park's past.

Back in the real world, I'm not sure how I feel about Jurassic Park 4, since there's no doubt it won't be the super-ultra amazingly awesome treatment by John Sayles that was previewed on Ain't It Cool News at least half a decade ago. If I remember correctly, it brought back Sam Neill but he vanished about halfway through, replaced by an all new mysterious character as dinosaurs spread across the planet. There was some other stuff going on, but eventually the movie incorporated Knight's shaving cream can with embryos, and a Transylvanian castle where a madman was training dinosaurs to become military weapons underwater. I mean, I'd pay to see that in a second, and who wouldn't? Unless you hate fun, that is. I would find the page on AICN and link to it, but AICN's search function is still the worst thing ever invented in the history of the internet, and using Google doesn't work much better.

In the meantime, expect a Franchise Legacy post about Jurassic Park either sooner or later, depending on how awful and lazy I am.

(don't hold your breath or anything)