Idea: for a 'Jurassic Park: The Grindhouse Edition'

Jurassic Park has always been my favorite movie growing up, and I am of course incredibly excited for the Blu Ray release. It’ll be amazing to finally have a HD transfer of the films with a new documentary to boot. Sadly, however, there doesn’t seem to be any longer cut for the film (or the other two), nor will there be any deleted scenes. I always wanted an alternate viewing experience for Jurassic Park, just to spice things up on those random days where you want to watch it, but you want to watch it in a slightly different fashion. Or… how about VERY different? A very fun thought occurred…

Jurassic Park may have been a film of the early 90s with cutting edge technology that still impresses today, but many people can’t help but recall older films when they see dinosaurs on the screen. Perhaps it is because there were so many dinosaur films in previous decades, brought to wonderful life with stop motion? Perhaps it is because dinosaurs themselves were ancient creatures? Regardless, there is always a sense of nostalgia watching any film with dinosaurs, especially Jurassic Park. Because of this, sometimes when I watch Jurassic Park I think of it as a film older than it really is. Perhaps it is because it uses a sweeping orchestral score by John Williams to full extent, something modern films have either forgotten how to do well or dropped it altogether in favor of synthetic rock-induced creations. Perhaps it is because the core point of the film, the fact that nature cannot be contained and should not be messed with, is an idea that was very much touted in films of the 70s and even 80s frequently.

So… why not make it appear like it came from one of those decades? Why not turn Jurassic Park into a grindhouse film!

This wouldn’t be a simple “let’s add film grain!” edit. I’d love to put a lot more work into it than that. Here are just some ideas:

-Make the first part of the film, before they get to the island, be in black and white with grain. This would really work with the mysterious opening of the film plus would give the raptor attack in the pen an even more interesting look.

-When the plane starts flying to the island, the film can suddenly turn into color, which will really startle and impress you all at once when the island is revealed in this version.

-While there will be film grain, dirt specks, softer colors, and film warbles throughout, there should definitely be a lot more of this everytime a dinosaur attacks, as if the person kept playing “the cool parts” over and over again. It would also give the dinosaur attacks a gritty feel.

-Have the sound quality be slightly tampered and perhaps even reduced to 2.0 or even mono.

-Have a “missing reel” somewhere. Still haven’t thought of a good scene to cut, but something that isn’t too major yet could be missed, and would leave unanswered questions, lol. Perhaps cut right when Ellie says “Mr. Hammond I think we’re back in buisness!” and the raptor pops out, then resume the film after her little “chase” scene is done?

More ideas to come. I know this could seem like a blasphemous thing to do to such a great film, but it’s not like I’m saying this will be THE BEST way to see the film. Hell no. This is just a fun experiment and could be a very fun alternate way to watch the film on a Saturday night with a bunch of drunk friends over. What do you guys think?

Sounds like an interesting idea. After all, people have loved how TMBTM grindhoused Star Wars and Jaws... you might even consider using that for some ideas on how to make a grinhouse version.

In any case, the B&W to Color transition, as well as aged film, sounds interesting.I vaguely recall there was a special feature showing stop motion dinosaurs in the DVD. Maybe you'll want to include those in some scenes to replace the stunning CGI? It would be understandable for grindhouse producers to suddenly lose money and have to resort to stop motion for a few dinosaur scenes.

Good idea if you like the whole "grindhouse" treatment thing, this has been beatin to death already on a lot of different edits, I myself am not a fan of this at all, but good luck anyways.

yeah, i was going to suggest maybe trying to make the dinosaur scenes look jerky like stop motion - that might be a lot of work - might be a simple as dropping video frames.

A Ray Harryhausen sort of look...maybe trim out a few shots of humans and dinosaurs in shots together - give it a bit of an awkward sort of feel like king kong.

the 'missing reel' idea seems like a bit of a cheap gag - it was funny in planet terror but i dunno if it'd work here...

maybe you could incorporate a few bits from JP2 and order it a bit more like the original Chrichton story?

On the whole I like the idea - you just have to be careful not to 'beat peaople over the head' with certain things - for example, I saw a Grindhouse style edit of Mortal Kombat [can't remember who did it] and it was quite well done but they'd used a loop of the same white scratch effect for pretty much the whole film and it became very distracting.

- i do deninitely like the idea of more film distress as something violent is about to happen - that was a technique that worked quite wel on planet terror.

One thing that always bugs me about Grindhoused edits of films (and the offical Grindhouse film) is that the audio usually remains crystal clear in opposition with the degraded image, not quite following the "old and hissy" vibe it should have.

Have you considered incorporating stuff from other dinosaur movies, like Carnosaur? Something which does add to the feel of an exploitation film is to repeat footage, and spice things with stock shots of things that have nothing to do with anything ;)

Okay, so I’m actually in the final stages of working on my own Grindhouse Cut of Jurassic Park! I think you will find it, in the words of John Hammond, “right up your alley.” It isn’t based on your suggestions here… I’ve actually been working on it for a little while and did a Google search to see if anybody else had done something similar. But I think you will really enjoy some of the changes I’ve made… It is truly an entirely different cut of the movie.

I’ve saturated the colors and added some film degradation of course, and entirely replaced the score with 70s music. Let me tell you – replacing the music was no easy task – I’ve put a TON of work into this.

And that isn’t all… there are a few other changes I’ve made which I don’t want to spoil because that’ll be part of the fun watching it. But one big change I should mention is this…

Before Spielberg & Co. decided to render the dinosaurs in CG, they contracted stop-motion legend Phil Tippet to do the dinosaur effects in claymation. By the time they changed their minds, he had already produced a bunch of stop motion test footage for the movie. Wherever possible, I have replaced the special effects with Tippet’s work to give it that 70s stop motion feel.

There are a handful of other changes I’ve made too. I’m hoping it will be finished in the next few weeks… I’ll be sure to come back and let you know when it’s up. So long as I don’t forget. Which I don’t think I will, I’m very excited to finish this and share it with the community.

I actually just started making fan edits and I’ve done a few (which I haven’t yet posted) before making this one, but I am very proud of this one. I have thoroughly impressed myself with how good I think this is. I can’t wait to hear what you think.