So Steven Spielberg was recently at USC (University of Southern California) giving talks on a whole bunch of film subjects that included the hott dino-on-dino action of Jurrasic Park IV, the ever-gestating Indiana Jones IV, and his thoughts on 3-D.
First, JP4: "He is working with writers on the script to Jurassic Park IV and says that there is going to be a big dinosaur sequence where a pack of motorcycles are forced to out run a bunch of Raptors. Spielberg said that just with the other films in the series, he’s going to ‘cherry pick’ certain scenes he loved from the books and include them in the new film."
Nothing was reportedly discussed regarding the infamous script written by John Sayles that featured an elite team of dinosaur soldiers (with shoulder-mounted weaponry and shit, if I do recall correctly). Now, if that’s the draft Spielberg is working on, then color me "still slightly interested" in this franchise that already has one sequel too many (and I’m not talking about JPIII – Go Joe Johnston!). If it’s not based on that lunatic script, well then I really don’t know what to think except that I seriously couldn’t care less at the moment for yet another Jurrasic Park film. "But don’t you wanna see giant prehistoric beasts battling it out to the death, George?" Sure… it’s called King Kong (whose success I realize will only bump the Jurrasic film into quicker production – I guess I’m fucked anyways!).
Speaking of prehistoric beasts, Indiana Jones IV is still slowly limping out of the geriatric ward it seems. The news isn’t that exciting, though. Basically, George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson are still cracking at the script while Ford keeps saying he’s down to don the fedora again. But get this: Lucas supposedly wants to prime Indy IV for 3-D. Harrison Ford’s leathery visage right up in your mug? Spooky, says I. (Sorry, Eileen.)
And since we’re touching on 3-D, I’ll end with the most interesting part of Beardo’s talks: "Spielberg said that he has not and does not plan to develop a total film emersion technology… he believes a barrier must exist between the film audience and the film itself. He also mentioned that he saw tests that were done to convert Casablanca, Top Gun, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Laurel and Hardy into 3-D and said that the industry is going to have to be very careful about what they move to make 3-D; because classic films like Casablanca looked horrible."
Exercise restraint? In this town? One can only hope, Spielbergo… one can only hope.