This weekend sees the release of the long-awaited fourth movie in the Jurassic Park franchise. Unlike the original, Jurassic World was not “65 million years in the making,” but it has been 14 years since the release of Jurassic Park III, and there were numerous script revisions, directors and stars attached to the sequel in that time.
Set 22 years after the events of the first movie, we return to the original island of Isla Nublar, the site of John Hammond’s failed Jurassic Park. However, Hammond’s dream has now been realized and it is now a fully functioning dinosaur theme park.
After being open for 10 years, park attendance is dwindling so the park scientists create a genetically enhanced, hybrid dinosaur called Indominus Rex, a massive creature that is highly intelligent and has the ability to learn. The man ready to do battle with this new dino is Star-Lord, or rather Guardian of the Galaxy’s Chris Pratt, who plays dinosaur ‘wrangler’ Owen Grady in this movie. While Owen is used to training Velociraptors, it will take much more to stop Indominus before the beast destroys Jurassic World and all the tourists in it.
With Steven Spielberg on board as producer, expect this one to be another hit.
One of the reasons why the original Jurassic Park was a success was the score by John Williams. While Williams is not scoring this one, his theme will definitely be used, mixed with a new score by new maestro Michael Giacchino who has an unusual connection to an earlier Jurassic Park sequel—a connection that would jumpstart his career.
Giacchino got his start scoring video game soundtracks and his first major composition was for the video game adaptation of The Lost World: Jurassic Park. J.J. Abrams took note of Giacchino’s work on video games and hired him to score the TV series Alias and Lost, which led to movies like The Incredibles and Ratatouille. Abrams again sought him out to score Mission: Impossible III, Star Trek and Super 8.
Although Abrams probably would have liked to work with Giacchino on the soundtrack to the new Star Wars movie, who else should score the new sequels but John Williams himself. Now it may be coincidental (or even ironic) that Giacchino was hired to score Jurassic World, but it also may be that he is the natural born successor to Williams for this movie.
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At the Paramount Theatre this weekend is your chance to see Shakespeare’s classic Julius Caesar performed at the famous Globe Theatre in England. It is showing at 10 a.m. Saturday. Get more details at www.landmarkcinemas.com/kelowna-paramount.
And at Landmark Cinemas Encore in West Kelowna, you get another chance to see Furious 7, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 and Woman in Gold at a discounted price. Go to www.landmarkcinemas.com/west-kelowna for details.
