TRIASSIC PARK

I’d like a Jurassic Park prequel. Ha. Maybe Triassic Park with lumbering amphibians and ichthyosaurs leaping out of murky oceans.

But no; not what I mean. I mean the story of the science. How did John Hammond get the idea of mining for mosquito-laden amber? Where did Henry Wu abandon the rigour of scientific discipline, and just how did it all get going? That’s the story I’d like - complete with all the scientific and ethical discussion of the morals and the dangers. And maybe with a bit about the statistical modelling computers that eventually fail so badly in the book. Who came up with that idea? Were there any warning signs? Any whistleblowers?

Sigh. I know. No dinosaurs. You kind of need some, don’t you. Lots of theme park planning, and excitable funfair-grandpas ‘sparing no expense’. But no actual wondrous attractions, no dinos rampaging and chewing the heads off greedy lawyers or doughy tourists - at least at first…

Maybe there could be a bit where we see the very first batch hatching. Maybe Wu accidentally creates male dinosaurs and has to wrestle with the ethics of destroying baby brachiosaurs and velociraptors. Perhaps a baby raptor escapes the lab and the intrepid researchers have to get out there to find it somewhere on Isla Sorna….

Third act only though, right. I want the rest of the movie to be scientists in a room, technology being debated, and Hammond getting dizzy on lemonade while that park keeper, Muldoon, watches on sceptically from a balustrade in the compound. Maybe a disgruntled animal rights activist gets in. Maybe there’s a fire, or something ‘chaotic’.

And then, in the last scene, an egg in the park cracks open and a tiny T-Rex pops out. Boom! Roll credits!

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they bring out a prequel, actually. When all the Jurassic World sequels have become predictable and stale, it might be ripe for a Netflix or an Apple TV or someone to gather round an oval table with storyboards for a smarter, less theme-ride-dino-by-numbers film.

Triassic Park. Screenplay by this random bloke from England.

I’m right here, Hollywood. Right here.