Jurassic Park 4: 10 Ways To Save The Franchise

By Shaun Munro /

7. Practical Effects Where Possible

I'm not one to argue with the brilliant advances that CGI technology has made in the last few years - just look at James Cameron's Avatar - but there's still a majesty to old-fashioned animatronics that even great CG can't replicate. If the sequels got too bogged down in grandiose CGI, then the fourth film should follow the example set by the original, to blend CGI with animatronics, a pragmatic move that promotes advancement while also knowing when to pull some tried and tested tricks out of the hat. How should the divide work? I think the obvious methodology would be to use complex animatronics for the up-close sequence that require the characters to interact with the dinosaurs, and save the CG for the so-called "money shots" from a further distance, where the dinosaurs are required to attack and essentially cause loads of damage that animatronics simply cannot do easily (or cost-effectively).