“Jurassic Park: The Animated Series”

In 1993; Steven Spielberg brought our favorite prehistoric creatures back from extinction with some dino-DNA, and some classic Spielberg magic with “Jurassic Park”. This Hollywood blockbuster, was based on Michael Crichton’s book of the same name. The movie was an enormous hit internationally and spawned 3 sequels; including the most recent: “Jurassic World”; which has been breaking box-office records and ruling the theaters this summer. It may not have been the critical hit that the first one was; but those are some T-Rex sized footprints to fill. To most, however, it’s the best in the series since the original film. In fact; general audiences loved it so much that it is being re-released into theaters later this year!
Yes; the “Jurassic Park” franchise has become an institution and sparked the imaginations of young aspiring paleontologists everywhere.
Earlier today; there was news that illustrator William Stout had released 8 concept images from a “Jurassic Park” cartoon that never came to be. Along with the images, the illustrator had this to say:
“This was not going to be a kiddy show (although kids of all ages, including myself, could enjoy it). They wanted the show to be a mature prime time series with top writers and state-of-the-art television animation augmented with quite a bit of CG animation. Universal Cartoon Studios wanted a “graphic novel look” to the series. I came in, showed my portfolio and was hired,” Stout said. “We made a trailer to communicate the look and feel of the series, also showing how we would combine computer animation with traditional animation. All we needed was [Steven] Spielberg’s approval.”
Unfortunately; that’s what this project didn’t get. It was never officially green-lit by Steven Spielberg, and now fans can only speculate about what might have been. There are a few interesting details in the quote as to what we could have expected:
First, he mentioned that they planned to create a mature cartoon that adults could watch, and goes on to say that they were interested in a prime-time spot. This could at first seem unusual but considering the runaway success of “The Simpsons”, one could certainly see the desire to go this route as opposed to the “Saturday Morning Cartoon” route.
He then goes on to mention “state-of-the-art animation and quite a bit of cg augmentation” which is a concept that I am having a difficult time envisioning. I know similar techniques were used in the Disney film “Treasure Planet”, and (speaking of “The Simpsons”) Matt Groening’s “Futurama” used CGI to some degree as well. So, I am guessing that it would have been used for backgrounds and inanimate objects and not on the characters or dinosaurs. But; considering what “Jurassic Park” was, it could be very likely that they would’ve wanted to create CG Dinos.
He describes how Universal Animation wanted a “graphic novel look”, which instantly makes me think of “Sin City” and Zach Snyder; through word association only. I can’t really understand that terminology;did they want panels or speech balloons?
And then, at the end of the paragraph; he gives us the most juicy morsel: there was a trailer made! That’s what I am waiting to see; perhaps on the “Jurassic World” blu-ray? I guess we will have to wait and see, but in the meantime; enjoy this awesome concept art: