Introduced the School Beastie to Jurassic Park. (Long overdue because she loves the Dinosaur Island board game which is exactly the same idea. Yes she still mostly beats me when we play.)
When I watched JP on its opening weekend in ‘93 I walked out thinking that it felt like it was a fantastic movie that was missing its final reel. Watching it again for the first time in decades, I still feel the same. The T-Rex taking out the velociraptors is a great resolution to that threat but it’s not a great ending for the movie.
I want some final beat that…
…turns the T-Rex back towards the main characters as a final challenge (the first half of the movie sets it up as the main monster, and you get two great confrontations, but that’s it! The two further appearances where it wanders onscreen and eats another dinosaur don’t satisfy the rule of three!
…gives Ellie a final hero moment – after being an absolute badass the whole film, she becomes kind of invisible once she and Alan are reunited. She’s got nothing more to prove of course, but letting her sit in the background is a bit disrespectful to everything the film’s done with her so far. This could also rhyme with the earlier bit where Ellie and Hammond argue over who should go fix the power, which sets up Hammond –
…sees Hammond taking responsibility in a serious way – i.e. by moving to sacrifice his own life to save the others, showing the effect Ellie’s call-out had on him. His lines of dialogue in the current film just don’t carry much weight and underline the theme which is all about the arrogance of humanity (i.e. specifically his).
…has Malcolm somehow saving Hammond’s life. Malcolm is ridiculously brave in the first T-Rex attack and then does nothing apart from look sexy. What he does can’t be a physical action – he has to save the day through the application of chaos. He takes a big chance, and it works out, the audience will forgive the contrivance – in fact they’ll embrace it because he talked about the butterfly effect at the start of the film. (And he’s gotta save Hammond, can’t traumatise his grandkids any further by letting him actually die!)
…and Grant doesn’t need to do anything, nor do the kids, they’ve finished their arcs. Grant just comes face to face with the final threat, and instinctively reaches out and takes Lex’s hand to reassure her, rhyming with the bit early on where Lex takes his hand and he is uncomfortable about it.
(My own contribution to the theme of the arrogance of humanity is that I think I can give notes to a beloved Steven Spielberg film. 
)
Great fun nonetheless.
so they get out of the visitor centre and away but the T-rex isn’t satisfied with a few raptors, it’s after them, and the storm has messed up the roads so they can’t just drive fast – the car stalls out or something and the T-rex is gonna get them – they get separated, so it comes stomping close at Alan and Lex, and Lex doesn’t scream this time (she’s found her courage) and Alan takes her hand (he’s found his love of kids or whatver) and they hope for a miracle…
Meanwhile Ellie and Malcolm and Hammond and Tim are watching – Ellie’s, like, I have an idea (because she’s a badass), and Hammond tells her, no, this time it is up to me. And not because you’re a lady (because he’s not a sexist any more) but because I’m an arrogant fool and I need to make it right (because he has learned he’s an arrogant fool and he needs to make it right).
So the T-rex is getting closer and then SLAM Nedry’s car smashes into the T-rex’s side and Hammond’s at the wheel, and it draws the T-rex’s attention as Hammond starts reversing away from the monster towards a big drop like the one we saw right at the start of the film when the copter came in. And the T-rex is chasing him, and Ellie and Tim and Alan and Malcolm are all reunited and they are looking down at Hammond in the car at the edge with the T-Rex closing in and Hammond takes his hat off and closes his eyes and they’re all like “well Hammond’s dead but he has saved us all” and then Malcolm shrugs his sexy shoulders and says “you never know which way the water might run” (because he’s been right the whole way through and he gets to be right here too) and there’s a busy waterfall alongside them and he shoves a rock which tumbles some more rocks and redirects the waterfall so suddenly it’s pounding down a new direction and the T-rex gets washed off the cliff into the water below and Hammond miraculously survives
And then they’re in the helicopter and they see the T-rex clamber out of the water and roar after them and the credits roll