by Garrett Gilchrist » Wed Apr 02, 2014 12:07 pm
I've read that the coverage wasn't there to make the thing make sense, and that the production started shooting a lot of second/third unit inserts to complete scenes. Watching it I think it makes the most sense if you're not paying attention to what the actors are doing and saying. I wonder if this is due to the directors being fired, and other hands taking over to complete the piece, or if they genuinely weren't shooting proper coverage - which is something that does happen with inexperienced directors.
I wonder if they just had their own ideas for how these scenes would cut together which didn't involve a lot of cutting and coverage in the places the producers would want. Wide shots and so on. Impossible to say now, but the interviews tell of a lack of attention to the actors, and much more attention paid to insert shots and visual details.
That awful animated dinosaur prologue, for example, seems to have been included because without it, the whole dinosaur thing is awkwardly introduced in a rambling, wide-shot Dennis Hopper monologue. There are consequences to a certain lack of direction and script focus.
By contrast, what I've read of the early Tom Parker/ Jim Jennewein fantasy script actually has a wit to it, and characters, and is a movie. Though possibly too cartoony for 1992.