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While Samuel L. Jackson’s role in Jurassic Park as Ray Arnold is small, he certainly makes an impact. His quote, “Hold on to your butts,” is iconic amongst fans of the franchise. Unfortunately, it’s strongly hinted at that Arnold got eaten some velociraptors. However, Jackson likes to believe that his Jurassic Park character may still be alive. 

Samuel L. Jackson originally had a death scene in ‘Jurassic Park’

Samuel L. Jackson from Jurassic Park attends the opening of Tyler Perry Studios
Samuel L. Jackson | Paras Griffin/Getty Images for Tyler Perry Studios

In Jurassic Park, Arnold is the chain-smoking computer engineer who helps operate the park. When the power goes out, he ventures out to get the power back on. We don’t see him again, until Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) finds his severed arm. It looks like Arnold was devoured by some velociraptors off-screen. 

However, Jackson says that his character originally had a death scene in the film. It ended up being canceled so director Steven Spielberg killed his character off-screen. In an interview with the AV Club, Jackson said that his “death scene” was changed due to a storm. 

“I was actually supposed to go to Hawaii, to shoot my death scene,” Jackson said. “But there was a hurricane that destroyed all the sets. So I didn’t get to go to Hawaii.”

Jackson believes his character is ‘riding around on Velociraptors’ somewhere

It’s most likely that Arnold became dinosaur dinner. Still, Jackson likes to believe that this character is still alive. In an interview with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Jackson is asked about the idea of returning to Star Wars as the Jedi Knight, Mace Windu. Jackson believes the Jedi is alive somewhere, and also brings up his Jurassic Park character. 

“It’s the same way I think about the dude from Jurassic Park,” Jackson said. “He’s somewhere riding around on velociraptors with one arm. He’s just on that island riding raptors.”

Arnold did die off-screen which means that there is a sliver of hope that he’s still alive. Even so, he wasn’t present on the helicopter that left the island so he has been stranded for a while on that island trying to survive dinosaurs with only one arm. 

‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ is bringing back original cast members, but Jackson won’t be there

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Jurassic World: Dominion is bringing back three of the cast member from the first Jurassic Park. Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and Sam Neill will be returning to help Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard stop the dinosaurs that are now loose in the world. The first trailer features some beautiful landscapes of dinosaurs roaming free, while humanity tries to avoid being eaten. 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Jackson’s Arnold will be revived for this adventure. 

He is still involved in massive franchises, such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Jackson has portrayed Nick Fury in several films and will do so again in the upcoming Secret Invasion series coming to Disney+. Currently, you can catch Jackson starring in the lead role on The Last Days of Ptomely Grey, now streaming on Apple TV+. 

Jurassic Park is currently streaming on HBO Max. 

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