Analysis of the original Jurassic Park

analysis
#1

For what it’s worth, I think you’re right, and the official storyform for Jurassic Park is wrong. I also think you’re probably correct about your proposed storyform, or at least have it in the right quadrant.

I think the official storyform has the impact character wrong. It seems more likely that the subjective story is between Grant and Hammond or Grant and The Park, which is sort of represented by Hammond. Upper right just looks really good to me.

OS in Situation- Progress: while the dinos might be from the past, they are the product of science. The line “They were so busy trying to figure out of they could; they didn’t stop to think if they should,” seems a lot closer to what the story is about than Malcolm’s lectures about chaos theory. Then you have Grant having all the problems with technology and children, both symbols of progress. Though, I know I need to be careful not to mix the MC and OS throughlines.

MC, Grant in Activity- Doing: I mean, he’s literally just running from dinosaurs for half the movie. I realize that’s not good enough. I’m going to have to think about it some more. Maybe rewatch the movie then try to get down to the problem level.

IC, Hammond in Manipulation- Playing a Role: I think this is really strong. Hammond sees himself as this sort of great showman/ entrepreneur, but it’s not quite true. In the ice cream scene he tells this story about starting a flea circus when he was young, and that it was all an illusion, and that with Jurassic Park he wanted to create something real. The problem is that Jurassic Park is just another flea circus. They’re genetically engineered, pieced together with frog DNA; they aren’t real dinosaurs. Plus, Hammond sort of promotes the greatness of the park with the line “Spared no expense,” which is only true about the facade of the park, the ice cream and the public facilities and the science. When it came to the security and the computer systems that run it, he very much spared the expense by using Dennis Nedry, the lowest bidder. And Hammond is coldly unsympathetic toward Nedry’s resulting money problems. Problems which motivate Nedry’s betrayal and the failure of the park.

RS in Fixed Attitude- Impulsive Responses: this is always the hardest throughline for me to figure out, and it’s further complicated by the Grant sharing so little screen time with the other characters, or at least the ones portrayed by human actors. You have Hammond barging into Grant’s dig and popping his champagne and all of Grant’s impulsive responses there. You have Hammond first bringing them into the park and them seeing their first living dinosaurs, which definitely an impulsive response scene.

I think this a good start, and I’m going to give it some more thought. I’m thinking Trust/ Test or Proven/ Unproven for problem/ solution elements.

Have you ever found yourself disagreeing with the official storyform?
#2

Wrong storyfrom like bad marriage. Get out early.

—Dramatica fortune cookie

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#4

Haven’t seen it in years, but I always felt that the OS felt way more like a ‘Doing’ concern if anything. It didn’t feel like anyone was trying to understand as much as they were just trying to escape or, more likely, survive.

Also, the issues beneath Doing were much stronger for me than anything in Understanding:

Ian: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

That line always makes me think of Wisdom. But, again, haven’t seen it in ages so might be misremembering.

#5

Is that Doing as storytelling or Doing as a problematic process?

In other words, are they talking about doing or is there conflict in the actual Doing…?

#6

Hm. Not sure. I’ll have to revisit it before I can give an answer to that one.

The stuff I remember about Jurassic Park always seems to relate to that problematic process, but I’m also relying entirely on my pre-Dramatica mind for this one, so it’s highly likely that I’m mixing the concern with a domain of Physics.

#7

I’m pretty sure the problem in the OS is that the genie has been let out of the bottle—the Universe is all screwed up now. Dinosaurs in modern times.

Presents a bit of an inequity.

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#8

Just want to let everyone know that Jurassic Park was added this month to Netflix.

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#9

Doesn’t determining the domain for the OS depend on how you define the story goal? The goal seems to be about getting the park up and running, and that’s a process. Part of that is getting the outside experts to endorse the park, but the characters also show plenty of concern toward other issues within the park i.e., figuring out why the triceratops is sick, debugging the phones, etc. In the end the park is abandoned, so the story goal fails to be achieved.

I rewatched the movie, and I’ve been thinking about this a lot. It seems like the source of the problems are the things the Ingen scientists are doing. In the lunch scene, Malcolm makes his arguments from that perspective. He makes one reference to dinosaurs losing to natural selection, but all his other points are aimed squarely at Hammond and the scientists. He says they didn’t learn the knowledge for themselves, they don’t understand the forces they’re dealing with, they cared only whether they could achieve their goals, and they’re doing harm to the natural world.

In the book the existence of the dinosaurs is causing problems. They aren’t contained to the island, and they’re attacking people on the mainland. Plus, since they can actually breed, this is big problem. But the movie doesn’t make that case. Yes, the park has failed to stop them from breeding, but there’s no indication they aren’t contained to the island. If they’re isolated on a privately owned, unpopulated island, are they really a problem? Unless we have an ethical objection, the presence of lions and tigers and gorillas in our cities isn’t a problem, as long as they stay in the zoo.

In this case the inequity is not the existence of the dinosaurs, but that they’re inhabiting the same space as humans. Wouldn’t this mean the story ends in success? Once all the people have fled, the inequity is gone.

#10

I think figuring out Grant is the hardest part of this storyform. His throughline probably has the least emphasis of the four, and it’s hard to separate him from the OS. In turn the OS often feels like it’s doing double duty, so it’s easy to make arguments for the OS being in either Situation or Activity. I’m currently exploring the OS in Activity, and one of the pros is that this lets Grant be in Situation, which I think fits him better.

First there are a few things that are specifically Grant-related: his hypothesis about dinosaurs being related to birds, his issues with technology, his dislike of children, the threat Jurassic Park poses to his professional field (though Ellie sort of has this, too)

I think the bird hypothesis will be a good path to go down if Grant winds up in Activity. It’s touched on in every act, and even while trapped in the park he’s gathering information to help support it. I suppose you could also make an argument for Situation here. Grant is that archaeologist with the wacky bird theory.

The tech, the kids, and the threat to his profession are all related, and I think they all fit really well into Situation. From his first scene Grant his worried about the effects of new technology on his profession. He’s tech averse and resents the idea that computer imaging could eliminate the need to dig up the fossils. "Where’s the fun in that? he says. Jurassic Park is just an extreme extension of this idea. It’s just more technology trying to render him obsolete. Malcolm jokes that he’s going extinct. In the tree, after the T-Rex attack, the kids ask him what he and Ellie will do, and Grant replies, without enthusiasm, that “I guess, we’ll have to evolve, too.”

Grant needs to evolve. His dislike of children is symbolic of his resistance. After all, in the scientific sense, evolution requires reproduction. In the final scene, the children sleep on Grant’s shoulders, and he seems perfectly fine with it, even though he’s no longer in circumstances that require it of him as he was when they were trapped in the park. Grant looks out the window and watches a bird flying alongside the helicopter, another symbol of evolution. Combined with Grant’s relationship to the kids, this seems to say Grant is ready to evolve.

I’m feeling pretty good about putting Grant in Situation with a concern of Progress/ How Things Are Changing (with Resolve: Changed). If I’m on the right track, Threat/ Security probably looks better than Fact/ Fantasy, but I’m going to put some thought into the IC and RS throughlines first.

#11

I’ve come a long way since I argued with everyone in my own JP thread. Now you’re going to make me watch it again! Which wouldn’t be a problem if jhull’s recent podcast wasn’t already making me rewatch the original SW trilogy!

I’m thinking scenes that back up Jim’s OS Universe for JP are the ones where Ellie particularly is telling Hammond how they have these creatures and plants that they have no idea how to deal with. They have no idea how they will react. They have the plants because they’re beautiful, but they didn’t realize they were also deadly. That sort of thing. Those statements show how just having these things is problematic even before the Dino’s get out and start eating everyone. Man, can’t wait to watch this one again now.

#12

I’ve got that episode of jhull’s podcast downloaded, but I haven’t listened to it yet. Saving it for tomorrow when I’m on the road all day.

I agree that there’s plenty of stuff in Jurassic Park that falls in line with an OS in Situation. After all, they are trapped on an island for about 2/3s of the story.

On the Activity side of the argument, Ellie’s comments in that scene could be interpreted as Hammond’s people lacking Understanding. If the OS is in Activity then I think this scene must fall under the Understanding signpost (because the OS concern would be Doing). Malcolm’s comments sort of lay out an entire Activity argument, but he especially emphasizes Doing and lack of Understanding.

In the same scene, Grant says something like, “Dinosaurs and humans, two species separated by 65 million years of evolution, now suddenly thrust back together, and we’re all just trying to catch up.” Depending on which part of that statement you focus on, you could make a couple of arguments. The first part about being thrust back together looks more like Situation-Past, maybe under a signpost of Present or Progress. But the part about trying to catch up looks like Grant expressing a character concern of Progress, while participating in the OS signpost of Understanding with the other characters.

Right now, the main reason I’m looking at OS in Activity is because I think Grant fits better in Situation- Progress, and the OS has good arguments either way. I’m going to try to make a post later to outline an argument for the IC in Fixed Attitude.

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#13

One thing that might help is to think about the resolution of the OS as a whole. Is it “stopping the problematic activities” that would resolve the overall story? Or is it “fixing the problematic state of things”?

Sorry I can’t help further, not having seen the film in so long!

#14

Welp, looks like I’ve decided to watch the new one instead. Here’s hoping it’s got a complete form. Should I hold my breath for it?

#15

Wouldn’t get your hopes up… :wink:

#16

inhales deeply
Man, looks like you were right @jhay. Still pretty enjoyable

#17

That’s funny; I literally just got home from having seen it myself. I thought the first half was pretty enjoyable, and the debate about humanity’s obligations toward the dinosaurs was genuinely interesting, if brief. The second half… less so.

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#18

Well, certainly if the dinosaurs didn’t exist there would be no problems. But I think it’s also true that if Nedry hadn’t deactivated the park’s security so he could steal the embryos, there also wouldn’t have been any problems. At least, the story would have been a lot different. Unlike the book, the movie doesn’t make a case that the park’s security measures are insufficient even had they not been sabotaged. The one exception is Grant’s discovery that the dinosaurs are actually breeding.

If the existence of the dinosaurs is the problem, then the solution must be to eradicate them. Now, if we agree the outcome is failure, then this might be okay. My issue is that the movie doesn’t seem to explore this option. Muldoon makes a couple of remarks to this effect, but it’s never taken seriously. Even Malcolm, who is the only character that expresses that the dinosaurs are an affront to nature, never suggests they be destroyed.

I guess it’s a question of how or if the solution element appears in a story that ends in failure.

#19

Agreed. I prefer the first half for sure. Wish there had been more on the island. A complete storyform would’ve definitely helped, but I feel like any story that snuck in was mostly in service of getting people and dinosaurs together or setting up ideas for the next one.

#20

We have a few options for Influence Character.

Ian Malcolm is the official storyform’s pick, and he seems like a logical choice. There’s a reason his dialogue is so often cited. All his speeches about chaos and nature finding a way feel really important to the story. Honestly, though, I think he’s only in the OS. He actually has very little interaction with Grant–none at all in the second half, and it never seems like Grant is dwelling on what Malclom has said. Once they’re separated, the only time Grant gives Malcolm any thought at all is when he finds the eggs.

Hammond is a possibility; he benefits from probably being the best developed character in the story. Despite that, I think he’s also only in the OS. I believe his development is largely due to his being the protagonist. He’s the one driving the pursuit of opening the park and cloning the dinosaurs, and he’s often asking the others to consider how the park is still salvageable.

My personal pick for IC is the dinosaurs themselves. I always feel like I’m out on a limb when I start considering non-humans as characters, especially something as important as IC, but I think there’s a strong case here. Nothing in the story has as big an impact on Grant as his interactions with living, breathing dinosaurs. The most emotional core of the movie is structured around these interactions. He’s completely awestruck when he sees the brachiosaurs. He lies across the chest of the triceratops, and when he recounts how the trike was his favorite dinosaur as a kid, its probably the most emotional he gets in the entire story, barring the times he’s scared to death he’s about to get eaten. He’s completely drawn to them. He even lingers, perhaps imprudently, to observe the T-Rex feed.

For Grant, the dinosaurs represent both the opportunity to prove his theories and an existential threat to his way of life. Being trapped in the park with them forces him into a parental role with the kids. All these things pressure Grant to change, to evolve or die out. Grant himself is a metaphorical dinosaur, and he needs to become a bird.

Good arguments for the dinosaurs as IC being in Fixed Attitude or Manipulation/ Psychology probably both exist. For now, I’ll focus on Fixed Attitude since it goes along with my last few posts. Specifically, Impulsive Responses.

I think it’s fairly straight forward. As animals, the dinosaurs embody impulsive responses. When Alex calls them monsters Grant says, “They’re not monsters; they’re animals. They do what they do.” And of course they inspire impulsive responses in Grant. It’s not hard to imagine they’re satisfying some innermost desire to see the real thing. Memory and Contemplation are more difficult to find, but they’ve certainly inspired contemplation in the lunch scene, and there’s talk about how the raptor’s “remember.” And then you have a brief recollection from Grant about triceratops being his favorite as a kid.

I’m not entirely sure. I might be making more of an RS argument here. Sometimes I find it hard to see the difference between the relationship and the IC’s influence on the main character.

#21

Where are you finding an official storyform? Dramatica.com only says it’s a broken tale with a link to the “Building a Better Dinosaur” article.