Snippet: Me ranting about Jurassic Park
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Do you think that Ian Malcolm, in the movie and the book, is right about his... basically his idea that not only is the park untenable because you can never predict or contain such unknown animals and such a complex system that you don't understand, and in his view that not only that, but that also science itself has become a sort of greedy, money-grubbing, nature-looting enterprise that is ultimately going to have to be phased out and replaced with something else to prevent disastrous consequences. Like, he thinks that scientists don't have discipline because they didn't have to work hard enough to attain what they have, which to me is a little silly because being a scientist is one of the harder things that you can do with your life, and you have to study like a shit-ton. But he thinks that there's no discipline and that scientists just do what they can without thinking if they should, which I think is somewhat true, but I don't think means that science as a whole is doomed as a system of understanding the world and gaining control over it.
So, I have a hot take, which is that I think that Jurassic Park absolutely could have succeeded. What we saw in the movie was not necessarily an inevitable breakdown of a complex system. It was a series of micro-failures of decision-making by semi-incompetent or overly specialized individual people that ultimately, together, created a scenario that caused the complex system to enter a failure mode and run out of control. So, I think that that is very, very common, because people often screw things up, and even a small failure, when you're talking about an undertaking that complicated, can spiral into massive issues. So, I think that part is realistic, but I don't think it's true to say that it was inevitable. So, I'm trying to think about when in history humans have actually managed to be extremely competent at something difficult. So, for example, what if NASA, from the era of the biggest space exploration boom, the most well-funded, competent NASA has ever been, that NASA were to undertake the Jurassic Park project, and they put in, like, 8 million more safety features and double-checks, and don't make, I think would be less likely to make, a lot of the mistakes that happen in the movie. Because a lot of the mistakes that happen in the movie are very preventable. Like, the whole having the park be automated, there should have been manual backups for everything. And I think real scientists today would do that. I mean, apart from just the better technology we have today, I think – I guess I don't think it's unrealistic to say that human hubris and short-sightedness causes issues and could lead to a scenario like the movie Jurassic Park. I mean, if it was possible to do that and clone dinosaurs. But I also think it's totally possible that with a sufficiently competent team running the project, that you could actually make a functioning theme park with dinosaurs. Again, if that were possible.
Okay, going back to our critique of the original Jurassic Park movie, I've been thinking about character development and the appropriate use of character development. I was watching the movie just now, and I just read the book as well, and what immediately jumped out to me, I mean, among other things about the movie, is that they cut down the number of characters and adjusted their personalities and general character traits to be, I want to say, a little more stereotypical, and I guess what I would contend is that the adjustments made were more beneficial for the story, especially within the context of a two-hour movie as opposed to a full book. So, some examples. The big one that comes to mind is Donald Gennaro, who I think in the movie is really like more of a combination between Donald Gennaro from the book and Ed Regis from the book. He is scrawny, a stereotypical snot-nosed lawyer in the movie, whereas in the book he is described as large and muscular, and while he does exhibit cowardice at times, he also exhibits significant bravery, and he does not get eaten by the T-Rex on a toilet. So, that change in the movie was designed to give us a specific character archetype to fulfill a role in the plot of the movie. You know, the archetype of the sniveling coward who gets offed early in the movie because he's scared and runs away and does something stupid. So, you could say that that's a negative thing, that that's less realistic, actually, than having a quote-unquote well-rounded character that isn't just a stereotype or an archetype. But I actually think that in the context of, one, a two-hour movie where you have a lot less time to develop characters, and two, in the context of Jurassic Park specifically, where the plot is very tight-knit and character development isn't and shouldn't really be the biggest priority. The priority is the unfolding disaster, right? So, I think that actually that was a very good choice. That's better than if they had kept, like, Ed Regis and Donald Gennaro in the movie and then had them both be kind of a little more realistic. You know, because Donald Gennaro in the movie, I mean, maybe he's realistic, but really he's, like, a very stereotypical, like, one-note, you know, I'm a lawyer and all I care about is money and also I'm a coward. That's, like, those are his two character traits are money and coward, which isn't really realistic, right? Most people are, in fact, more complicated than that, even if they look that simple at first blush. But the point is, you only have two hours to get to know these characters. So, you really want to be specific. You want to choose very carefully what character development and what character arcs to actually follow. So, you focus in on the arc of Hammond realizing that he's made a giant mistake. You focus in on the arc of Nedry's hubris in his decision to shut down the park and try and pull off this industrial espionage and get himself killed in the process. You follow the arc of Grant, Dr. Grant, learning to appreciate, respect, maybe love the children that he cared for during the disaster. And you really, like, you don't want to clutter up the stage with a lot of background character development and, like, character nuance, I guess. And I think this is not always the case. I think there are movies where it's very good to have, where it can be very good to have a lot of nuanced characters where everyone you meet seems like a real person and you can tell that you're seeing just a small slice of, like, someone with a real and rich personality like a real person would have. But I don't think Jurassic Park is that movie. Jurassic Park, again, is specifically about the unfolding disaster. And I think it is most effective to focus on that at the expense of having, like, perfectly or at least more realistic fleshed out characters.
Yeah, okay. Alright, so what I wanted to talk about is other character changes in the movie. So first, I note that there are two main categories of changes from the book to the movie. One is plot changes, where they simplify a lot of the more complex plot elements, like the specific procedure they follow to get the system back up after Nedry takes it down. A lot of that is significantly abbreviated, which I think is a very good choice, as are many of the other simplifications. Again, it's a two-hour movie. You have limited time. You need to be sparing with your complicated stuff. That's fine. I don't think that's very interesting, though. I think that's a pretty standard thing to do to book plots, and it just doesn't really interest me that much. What does interest me is other character changes. So we talked about Donald Gennaro already, but there are a lot of other character changes, and there are a couple that I think are most interesting. So the first and most important is they balance the skill set between the two children. In the book, Tim and Lex... Okay, so this is actually... There's two changes here that are sort of bundled into one. There's two main changes to the kids. One is that they... Well, actually, I'll start with the other one. So, one, they split the skill set. In the book, Tim both has the dinosaur knowledge, got dinosaurs on the brain, as his dad says, and he also has the computer and tech knowledge. So Lex basically has nothing to do except ask people to play baseball with her, which is very funny, and then also be very annoying and almost get them killed several times. In the movie, they let Tim keep knowing about dinosaurs, but they give Lex the computer and tech skills. She's the one who manages to turn the system back on from the main control room. In the book, that's Tim. So this is good because now both children get to contribute, and you don't lose the dynamic. Lex is still the scaredy cat of the pair, so that's still there, but now she actually has something to contribute. I think that's good. It is interesting to me that in the movie, they flipped their ages. So in the book, Tim is the younger... Excuse me, Lex is the younger one. She has... She is 6 to 8, and I think 7 or 8, and Tim is like 11. In the movie, their specific ages aren't given, but if I had to guess, it's the same ages but reversed. It looks to me like Lex is about 11 or 12, and Tim is like 7 or 8. I don't know that that change is bad. I also don't know that it's particularly good. I guess it makes a little sense because in the book, it makes sense maybe that Lex is younger, and that's why she's so useless. But then in the movie, it makes a little more sense that the older one would be into computers and the younger one would be into dinosaurs. But really, I don't think it matters that much. Honestly, if I had to guess, it might just be that they found actors that they liked, but their ages were wrong, and they were just like, fuck it, we'll just flip the ages. No one cares. Which I think is fine. So I think that's... After Denaro, I think that's one of the most important changes. There's also two changes... Actually, we'll take it in. So I think that's the most important after... Actually, I'm going to say that's the second most important after Denaro, but there is actually one that's more important than Denaro, which is Alan Grant not liking kids. This is not a plot point in the book, I don't believe. I think in the book, they even say that he does like kids, but I know that they didn't make as much of a point that he doesn't like kids. In the movie, that works really well, both as a comedic beat and also as a way to give him the character arc of learning to love and respect the children as he goes through this disaster, and it makes it a lot more impactful. I think it's great. So I think that's the most important change, or the most impactful and good change, followed by Denaro, followed by splitting the skill set of the kids, followed by Ellie and Grant being in a relationship. In the book, they're not in a relationship. Ellie is just his younger colleague. He's like an old bearded man.
Right. So, Alan and Ellie in the movie are in an explicit relationship. And what I think is good about that, while it's not as important of a change as some of the others, is that it provides, I think, just a little extra depth to their relationship, and therefore the dynamics of sort of a group of characters as a whole. Like, in the book, they get separated, and it's just like kind of whatever. Like, they're both off doing their own thing, and there's not really any tension there. But in the movie, to me at least, there's like that bit of added tension of them being like a couple, presumably in love with each other, being separated during this horrendous disaster. So you're thinking in the back of your head, like, oh my god, they must be so worried about each other. Like, when are they going to reunite? In the book, I mean, I think they do eventually end up in the same place, but it's not really a reunion. In the movie, you get this cool reunion scene after Ellie comes out of the maintenance shed, almost having been eaten by a velociraptor, and she runs into Alan's arms. And then later, when they're all together trying to protect the kids from the velociraptors and stuff, it just feels like there's a little bit more emotional depth there. And I think it's also good because I think a frequent critique of choices like this is like, well, why do you have to insert romance? But their relationship and their romance isn't really, doesn't take up that much of the plot. I think it's just, it's like the precise right amount of, like, greater emotional connectedness between them to up the tension and add a little depth without, like, making it about the romance. They don't do a lot of, like, really any romantic stuff. I don't think they even, like, kiss once. It's just sort of in the background you know that they're not just colleagues or friends, they're close. Yeah, so I think in order of, like, effectiveness slash importance of changes, it goes Alan Grant not liking kids and his character arc because of that. The combination of Ed Regis and Donald Gennaro and the, like, turning that resulting character into more of an archetype and having him get eaten by a T-Rex on a toilet. Flipping the skill sets of the, or spreading the skill sets between the kids and sort of a tangent with that flipping the ages, although I don't think that really matters at all. Hammond's character arc, him being a sympathetic character and then Ellie and Grant being in a relationship being, I think, the least important change but still effective.
Oh, I said Hammond, but I forgot to actually describe that one. So, in the book, Hammond is completely unsympathetic. He's a villain through the whole book. He's a delusional, greedy, capitalist asshole who doesn't care about anyone or anything around him except the success of his park and making money from it. He maintains this delusion the whole way through, even at the end after everything has happened. He's thinking to himself how this is all the fault of the employees he hired and they fucked it up and next time it'll work. And then he gets eaten by tiny dinosaurs, which is entirely appropriate for his book character who totally sucked. In the movie, he's more likable than the book version throughout. But in the beginning, he is similarly self-aggrandizing, gregarious, like an entrepreneur, constantly giving these speeches and rolling over everyone with his magnanimous attitude. But that facade is stripped away as the disaster unfolds and you see the deterioration of the situation mirrored in his emotional deterioration. And I think that's really effective. I also think that Jurassic Park doesn't really need a human villain. It doesn't need a character villain. The villain is the dinosaurs. It's a person-versus-environment conflict, not a person-versus-person conflict. So I think that it's more effective to have him be a little sympathetic and go through this arc. Like, in the movie, he truly, like, he hasn't entirely learned his lesson. And also, it's retconned in Lost World that he basically reverts to being an asshole. But just in the original Jurassic Park, at the end, Grant says the hilarious line, you know, after escaping from certain death, like, five times. He's like, Mr. Hammond, on consideration, I've decided not to endorse your park. And Hammond agrees with him.
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