John Hammond is a much more likely protagonist — it’s his park, after all — but he’s even more passive than Alan. He spends most of the movie fretting at headquarters while the others cavort about the island. Ellie is clearly “the girlfriend,” that most depressing of female leads, Ian is injured at the top of Act III and remains reactive for the rest of the movie.

We could, perhaps, say that the movie has multiple protagonists, but really all of their through-lines are weak and Alan’s is definitely presented as the “a-story.” And yet his “arc” — his gradual acceptance of children — has little or nothing to do with the “big ideas” of the movie (cloning, the limits of technology to control nature, the inevitable evil of capitalism, etc).

And yet, the movie is hugely effective, for which one must gives props to Spielberg. He took a script with a reactive protagonist with no clear through-line and turned it into a terrific thriller and one of the biggest box-office smashes of all time. The “ideas” of Jurassic Park were ones the audience were, apparently, ready to receive, and they are given center stage through the whole first half of the movie.

(This is also why Theme is so prominent in the movie. In fact, we could say that Theme is, in fact, the “star” of Jurassic Park.)

So where were we? Paleontologist Alan Grant has been lured by super-science capitalist John Hammond to Jurassic Park. Hammond has exploited Alan’s life-long fascination of dinosaurs to ensure his park’s success in the face of possible lawsuits and, while Alan has some doubts about the project, he cannot stop swooning like a little kid when faced with the prospect of a live dinosaur.

Moving forward into Act II:

24:00: Hammond shows the team a video presentation that explains the science behind the park. This is a scene of dense exposition, exposition without which we would not understand the action. Spielberg makes it tolerable (on a first viewing, anyway) by presenting it as a pitch-perfect send-up of grade-school science movies like Frank Capra’s Wonders of Life series. He also makes the scene thematically relevant by having the video’s audience break out of their mechanical restraints to get at the reality behind the image.

27:50: Alan gets to hold a baby velociraptor in his hands (although its egg is snatched away by a robot hand) and chaotician Ian Malcolm delivers a stern warning about the dangers of Hammond’s enterprise.

32:50: The velociraptors are presented but not shown, in order to keep their mystery and terror at a maximum. Muldoon, the big-game hunter who’s in charge of keeping the velociraptors in line, is here charged with delivering another long expository scene about the nature of velociraptors.

34:28: The principles dine while strangely old-fashioned slide shows play on the walls of the restaurant. In another remarkably long expository scene, they argue about the morality of Hammond’s enterprise.

38:00 The kids arrive, and Alan does his best to avoid them — and fails. They look at him as a rock star as he grows visibly uncomfortable.

We learn that not only is Dennis Nedry involved in a nefarious plot to steal dinosaur embryos, he is the only IT guy employed by Ingen. Yes, at a theme park designed to cater to tens of thousands of visitors a year, with a museum and a restaurant and a motorized tour and a sophisticated audio-visual setup and dozens of laboratories staffed by scores of Ph-D-level scientists, with a heliport and pilots and boats and a dock and drivers and office staff and cooks and caterers and waitstaff and god knows what else, there is one IT guy, without whom Jurassic Park would founder.

The tour gets underway, and Ian delivers yet another long expository speech, this one about chaos theory. Now, I read the novel Jurassic Park and I’ve seen the movie many times and I’ve read The Lost World and seen its movie many times as well, and it’s still unclear to me why Ian Malcolm needs to be on these trips. First, it’s unclear to me why Hammond’s board demands that, of the three experts brought to the island for the tour, one is a paleontologist , one is a paleobotanist and the third is a chaotician. What board member suggested that? What Ingen board member stood his ground and said “unless we get the approval of an expert in chaos theory, this park will not open!”? What does chaos theory really have to do with what happens in Jurassic Park? I don’t mean in terms of “ideas” that the author wishes to discuss, I mean in narrative terms. There is, as far as I can see, nothing that happens in the narrative that requires the application of chaos theory. There’s a T-Rex chasing your jeep, your understanding of chaos isn’t really going to change anything. Ian’s actions in Jurassic Park, as I see them, are: he complains about what Hammond has done here, he makes a pass at Ellie, he delivers a speech that has nothing to do with anything, he gets attacked by a dinosaur, and he helps Ellie negotiate the power shed. Strangely, he is the only one asked back for the sequel, which calls for his expertise even less.

We meet a sick triceratops, and Ellie gets her moment to shine, if by “shining” you mean handling a detective scene about what’s bugging the triceratops. Significant screen-time is devoted to Ellie’s expertise in botany and animal diseases, and yet the mystery of the sick triceratops is left unsolved and unmentioned again. I understand that, at the root of the narrative, there is an argument being made about capitalist-driven science pressing ahead into areas it doesn’t understand, and how a simple decision at the inception of a project leads to all sorts of unintended consequences down the road (which is what Ian is doing there), but as the narrative of Jurassic Park develops, the sick dinosaurs (which turn up later as well) and the discussion of chaos theory become window dressing that add little to the narrative, except as fuel to feed the tensions between the scientists and Hammond. But let’s face it: a movie that involves people being chased by dinosaurs doesn’t also need lessons in mathematics to help “sell” the drama of science-vs-capital or technology-vs-nature.

52:00 — A storm is coming in, and everyone leaves the island. What? Come again? There is a storm coming, severe enough to force the entire park staff to leave the island, yet Hammond is still going to let his crucial, all-important park tour continue?

54:00 — Ellie splits off from the group to go look for triceratops clues, while Ian chats with Alan about family. Ian, it seems, has many families, many ex-wives and children, and seems perfectly comfortable with that reality. Alan, on the other hand, still can’t quite stomach the notion of children at all. His life is his work — or, more properly, his obsession.

It’s worth noting that, while the movie supposes that technology fails in the face of the power of nature, it is, in fact, not “technology” that fails at Jurassic Park — it’s Dennis Nedry. For all the narratives high-minded notions of chaos theory and the complexities of ecosystems, the failure of the park comes down to a fat guy shutting down the system so that he can swipe some embryos.

(There is, pointedly, a photo of Oppenheimer stuck to Dennis’s monitor. I noticed it and understood its implication from the first time I saw the movie, but it wasn’t until this time around that I noticed the post-it attached to the photo, a note that reads “Beginning of the Baby Boom.” That is, the birth of the atomic bomb, to the unnamed post-it author, was a sort of biological Big Bang, a technological explosion that led, somehow, to a biological explosion. Which also ties in to Ian’s theories, but still does not explain his narrative purpose.)

And now let me pause here, half-way through the movie, to address the latest episode of Venture Bros, and pick this up later.

ACT I (0:00-24:00) Act I of Jurassic Park is “let’s get everybody to the island.” The Problem arises in the first scene — a worker is attacked by a velociraptor, which leads to the unseen Investors getting panicked about the titular park, which leads to them hiring an oily lawyer to pressure island-owner and dinosaur-breeder John Hammond into making certain assurances, which leads to Hammond contacting a trio of scientists, including protagonist Alan Grant, and bribing them into coming to his island to give it their okay and calm down the investors so that the park can open and make everybody a fortune. There is a subplot introduced regarding disgruntled employee Dennis, who plans to smuggle dinosaur embryos off the island to sell to a rival company. The act climaxes when Grant sees the dinosaurs live in the flesh for the first time, and in that moment looks ready to follow antagonist Hammond to the ends of the earth.

ACT II (24:00-1:00:00) Grant, his girlfriend Ellie, chaotician Ian, the oily lawyer and two of Hammond’s grandchildren are led on a tour through the park. Nothing goes right and great emphasis is placed on the limits of technology. There are several long, expository scenes, some of them necessary to understanding the plot, some, mysteriously, not. Alan, although still clearly fascinated by the prospect of live dinosaurs, admits to having some qualms about the scientific value of bringing ancient life into the modern world. Dennis’s plot to smuggle embryos is set into motion. We learn that his plot involves shutting down the power for the entire island, a decision that leaves Alan, Ian, the lawyer and the kids stranded next to the T. Rex paddock, at night, in a rainstorm.

ACT III (1:00:00-1:28:00) Act III begins at the one-hour mark, on the dot, with one of the all-time greatest action-suspense scenes ever created, ten minutes of superbly-orchestrated brilliance, and we’re off to the races. From here on out, the concerns of Jurassic Park become largely mechanical and situational — and substantially more entertaining. After the attack of the T-Rex, we cut to another part of the island for Dennis’s death at the hands of a Dilophasaurus, then come back to Alan, who is stuck on the wrong side of civilization with the children, whom he will guide and guard for the remainder of the movie. At 1:14:00 we have another wonderful action-suspense scene involving an SUV in a tree, at 1:18:00 we have Ellie and Ian chased by a T-Rex. There is a respite as Alan finds a place to rest with the kids, and an end-of-third-act low point where Ellie and Hammond have a little heart-to-heart, complete with a death-of-my-kitten speech from Hammond.

ACT IV (1:28:00-2:00:00) The sun comes up and Alan and the kids are still alive in their resting place. Alan’s fascination with dinosaurs remains, in spite of everything. Meanwhile, Team B tries to figure out how to get reboot the island’s power supply. There’s another superb suspense scene where we crosscut between Alan trying to get the kids over an electric fence as Team B restarts the island’s generator. The velociraptors attack the park headquarters as Alan and the kids arrive safely. As Alan and Ellie see about getting off the island, the kids are attacked by velociraptors in the movie’s fourth or fifth virtuoso action-suspense scene. Alan and Ellie come back for the kids and are all attacked by the velociraptors again. The T-Rex becomes a sudden, unlikely ally in a moment of crisis and the group flees the island. Alan, we see, has had his obsession for dinosaurs dulled by his experience of the past 24 hours, and as he contemplates Hammond’s grandchildren he reflects that it’s probably just as well that his dream remains a dream.

SOME THOUGHTS:

0:00 – 3:28: The theme is stated visually in the very first scene. A bunch of workers (in their snappy Jurassic Park-brand hardhats) hold guns and peer nervously off into the distance at something scary coming through the bushes.What is it coming through the bushes? Is it a dinosaur? No, it’s just a forklift. A forklift carrying a dinosaur in a crate, but a forklift nonetheless. Dinosaurs, this scene says, are not the problem — the problem is the technology intruding into nature. Here, not only is the forklift shown knocking over trees to get through the jungle, but we see that it’s carrying that velociraptor in that box — and what do you know, the velociraptor finds a way to, if not get out of the box, at least exact some revenge on the men who put it there. Technology (men with guns, with corporate logo) in nature, face off not with nature but with another piece of technology (the forklift and box), which contains Life (the cranky velociraptor), which Finds A Way to get around the technology trying to control it.

5:30: Alan digs for velociraptor bones in the Badlands — with the help of the latest dinosaur-hunting technology. Which he doesn’t understand, and which seems to fail due to his merest touch. Alan, we see, is mistrustful of technology — he’s told that soon, due to technological advances, paleontologists won’t even have to dig for bones, to which he replies “Where’s the fun in that?” Alan sees that if technology advances far enough, life won’t have a chance — and yet he’s devoted his life to getting close to these creatures that obsess him.

9:08: The movie’s first expository scene, where Alan explains to a child why a velociraptor is scary, as though we might have a hard time believing it, given the evidence. The scene also serves to express Alan’s dislike of children — he pointedly terrorizes the kid as Ellie rolls her eyes. In the following scene he goes to absurd lengths to list the reasons he doesn’t want children, which Ellie, apparently, does.

I’ll admit I have a hard time connecting Alan’s growing affection for children to the theme of the movie. At the end of Act III, Alan pointedly gives up his dinosaur obsession in favor of protecting his unsolicited charges, but that speaks more to Alan’s Spielbergian obsession and less to the subject at hand. It’s almost as though the protagonist’s desire in Jurassic Park is more of a sub-plot, the “A-plot” being the technical explanation of how the dinosaurs came to be and why these folks are on the island.

10:30: Hammond appears, the jolly capitalist. He’s got lots of money and he’s going to make a lot more of it. Hammond is interesting to me as the kind of capitalist who thinks he’s really hit on something that isn’t evil, that somehow he’s managed to circumvent the age-old rule of capitalism, that business must be based on plunder and rape. He really thinks his park is a positive good and that he’s thought of every possible contingency. “Spared no expense” is his motto, catchphrase and sacred vow: he’s not just out to make a quick buck, he sees himself as a kind of Medici, bringing great works to a benighted world.

13:45: We meet Dennis Nedry and hear a little about his plan to abscond with the embryos. Wayne Knight’s performance is so broad and bizarre that it seems like it belongs in a different movie. I’ve seen Jurassic Park many times and I still have trouble assimilating it into the whole. I wonder if Spielberg saw some kind of problem with the role and felt that it had to be played this way in order for the movie to maintain the specific tone he was looking for, that perhaps if Dennis Nedry’s scheme was played straight the narrative might become too ponderous. Recently Spielberg has mentioned his affection for Dennis Weaver’s gonzo performance in Touch of Evil; I wonder if perhaps he was hoping to create his own Weaver-esque performance with Knight. Or maybe Knight just amused Spielberg with his delivery and Spielberg, on the set, simply pushed him to be bigger.

17:11: The “Jurassic Park” logo is on everything — helmets and jeeps and gates and signs and doors. This is a brilliant touch, because thevillain of the piece isn’t really technology but capitalism. Capitalism wishes to turn everything into a product, and the point of the narrative is that Hammond has attempted to put a logo on life itself. He’s much worse than Dr. Frankenstein: he doesn’t just want to create life, he also wants to market it as well, with all the trappings. Hammond knows that the world is fascinated by dinosaurs and he’s going to cater to that fascination, even though it’s clearly the wrong thing to do. Not coincidentally, the movie also knows that the world is fascinated by dinosaurs and plans to cater to that same fascination, and tell us it’s wrong, and reveal the disaster awaiting, and make tons of money off it anyway, partly through ticket sales and partly through, yes, slapping a “Jurassic Park” logo on everything conceivable.

20:24: Alan and Ellie see the Brachiosaurus. I love this scene. Sam Neill and Laura Dern play it perfectly. It’s not just that they are paleontologists being presented with the object of their fascination, its that Hammond has, somehow, managed to reach deep down inside their cerebral cortices and give them nothing less than their childhood dreams come true. And it, quite rightfully, staggers them. I certainly know how I feel when I see the scene — the gentle brachiosaur lumbering up the hill in the afternoon sun is exactly what I have imagined a living dinosaur would look like ever since I was a child, but far more poetic. The scene is crucial in setting up the protagonist’s dilemma, such as it is: we really want to see this, as much as the protagonist does. Good lord, who would not? When we see the brachiosaur, we, like Alan, are ready to do whatever it takes to see more. Spielberg is well aware of this, which is why he stages the scene with maximum beauty and emotional punch, then withholds the dinosaurs, for the most part, for the next 38 minutes of exposition and argument. He has our attention and he’s going to tease us until we can barely take it any more, and then he’s going to give us what we want in a way we absolutely don’t want it.

Which brings us to the end of Act I. More later.