




Hammond: the road from joy to sadness.




This sequence is shown in a series of screenshots below.

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Grant and the kids.



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The mosquito in the amber.


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The ever changing Sattler.


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Nedry and food


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More patterns.

What is the meaning of all these patterns?



Story-telling: Jurassic Park part 2/3 : The T-rex, the raptors and the naked monkeys.

Welcome to part second part of the movie Jurassic Park in which I am trying to analyse the story-telling.

In a previous post I discussed the first fifty minutes of the movie including the introduction of the central characters. In this part I am going discuss the remaining two hours of the movie which might conceivably make for a very long post were it not for the fact that most of the movie is a lot of the same stuff: the humans trying to deal with the predatory dinosaurs and the dinosaurs trying to deal with the humans(by eating them).

We left part two with the picture of the dinosaur with the name I have a hard time typing properly: the triceratops,  a kind of heavily armored rhinoceros(I am probably offending some dinosaur experts for this triceratops probably has got nothing to do with the rhinoceros.) The poor animal is ill and therefore lies prone on the ground. Which is handy for patting it.

Poor trike.

This  scene had me puzzled: why is there no fence between the cartrail and this particular dinosaur? I thought there were fences on both sides of the trail, but I was wrong apparently. The fence was meant to keep the meat eating dinosaurs inside I guess. But if so, why do Grant and the two kids climb a fence to get at the other side to escape an approaching T-rex(i think, for we don’t see it  but only hear it) just to discover that there is a T-rex at the side they escaped to. Also this scene seems to add little to the story.. unless the illness of this triceratops and the illness of the brachiosaurus later in the movie are connected(which I though it was) and would point to a kind of War of the Worlds development in which the dinosaurs would all be killed by a disease. But nothing of the sort happens. This leaves me to believe this scene is just meant to show a dinosaur upclose. By the way, in the extra features there is a storyboard for a scene with a baby triceratops toppling Lex in a funny scene. It didn’t make it into the movie.

Part 3: The shit and the fan


We are now past the fifty minutes mark. In the previous part the scene is set and the characters are introduced. The domino pieces have all been put in their place. Time to make them fall. So it is time for action and we start with a rain storm. Storms are very neat devices in movies for the rain and the wind add to the confusion, help make communication harder thus adding to the isolation, make things more difficult to see and have then storm break things.. like power lines.

While the storm hits in full force..


and the devil takes a swig(while telling Grant he loves kids)
and Arnold lights yet another one(where is the ashtray?)..
..Nedry sabotages everything by computer, enters the place where the embryos are held and steals them. Nedry has a picture of a scanty clad girl in his computer cause nerds can only gape at things they never get.(Actually: it’s Nedry’s third wife.)
And while Nedry looses his way because he knocks over the roadsign that should have told him where to go…
..the largest land predator known to have existed on earth decides to put in an appearance(that is why you have plastic cups filled with water in cars, so the water shakes when the six ton heavy monster approaches)..
jurrasic-park-24pg the perplexed anguish of some,
..and gobbles down a goat..
,,which was introduced earlier but escaped it’s fate.. until now( I wonder about the horns).
The moment for a first time experience: eating canned peltless omnivores.
Things you might reconsider doing: using a powerful lightbeam to entice and annoy the huge carnivore next to the car.


Grant pissing of the T-Rex by cheating her(it’s a female) out of a meal by tossing a flare into a bush. Flares are part of the standard equipment of the automated tour cars, next to night goggles, portable search lights, plastic cups with water and rocket-launchers with T-Rex seeking missiles (which they missed in the rush to play fetch-the-flare with the T-Rex).

And after this climatic series of images the story actually settles down and is the same for the rest of the movie as Raptors and a T-rex make live difficult for the human cast and eventually kill four of them. There are a few more developments:

Grant’s character develops as he takes care of the kids, thus overcoming his unease with children.

Grant showing the claw of a raptor. Cool! And odd considering that they are on the prowl(but then Grant doesn’t know they are). Someone has a sardonic streak in him.

Hammond and Sattler have an emotional moment.  While Hammond in an emotional moment shows he has not learned anything and vows to do better next time, Sattler goes even more emotional on him and tells him that people are dying for crying out loud cause he fucked up.. How about some yoghurt?

Hammond and Sattler in an emotional moment. Hammond: we can make it better!(Hurrah for mindless optimism!) Sattler: people are dying right now!(Spoilsport.)
After an emotional moment you have to eat.

After some tos and fros the surving cast ends up in the central building and Hammond calls for a helicopter to pick them up after Sattler reactivates the system. The group  then heads for the helicopter pad while being chased by raptors. These manage to corner Grant, Ellie and the kids in the central hall, but they can escape when a T-Rex attacks the raptors.

Surprisingly it is Lex, the teen girl who knows her way around computers and flight simulators.
So she flies into the software program(it is UNIX) and locks the doors so the raptors can’t enter. Until they break down the door of course. Cause these raptors are smart (and have had Swat training.)
There is some intense hide and seek being done in a kitchen, with the raptors losing that round.
But they win the next one by trapping Grant, Sattler and Lex in the central hall(See that raptor grin: haha, caught you!)
Only to lose the game when they are rudely interrupted by a sneak ambush from this twelve feet tall T-Rex which nobody noticed approaching as nobody had plastic cups with water to warn them.
A moment of emotion when Hammond stares off screen into the direction of the park. Nothing is said.

Part 4: the end

So it’s time to finish the story and this is actually done in one of the better scenes in the story(in my humble opinion) which  summarizes and then wraps up the storyline.

Hammond stares sadly at his walking stick that contains the amber with a mosquito. This is a recurring item in the movie. His dream is shattered.
Grant with the kids. He looks at Sattler. He has learned to live with kids…
so it might be time to settle down with the only available woman in the helicopter. Sattler let her hair she is available.
One of the final shots: birds(Pelicans?) flying over the sea. The birds are considered descendants from the dinosaurs. Something that is told earlier in the movie. These aren’t large meat eating lizards so there is nothing to fear.
Off into the sunset we fly.. While this ends the movie, there is just enough of an open end to make a possible followup: the dinosaurs can mate and thus create offspring and the park is uncontrolled. Time for the colonial marines to intervene!

So this ends part 2 and we even have a part 3 to wrap up and make some overall observations.

Storytelling: Jurassic Park(part 1/3): god, the devil and lunch!




I write reviews, but not because I want to criticize things. Actually I like to learn how to write and tell stories, so that is why I write them. On one level to learn to write the reviews themselves and on another level to analyse the storytelling of that which I am writing about. Also I like to look at pictures as part of storytelling. And I like to make pictures.
In this post I want to take a look at Jurassic Park, the movie made by Steven Spielberg based on a script written by Michael Crichton, which was an adaption of the book written by Michael Crichton himself. I will focus on the movie and not discuss the book or compare it to the book as I never read the book. It is also not important to me as I want to write about storytelling in the movie Jurassic Park.
I picked Jurassic Park simply because I just saw it together with my daughters and I think it is a good example of storytelling. It might surprise people that I never have seen the movie before, but there is a simple explanation for it: I live under a rock. Yup, a lot of things escape my notice.
Jurassic Park is  a good tale and probably would have been an exceptional tale if it wasn’t for some (very) weak parts. I will try and address those weak parts as we go along so we can consider them and perhaps learn from it. Note that what follows are spoilers as this post is meant to analyse the story and thus will reveal the story and that means: spoilers ahead.

Spoilers ahead! Welcome to Jurassic Park. Somehow this reminds me of an adventure movie like Conan the barbarian. It must be the torches.

Summary of the movie

Very short

A group of people made up out of scientists, a laywer and two kids, inspecting a theme park filled with living dinosaurs before it opens become the target of ravening dinosaurs when a disgruntled employee sabotages the security systems to steal dinosaur embryos. After a few encounters and deaths the group and the park owner escape by helicopter.


The story of Jurassic Park is about a rich old man named John Hammond who is the head of a bio-engineering firm and who made a theme park filled with living dinosaurs on an Island belonging to Costa Rica. Before the park opens he invites a group of three scientists to inspect the park; the paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant, the paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler and  the mathematician Ian Malcolm. The scientists are joined by a lawyer representing some otherwise unnamed investors who are concerned about their investments after an employee has been attacked by a dinosaur. In addition they are joined by Hammond’s grandchildren Lex and Tim Murphy.
The group gets a tour of the park during which they run into problems as the electrical touring cars fail. These problems become serious when Dennis Nedry,  a disgruntled employee of Hammond, sabotages the security programs to steal dinosaur embryos and deactivates the electrical fencing that help keep the dinosaurs inside the park.  In addition a storm approaches the theme park to make matters worse.
The group is attacked by a T-Rex that eats the lawyer and the group splits in two. Grant and the two kids flee further into the park, while Sattler calls in the help of the head warden of the park, Robert Muldoon to help the now wounded Malcom. The three then reach the main building where Hammond and his chief engineer Ray Arnold are frantically trying to get security systems and fencing back online.  They discover that the computer running the software that controls the park is made inaccessible by Nedry, who is nowhere to be found as he tried to escape the park with the embryos, but got killed by a dinosaur.
Hammond and Arnold decide that to restart all the systems to get them working again and gain access. So they shutdown all systems, but to start them they have to throw some switches in a nearby underground bunker. Arnold leaves for the bunker but disappears, so Dr. Sattle and  Muldoon, leave for the bunker as well. When they reach the bunker raptors appear. Muldoon fights them and is subsequently killed, gaining time for Sattler to enter the bunker to restart the systems. Sattler succeeds in doing so and then discovers that Arnold has been killed by a raptor that is inside the bunker. She manages to escape the bunker and returns to the main building.
In the meantime Grant and the two children, Lex and Tim arrive at the main building after a stay in a tree and a trip through the park.  Lex then uses the computer system to activate the parks systems and this allows them to call for help. In the meantime a raptor appears in the main building and the group decides to make their way to the helicopter pad.  Chased by raptors part of the group gets cornered by them in the central reception area, but they escape when a T-Rex attacks and eats the raptors.
Everyone then leaves the island by helicopter.

The story in parts

Stories are cut in parts that have a certain purpose. These parts follow each other in chronological order in which time usually follows a natural order.  In Jurassic Park the story develops along a natural and predictable way. There are no jumps or flash back for instance. and time is not garbled up with things that occur later in the movie actually occuring earlier in the story.

The first part

First there is a part in which the  stage is set and we get introduced to the characters and some background. In Jurassic Park, this part is actually pretty long as it takes a whopping 35 minutes. To keep us interested we get a few cliffhangers along the way.
But first let’s first meet the main characters: Dr. Ellie Sattler and Dr. Alan Grant. We meet some other people along the way, including two kids, but in the movie the camera will follow these two. With an exception being made for the two kids at some moments. Grant will head out with the two kids and Sattler will team up with Malcom and other secondary characters.  My eldest daughter said Ellie is the blond haired girl  that is only good for getting into danger so she can be saved by men. I said she can’t be as she is a doctor and main character.  It turned out that my daughter got it right.
If you want to strip the story  down to essentials then it’s Grant who is the main character as he is the only one who has a story arc of sorts in the movie and he actually develops(he is learns to deal with kids!) Non of the other characters have any kind of arc and some are just in the movie to get eaten.

Dr. Ellie Sattler and Dr. Alan Grant in a rare shot: they are dirty. Alan and Ellie have a platonic relationship. Not surprising as he is drinking champagne from an oversized beerglass. I wonder what the tools on the wand behind Ellie are for. Guess they must be part of the standard equipment for Paleontologists.

The other two important characters in the movie are god and the devil. It’s Hammond vs Malcolm as Malcolm, dressed appropriately in black, directs criticism against the creator of life Hammond(dressed in white) for meddling with nature and predicts he will be unable to  control of his creation. It’s humans playing for god. It is science vs nature. And most of all: it’s a storytelling device to set the mood for what is about to happen. It will go wrong.. I tell ya! It will!
Beyond these roles they don’t  have much more to add to the story. Hammond is the creator who witnesses his creation going wrong and we get a kind of wrap up into the end of the movie where he and Ellie discuss the failure.  Malcolm flirts with Ellie Sattler for short period in the movie but then is out of the story because he is wounded. Yeah, he doesn’t get eaten.

The creator and his critic. God vs the devil. Science vs the nature. Capitalism vs nature. Doom! Doom!

And then there are kids who are there to  get threatened so an Grant can save them and bond with them as a surrogate father.

Grant bonding with the kids. Up you go, Laddie. And by the way: that fence is dangerous, that is why they put up a sign. So you know: it’s dangerous.
More bonding. Kids aren’t so bad after all as compared to a ravening bloodcrazed T-Rex.

And then there are the people who are meant to be eaten. The lawyer with dubious morals, the thieving nerd, the chain smoking black guy and the courageous but ineffectual park warden. They even got names in Jurassic park, but no personality. They are just lunch. And of course to give us the feeling that there is danger. For without someone getting killed or eaten we wouldn’t think the main characters are in any danger.


The story itself 

The very first thing we see is the attack on the employee. This establishes various things. It alerts us to the danger involved: some dinosaurs are dangerous animals you know. It immediately grabs our attention. It gives a reason for the lawyer to be there and it is one of the reasons for the main characters to be there: Grant is invited partly to condone the park.

The movie starts with things going wrong. An employee gets attacked by a dinosaur. You get this symbolic shot of a hand slipping away from someone’s grasp because this is a PG movie. The blood and violence is kept to the minimum, so even I can watch it.

The second cliffhanger is about fifteen minutes into the movie. Here we witness Nedry making a deal with an representative of a competing firm to steal some embryos from Hammond. Nedry will be instrumental to the chaos of the latter part of the movie. His is a computer nerd and he is heavy build because computer nerds live in  attics eating junk food and drinking coke. An unhealthy mind creates an unhealthy body. Or is it the other way around? We get to the characters somewhat later.

Making the deal. The heavy set bloke is the computer nerd who is going to steal some dinosaur embryos for the guy on the left. Dirty deals are made in bars(preferably shady ones).We are about 15 minutes into the movie.

The third moment is not a cliffhanger, but more to shake us up a bit. A cow gets lifted into the park and is eaten by a dinosaur. Since the movie is PG  we are spared the bloody bits and we see just some plants shake and hear shrieks. It’s not very scary. They also no doubt wanted to delay showing the monster. Not showing monsters is a very good practice. Only I felt a bit sorry for the cow. We learn from this part that Spielberg has a sadistic streak in him. Or do meat-eating dinosaurs only feed on live animals? Tsh. Choosy buggers.

A cow meets its doom. Death to cows! We are 30 minutes into the movie.

To keep us interested also during this part of the movie we are enticed with the possibility to see some dinosaurs. Surprisingly the first dinosaurs appear about twenty minutes into the movie and they are the only ones we see in the first part.

The first dinosaurs you see in the movie appear at 20 minutes into the movie. And that’s it for dinosaurs in the whole of the first part.

Well… not quite.. we see some dinosaurs being born in this scene that reminds me of Alien somehow. No face hugger jumps out of that egg though. It’s a bird that hatches from an egg.. Eh.. a baby raptor.

And some dinosaurs are being born about 25 minutes into the movie. The first thing you see in you live is the face of an bearded old man dressed in white. It is god!

We have some other things occur in this part.

There is nice sequence about 20 minutes into the movie that explains how they created the dinosaurs. This  bit is actually introduced quite smartly as it’s introduced in the story to the main characters as what is going to be presented to the visitors of the park, but it’s also meant for the watchers of the movie to understand a bit of the science behind the movie.
At 32 minutes into the movie there is the discussion between god and the devil  which I mentioned earlier which is part of a bigger discussion about using science to create these dinosaurs. Grant and Sattler: you don’t know what might happen. Malcom(the devil): it will go wrong.  The lawyer: if there is a profit in it then do it. I found this attitude for a lawyer a bit strange as it seems to me that a lawyer is more concerned with lawerlike things and that profits are more the concern of business types. In fact a lawyer might as well be against it because of the judicial complexity this causes.

Should humans meddle with that which god/nature destroyed?

The second part
The second part  starts about 35 minutes into the movie and last for about fifteen minutes.  This is where the tour starts that will expose the the main characters to danger.  Incidentally this is also the part where the children are introduced. If you were to cut of the whole first part from the movie you might still be able to follow the movie. This part is therefore a lead up to danger: the start of the movie. In other words a second setup.

The party gathers. With hobbits, a wizard and a warrior.. wait, this isn’t Lord of the Rings so they are just normal people. Incidentally the cars are electrical and run along the track on the ground. Why? Because a horror gives you one thing, then takes it away. It is transportation that goes nowhere and certainly not to safety.

This part is mostly for setting up some interaction between the various characters as until now we have just been introduced to them and  we have been enticed with the non show of dinosaurs. Time for some action. The pace of the story picks up as various things start to happen. Malcom flirts with Sattler. Hammond and Nedry get into an argument. Malcom makes some snide remarks in the camera that Hammond reacts to. And Grant leaves the car, dragging the rest along. For some strange reason Sattler steps out of the car at the wrong side. I guess this might have something to do with the camera.

Things get moving along faster now. Ian flirting with Sattler. Nedry and Hammond have an argument. If you didn’t know it yet: Nedry is the nerd who lives on coke. Do you see the coke in his hand? If you didn’t we can always throw in a closeup. Hammond(in white) is annoyed at Malcom’s(in black) remarks. It’s not for the first time. And Sattle leaves the car to follow Grant by exciting at the opposite end. Curious.

The party gets out so we get to see the first dinosaur upclose . It’s a triceratops. Hurrah! But it is ill! It is also the last time we get to see a dinosaur that close, except for a meeting with a brachiosaurus. And of course when people get eaten or attacked.

A triceratops upclose. It’s the first time they get this close with a dinosaur in the movie and the last time except one incident with a brachiosaurus. Not counting when someone gets attacked or eaten of course. Then they are too close.

It’s about 50 minutes into the movie and it’s time that things start to happen before people start to leave the theater.. Hence things happen: the nerd makes his move, the rain hits the park and the electrical fences and cars start to fail.
Continued in the next post (as this post is  long enough).
To be continued…