Jurassic Park: Characstravaganzabrationpaloozaness

                Mhhhhhh, I love the characters in this movie so much. They are all so great. This may just be a symptom of seeing a movie a few dozen times but I just feel like even the minor characters are full of depth and personality. I going to run through my favorites one at a time starting with the more minor ones and moving up to the major one.  This mean no Alan Grant or Ian Malcolm this time, because anticipation.

                I don’t even know the name of the first character I want to look at. I don’t want to know his name, and all I can say about him can be captured in a single frame, so here it is.

 

You could have pulled a gun on him

                Now for one of my personal favorites, Lewis Dodgson. Basically Dodgson works for a rival genetics company and he want to steal some (viable) embryos from Jurassic Park. He is basically the person that creates the human against human conflict of the movie. I really like how he is in no way the stereotypical dark and sinister evil businessman, and he actually come across as a dork. He is nervous and uneasy during his clandestine meeting, and only looks comfortable when he gets to bust out his shaving cream / embryo storage gadget. Nedry has to call him over, which makes me think he has poor facial recognition, which is a sign or poor social skills. I just imagine him as being the head of a department at his company, and nobody there likes him. I also notice for the first time while watching the movie for this post that he stiffs the cabbie that delivers him to the scene, which is just one of those little details that I enjoy.

 

Dodgson, Dodgson, we've got Dodgson here

                Ray Arnold is the coolest engineer in a movie ever (not that he has a lot of competition). This is in my opinion, Sam Jackson’s best role. He really nails the master computer nerd who can use a mouse and keyboard to solve problems with aplomb. He never loses his cool when the situations get out of control, because fixing things is his job and he doesn’t believe that any dilemma is bigger than he can handle. He gets move disheveled as the plot progresses, but I see this not as someone falling apart, but someone getting comfortable and into their element. Arnold is the one who drives all the conflict resolution. I am pretty sure they had to have him get eaten just so some of the other characters could get a change to fix stuff (they had to kill him off-screen because any scene of him losing was just too unbelievable). He knows the answers to all the questions, smokes cigarettes into the filters, and has a stupendous catch phrase, what more could you want?

 

I wish I was half the engineer as this guy

                I’m not supposed to like Donald Gennaro, but I still do. I don’t think the audience was meant to sympathize with this character. Mainly because he is a lawyer, and not the cool courtroom type of lawyer but the lame one who works for a corporation and his job is telling people what they aren’t allowed to do. He spends most of his time being mocked by the other characters, and then gets the most violent death of the film. Donald is relegated to the background in most scenes and almost all of his lines are whiny or incompetent. I don’t care about all that and I like him for that moment when he slips on the rocks outside the amber mine.

 

Can't pull off shots

                Dennis Nedry is the primary human antagonist of the movie. He is greedy (for both money and candy), and misanthropic (as clued by his Oppenheimer photo and programming booby-traps). I also get the feeling that he is a bit of a victim as a private programming contractor who gets stuck in a bad contract with an unsympathetic corporation (although it is really hard to say who is at fault in disputes like that). Nedry is the kind of person who is good at planning (“I’ve got an 18 minute window”), but rubbish in the execution. He is also a terrible liar, as seen in the whole “Does anybody want a soda” monolog. By far my favorite Nedry scene is when he is out in the rain after crashing his Jeep, because he just has one classic line after another. “I can afford more glasses” (not new but more, so I get the idea of him buying a hundred pairs just because he’s rich), “You can do it, come on Dennis” (because self-motivation in a crisis situation is important), “I have no food on me” (I suspect that he actually does but he is keeping it for himself), and “I’m going to run you over when I come back down” (revealing his dark nature). In the end Nedry is an example of why you should always pay programmers well, because they can make your life hell.

 

This was a slick move regardless of his other blunders

                Lex Murphy is the good hacker (interactive CD-ROM are cool) of the film, showing that hackers aren’t necessarily evil and it is more a matter of how power is wielded (which I think could use some more emphasis in the media). Sure she only navigates a file structure, but it was a crazy 3-D interface and in the early 90’s computer skills were more of a big deal. She and her younger brother Tim were sent to visit their grandfather (Hammond) at the park while their parents went through a divorce. She is probably the least interested in dinosaurs of anyone in the movie and I get the feeling that she only went along to look after Tim. She may tease him a lot but in the end she saves his life by distracting one raptor, and again by helping him lock another in the freezer. She also helps fill the quota for romantic subplots in the film, since she clearly is in love with Alan Grant (and who could blame her). Lex is one of only two named female characters in the movie, but she fails to have a conversation with Sattler, so Jurassic Park only passes one third of the Bechdel Test. All in all, I really respect her for sticking to her vegetarianism in a stressful situation, but I also think that a vegetarian should know what an herbivore is (I think she was in it for animal sympathy reasons though due to the “I like cows” line).

 

Young love

                If I was inserted into this movie I would be Tim Murphy. He was the only character around my age, and he had a boyish love of dinosaurs and adventure. Ironically, being the youngest character, Tim endures more hardship in this movie than anyone else. First he is rudely snubbed by his idol Dr. Grant, abandoned by Gennaro during a crisis, trapped in a vehicle that gets thrown over a cliff by a Tyrannosaurs Rex, nearly crushed as that vehicle crashes down a tree (enacting the classic movie trope of running straight away from something instead of to the side and out of danger), witnesses the violent devouring of a gallimimus (“Look how much blood”), dies for a little while after an electric shock launches him to fall about 20 feet, has to outrun a cheetah speed predator on ice while suffering from a case of Ankylosaurus, and on top of all that his parents are getting divorced. The next sequel should just be adult Tim dealing with his post-traumatic stress disorder.

 

He also made poor nutrition choices, just like me at that age

                Robert Muldoon steals every single scene that he is in. His line delivery is so intense that basically everything he says is a classic quote. He is a grizzled big game hunter who has “hunted most things that can hunt you”, and rocks the khaki accordingly (dude probably shaves with a Bowie Knife). The person who understands the dinosaurs best, and has the most respect for how dangerous they are, Muldoon is disregarded as “an alarmist” by Hammond, who happens to be his boss.  He is also the person that Hammond sends to bring back his grandchildren when things go wrong, and Muldoon goes out with nary an “I told you so”. He is the man of action, out there driving Jeeps, shooting guns, and tranquilizing Triceratops. I have an attraction to shotgun in movies and video games, and Muldoon is clearly a fan of the SPAS-12, which happens to be one of the coolest shotguns ever, so I’m a fan of that too. His main character trait is probably his hatred for the Velociraptors, which is understandable after Jophery was killed in his arms during the intro. This eventually drives him to go out to face the raptors mano-a-mano, but the raptors fail to fall for his hat on a log trick, and using group tactics eat him. I think that he understood this to be the probable outcome, and was only trying to provide Sattler with enough time to reset the breakers, which he did, so it was a noble sacrifice.

 

Can pull off shorts

                Take an out of touch billionaire idealist and combine him with a doting grandfather and you have John Hammond. Jurassic Park is his life’s work, and likely his last chance to create something that captures the world’s imagination. He has an all-consuming desire to create something magical, and has to watch as his creation falls apart with him and people he cares about trapped inside. This is the character with the most meaningful development in the film, and is carried by Richard Attenborough, who is the most legitimate actor in the cast. His “melting ice-cream” scene with Laura Dern (second best actor in the film) is such a powerfully executed non-action scene that it seems a bit out of place in this movie. It is the point where Hammond realizes that his work is a failure and all he can do now is try to get everyone out alive. His reach exceeded his grasp, and in his rush to “spare no expense” his creation turned into a monster. Certainly a tragic character.

 

He really loves the dinosaurs

                I recently developed the habit of analyzing female characters more critically, but I think Ellie Sattler continues to hold up. She is strong (physically and emotionally as seen in her survival of the raptor attack), competent (top of her field in paleobotany), and has an important role in the plot (finds Malcolm, restarts the power, kind of helps Grant hold the door). She may not be the main character but I still think that she is a good character. She is portrayed as being a feminist with lines like “Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the earth” and “we can discuss sexism in survival situation when I get back”, but I don’t feel qualified to say if this was a good thing or a bad thing. She did get stuck with the stereotype of trying to manipulate Grant into liking children, and they didn’t follow up on her storyline of figuring out why the triceratops was sick, so not an uncontested victory for women in film. All I know is that she pulls off the scariest scene in the movie (in the bunker with the velociraptors) very well.

Can definitely pull off shorts

                Ten down, two to go. I have a hard time thinking of many other movies that have this many memorable characters. Next time I will examine the eternal grudge match between Ian Malcolm and Alan Grant.

Jurassic Park: A Movie So Good, It Probably Didn't Even Need Dinosaurs

Uh oh, it’s time for another movie post (aka series of posts). This time we are looking at Jurassic Park, which just so happens to be my favorite movie. I have seen this movie more times than any other, and it was pretty much my whole life when I was six years old. This movie was released in 1993, was directed by Steven Spielberg, and was based on a book by Michael Crichton. Those names are probably all you need to hear to know that this is a great movie. Spielberg is probably the greatest action/adventure movie director ever, and Crichton writes excellent books for adaptation into movies. It was also scored by John Williams, who is responsible for some of the most iconic movie music ever (his movie credits make Kenny Loggins and Harold Faltermeyer look like chumps, and those two ain’t chumps).  If anyone can pack 65 million years’ worth of adventure into one movie, it is these guys (Science Note: The term 65 million years was used throughout the movie. The source is the fact that the Cretaceous Period ended 65 million years ago, aka the end of the reign of the dinosaurs. The Jurassic Period was actually 145 million years ago, but since the dinosaurs in the movie are taken from throughout the Mesozoic Era, it’s not really a big deal. Jurassic Park is catchier than Mesozoic Park any day. The only time I might have a problem with its use is when Grant says “You can’t just suppress 65 million years of gut instinct” since the T-Rex didn’t exist in nature that long, but the line is still sweet and Alan Grant can do no wrong in my book so I will let it slide. End Science Note.) Now I could go through this movie scene by scene and point out all the things that I think are stupendous, but I will try to restrain myself and today we will just cover the basics of what make this movie so amazing. Massive spoiler warning, so if you haven’t seen this movie, I highly recommend you watch it (I also recommend you should watch it if you just haven’t seen in it a while, or even if you just finished watching it, it bears repeating).

So the movie opens with some shaky bushes at night, cuts to a chubby guy, more bushes, dude chewing gum, bushes again, then this.

This guy is here to let all the people who expected a romantic comedy know that they are in the wrong theater

We are shown a mysterious box, there is some un-subtitled Spanish being yelled (which is a nice trick to convey mood without explaining exactly what is happening), the location is given as Isla Nublar - 120 miles west of Costa Rica, and after the box is set down the intense chap with the shotgun starts giving orders to pushing teams and about Taser charges. Animal growling and screaming are emitted from the box and the pushing team reacts to this with fright. The box is pushed into position by the pushing team, the pushing team steps away (I really like the idea of a pushing team if you haven’t noticed but they aren’t in the film any more, which is a shame, so I will stop talking about them), then Jophery the Gatekeeper is introduced (to help us deal with the lost of the pushing team, last mention, I promise). The gate raising goes awry (despite the fact that some ambiguous locks were successfully engaged) and Jophery is violently pulled into the box. There is then some intense shots of the (at the moment un-named) intense chap struggling to pull the gatekeeper out, with plenty of shocky Taser action, and close-ups of a sinister reptilian eye. The scene ends with intense chap yelling “Shoot her, shoot her” while losing his grip on the death rattling Jophery and it cuts away to the sound of gun shots. All this takes place in less than three minutes. I know I promised not to go through this movie scene by scene, by I think since this is the first thing that you see, it is important. In story telling terms, this part of the movie is called The Hook, and I think it is super effective in this case. A possibly evil mega corporation is hinted at by all the weapon toting guys in matching jumpsuits and hardhats, danger is established, our main antagonist is introduced as a powerful and mysterious creature, and the plot of the movie is set in motion. It was also very entertaining as an action scene, so we are off to a good start.

                The strong start is just one example of how Jurassic Park contains all the core components of a good movie. This movie doesn’t push any boundaries (other than special effects), and doesn’t give any moving social commentaries or anything like that. What is does do is provide an entertaining unadulterated cinematic experience.  Let’s look at the plot. It is easy to follow while being chocked full of action, drama, suspense, and excitement. I will now present it as a series of bad decisions.

• Dangerous work environment  that lead to death of worker
• $20 million dollar lawsuit over dead worker
• Investors start inspection that consists of sending three scientist and a lawyer on a weekend trip
• Conspiring to corporate theft
• (Happened earlier but now introduced) meddling with science that you don’t fully understand
•  Unwittingly unleashing powerful  forces
• Failing to throw a flair properly while trying to imitate the legend that is Dr. Grant (not really that important to the plot, but a really bad decision)

The rest of the movie is just damage control as the characters try to survive the repercussion of all those bad decisions. Any of those decisions could probably make a movie by themselves, but all of them combine to escalate a situation into a frantic struggle for survival. It also involves the classic theme of being hosted by your own petard / brought down by your own hubris, which is always good. Add a few dinosaurs and you have yourself a winner. Don’t let me forgot the nice setup and reward in the movie with Grant describing a raptor attach early in the film and an attack unfolding in just that manner later in the film. The T-rex vision based on movement premise is also introduce in that scene, so a lot of foreshadowing going on there (Science Note: The visual acuity of a Tyrannosaurus Rex was almost certainly not based on movement, but it did make for a tense action scene, so I will let it slide again, also Alan Grant rules all the schools).

                The overall structure is clearly well built, but were the movie magic is really apparent to me is in the individual scenes. Here are some of my favorite shots from the movie.

They're moving in herds

Various reaction to children

Various reaction to feminism

Those Cryo Tanks are incredibly tech-sexy to me

Best climax ever?

The sets are detailed and interesting, the characters are blocked in ways that fit the setting but let you see everyone, and the CGI and animatronics is well integrated into the shots. It has subtle stuff like the violent storm in the beginning of the second act as an analogy for the forces of nature being unleashed while also serving the plot. Even the fact that the costuming has all of the main characters wearing different colors is great. When you have names like Spielberg and Industrial Light and Magic in the credits, quality work is not a surprise, but I just really appreciate how well this movie was made. The three academy awards that it won were for sound and special effect, but that is generally all you can expect with a science fiction action movie. Schindler’s List, another Steven Spielberg/John Williams film, dominated the awards that year, and I’m not sure if you can even get nominated for two movies in the same category in the same year. Everybody in this movie seems like they brought their A-game.

                All the aspects of Jurassic Park combine into a perfect storm of good movieness, but even with everything that I have just described I am still forgetting the most important part. The Characters. This post has already gone on long enough, so will have to cover that in the next one. Join me then, and will see how long that ends up being (probably two posts long).

Feminism

            I have a problem with feminism. Did someone throw a betterment of humanity party and not invite me? It’s mostly the name that makes me think this, but feminism seems like a bit of a no boys allowed club. I realize that men have continuously been hostile towards this subject, but if they realized that they had something to gain they might be a little more helpful (hopefully). There are some pretty good reasons for men to care about gender equality, two of which are the fact that we have gender inequalities of our own, and the fact that we should be responsible for improving the role we have in society.

            Men have some pretty crappy gender stereotypes that I would like to see make their way out of our culture. A big one is how men are encouraged to be the violent gender. Men are pushed to solve problems with their fists, and to value fighting ability over other means of conflict resolution. Intelligent adults shouldn't behave this way, but they do. Another particularly disgusting institution is how males are taught to hate and oppress our homosexuals. Female homosexuality is essentially encourages, in a terribly exploitative way, but I still thing ours is worse. Insinuating that a man is homosexual is one of the biggest insults around, which is dumb, because who you find attractive doesn't make you a bad person, but being an ignorant jackass does. Cultural viewpoints towards sex and woman that are urged on men are something that I find displeasing as well. Treating women as objects, applauding sexual conquest, associating love with what can only be described as bribes, and the conditioning of the Pavlovian response to cleavage are just some of the aspects that I don't like in male societal norms. I realize that all the things in the last sentence set up women as victims, which sucks, but it’s also setting up men as the culprits, which isn't great either.

Bad Role Models

            Now when men aren't punching each other in the face or having sex with big breasted women, we are supposed to be hoarding wealth and exerting our will over others. I'm talking about money and power, and I don't agree with how much value men are expected to put into these concepts. What is really scary is that some women may be trying to share in the money and power game. All I know is that the media is only commonly mentioning the gender differences in salaries and management positions, but I don’t think the media has ever done much to help gender equality. What I hope both genders will esteem (or continue to do so) are professions that involve aspects like protecting others (police, firefighting), building/inventing/creating (engineering, programming, art), and technical/scientific prowess (science, IT, mechanics). Art is probably the only field I mentioned that is well gender balanced, but I forgot to mention the admirable careers that women dominate. These are the nurturing, caring, and teaching related jobs, like nurses, therapists, and teachers. I wouldn't mind seeing more value put into these occupations, especially for men. I am still forgetting what I think of as the most important human pursuit, which is very female dominated. This is child rearing, and while being limited to only this job is awful, the fact that this is the most meaningful human pursuit out there shouldn't be forgotten, and it doesn't even have a salary.

Good Role Models

            I believe in feminism, but would prefer to call myself a gender equalist. Thinking about it, I don’t really have a problem with feminism because I can respect women’s desire to solve their own cultural problems, and I am actually upset by my own sex’s failure to address these problems. In the end I still feel that actions should be self-determined, so in a move that I hope will be welcomed, I will leave women to work on their own behavioral norms, and hopefully my side can meet you in the middle someday. Apparently the genders are equal in how we are both being equally screwed over by atrocious stereotypes and customs. That isn't actually true, because men don't have to live with fears of sexual assault, which is the topic that I most want to leave you thinking about.

Killing: Just How Uncool is It?

            So I think we can agree that killing is generally wrong. Killing a person is basically one of the worst things that thon can do, other than killing a bunch of people. A neighbor’s pets are also off limits as far as recreational life ending, and endangered species should probably not be used for the testing of knife sharpness… or pointiness. But what about laboratory mice, spiders, or non-native cane toads? I think this is a job for philosophical discourse.

            I’ll start with the killing that I believed to be justified. First is any game animal that hunting or fishing has become an integral part of their ecology. “Harvesting” such animals so that they remain below the carrying capacity of the environment is good. I personally would rather be shot than starve to death, and they go to some use this way. Speaking of death for a useful purpose, I believe some lab testing is acceptable. This doesn’t mean that I think we should go see how much shampoo a rabbit can eat before it dies, but cancer research and understanding how brains work seem like sufficiently important studies to allow for some casualties. We all die, but we don’t all die FOR SCIENCE. Self Defense is naturally cool too since it doesn’t matter if it’s a charging bear or ax murderer, you are allowed to act in self-interest. With the exception of if the bear just caught you stealing its children (or the ax murderer for that matter). Other than those situations, I struggle to outright condone the intentional ending of life.

Killing can be a very powerful scientific tool

            There are some common types of killing that I definitely don’t believe are okay. Is a spider’s life really worth less than the 30 or so seconds that it would take you to put it outside? Impulsive killing like this is not cool by me, especially when motivated by fear or malice. Those are not good emotions to let dictate your actions, so I don’t care how afraid of snakes or annoyed with pigeons you are, that doesn’t give you the right to kill them. I know it isn’t easy, but being right rarely is. Killing purely for sport or trophies is also something I can’t agree with. It doesn’t matter how good it looks on a wall, it looked better alive, and the story can never outdo a life story. My opinion anyway.

Are you going to eat that lion?

            Now for the hard bit, as these are the ones I’m not sure about. Invasive species are a topic that I have divided feelings about. The pro-extermination feelings tell me that these animals are causing the destruction of environments and the deaths of other animals, and it is probably our fault so we should fix it. On the other hand, these are still natural species, and is the act of one animal effectively out-competing all rivals something that should be punished? In theory we might be doing the environment a favor by introducing more fit breeds of animal. Genetic diversity is nice from a “life is beautiful” standpoint, but evolution is about efficiency. Another scenario I’m undecided on is creatures that compete with humans. Is a man justified in shooting a wolf because it eats a cow before he does? A bear might kill a puma over food, but aren’t we a higher form of intelligence? You could also frame it a punishment for theft, but you wouldn’t shoot another human who stole your livestock (I hope). You can’t reason with a fox to keep it from eating your chickens, but killing it just seems like the cheap and easy way out. I guess the jury is still out.

Is stealing corn a capital offense?

            In the end killing is really easy to do. Life is pretty fragile, and even simple accidents can end it. It can be challenging to avoid senseless cessation of sentience, but I think a person would be better for it.

Everybody Loves a Bad Boy

            You love bad boys. You know you do and if you say you don’t you’re lying. I can prove it.

            By definition, bad boys are bad because they make bad decisions.  Bad decisions are responsible for everything that has ever been suspenseful, sexy, or exciting ever. These decisions, by their very nature, create drama, conflicts, and problems. You may recognize these as the elements that make a story, well… a story. It is pretty impossible to make something interesting without one of those components. I defy anyone to write a story longer than five pages that doesn’t involve one bad decision, and then try to get anyone other than their mom to suffer through it (moms will read anything and say it’s good, they are completely delusional).

Here is an illustration of a bad boy making a bad decision

            Now what do I mean when I say bad decisions? They are not the same thing as stupid decisions, because choosing to wash your cat with Pine Sol isn’t interesting. Bad decisions are like deciding to take a Christmas Party hostage so you can rob their vault (or deciding that you are the one man to stop them), falling in love with a member of a rival family, or stealing porridge from bears. They involve taking risking, making people upset, and going against the beaten path. Anything that creates problems, opposition, or causes plans going awry, can be traced back to a bad boy somewhere.

The double thumps-up was pretty edgy in the 1970's

I could make a comprehensive list of all the bad boys in storytelling, but it would just be a list of every interesting character ever, and I don’t have that kind of time. I can give an example of a character that doesn’t make bad decisions though. If you have ever seen the Star Wars prequel movies you may have noticed these characters called Jedi. They don’t make any bad decisions, and it shows. Try to watch one of these characters (wait, a character need feature and traits. How about people… no that implies personality. Um, how about specimen. I think that has the right cold emotionless feel to it. Anyway) specimens for more than 30 seconds without yawning so hard that your soul flees the abyss of boredom that your body has become. Sitting around and talking in a calm fashion is not interesting. You know what is interesting? Flipping tables. Bad boys flip tables.

They are all holding laser swords and yet they still look boring

You may know bad boys by other names, such as loose cannon, rascal, scamp, rogue, or scoundrel. You may recognize these as descriptions of many, many famous characters from books, film, and all other forms or storytelling. Good boy are too busy staying home and working on the family farm while brushing their teeth twice a day to get a story told about them. Good boys do what is expected of them and don’t make trouble. Good boys are incredibly tedious and I’m already tired of talking about them.

Only a mom could find this picture interesting

Now if you still don’t like bad boys then you are missing out. They may cause a lot of problems, but they are also the ones who fix problems. You can’t solve a problem without opposing something. Bad boys can be traced all the way back to (and past) that first proto-human who stepped out of the trees and into the savanna. Some good decision making monkey was probably say “Look out, there are lions and junk out there”, but the bad decision making man just said “Whatever dude, if you need me I’ll be throwing pointy sticks at zebras”. What I’m trying to say is that we wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for bad boys. I would at this point like to make it clear that bad boys includes females, it is just that the term alliterates, and is therefore more entertaining to write with (sorry about that).