Jurassic Park: Deep Thoughts About Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, Bodily Autonomy, and When the Movie is Better (Reprise Ep 44)

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The recent passing of actor Sam Neal had us thinking about this episode where we dug into the original Jurassic Park.
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Of course, we also could have rerun our episode with horror author Scott Kennamore when we talked about the Sam Neil film Event Horizon.
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I'll link to that one in the show notes if you're a big Sam Neil fan.
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Interesting about this show.
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Around the time we recorded it, we had some trouble with our virtual recording studio, and big chunks of Emily's audio were just missing.
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So it was silence and then me going, Oh, uh-huh.
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Yeah.
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I get that.
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Not very interesting for a podcast listener.
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So we re-recorded pieces of Emily's dialogue, though she didn't remember precisely what she had said, which is why we seem to repeat ourselves a bit in the beginning.
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And in my final synopsis, I reference a quotation from the movie that Emily didn't say in her re-recorded section.
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So a little behind-the-scenes trivia for you on that one.
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This is a great episode, despite the technical difficulties, because we went in to talk about a blockbuster dinosaur movie.
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And we ended up talking about bodily autonomy, even referencing the great Ruth Bader-Ginsberg.
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That's just the kind of deep thoughts that we have here.
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Anyway, have a listen.
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I think you'll enjoy.
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Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just pop culture?
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What others might deem stupid shit, you know matters.
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You know it's worth talking and thinking about.
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And so do we.
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So come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit.
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I'm Emily Guy Birken, and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit.
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Because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head?
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On today's episode, I will be sharing my deep thoughts about the 1993 film Jurassic Park with my sister, Tracy Guy Decker, and with you.
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Let's dive in.
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Alright, Trace, I know you've seen this movie.
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I'm pretty sure we saw it at the theater together.
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Maybe.
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Um, but tell me what you remember about we're gonna stick to the original Jurassic Park.
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It has become an enormous franchise, and I can't keep up.
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So I just want to talk about the Steven Spielberg film.
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I will also be talking a little bit about the book, uh, the original book.
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But uh love to hear what you what you remember about this movie.
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Yeah, I don't remember a lot.
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Like I it's again, this often happens with things from you know, from childhood or I guess 93 adolescence, uh, where they're like kind of flashes.
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I remember that they extracted the blood from a mosquito trapped in amber.
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And and then cloned the dinosaurs.
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I remember the I remember the car chase with the objects in mirror maybe closer than the appear and the T-Rex in the mirror, which which I mainly remember because of Toy Story, I think, which spoops it.
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I remember the terrifying like jump scare heightened terror moment of the Velociraptors chasing them in the kitchen, I think.
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I remember Jeff Goldblum is a dish in that movie.
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Like, whoo! I'll drink water.
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I remember Jeff Goldblum in that movie.
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And and Sam Neil is like a very like avuncular, trustworthy scientist.
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And oh, there's something the hell out of a neck scarf, too.
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And and I and I have memory, I have vague memory of like the glass of water kind of like shaking because of the the footsteps of the of the I think the T-Rex.
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Um yeah, that's that's kind of what I remember uh in terms of the actual like flashes of like what was on the screen.
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And then, you know, some of the lessons that I remember are like quit fucking with that shit, humans.
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That's the lesson that I like and the moral of the story is.
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Um so yeah, that's what I got.
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But tell me, um, why are we talking about it today?
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What's in it for you?
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What's at stake?
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There's a couple things going on with this.
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Now that the the film came out in June of '93.
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I was 14 years old.
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I had just finished my eighth grade science.
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Um, I had this amazing science teacher named Mr.
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Anderson for all three years of middle school, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.
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And one of the things that he did that was really great was he would take stuff that was like in the zeitgeist and build that into uh the the science classes.
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Uh and specifically, he had read the Jurassic Park book and he did an entire unit on cloning on dinosaurs, and so I went into the film and into reading the book already knowing what the the conceit was about uh taking the blood from the uh the uh mosquitoes in amber because of Mr.
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Anderson's class, uh, which was pretty cool.
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And because there was this multi, multi-million dollar marketing campaign, like we knew Jurassic Park was coming, we knew dinosaurs were going to be a thing that summer.
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So, because of all of that, I was well prepared for that to be a summer blockbuster that was important to my generation.
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Then I, my bus stop, there were three other kids who uh caught the bus at the same bus stop, and uh one of them had the Jurassic Park book and read us the scene at the bus stop where Dennis Nedry, uh played by Wayne Knight, um, I think of him as Newman from uh um Seinfeld.
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Yeah.
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That guy.
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Um that guy, the the the postal carrier, read us the scene where Newman dies.
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Not Newman, Nedri dies.
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Uh and it's it's delightfully gruesome.
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Um so I remember him reading that out loud to us at the bus stop, and I was like, I gotta read that book.
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And it was I was at the age where I wanted to be able to say, oh, the book's better.
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Um I feel like a lot of I feel like a lot of people in our culture have not outgrown that.
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No, that's true.
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And in this case, the book is not better.
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Oh, oh, oh, cool.
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Um, and I have very specific reasons for feeling that way.
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So um I believe, as I recall, I read the book before the movie came out because we had like enough lead time.
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And it was like a major film.
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I mean, like, I mean, like everyone I knew went to see it.
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I think I saw it in the theater more than once.
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And it has been, you know, something that I have gone back to multiple times.
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It's the first film that was like a summer blockbuster that felt like it was mine.
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So, like you and I have talked offline about um the movie Jaws, which was Spielberg's first like summer blockbuster movie and the importance of that movie, uh, came out in 75, I think it was.
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So I'd heard of it, of course, and you know, always been a movie buff.
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Never really saw it until I was in my late teens.
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I saw it in the theater at a revival in I think 2015.
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This was for the 40-year um anniversary.
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Uh, it was an amazing experience.
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But that was me, that's that's all hindsight because it came out before I was born.
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This was like Spielberg made this for me.
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Like, this is for you, kid.
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You're 14, you're at exactly the right age to love the shit out of this.
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And I did.
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So it was not like it was my identity or anything like that.
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It was a fun movie that I really, really, really enjoyed.
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But unlike other movies that I felt like I kind of wrapped around me and made part of who I am, I don't think it was quite like that.
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But the experience of like I am the movie going public that they're making movies for, that was amazing.
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That felt incredible.
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And as I have aged, I don't care that I'm no longer like the main demographic for things, but there are times when I'm I kind of miss that feeling of like you, you, Emily, are who we want to impress with this movie.
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Yeah, yeah.
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So that's that's part of what got me thinking about it.
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My um, I was also thinking about Jurassic Park and wanted to bring it to deep thoughts because my kids are interested in some of the like extended universe of Jurassic Park.
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Uh, my younger son really likes uh there's an animated show called Camp Cretaceous, where they bring kids to basically as Lenoublar, but somewhere where they they have sleepaway camp with dinosaurs.
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Which I'm like, have they not learned at any point?
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Didn't I just say what the moral of the story was?
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But it's it's like, you know, dinosaurs.
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So that's part of it.
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Another reason I wanted to talk about this is because of my experience of reading the book.
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Um, now I really enjoyed the plot.
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It's a page turner.
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I mean, I will give Michael Creighton full credit for being an excellent plotter.
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He is very, very good at marrying this like really interesting science with very interesting and like compelling plots.
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But as I was reading it, I was horrified.
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Like I could not stand the only two female characters in the book.
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There's Lex, the little girl, and then Ellie Sattler.
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And they changed it in the movie.
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In the book, Lex is the younger sibling, and she is basically useless.
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And, you know, in the movie they make her the hacker, and uh Tim is the one who's into into dinosaurs in the book.
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He's he's into both, and he's the older sibling, and it was awful.
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And then Dr.
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Sattler is like just a cardboard cutout who's gut breasts.
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And I remember saying something to an adult in my life who had also read the book in in expectation of the movie coming out, and this adult in my life told me, like, oh, I think I think you're being oversensitive.
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So one of the things that was really vindicating for me, although again, I don't think I could have articulated it at the time, was the fact that they did make changes to Dr.
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Sattler and Lex's characters so that they were no longer like cardboard cutouts with breasts or completely useless.
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Um, so that helped me understand that I can trust my instincts.
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Like if I, if it, you know, quacks like a sexist duck and walks like a sexist duck, it might be a sexist duck.
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So that that was really helpful.
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We talk a lot about the furniture in our mind, and I think in movie catchphrases.
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So, for instance, you know, if I'm about to do something, I say, hold on to your butts, like Samuel L.
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Jackson's character in this.
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Um, but when someone surprises me with something that they've done that's that's smart, especially like like a a toddler or you know, something like that, I'll be like, clever girl, like Muldoon.
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This film is actually surprisingly kind of feminist, and in ways that I know Spielberg quite indefinitely, um, and and the other um filmmakers uh you know involved in this were not necessarily intending.
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There's some that very they very much were intending.
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But uh that I I think is one of the reasons why I wanted to talk about this film is because of um what a bad taste in my mouth the book left.
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Um and the way that it helped me understand that I can trust my instincts on um on things like that, um, because I got like that kind of like, uh, I think you're being a little sensitive, and then I saw the movie and I was like, mmm, no, I don't think I was because they changed those characters.
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Yeah, yeah.
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So it kind of taught me to recognize when my lived experience is giving me insight into something that someone else might have might not have.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, that makes sense.
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Okay.
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So remind me, besides the flashes that I have, the vignettes that in my mind, and Jeff Goldblum looking dishy.
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What happens in this film?
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What's what's the plot?
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So thumbnail plot, a man named John Hammond, who we don't have a good sense of exactly who he is or or you know w like how he has made his money, but he is some sort of titan of some sort of industry, has uh developed a way to clone dinosaurs, uh, as you mentioned, by finding uh mosquitoes from the Cretaceous period trapped in amber, that they then extract the blood from from those uh mosquitoes and use that to sequence the DNA of whatever dinosaurs they had um they had bitten.
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So uh we start the film seeing a velociraptor kill a worker at the park.
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And so because of that, and uh Spielberg does not actually show the Velociraptor, you see they're trying to transport it, and you see the worker get like dragged in and Muldoon holding on to him, trying to save him.
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So, because of that, the investors and the lawyers need proof that the park is going to be okay because Hammond is building an amusement park with this amazing technology, which is such a capitalist thing.
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I mean, I will say Michael Crichton got that right.
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So to make sure everything's safe, Hammond has brought in Ian Malcolm, the the dishy Jeff Goldblum, who is um a mathematician who's an expert in chaos theory.
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Unclear why that would be helpful in determining if this uh park is safe.
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Malcolm is actually uh brought in by the lawyer Donald Gennaro, who is uh he's the blood-sucking lawyer, is the way that they describe him.
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Oh, so the lawyer brings in the chaos park.
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Yes.
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Oh, interesting.
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Uh and um Gennaro represents the investors.
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So he is not really there on Hammond's behalf.
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Hammond, however, invites paleontologist Alan Grant, played by Sam Neal, and Paleobotanist Ellie Sattler, who is played by Laura Dern to come in.
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They are a couple.
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They're a romantic couple, yeah.
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Yeah, they're a romantic couple, and they are in the middle of a dig that Hammond has been paying for, and he offers to um cover the expenses for the next three years for that dig, which is how he gets them to go there.
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So they all arrive on Isla Nublar, and they see a Brachiosaurus, and it is an amazing moment where they they see that and they they, oh my goodness, that's a real dinosaur.
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They get to the visitor center where they see the you know plot exposition movie introduction, which is how they did it, extracting dinosaur DNA from prehistoric mosquitoes preserved in amber, then adding the DNA from frogs where there were missing sequences, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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And they get to watch the hatching of a baby velociraptor.
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While they're eating lunch, it's Hammond, Gennaro, who's a lawyer, Ian Malcolm, Ellie Sattler, and Alan Grant, so the five of them are debating the ethics of doing this.
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And all three of the outside experts, Malcolm, Grant, and Sattler, are like, yeah, this ain't a good idea.
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This this really ain't a good idea.
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And uh Hammond, the lawyer, meanwhile, has been like, We're gonna make so much money.
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And Hammond's like, why is the blood-sucking lawyer the only one on my side?
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After lunch, Hammond says, Go take a tour of the park.
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And uh then sh then his grandchildren, Lex and Tim, show up and they're gonna go on the tour with them.
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Grant, we've already established, is not comfortable with children.
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And uh Tim, who is a dinosaur enthusiast, is like following him from one to the other because the the tour is in these um cars that are on electric cars that are on a track.
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Um, keeps uh there are two of them, and he keeps following them from one to the other.
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Like, which one are you gonna sit in?
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And he's like, Whichever one you're in.
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But Tim is talking his ear off about dinosaur stuff, has read Grant's uh book about dinosaurs, so on and so forth.
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Wow.
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So they go off on the tour, it's not going well.
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They're there none of the dinosaurs are uh are showing up um uh at the enclosures.
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And so uh at one point they get out of the cars and they go start exploring, and they find a sick triceratops.
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So Sattler stays with the triceratops and the veterinarian, who's gonna give her a ride back to the visitor center in his gas-powered Jeep, and everyone else gets back in the electric cars to continue the tour.
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So while that's happening, Hammond goes to like the control center and we get to meet several other of the staff members.
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We meet Arnold, who is played by Samuel L.
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Jackson, who is this kind of no nonsense, like you know, your favorite manager at work kind of guy, because he's got this dry sense of humor and takes no shit.
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He's the one who says, hold on to your butts.
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We meet him, we meet Dennis Nedry, who is played by Wayne Knight, um, who he was Newman on um Seinfeld.
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So every time I see the man, I go, Newman.
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So we meet him.
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He we've already had a little bit of backstory about him.
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Nedri is very dissatisfied, he's disgruntled.
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He apparently is not happy with the amount of money that Hammond is paying him.
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He is the computer designer engineer for the park.
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And he has everything set up via automation, and he like is constantly saying, like, no one else could do this but me.
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And Hammond is saying to him, like, you know, he he complains that he isn't making enough money, and Hammond says to him, like, I'm sorry that you're having financial troubles.
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I really am, but like that's not my problem.
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And uh it's also clear that there was like bidding, so like I mean, Edry got the winning bid, so like he bid too low or something.
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I don't know.
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So he's disgruntled, and so because of that, earlier in the film we saw him have a meeting with a representative from a competing company who ha who wants him to, he's going to steal some embryos of an embryo for each of the dinosaurs and get them off the island.
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And so he has a plan, he just needs 20 minutes to shut things down so they can't see what he's doing, get the embryos uh from the lab to the dock where the where the ship is going.
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And he is given, I think it's like 1.5 million, and then it's gonna be another like 500,000 for each embryo he successfully smuggles off.
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We've already met him, but didn't really know who he was.
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Uh, Muldoon, who is a big game hunter basically, and he is the expert there for making sure that the predators are safely contained.
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His name is Muldoon, and he is played by Bob Peck, and he is probably my favorite character in the film because he has so much respect for the animals.
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He respects their savagery, their danger, like what what it is they are capable of, and um and recognizes that they're not doing anything other than what they do.
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You know, they're they're not misbehaving or anything.
00:21:44.319 --> 00:21:46.799
This is just that that's what they do.
00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:59.759
So um while the cars are coming back, the tour's coming back, there's a storm bearing down on the island, and Nedri puts his plan in place.
00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:05.839
Which requires shutting things down so that security cameras can't be seen.
00:22:06.160 --> 00:22:10.319
He can get in and out of rooms that would otherwise be locked, that sort of thing.
00:22:10.640 --> 00:22:22.400
And so he is able to successfully slip away from the control room, get into the lab, get the embryos, and get out again.
00:22:22.960 --> 00:22:32.880
But the storm at that point has c come in and it is raining fit to be tied while he's trying to drive to get to the dock in a gas jeep.
00:22:33.200 --> 00:22:41.599
Like he drives into the signpost that um says which way to go and has trouble figuring out where which direction he's supposed to be going.
00:22:42.000 --> 00:22:46.319
He uh then gets stuck on a tree branch that has fallen over.
00:22:46.720 --> 00:22:53.519
When he gets out, he kind of slips down and is confronted by a dinosaur that is basically made up.
00:22:53.680 --> 00:23:00.720
It's the name of a real dinosaur, but none of what they have in the in the film or the book is is what they were actually like.
00:23:00.880 --> 00:23:12.160
But it spits a poison in his uh in his face, which is what, according to the film, that's what they would do to their prey, and then attacks him and eats him and exits stage right nedri.
00:23:12.880 --> 00:23:25.119
Meanwhile, um, because Nedri is gone for longer than the 20 minutes he thought he would need to be gone, they cannot figure out what bug he put in the code to keep things from happening.
00:23:25.440 --> 00:23:31.680
So at this point, Ellie Muldoon, Hammond, and Samuel L.
00:23:31.920 --> 00:23:41.440
Jackson, Arnold, are um are the only ones there, and they know that the children, Ian Malcolm and Alan Grant, are missing.
00:23:41.839 --> 00:23:57.599
So they suggest like the only way to get everything back up online so they can include, you know, cage the animals and close everything, is to turn the whole system off and back on again, because otherwise they'd have to go through two million lines of code to figure out what Nedry had done.
00:23:57.920 --> 00:24:23.279
But by turning the system off and back on again, that means that all of the enclosures are now open, including the velociraptors, which are the dinosaurs that are even scarier than T-Rexes, and that's what this film did it made velociraptors like the big bad of dinosaurs when they've always been T-Rexes when we were kids, um because they are supposed to be extraordinarily intelligent.
00:24:23.759 --> 00:24:24.000
Right.
00:24:24.160 --> 00:24:25.200
Small but very clever.
00:24:25.519 --> 00:24:28.240
Smaller than the T-Rexes, but very, very clever.
00:24:29.119 --> 00:24:35.440
Um and that actually even is uh the the way that they characterize the Velociraptors in the film.
00:24:35.680 --> 00:24:45.119
I don't know if they didn't know this at the time or if and and it's since come out, or um, but it is no longer, or it is not what Velociraptors were actually like.
00:24:45.599 --> 00:24:47.200
But you know, it's a film.
00:24:47.599 --> 00:24:52.960
Uh I think it's they were either larger or smaller than they're than they are um uh shown to be.
00:24:53.119 --> 00:25:02.640
It's similar to this, I know they didn't know at the time, but uh T-Rexes had basically feathers, um, which we just did we didn't know in '93.
00:25:03.279 --> 00:25:04.400
Yeah, yeah.
00:25:04.960 --> 00:25:15.039
So they are able to um turn it off and back on again, but they realize they also need to throw the main breaker, basically, which is in a shed on the other side of the island.
00:25:15.279 --> 00:25:18.160
Arnold goes to turn it off and back on again.
00:25:18.400 --> 00:25:22.640
He's gone for too long, and they realize something must have happened.
00:25:22.799 --> 00:25:39.359
And so at that point, Ellie and Muldoon go to, and actually, I'm gonna something I noticed last night when I rewatched this film, every single character except for the children and Ellie Sattler are listed by their last name in the credits.
00:25:39.759 --> 00:25:45.200
So it says like it says Grant, it says Malcolm, it says Hammond, it says Ellie.
00:25:46.000 --> 00:25:50.240
And um, and it's not Alan Grant or John Hammond, it's just last name.
00:25:50.319 --> 00:25:56.960
But then it's Ellie, Lex, and Tim for the woman and two children, and that bothered the crap out of me, and I'm doing it myself.
00:25:57.200 --> 00:26:05.519
Sattler and Muldoon go to uh to turn the the main breaker on, basically.
00:26:05.680 --> 00:26:09.920
And they discover that the Velociraptors have escaped as well.
00:26:10.559 --> 00:26:25.759
So Sattler is able to, with Hammond's help, get things turned back on, and she is attacked by a Velociraptor, and Muldoon is attacked and killed by uh there are three Velociraptors total, um, killed by the other two.
00:26:26.400 --> 00:26:44.640
During this time, Grant has gotten the children after many scary moments back to the visitor center where he leaves them in the dining room and he goes to try to find the other adults, where the two remaining velociraptors find the children and stalk them through the kitchen.
00:26:45.200 --> 00:26:46.240
That's what I remember.
00:26:46.480 --> 00:26:49.119
Yeah, it's it's a terrifying scene.
00:26:49.440 --> 00:27:09.759
At that point, the children they're able to get away from the velociraptors, get back into the control room where Lex, the older kid, who they've mentioned is is is a computer expert, she calls herself a hacker, figures out how to turn everything back on so they can lock the door to keep the Velociraptors out.
00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:34.960
They are climbing through the ceiling, uh, come out through the uh main entrance and are climbing down the T-Rex skeleton that's there, and the Velociraptors are attacking them, and um just when they are all cornered and it looks like there's nothing they can do, uh, in comes the T-Rex and uh kills the Velociraptors, they're fighting each other as Hammond and Malcolm show up in the Jeep and they they drive off.
00:27:35.119 --> 00:27:40.640
They're able to get to um the phones had been out too because of the uh computers being down.
00:27:40.799 --> 00:27:52.720
Um so they were able to call and get a helicopter and they they leave and cue the uh John Williams score music swelling, and we're done.
00:27:53.759 --> 00:27:59.039
So of all the people on the island, let's see.
00:28:00.079 --> 00:28:02.799
I think five out of the eight have survived.
00:28:03.279 --> 00:28:04.720
So the two kids both make it.
00:28:05.039 --> 00:28:05.599
Two kids.
00:28:06.079 --> 00:28:07.279
Does their grandpa make it?
00:28:07.440 --> 00:28:09.039
Yes, Hammond makes it.
00:28:09.359 --> 00:28:11.039
Um oh, I guess it's six.
00:28:11.359 --> 00:28:15.359
So six out of the six out of the nine.
00:28:15.680 --> 00:28:24.720
Because the two kids, Hammond, Malcolm, Grant, Sattler, and six, yeah, six.
00:28:24.880 --> 00:28:29.119
And of the ones who died, Nedry, Muldoon, and uh Arnold.
00:28:29.680 --> 00:28:30.720
So Samuel L.
00:28:30.880 --> 00:28:37.039
Jackson, the guy who played Newman, and the clever girl guy.
00:28:37.359 --> 00:28:39.039
Okay, so Jeff Goldblum makes it.
00:28:39.200 --> 00:28:42.000
Jeff Goldblum makes it, although he does not in the book.
00:28:44.319 --> 00:28:45.279
Alright.
00:28:46.160 --> 00:28:47.039
Alright.
00:28:47.359 --> 00:28:54.240
So, well, you've already started a little bit of your analysis with the the gender, but it where do you want to where do you want to go?
00:28:54.640 --> 00:29:08.880
So I want to start with uh, because that's that was the thing that really stuck with me from the experience of reading the book and seeing the film, was my dissatisfaction with the female characters with Sattler and Lex.
00:29:09.200 --> 00:29:14.880
Now, some of it had to do with the fact that Lex was the younger child in the um in the book.
00:29:15.279 --> 00:29:30.079
So in the movie, she's older and she's very much a big sister, so she is protective of Tim, um, whereas Tim was protective of Lex in the book, because he was the older brother.
00:29:30.400 --> 00:29:33.680
And some of that's you know, that's age dynamics with children.
00:29:33.920 --> 00:29:37.839
But she was a whiny, miserable nothing in the book.
00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:41.359
And I hate to say that about a kid, but that's how she was written.
00:29:41.599 --> 00:29:51.519
She um in the book, Tim was like a dinosaur enthusiast, which they carried over into the movie, but he was also the computer hacker.
00:29:52.000 --> 00:29:56.480
So he saved the day in both scenarios.
00:29:56.720 --> 00:30:02.160
Like he understood dinosaurs better, and he was the one who was able to get the the computers up and running at the end.
00:30:02.799 --> 00:30:08.880
And so Lex was just So the Lex Lex in the book is just someone to be in peril.
00:30:09.119 --> 00:30:09.359
That's it.
00:30:10.240 --> 00:30:13.759
Yeah, she's she's just a damsel in distress who's annoying.
00:30:16.720 --> 00:30:18.240
It really frustrated me.
00:30:19.119 --> 00:30:20.720
And like she's supposed to be a little kid.
00:30:21.039 --> 00:30:28.559
But Spielberg But Spielberg fixed that a little bit by making giving her the computer hacking experience.
00:30:28.640 --> 00:30:29.759
Like that's what she calls herself.
00:30:29.839 --> 00:30:31.759
She's like, I'm a hacker, that's what I do.
00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:38.880
And then also in the kitchen scene, she is really taking the lead.
00:30:39.039 --> 00:30:48.079
Like, there's a point where Tim is terrified, and like she's saying, Come come over here, and he's he's just too scared, he just can't do it.
00:30:48.400 --> 00:30:53.119
And a ladle falls and gets the attention of a velociraptor.
00:30:53.200 --> 00:31:09.279
She's way at the other end of the kitchen, and so she grabs another ladle and is tapping on the floor to get the uh the velociraptor's attention, and then she climbs into it's hard to tell what it is, but it's like a like a cabinet or something that has a rolling closed door.
00:31:09.519 --> 00:31:16.880
So she she taps to get their attention and then jumps into that uh rolling cabinet and then is trying to close the door and can't.
00:31:17.039 --> 00:31:19.599
And you don't realize this until it happens.
00:31:19.759 --> 00:31:34.240
You see the velociraptor coming, you think he's gonna or she's gonna get her, and um, then you realize the velociraptor is about to attack her reflection because that's what we're seeing, that's what the velociraptor is seeing.
00:31:34.319 --> 00:31:45.359
And so, like, it's not clear if Lex thought that through, but she did think through enough and was heroic enough to to figure out a way to protect her brother.
00:31:45.599 --> 00:31:46.079
Yeah.
00:31:46.240 --> 00:31:48.319
Not in the book, not in the book.
00:31:48.720 --> 00:31:58.480
Similarly, Sattler is all I really remember of her in the book is that she is like devoted to Grant.
00:31:59.920 --> 00:32:06.240
She's supposed to be smart and beautiful in the way that men describe women as smart and beautiful.
00:32:06.559 --> 00:32:06.960
Uh-huh.
00:32:07.039 --> 00:32:07.519
Uh-huh.
00:32:07.920 --> 00:32:11.200
You know, where it's like okay.
00:32:11.839 --> 00:32:23.759
And there is one scene that's cool that didn't make it into the movie where I don't recall the details, but she has to jump from the roof of a building into a swimming pool.
00:32:24.400 --> 00:32:33.119
And it's this like harrowing, scary, difficult thing that she has to do, and she is a badass about it.
00:32:33.839 --> 00:32:46.640
The problem is that in that scene, we know what she's thinking because it's, you know, omniscient third-person narrator, and she all she's thinking about is like, I'm doing this for Alan.
00:32:48.319 --> 00:32:48.640
Oh.
00:32:51.279 --> 00:33:01.279
And if I recall correctly, she and Alan are not overtly in an overtly romantic relationship, but I think she wants to be.
00:33:02.319 --> 00:33:07.839
But like, there's definitely a like, oh, Alan in her inner monologue.
00:33:09.440 --> 00:33:20.559
So I'm very glad that Steven Spielberg did not allow Michael Crichton to just write the script himself.
00:33:20.799 --> 00:33:24.000
He brought in, there were two script doctors.
00:33:24.160 --> 00:33:25.920
One is credited, one is not.
00:33:26.079 --> 00:33:29.519
I don't know who the credit uh uncredited one is off the top of my head.
00:33:29.680 --> 00:33:30.799
It's it's it's known.
00:33:30.880 --> 00:33:32.559
It's just, I don't remember.
00:33:32.640 --> 00:33:35.680
But the um credited one is a man named David Cup.
00:33:36.880 --> 00:33:50.160
And it's clear to me that Spielberg and these script doctors like read the book and were like, hmm, um, we're gonna need to make some changes here.
00:33:50.799 --> 00:33:52.880
Because we get two female characters.
00:33:52.960 --> 00:33:53.759
We get Dr.
00:33:53.920 --> 00:33:58.640
Sattler, who has that one really cool action sequence in the book, but that's it.
00:33:59.119 --> 00:34:01.599
And it's all for the love of a man.
00:34:03.440 --> 00:34:09.920
And then we get Lex, who is like just whity and annoying the entire time.
00:34:10.719 --> 00:34:11.519
Yeah, yeah.
00:34:11.679 --> 00:34:15.440
Like it sounds like her job was just to be in peril.
00:34:15.599 --> 00:34:24.639
Just to be something that Tim cared about that was in trouble, which you know could have been like, I don't know, his favorite shirt.
00:34:25.440 --> 00:34:27.599
Like a shirt that he felt sentimental about.
00:34:27.760 --> 00:34:29.920
But yeah, still a shirt.
00:34:30.079 --> 00:34:30.719
Yeah.
00:34:32.159 --> 00:34:51.920
So, and that's it's interesting how with like Spielberg at the helm and with the script doctors, and even with like casting decisions and things like that, they did a really good job of making the film both intentionally and unintentionally feminist.
00:34:52.400 --> 00:34:57.119
So there is an overtly feminist moment that Sattler has.
00:34:57.199 --> 00:35:05.039
It's when she and Muldoon are gonna go to the shed on the other side of the island, turn on the electricity, basically.
00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:11.599
And Hammond is saying, you know, at that point, Malcolm is injured.
00:35:11.840 --> 00:35:14.880
It's Malcolm, Hammond, Muldoon, and Sattler.
00:35:14.960 --> 00:35:15.679
That's who's there.
00:35:15.840 --> 00:35:17.440
And Sattler's like, I'm going.
00:35:17.599 --> 00:35:21.039
And Hammond says, Well, really, you I should be going instead of you.
00:35:21.199 --> 00:35:22.320
She's like, You should, why?
00:35:22.559 --> 00:35:28.159
And he says, Well, because I'm a and you're a because he's saying I'm a man and you're a woman.
00:35:28.400 --> 00:35:38.000
Even though Hammond is in his 70s, and she is a late 20-something, fully capable of.
00:35:38.239 --> 00:35:40.400
With Hammond who's saying he should go instead of her.
00:35:40.639 --> 00:35:40.960
Yes.
00:35:41.280 --> 00:35:42.239
Oh, okay, okay.
00:35:42.480 --> 00:35:45.599
Yeah the guy, the guy who's broken his leg is not.
00:35:46.079 --> 00:35:47.119
Malcolm cannot.
00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:50.400
Uh-huh.
00:35:50.719 --> 00:36:00.800
So and um so she says to him, she sighs and she says, We can discuss sexism and survival situations when I get back.
00:36:01.840 --> 00:36:02.480
Nice.
00:36:03.119 --> 00:36:04.320
Which is amazing.
00:36:05.679 --> 00:36:09.039
So there's they're like there are there are these the overt moments.
00:36:09.199 --> 00:36:26.079
Now the other thing, and I know this was not intentional, but I think is really interesting, particularly post-Row, is uh the way that they make sure they maintain population control on the island is all the dinosaurs are female.
00:36:26.320 --> 00:36:32.960
They manipulate the genes to make sure that all the dinosaurs are female, so in a single-sex environment they cannot reproduce.
00:36:34.079 --> 00:36:48.960
Except that because the DNA has degraded over the millions of years from what they got in the mosquito blood, they filled in gaps with DNA from frogs and other amphibians.
00:36:49.039 --> 00:36:56.159
And there are frogs that are able to spontaneously change gender in single-sex environments so that they can reproduce.
00:36:56.239 --> 00:37:04.400
And there's a point where Grant and the children come across a nest of eggs that have hatched, and he realizes that must have been what happened.
00:37:04.719 --> 00:37:23.519
Now, why I find this interesting, especially post-Row, is that this corporation is a bunch of men making reproductive decisions for all female creatures.
00:37:25.280 --> 00:37:57.599
And one of the things that I know I didn't get when I was 14, but I was soon to figure out, is that a powerful group, government corporation, that forces you to reproduce when you don't want to is the other side of the coin of a powerful government or corporation that prevents you from reproducing when you want to.
00:37:58.000 --> 00:37:58.639
Right.
00:37:59.119 --> 00:37:59.519
Right.
00:38:00.079 --> 00:38:21.119
And the fact that there are only two female characters, with the exception of all the dinosaurs, in this film makes that feel very pointed, um, in a way that I know Steven Spielberg did not intend, and I know Michael Crichton didn't intend.
00:38:21.599 --> 00:38:22.239
Yeah.
00:38:22.719 --> 00:38:24.400
It's really interesting.
00:38:24.639 --> 00:38:28.079
I this I this is a total tangent, but hey, that's what we do, right?
00:38:28.239 --> 00:38:28.559
Oh, yeah.
00:38:28.800 --> 00:38:43.360
I'm thinking about when we went when we went to um in 2020, before everything shut down, you and I went to see the notorious RBG exhibit where it was in Skokie, Illinois.
00:38:43.760 --> 00:39:01.360
And one of the things that I learned from that exhibit was that when Ruth Bader-Ginsburg was arguing in front of the Supreme Court like about sort of reproductive freedoms, like one of the things that she was arguing against was the US military, which was forcing female service members to have abortions.
00:39:03.199 --> 00:39:08.559
So, like your point about like if you're control, if you're forcing people to have kids, i.e.
00:39:08.719 --> 00:39:12.800
not letting them have abortions, you have the power to force them not to, i.e.
00:39:13.039 --> 00:39:27.440
making them have abortions, which is what so Ginsburg, Bader Ginsburg was such an advocate for uh, you know, bodily autonomy for women, which makes the anti-abortion crowd crazy.
00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:43.440
But actually, it started with Bader Ginsburg arguing that our female service members should not be forced to have abortion, and that like is is feeling like really alive for me in this tension you're pointing to right now.
00:39:43.760 --> 00:39:44.079
Yeah.
00:39:44.239 --> 00:39:48.639
Well, it's similar to, I mean, for sterilization is a similar sort of thing.
00:39:48.880 --> 00:39:54.800
It's Creighton got to something that I don't think he personally understood.
00:39:54.880 --> 00:40:01.039
Now, I mean, I'm not saying this man wasn't brilliant, he was a very, very smart scientist and writer.
00:40:01.519 --> 00:40:06.480
Um, but he did not see half of the population as fully human.
00:40:07.199 --> 00:40:13.440
Um, and I believe I'm sure he had other, like he also had the smartest guy in the room um syndrome, I believe.
00:40:13.599 --> 00:40:23.920
Uh like he spoke against the idea of um climate change being human-caused to the Senate, which I'm like, why are you having a thriller writer?
00:40:25.360 --> 00:40:26.239
Anyway.
00:40:26.559 --> 00:40:41.599
Um so I think it's really uh what the story is about is you cannot control life.
00:40:43.119 --> 00:41:21.119
And any attempts to do so will inevitably fail, uh, which I think is a really important um lesson in our like patriarchal society, um, in the same way that when you have a high control group, religion, anything, and you um do not allow information like sex education or things like that, you do not take away the desire.
00:41:21.679 --> 00:41:23.280
You just send it underground.
00:41:23.599 --> 00:41:24.079
Right.
00:41:24.400 --> 00:41:42.000
And so um I think that Ian Malcolm, as the the like the the chaos theory mathematician, has it right for the most part because he's saying like you everything is chaos and you cannot know where the fail will failure will come from.
00:41:42.159 --> 00:41:43.039
You cannot know.
00:41:43.119 --> 00:41:45.119
He he says life finds a way.
00:41:45.280 --> 00:41:55.119
Um and I I don't think he's wrong, but I think it's I prefer it's like uh that's kind of a positive way of saying Murphy's law.
00:41:55.199 --> 00:41:59.440
Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, or that chaos will find a way.
00:41:59.599 --> 00:42:09.760
Um, that humans gonna human, um, that tropical storm's gonna tropical storm, um, hunter's gonna hunt, you know, all of that.
00:42:10.159 --> 00:42:13.440
So I think that that is really, really interesting.
00:42:13.599 --> 00:42:34.559
Now, the other side of it that I think is marvelous about this film, and I feel like is lost in the greater franchise, um they have some amazing actors in this, and they had state-of-the-art um uh special effects.
00:42:35.199 --> 00:42:45.920
Um at this point, even though the CGI for for being over 30 years old is pretty darn good, um at it was seamless when I was 14.
00:42:46.079 --> 00:42:47.360
Now I can see the seams.
00:42:47.679 --> 00:42:56.000
Um I prefer the ones where they're they're they're interacting with a puppet, with a live live something, because like that's actually there.
00:42:56.480 --> 00:43:16.559
But even when they're looking at something that's not there, it's not like Roger Rabbit, which we talked about a few weeks ago, um, because you don't expect Roger Rabbit to be real looking, whereas the the brachiosaurs, when they see them, you can just tell that there's a little bit up to it that looks animated.
00:43:16.719 --> 00:43:25.840
In any case, the awe and wonder that the characters feel, even the ones who Malcolm is disapproving from the beginning.
00:43:25.920 --> 00:43:34.880
He thinks this is a terrible idea from the beginning, but even he is awed by the majesty of these creatures, um, which is amazing.
00:43:34.960 --> 00:43:36.320
Like, I really appreciate that.
00:43:36.480 --> 00:43:41.840
And uh, last night after I finished the film, my 13-year-old came in and said, So, what's your favorite part?
00:43:41.920 --> 00:43:44.400
What are you gonna talk about tomorrow on the podcast?
00:43:44.719 --> 00:43:56.960
And I said, Clever girl is my favorite part, and the reason for that is um Muldoon is a very like no nonsense practical person.
00:43:58.079 --> 00:44:08.559
He um understands These creatures are better than anyone else in some ways because he understands hunting behavior, he understands big game, he understands that sort of thing.
00:44:09.199 --> 00:44:15.440
And he has a great deal of respect for their abilities and what they can do.
00:44:16.320 --> 00:44:26.880
And the moment when he says clever girl, he recognizes he and Sattler are going to the shed to turn the electricity back on.
00:44:27.840 --> 00:44:30.400
And she says, Okay, it's close enough, we can make a run for it.
00:44:30.559 --> 00:44:32.800
He's like, No, we can't, we're being hunted.
00:44:32.880 --> 00:44:37.199
Because he can he realizes it, even though she doesn't, because he's got the the background.
00:44:37.360 --> 00:44:40.719
And he's like, Go, I've got your back.
00:44:41.360 --> 00:44:44.159
And so he is doing all the things that he has been trained for.
00:44:44.320 --> 00:44:45.519
He knows how to do this.
00:44:45.679 --> 00:44:54.880
And he realizes at the last minute that he's been outsmarted because one velociraptor has his attention while the other one is creeping up beside him.
00:44:55.280 --> 00:45:01.360
And so his very last words are clever girl, and just that like that.
00:45:01.599 --> 00:45:11.519
And it's there is this awestruck, like he is truly impressed and terrified.
00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:20.000
And that is why I really that that's what I love about it, and why I I don't really pay much attention to the rest of the franchise because it's just become monster movies.
00:45:20.400 --> 00:45:37.199
Whereas that is about like we can't control nature, we can be awed and impressed, and um uh just find wonder in these these this natural world, um, but we cannot control it.
00:45:37.440 --> 00:45:50.480
And so that moment is like this this combination of the fact that he is so overwhelmed with respect for this creature that's about to kill him.
00:45:51.679 --> 00:45:56.559
He doesn't scream, he's he just he gives gives props where it's due.
00:45:56.800 --> 00:45:59.440
And that I think is just really, really cool.
00:45:59.599 --> 00:46:09.920
And and why I think this film is I mean it's it's been added to the uh the registry for you know films that are culturally significant.
00:46:10.320 --> 00:46:11.199
That's why.
00:46:11.360 --> 00:46:12.480
That's amazing.
00:46:13.760 --> 00:46:20.719
I think it's interesting that that's the moment that you hold up to because we we think about the sort of terror or horror.
00:46:20.800 --> 00:46:25.280
Um I feel like Professor Day gave us a diff distinction and now I've forgotten it.
00:46:25.599 --> 00:46:27.920
But um just the fear.
00:46:28.079 --> 00:46:33.519
You think about the fear of that moment, and you are focusing on the character.
00:46:34.559 --> 00:46:38.000
And that that's on brand M for you.
00:46:39.280 --> 00:46:40.880
You've met me, huh?
00:46:41.840 --> 00:46:42.719
Yeah, yeah.
00:46:42.880 --> 00:46:52.159
The the the actual the character is what is like really like lighting you up right now, not the fear or the like.
00:46:52.320 --> 00:46:59.039
I mean, you you started this by saying that your bus stop mate read this like delightfully gruesome death scene.
00:46:59.199 --> 00:47:00.800
That's not what you're talking about right now.
00:47:00.960 --> 00:47:04.159
There is a death scene that immediately follows, right?
00:47:04.480 --> 00:47:06.320
Like we see him get torn apart.
00:47:06.559 --> 00:47:19.760
Um no, like there's there's nothing that's particularly um it's it's a PG 13 movie, so um you you know he's gonna die, and I think that there's a a a lunge, but you don't really see anything.
00:47:19.920 --> 00:47:22.079
But yeah, there's there's there is a death right after that.
00:47:22.159 --> 00:47:23.119
But I don't remember that.
00:47:23.199 --> 00:47:24.400
I remember his face.
00:47:24.719 --> 00:47:25.280
Right, right.
00:47:25.360 --> 00:47:26.880
Because the character's what you're interested in.
00:47:27.119 --> 00:47:36.000
So that that jibes with the the way that I know you too receive and perceive fiction.
00:47:36.239 --> 00:47:36.639
Mm-hmm.
00:47:36.800 --> 00:47:37.199
Mm-hmm.
00:47:39.119 --> 00:47:45.760
Well, is there anything else that was like kind of core that you wanted to make sure that you lifted up?
00:47:46.239 --> 00:47:58.719
So one thing that I I I want to talk about, Malcolm gets the thesis of the film where he says, your scientists were so busy trying to figure out if they could, they didn't think about whether they should.
00:47:59.039 --> 00:48:22.079
And there is this this uh like long conversation with Hammond Gennaro, the the lawyer who's like, we're gonna make so much money, um, and then the the two scientists and the mathematician, where all three of the subject matter experts, basically, the non-capitalist non-lawyers, are saying, like, you're messing with stuff you shouldn't be.
00:48:22.800 --> 00:48:27.519
And I agree for the most part with what Malcolm has to say there.
00:48:27.679 --> 00:48:30.480
He's saying, You're messing with things you don't understand.
00:48:30.800 --> 00:48:32.880
You haven't thought about whether you should do this.
00:48:33.039 --> 00:48:35.840
Is this like, why are we doing this?
00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:38.239
Like you're doing this for entertainment.
00:48:38.559 --> 00:48:44.960
And uh, you know, everyone, like the the all the people who have expertise in the era agree with him.
00:48:45.519 --> 00:48:54.400
But one thing he says really bothered me when I watched it last night, which is you're standing on the shoulders of geniuses and you haven't paid for this knowledge.
00:48:55.280 --> 00:49:00.639
Um, making it sound like, you know, it was too easy for you to do this.
00:49:02.320 --> 00:49:18.320
And I think I understand what he's trying to say, which is that Hammond as a businessman used money to make playthings.
00:49:18.960 --> 00:49:20.480
I think is what he's saying.
00:49:21.679 --> 00:49:30.480
But what it sounds like is that to earn innovation, you have to start from the beginning.
00:49:32.079 --> 00:49:42.400
And you know, one of the things like that my spouse says all the time, which I think they must hammer home in engineering school, is like we stand on the shoulders of giants.
00:49:42.719 --> 00:49:48.159
Um, you know, anything we change is because of what came before, which I I I agree with.
00:49:48.239 --> 00:49:52.320
Like, that's that's how humanity progresses.
00:49:52.480 --> 00:49:56.159
You know, if we had to reinvent the wheel every generation, we'd never get anywhere.
00:49:56.480 --> 00:49:57.119
Right.
00:49:58.000 --> 00:50:08.079
And I think it was that scene is written in a way that is just not clear what it is that Malcolm is trying to say.
00:50:08.239 --> 00:50:29.119
But that really stuck with me last night when I was watching it because I was just like, no, I I don't have a problem with them using the technology that we have in the same way that a lot of like medical innovations came about because of horrible Nazi experiments.
00:50:30.159 --> 00:50:47.760
And so, you know, like okay, we we we're moving forward with being able to save people's lives because of these horrible unethical experiments, and we need to hold that and be aware of it, but that doesn't change the fact that we can use knowledge if we have it.
00:50:49.119 --> 00:50:50.400
I don't read it that way.
00:50:50.639 --> 00:50:52.000
No, I don't I don't read it.
00:50:52.239 --> 00:50:54.079
I hear what you're saying, and and I I agree.
00:50:54.159 --> 00:50:55.119
I think it's unclear.
00:50:55.199 --> 00:51:05.199
I mean, I think the thing that I'm hearing in the you didn't pay for it is the idea of paying one's dues, which is not the same as not using the innovation, right?
00:51:05.360 --> 00:51:11.599
It's sort of like like I I'm a karate ka, I study karate.
00:51:11.840 --> 00:51:13.039
I'm not very good.
00:51:13.280 --> 00:51:26.960
I'm I've been doing it for a couple of years, I'm not terrible, and like I learn from the tricks that my sensei teaches me, and that's fine.
00:51:27.440 --> 00:51:47.840
But I can't jump from day one to black belt, I have to pay my dues in the dojo and like make the mistakes that are mine to make so that moving forward I don't make them as I get as I progress down this path.
00:51:48.079 --> 00:51:50.239
To me, that's more like what it sounds like.
00:51:50.400 --> 00:51:55.920
Like if it in some ways like you didn't pay for it because you've got hundreds of dinosaurs.
00:51:56.400 --> 00:52:23.519
If you had taken one and done this and studied it and figured out how like where the things are that you're that you that you're not anticipating, and and see it like nip at a handler, escape from its escape from its enclosure, like the things that it then does, then you would have paid for the knowledge and you would have been prepared.
00:52:23.679 --> 00:52:31.440
They didn't pay for it because they went straight from zero to 60 without doing all of the incremental knowledge gathering.
00:52:32.480 --> 00:52:35.360
To me, that's what I'm hearing, especially from a chaos theorist.
00:52:35.519 --> 00:52:36.079
Yeah.
00:52:36.400 --> 00:52:40.880
As opposed to you should you have to start over from the wheel.
00:52:41.119 --> 00:52:57.360
Now that the Nazi knowledge that you're talking about, I mean, like that's a different, I think that's a different sort of philosophical conversation that that involves again, like, I mean, there's lots and lots of old conversations about this.
00:52:57.440 --> 00:52:59.760
There's this, there's a there's a question in the town mode.
00:52:59.840 --> 00:53:06.960
If you discover that a that a load-bearing beam in a house was stolen, how do you make compensation for that?
00:53:07.199 --> 00:53:07.519
Right?
00:53:07.679 --> 00:53:12.800
Do you owe the original owner just the cost of the beam, or do you owe them the cost of the house?
00:53:13.039 --> 00:53:14.880
Do you have to deconstruct the house and give it back?
00:53:15.039 --> 00:53:16.960
Like that's a much, much bigger question.
00:53:17.119 --> 00:53:22.480
I don't think that's what the Malcolm character was getting at.
00:53:22.639 --> 00:53:25.679
To me, it's more like you didn't pay your dues.
00:53:25.840 --> 00:53:31.360
I'm putting quotes around that, in terms of even this scientific experiment in order to get it where it currently lives.
00:53:31.599 --> 00:53:32.000
Mm-hmm.
00:53:32.159 --> 00:53:32.559
Mm-hmm.
00:53:32.960 --> 00:53:38.000
I like that because I I had myself thinking, like, what would pay your dues look like?
00:53:38.159 --> 00:53:39.519
What is it he's trying to say?
00:53:39.679 --> 00:53:43.679
And like starting with a dinosaur that's an herbivore and small.
00:53:44.320 --> 00:53:44.639
Yeah.
00:53:44.880 --> 00:53:50.239
And then do a and and then maybe do have a family of them, or maybe then do a a predator.
00:53:50.400 --> 00:54:04.320
But like to to go from like there are no dinosaurs to there is an ecos, there's an ecosystem with dozens of species, like that that that's they didn't pay for that.
00:54:04.639 --> 00:54:10.559
Well, and that that gets to, I mean, it's it's an indictment of capitalism in a lot of ways.
00:54:10.880 --> 00:54:11.519
Completely.
00:54:12.079 --> 00:54:12.400
Yes.
00:54:12.719 --> 00:54:16.559
And and I think that that I mean, I I yes, not I think.
00:54:16.719 --> 00:54:18.639
That was in the book.
00:54:18.800 --> 00:54:25.440
And in fact, they made Hammond a kind of twinkly grandpa type.
00:54:25.519 --> 00:54:28.880
Um, they there's a little bit of him being a bit amoral.
00:54:28.960 --> 00:54:34.400
Uh, like he has, he's not even remotely concerned about the uh worker who died at the very beginning.
00:54:34.559 --> 00:54:39.760
Like he just, you know, it's a it's a it's a hiccup rather than a human being.
00:54:41.119 --> 00:54:52.880
But in the book, like he find his finds his grandchildren annoying, and everything's about making sure that this opens up and the franchising and the I mean, like, it's it's all about the money to him.
00:54:52.960 --> 00:54:55.039
And you get a little bit of that in the film.
00:54:55.199 --> 00:55:09.440
There's a point where he is in the dining room talking to Sattler, saying that when he first came to America from Scotland, his first scheme was a flea circus, and everything was um mechanized.
00:55:09.599 --> 00:55:19.280
So there was, you know, a little seesaw, there was a carousel that moved around, but people come to see it, and the children were like, Mom, mom, I can see the fleas.
00:55:19.440 --> 00:55:21.440
Look, the fleas are on the tightrope.
00:55:21.519 --> 00:55:23.440
Um, and it was just mechanized.
00:55:23.760 --> 00:55:32.800
And he says to Sattler, like, I wanted to give them something real, and I created something real here.
00:55:33.679 --> 00:55:39.039
And uh that hit different this time around as well, because I was like, but it's not real.
00:55:39.679 --> 00:55:57.760
You know, you may have cloned dinosaurs, but they're not real, you know, these are these are extinct animals that you found a way to resurrect that don't have ancestry or descendants.
00:55:58.400 --> 00:56:08.559
They don't have, like, you know, you have to figure out how to enclose them, you have to figure out how to feed them, you have to figure out how to handle when they're sick.
00:56:08.880 --> 00:56:10.320
So they're not real.
00:56:10.559 --> 00:56:22.159
And in fact, there are fan theories, which I appreciate, which kind of get to the fact that these dinosaurs do not reflect what we know, at least now, to be true about dinosaurs.
00:56:22.239 --> 00:56:24.480
They look like what we thought dinosaurs looked like in '93.
00:56:24.800 --> 00:56:25.199
Right.
00:56:25.440 --> 00:56:36.480
And so, in the the fan theory is that Hammond didn't really clone dinosaurs, he created creatures using DNA from many things that look like what we think dinosaurs look like.
00:56:36.800 --> 00:56:37.360
Oh, interesting.
00:56:38.239 --> 00:56:40.000
Is actually kind of true.
00:56:40.159 --> 00:56:58.159
You know, even if you don't take that, even if you don't take that as like he was maliciously doing that, just in the what they were doing with the m the DNA from the mosquitoes and mixing with other DNA, like, that's not creating real dinosaurs.
00:56:58.239 --> 00:57:00.880
That's creating some kind of hybrid weird thing.
00:57:02.159 --> 00:57:05.119
And, you know, ultimately, and this is something I was impressed with.
00:57:05.199 --> 00:57:07.840
My 13-year-old said, like, it's it's a Frankenstein story.
00:57:08.079 --> 00:57:11.039
And that is that's what it is.
00:57:11.119 --> 00:57:21.360
Because similarly, Frankenstein goes nuts, or Frankenstein's monster, excuse me, goes nuts because Frankenstein refuses to make him a bride.
00:57:22.960 --> 00:57:38.320
And it's a similar sort of when you start playing God and deciding what gets to live and how it gets to live, it will inevitably descend into chaos.
00:57:38.639 --> 00:57:39.119
Mm-hmm.
00:57:39.360 --> 00:57:39.840
Mm-hmm.
00:57:41.360 --> 00:57:50.880
I'm thinking about it in relation to King Kong, which we spoke about recently with Professor Day, and like in some ways it's very similar, and in some ways it's not at all.
00:57:51.119 --> 00:57:57.199
Because I think the thing about Kong, in in terms of your distinction, what's real and what's not, Kong was real, right?
00:57:57.360 --> 00:57:59.679
He had a life on Skull Island.
00:57:59.920 --> 00:58:09.119
He existed independent of those who would exploit him versus these dinosaurs who who did not, who did not.
00:58:09.679 --> 00:58:17.519
So it's still it there is still a like you can't contain nature, and like sort of the nature versus technology, nature wins.
00:58:17.679 --> 00:58:23.039
There is still that message, but it's a very different sort of vehicle, which is kind of interesting.
00:58:24.000 --> 00:58:27.519
It's a very similar and different, like in some ways it's very similar.
00:58:27.599 --> 00:58:32.079
It's this giant monster, but in other, but it's coming from a very different angle.
00:58:32.239 --> 00:58:32.559
Yes.
00:58:32.800 --> 00:58:34.079
I guess that's the right metaphor.
00:58:34.239 --> 00:58:35.119
Yeah, yeah.
00:58:35.360 --> 00:58:36.000
Yeah.
00:58:36.960 --> 00:58:37.599
Wow.
00:58:38.079 --> 00:58:38.400
Okay.
00:58:39.119 --> 00:58:41.280
One other thing I want to mention.
00:58:41.679 --> 00:58:51.280
Um, and it's just because so in our sister podcast, um, because we took so long between episodes, I mentioned it in every episode for like three or four running.
00:58:51.440 --> 00:59:01.360
What um is my my pet pee about the fact that in a lot of pop culture characters who are not interested in having children end up having children.
00:59:01.599 --> 00:59:07.280
And I I really don't like the fact that we force that in so many cases.
00:59:07.519 --> 00:59:15.840
Um, something I find really interesting about this film and the franchise is that Grant makes it clear from the beginning he does not want kids.
00:59:16.000 --> 00:59:19.679
And that's part of like the a long-standing kind of joke.
00:59:19.760 --> 00:59:28.639
And part of what actually makes this a little bit feminist is that Grant is the one who is very uncomfortable with kids and is protecting them the entire time.
00:59:28.800 --> 00:59:39.119
And, you know, at the end, when they're in the helicopter on the way back, they're cuddling and falling asleep on him because they have like they've bonded with him over this time.
00:59:39.280 --> 01:00:03.360
Whereas Sattler has said, like, she wants kids and like kind of teasingly encouraged the kids to hang out with him during the tour before things went wrong, you know, saying, like, it'll be good for you in future films when they bring Laura Dern and Sam Neil back, they are no longer together because he didn't want kids, and she did.
01:00:03.920 --> 01:00:10.880
And though they had a loving relationship and cared very deeply for each other, that that was gonna be a deal breaker.
01:00:11.039 --> 01:00:12.239
And I appreciate that.
01:00:12.400 --> 01:00:13.920
I really appreciate that.
01:00:14.239 --> 01:00:25.119
Because it's clear that from this film that Grant is not like it's not that he dislikes kids, although maybe we yeah, early on it seems like he does.
01:00:25.360 --> 01:00:32.480
It's that he doesn't know how to handle them, he doesn't know what to say to them, he doesn't know how to like um deal with them, and he doesn't want any in his life.
01:00:32.639 --> 01:00:41.119
That doesn't mean he hates kids, it doesn't mean he's he's he's gonna be like a bad adult in a child's life, he just doesn't want them.
01:00:41.360 --> 01:00:44.159
And she does, and that's okay.
01:00:45.039 --> 01:00:49.679
So I think that that is admirable.
01:00:49.920 --> 01:01:16.480
That as much as I wish this franchise would not keep making war, um, I do appreciate that they uh they have that detail because the the way the film ends, it looks like, you know, and then off into the sunset and Ellie and Alan are gonna get married and have babies, and that's not what happens because reproductive freedom is reproductive freedom.
01:01:19.039 --> 01:01:19.360
Okay.
01:01:20.800 --> 01:01:24.079
There's a lot, so I will do my best.
01:01:24.639 --> 01:01:26.000
I'll do my best.
01:01:26.960 --> 01:01:47.519
So one of the things that I heard loud and clear is that this film corrects some of the misogyny and sexism that was very present in the book of the same name, and that was done in some ways intentionally.
01:01:48.559 --> 01:02:07.519
So, for instance, some of the lines that Sattler that Sattler is given to say, for instance, I'll talk about sexism in dangerous situations when I get back, and the thing about and then the dinosaurs killed man and woman inherits the earth.
01:02:07.679 --> 01:02:13.920
So she's given some explicitly kind of like wave the feminist flag dialogue to say.
01:02:14.159 --> 01:02:35.199
So that obviously wasn't intentional, but then there are other things that happened that maybe were kind of the product of circumstance, i.e., Spielberg wanted to work with this child actor who was a boy who was younger than the kind of lead kid needed to be.
01:02:35.440 --> 01:02:45.840
And so we ended up with the older child being the female child who was actually capable and smart and brave and not annoying as hell.
01:02:47.199 --> 01:02:58.000
Which may or may not have been intentionally feminist moves on the parts of Spielberg and the other movie makers, you know, as as a correction to what was in the book.
01:02:59.199 --> 01:03:31.039
We also get, and I think you are right in saying that Crichton did not do this on purpose, but we get some of the sort of meta lessons about bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom, since 100% of the dinosaurs are female, which the male scientists believed would keep them from reproducing, and they do anyway, uh, using their um skills from their frog ancestors.
01:03:32.960 --> 01:03:37.199
So I think that that that was an interesting piece.
01:03:38.480 --> 01:03:52.239
We talked uh at some length about the final words of Muldoon, who was the big game hunter subject matter expert.
01:03:52.639 --> 01:03:57.360
So, in some ways, he was the one most equipped to survive this.
01:03:57.920 --> 01:04:00.639
And he is outsmarted by a velociraptor.
01:04:01.199 --> 01:04:12.400
And when he realizes he has been outsmarted, he says this line that you repeat to yourself sometimes, clever girl, which is his final words.
01:04:12.639 --> 01:04:31.360
The the thing that stayed with you all these years later that continues to live in your brain is not the fear of, oh my gosh, this terrifying uh death lizard has outsmarted me, but wow, this terrifying death lizard has outsmarted me, which is really interesting.
01:04:31.519 --> 01:04:36.320
It's not the emotion of the like the fear which it the you know, which horror trades on.
01:04:36.480 --> 01:04:38.239
It's not about the emotional release.
01:04:38.400 --> 01:04:43.840
It really is about the character and the awe of nature.
01:04:45.039 --> 01:05:04.320
We talked a bit about sort of the the subject matter experts all being like, this is a bad idea, this is a bad idea, this is a bad idea, and the capitalist being like, Yeah, but we're gonna make so much money, and the ways in which Crichton got that right, that that feels like a lesson that we continue, we can continue to learn from.
01:05:05.760 --> 01:05:25.760
And corollary, or maybe kind of following that, you and I had a a bit of a an exchange around Malcolm's conversation with Hammond, where he says, you know, you well, he says the thesis, your scientists were busy thinking about whether they could, they didn't think about whether they should.
01:05:25.920 --> 01:05:43.840
And then he also says, You didn't, you didn't pay for this, you didn't earn this, which I think if we read that as him saying you don't get to use innovation of uh of previous, you know, standing on the shoulders of geniuses, if we read that as him saying you can't use the innovation of previous geniuses, like this doesn't make sense.
01:05:43.920 --> 01:05:44.960
And we disagree with him.
01:05:45.119 --> 01:05:59.840
But if we can read it as him saying, like, you didn't pay your dues, metaphorically speaking, to get this experiment to the stage where it is now, you jumped too fast from no dinosaurs to a whole ecosystem of dinosaurs.
01:06:00.079 --> 01:06:06.320
Dinosaurs, then it does make sense and kind of fits with the earlier thesis that we heard.
01:06:06.559 --> 01:06:08.480
You didn't think about whether or not you should.
01:06:08.719 --> 01:06:11.519
So that that there was a little bit of smoothing out there.
01:06:12.480 --> 01:06:33.039
I think there was also some interesting conversations about the ways that this movie, kind of in the meta context for Gen Xers, the ways in which you, as a 14-year-old watching this, like really in some ways received it with open arms because it was made for you.
01:06:33.280 --> 01:06:43.039
And so even though it wasn't one that, in your words, you wrapped around yourself as a piece of identity, it still is one that you hold with a lot of affection because it was made for you.
01:06:43.519 --> 01:06:52.880
As a 14-year-old moviegoer for a summer blockbuster, like you were a key target audience and that that just felt good.
01:06:55.199 --> 01:06:57.440
Um let me think.
01:06:57.599 --> 01:06:58.480
Let me think.
01:06:59.039 --> 01:07:08.800
You also had some things to say about the kind of the technology of the special effects and the ways in which in '93 it was seamless.
01:07:08.960 --> 01:07:12.639
Today you can see some of the seams, though it still, you know, sort of holds up.
01:07:12.800 --> 01:07:31.360
I love the fan theory about like this wasn't that it helps to explain the fact that these dinosaurs don't look like what now, 30 however many years later, 30 years later, we know dinosaurs actually did look like because John Hammond didn't care about scientific veracity.
01:07:31.760 --> 01:07:36.079
He cared about money, and that's what people expected out of dinosaurs.
01:07:36.159 --> 01:07:47.199
So he had a scientist go find like frogs and lizards and whatever to make to fill in the sequences to make sure we had a creature that looked like what we were expecting.
01:07:47.440 --> 01:07:51.119
That that feels like like brilliant headcanon, honestly.
01:07:51.280 --> 01:07:52.719
I really, really like that.
01:07:53.280 --> 01:07:57.039
What am I forgetting from our conversation?
01:07:57.280 --> 01:08:10.159
Um, just the the the experience of reading this book and watching this film, um, and ha after having gotten pushback from an adult about my disdain for the way that the care the female characters are written in this book.
01:08:10.320 --> 01:08:14.719
And like the here's the thing Michael Crichton doesn't write nuanced characters.
01:08:15.039 --> 01:08:16.720
Like that that's that's not what he does.
01:08:16.800 --> 01:08:21.840
He he writes like smarter than average airport books.
01:08:22.720 --> 01:08:30.560
So like you you put the book down feeling like you learned something, and it's not that you didn't, it's just that you're it's not as smart as you think it is.
01:08:30.880 --> 01:08:32.319
You didn't learn as much as you think you did.
01:08:32.640 --> 01:08:33.920
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
01:08:34.159 --> 01:08:36.399
So, which I I kind of know because Mr.
01:08:36.479 --> 01:08:42.399
Anderson, my phenomenal middle school science teacher, made sure we did learn.
01:08:42.560 --> 01:08:47.760
And you know, and I I believe that that Creighton understood all of the stuff that all of that.
01:08:47.920 --> 01:08:54.560
I'm not saying that, but you know, to make something that's a page turner and scientifically accurate and all that.
01:08:55.600 --> 01:09:03.359
But you sacrifice character when you're focused on plot like that and full focused on like interesting scientific thought.
01:09:04.079 --> 01:09:10.560
So to be fair to Crichton, none of his characters are nuanced, full.
01:09:10.880 --> 01:09:16.319
I mean, this is this is not uh the importance of being earnest.
01:09:16.960 --> 01:09:17.279
Right.
01:09:17.920 --> 01:09:19.760
Which also is what right.
01:09:19.920 --> 01:09:22.319
So I I'm actually gonna bring it back to karate here.
01:09:22.560 --> 01:09:30.399
So my sensei teaches us that we do these, we do these exercises that are ridiculous, that you would never actually do in a fight because they're so big.
01:09:30.479 --> 01:09:37.359
Like you make these like big moves where you're starting from from way back, like to do a block, like you start from way behind your head.
01:09:37.439 --> 01:09:38.239
You would never do that.
01:09:38.399 --> 01:09:44.640
And what he always says is we start really big in these big squares because in the field you have to cut the corners off.
01:09:44.800 --> 01:09:47.920
And if you start small and you cut the corners off, there's nothing left.
01:09:48.479 --> 01:09:57.760
And I think that's the that's what happens with female characters in Crichton and other writers like him, where he has to cut the corners off because it it's a page turner.
01:09:57.840 --> 01:09:58.800
We have to like keep going.
01:09:58.880 --> 01:10:01.840
Like the action and the plot is is the driver.
01:10:02.000 --> 01:10:10.079
But if you start with characters who are already smaller than they maybe ought to be, you cut the corners off and you're left with a cardboard cutout.
01:10:10.399 --> 01:10:10.720
Yeah.
01:10:10.960 --> 01:10:12.640
There's a there's a Reddit thread.
01:10:12.720 --> 01:10:14.159
I did some some research last night.
01:10:14.239 --> 01:10:19.039
There's a Reddit thread that's just titled, Has Michael Crichton Ever Actually Met a Woman?
01:10:21.279 --> 01:10:38.800
But my experience of feeling disdain for for the way that these characters were written in the book, and then being very pleasantly surprised by their characterization in the film after having gotten pushback from an adult who, as I recall, had also read the book.
01:10:39.119 --> 01:10:46.319
And I think I I I now looking back can see that that adult was like, well, I didn't notice anything wrong, so like she must be wrong.
01:10:46.560 --> 01:10:47.199
You must be wrong.
01:10:47.600 --> 01:10:47.760
Yeah.
01:10:47.920 --> 01:10:48.159
Yep.
01:10:48.399 --> 01:10:50.399
Um, it's val it's very validating.
01:10:50.560 --> 01:11:02.960
It was really I it it helped me understand that especially kids I think who are uh who are female learn you're doing it wrong.
01:11:03.119 --> 01:11:03.520
Yeah.
01:11:03.760 --> 01:11:08.159
And so often uh like internalize that sense of like, oh, I must have gotten it wrong.
01:11:08.399 --> 01:11:09.039
I must be wrong.
01:11:09.359 --> 01:11:34.640
And so that was really helpful for me to recognize no, uh that just because that person is an adult doesn't mean they know what they're talking about, and that's you know, this must have been bothersome to Spielberg, to somebody, to somebody, and like the fact that it was bothersome to a white male director was like, all right, I'm not just being oversensitive.
01:11:34.800 --> 01:11:35.520
That was great.
01:11:35.680 --> 01:11:41.439
That was that that was uh kind of a seminal moment in my my teen years.
01:11:41.920 --> 01:11:42.399
Cool.
01:11:42.640 --> 01:11:44.319
All right, that was fun.
01:11:44.880 --> 01:11:50.079
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