Evolutionary Narratives in Jurassic Park (1993)

Evolutionary Narratives in Jurassic Park 

Jurassic Park at first embraces a tragic evolutionary narrative in which human figures attempt to dominate nature as pioneer species. Jurassic Park, especially, draws on such a tragic narrative, but the decision its protagonist, Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill), makes to build a nontraditional family transforms the tragic pattern begun by Jurassic Park’s owner, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) and catalyzed by computer hacker and thief, Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight). Although CGI may have helped move stop-motion animation to possible extinction, Jurassic Park’s narrative demonstrates how community and, perhaps, family, might help us survive. Even though most critics see the film’s focus on family as diluting the ethical argument against genetic experimentation, we see this focus as moving the narrative beyond bio-ethics toward a comic view of evolution, an evolutionary narrative which might, as Leslie Paul Thiele suggests in “Evolutionary Narratives and Ecological Ethics,” “inform moral reasoning and facilitate the cultivation of certain moral sentiments [and] might legitimate an ecological ethic” (7-8). Thiele explains, “The point, as Daniel Dennett says of his own work, is not to deliver human behavior over to a ‘Darwinian science’ but to make sure of ‘merely philosophical realizations’ that can be gleaned from the ‘transfer’ of certain biological concepts to humanistic concerns. In the end, we do not so much discover values in nature as read values into nature” (8). 

For us Jurassic Park follows two evolutionary narrative patterns. The first is driven by a critique of genetic engineering and sees humans as only exploiters of the natural world, a theme many critics find diluted in the translation from novel to film. Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) and, to a certain extent, Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) initiate and push forward this narrative during the first act of the film. The second, however, which comes into play when John Hammond’s grandchildren visit the park, builds toward a comic view of evolution that sees family, accommodation, and adaptation as better responses to nonhuman nature. The last two acts of the film illustrate this narrative: In the second act Dr. Alan Grant transforms from child hater to father figure and protector. In the third act, the family unit is reunited, but nature’s life cycle, not human retaliation, ensures their survival.

They all succeed because of their community efforts. Sattler is able to turn on the power manually because Park Ranger Robert Muldoon (Bob Peck) fends off raptors on the hunt. Grandchild Tim is able to jump from the electrified fence because Granddaughter Lex and Grant cheer him on, and Grant catches Tim and revives him, so they can enter the park’s visitors’ center. Later Lex and Tim work together, as well, escaping from raptors hunting them in the park’s cafeteria. They escape into the kitchen and trap one raptor in a freezer before racing out to find Sattler and Grant. Once they are reunited, they all work together to survive. When Sattler cannot reboot the system to secure the doors and fences, Lex, a computer “hacker,” intervenes, rebooting the system and locking the raptors out of the control room. Lex’s hacking repairs the security system, and the phone rings to confirm her success. Ultimately, Sattler, Grant, Lex, and Tim become a family and, along with Malcolm and Hammond, escape the island by helicopter. The message of Jurassic Park is explicit here: By building community—adapting and accommodating—they have survived, so a comic evolutionary narrative can continue.