The 3-Act Paradigm at Work: Jurassic Park
written by Michael Crichton and David Koepp
The structure below is an analysis of the movie
itself. It is instructive to compare this (as noted below) to the version
of the script available on the Internet, which is a first rewrite.
What I suggest you do with each of the movies that are analyzed by me is to
rent them, print out this sheet, and follow along, watching for the major structural
moments.
- The Hook (1 min.)
- Jurassic Park worker eaten alive by a mysterious caged animal.
- Complication (3 min.)
- Lawyer arrives to investigate JP - is it safe to open to public?
- Hero's call to action (10 min.)
- Head of JP hires hero and girlfriend to visit JP - and endorse it.
- Plot point: Act I (20 min.)
- Hero and girlfriend visit JP - and find live dinosaurs roaming freely.
- Plot point: midpoint (62 min.)
- Predators at JP escape during a storm.
- Plot point: Act II (92 min.)
- All power at JP shut down in order to reboot computer system - no security.
- Climax & Resolution (117 min.)
- Everyone escapes by helicopter: JP is not endorsed.
Big Sequences
Another way to look at screenplay structure is to look at a movie as several
big moments linked together by narrative. These sequences build in intensity.
The big moments in Jurassic Park are:
- The first escape of the predators during a storm (62 min.)
- Power shutdown: hero and kids climbing power lines at same time
hero's girlfriend is preparing to turn the power back on (100 min.)
- Kids stalked by predators in kitchen (107 min.)
Notes
Before we leave Jurassic Park, here are some other things worth noting:
- Repetitive themes:
- It's established early (9 min.) that there is an
issue between the hero and his girlfriend regarding kids - she likes them,
he doesn't. This is developed through the story. At first, the grandkids of
the antagonist aren't appreciated by the hero - but he ends up rescuing them
once the predators are on the loose. At one point, we see him toss away
the gigantic prehistoric claw that he has used to scare kids. At movie's end,
the grandkids are happily asleep in the hero's lap on the helicopter, and we
see a knowing look between the hero and girlfriend. Yep, folks, they are
going to raise a family! But the bottom line is: this works.
- The ticking clock:
- A great device that is used effectively in
this movie. When the JP computer guy is escaping, trying to get through the
storm to deliver stolen embryos, he is racing the bad weather and the
clock. When the hero and kids are scaling the electrical fence at the same
time the girlfriend is going through the procedures to reboot the power, we
can feel the tension of the ticking clock. A ticking clock really keeps the audience on
the edge of its seat.
- Humanizing the antagonist:
- In some movies, the more evil the bad
guy, the better; in others, a softer antagonist is more human. Here, the head
of JP is softened, first by introducing his grandkids, and later when we
learn about his past in developing a flea circus.
- The extraordinary world:
- Some gurus insist that in some sense a
movie is always about a hero's journey from an ordinary to extraordinary world,
and there's a sense in which this is usually true - which is to say, something
happens to draw the hero out of his/her usual routine. Here, however, the
extraordinary world is truly magical, a theme part where prehistoric animals
have been cloned back to life, and we are hooked by the wonder of it all.
Notice how much time passes between the first plot point and midpoint plot
point - 42 minutes, which is a long time - and this works because of the
magical quality of Jurassic Park, which rivets our interest.
- The hero's goal:
- I think the structural weakness of this movie is
in defining the hero's goal. He is a paleontologist, his life devoted to the
study of dinosaurs, so naturally a place like JP appeals to him. He is being
asked to endorse it, and we see the moral conflict he has in doing this. Still,
the "quest of the hero" is a bit murky here, which again the wonder of the
backdrop distracts us from. In a less exotic setting, I think this weakness
would have hurt the movie.
[BACK TO TEXT]
MODULE 4:
SCREENWRIGHT: the craft of screenwriting
8/97