How to Write Jurassic Park

How to Write Jurassic Park

by L.A. Zvirbulis

1 – The Inspiration. Visit a real dinosaur theme park and write about your fun weekend. No, but wouldn’t that be awesome? One can only dream. Seriously though, just write novels for about twenty years and then write and direct a few films and turn this one screenplay you wrote about a college kid who clones a dinosaur into a novel without a college kid that then gets turned into a screenplay. Tell your buddy about your new dinosaur theme park book so he can call dibs on the directing rights.

2 – The Genre. Thriller. Action Adventure. You are stuck on an island with a bunch of cloned dinosaurs and people die, so kind of Horror? Blockbuster I think is the official genre.

3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? Your free vacation gets ruined when the dinosaurs in the dinosaur theme park get set free by a guy who is upset about his paycheck. You don’t want kids, and of course now you are stuck with kids while trapped on this dinosaur infested island. It’s raining a lot. And Ian Malcolm won’t shut up about his Chaos Theory.

4 – The Fun Stuff. Dinosaurs aren’t just scary, they are also majestic. The first ones we see are beautiful brachiosaurs, you know, those tall skinny necked things that move in herds. They are graceful and peaceful, similar to a giraffe in a zoo. You see birds at zoos, and dinosaurs are just basically large birds without feathers. This is the part that would totally make you want to visit a dinosaur theme park. Also, we get to drive around in Jeeps and Ford Explorers because they paid to be in this film.

5 – The Device. A Tyrannosaurus Rex. The baddest-ass dinosaur of all time because this is the first film and we don’t need to create hybrids yet. Remind the audience that she’s a female, because all of the dinosaurs on the island are genetically created to be female. Our lady T-Rex is the “Deus Ex Machina” of Jurassic Park, the “Hand of God” that magically saves our visitors at the end of the movie. The ancient Greeks used it all the time when they didn’t know how to end their plays – a giant hand just comes from above and lifts the villain from the stage. This is what the T-Rex that terrifyingly ravages a 1993 Ford Explorer at the midpoint does at the end – saves the day by eating the velociraptor attacking our main human characters while the banner “When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth” gloriously falls behind her. 

6 – The Hammond. Mister Hammond could be considered the evil corporate villain in this story. He owns the park, pays scientists to clone dinosaurs, underpays his I.T. guy to run the security systems, uses a cane with a dead animal in it, and dresses generally in monochrome – all signs of a villain. No one would be surrounded by dangerous dinosaurs if it weren’t for Mr. Hammond’s little island and invitation to join him for free.

7 – The Jokes. Cast Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm and we don’t really need jokes. Make sure his shirt rips open at some point. Not a joke. Oh we can make fun of lawyers here, so put the lawyer on a toilet and have him get eaten humorously. Keep his shorts on, though, he’s not “going number two”, he’s just avoiding the children he abandoned in the car. He deserves to die. 

8 – The Title. Jurassic Park. It’s the name of the park. It also suggests that the park has dinosaurs, but it smarter than just “Dinosaur Park” or “Dinoland” or “Billy and the Cloneasaurus”. Jurassic Park has a seriousness to it, and our T-Rex skeleton looks so cute in the logo! It’s based off of the bones of the first T-Rex skeleton discovered by humans and designed by the same guy that did the Star Wars font and the Starfleet insignia for Star Trek. We spared no expense. 

9 – The Ending. Mr. Hammond dies in the book but survives in the movie. You finally want kids because that night you spent with them in a tree (not weird, I promise), which I guess you get to have your own kids with a blonde paleobotanist. Ian Malcolm proves his Chaos Theory and finally shuts up about it. The dinosaurs are left on the island to fend for themselves. And most importantly, we all look at birds differently now.

10 – The Heart. Life finds a way. It’s as if there’s a mass fantasy of living with dinosaurs, or at least getting to see them in real life. What is that? Anyway, it’s fun to watch, scary and exciting and inspiring. And I would still totally visit a dinosaur theme park, even knowing what could happen. 

*L.A. Zvirbulis did not write Jurassic Park. Michael Crichton and David Koepp wrote the screenplay based on the novel by Michael Crichton.