Jurassic Park (1993)

Jurassic Park (1993) 

Rated PG-13 (for intense science fiction terror)

Starring: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Sir Richard Attenborough, Jeff Goldblum, Samuel L. Jackson

Have you ever heard the expression, “we plan… God laughs?”  It’s a quick way to remind ourselves (usually in the middle of a plan disintegrating) that we are not really in charge of any of this.  It’s not so much a problem of not having all of the bases covered.  It’s that however many bases we think we have covered, there always seem to be bases we’ve forgotten. 

Quick synopsis

A wealthy wildlife enthusiast has combined new technologies to create the world’s first cloned dinosaurs.  He enlists the help of three scientists, his investors’ lawyer and his two grandchildren to tour his island theme park before it opens.  His plan is that they should enjoy and be awestruck by the park’s exhibits, sign off on it, “maybe even pen a wee testimonial,” allowing him to open the park to the public as planned.  Unfortunately, the combination of a traitorous employee planning a heist and a tropical storm crossing over the mainland destroys the security of the park and leaves everyone fending for their lives against the hunting dinosaurs. 

(Spoilers Follow)

Dr. Ian Malcolm: God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs.Dr. Ellie Sattler: Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth.

This movie is full of people with great plans.  The first sequence of the movie includes a carefully orchestrated transfer of a very noisy (one must assume toothy) creature from a transport cage into another dwelling.  There is a voice of authority commanding the small army of men who are handling the transfer.   Whatever is in the box is smarter than its human handlers, though, and the plan goes awry.  Immediately, we are introduced to the idea that the best-laid plans can fall apart at any time.

That theme never really leaves us, throughout the movie.  John Hammond, the millionaire dreamer behind the Park, planned to wow and impress Paleontologist Dr. Grant and Paleobotanist Dr. Sattler.  His plan begins to fall apart in the helicopter, when Alan Grant can’t attach his seatbelt.  From there, the tour seems to improve, but at every step, his plans are disrupted by the actions of the three scientists.  Even as Mathematician Dr. Ian Malcom is spouting philosophy about the beauty of the inherent chaos of nature, the scientists refuse to sit back and allow Mr. Hammond’s plans to unfold.

Dinosaurs and man, two species separated by 65 million years of evolution have just been suddenly thrown back into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea what to expect?

Everyone else on Jurassic Park is making plans as well.   The tech guy, Dennis Nedry, has a complicated heist planned that he has timed down to the minute (nearly).   The lab scientist. Henry, has a plan to  keep the dinosaurs under control through the complicated breeding plan of not letting any of them be male.  The children have a constant plan in motion to put themselves in the attention of Dr. Grant. 

Plans are hatching like impossible Velociraptor eggs all over the Park.  

Outside forces begin to conspire to disrupt and destroy these plans.  It begins with a tropical storm moving over the island, which calls for an evacuation.  Then Dennis Nedry’s heist shuts off important security features all over the Park.  Free at last from fences and paddocks, dinosaurs begin to roam the countryside while Dr. Grant and the children flee for their lives. 

I'm simply saying that life, uh... finds a way.

Ruminating to Dr. Sattler, safe inside the compound, Mr. Hammond tries to pinpoint the moment where he lost control of the situation.  He believes he can see it, but Dr. Sattler shoots him down. 

John Hammond: When we have control again...Dr. Ellie Sattler: You never had control, that's the illusion!

When we make plans, we tend to work backwards from ideas.  We have an idea, we fall in love with the idea, and then we try to make the idea happen.  First, we find a path from where we are to where the idea has become reality.  Then, we try to account for variables along the way. 

Even in the simplest system, we are not very good at that.   I have an idea that I may want fried chicken for dinner, for example.  To make that come to pass, I plan a series of events that lead to the capture and retrieval of fried chicken, taking into account variables that I can remember (where the fried chicken place is, where my car keys are, how to get from here to there and back, etc.) I do not, however, account for variables such as the wreck on the road between me and the fried chicken place or the grease fire that erupted in the fried chicken place’s kitchen.  Usually, when we launch even a simple plan, we have a great big scribbled mental note over the plan that reads:  “Adjust as necessary.”

John Hammond: Creation is an act of sheer will. Next time it'll be flawless.

Mr. Hammond, of course, was playing with much bigger plans, as were many of the other planmakers at Jurassic Park.  It is one thing to “adjust as necessary,” when a plan is small.  But the scientist who created the dinosaurs by combining technologies and taking shortcuts could not possibly have been aware of all of the variables.  Not enough knowledge about genetics exists to adequately predict anything about that process.  Naturally, he was as surprised as anyone to find out that the dinosaurs that he had engineered to be female were spontaneously becoming male in order to breed in the wild. 

Mr. Hammond’s vision was much bigger than that.  His included all of the moving parts of everyone else’s plans.  He tried to cover all of those bases.  He was constantly stating that he had “spared no expense.”  But of course, he had been very stingy in one area: reflection. 

You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it, you wanna sell it. Well... 

I don't think you're giving us our due credit. Our scientists have done things which nobody's ever done before...

 Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.

It’s easy to sit back and watch this movie and tut at John Hammond and all of his lofty plans.  We can shake our heads and say, “How could you have been so foolish? Silly man.”  But the truth is that we do this every day.  All day.  Some of our plans are simple.  (See above re: fried chicken.)  But many of our plans stretch out into the latest parts of our lives. 

We see the opportunity for a new job, and we don’t just imagine accepting the job.  We imagine being able to count on that job for as long as we need it.  Some of us even become engrossed in telling the future story of ourselves in that job.  We imagine accomplishing things, being recognized, being beloved for our valued work. 

The biggest area that we probably make this mistake is with our children.  We find out that a child is on the way, and we begin to make plans.  We imagine that child growing up, becoming who we imagine them to be.  We are startled when a personality emerges that is not the one we expect. 

The bad news is that we cannot possibly plan for all of the variables, because we don’t know them all, and we never will. The worse news is that even knowing that, we will continue to make plans.  Sometimes the “Adjust as needed,” just isn’t enough of an instruction to undo the panic and heartbreak that we suffer as a result. 

Dr. Ian Malcolm would have us believe that the universe is simply chaos, and that is why our plans do not go the way we expect them to. 

“Many are the plans in the mind of a man,  but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” Proverbs 19:21

The good news is that God knows all the variables.  There are some who believes that He not only knows all the variables, but that He has carefully placed each one to achieve a certain outcome.  This is predestination. 

Others believe that since He knows all the variables, but has given us free will, that whatever direction we stray, whatever we break or destroy, He will have everything He needs to put His plan for us back together, and will do so constantly.  This is prevenience.   

Whichever way our beliefs lie, the truth is that God has created every particle of this universe and knows all of it.  He knows each of us, not just who we are, but what we’re made of, body and soul.  Our will moves us through this world, but His grace continuously directs and inspires us through His plan. 

 “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord…” Jeremiah 29:11

So as our plans descend into what we perceive to be chaos, the adjustment we need to make is to hand our plans to Him.