In Jurassic Park, the island represents the interconnected nature of life on earth and the ways in which seemingly isolated events often end up having unexpected consequences. John Hammond purchases a private island specifically to avoid the oversight of regulatory or governmental bodies as he builds his state-of-the-art genetics lab. And Isla Nublar is, indeed, isolated: it can only be accessed by its one helicopter pad or its single dock, and the only regular transportation between the island and the mainland—at least before the planned opening of the park—is a supply ship that visits twice a month. Nevertheless, the island isn’t completely sealed off from the rest of the world. Telephone lines, radios, and modems allow park employees to place calls to Costa Rica or even the more distant United States. And, as the early evidence of dinosaurs in the Costa Rican jungles and beaches shows, it isn’t even possible to keep the park’s animals completely contained on the island. In this way, the island demonstrates the chaos theory put forth by Dr. Ian Malcolm, particularly the so-called “butterfly effect,” which holds that a tiny movement in one part of the world (like the island), amplified across great distances over time, can have an outsized effect on another part of the world.
Island Quotes in Jurassic Park
Gennaro was speechless. He had known all along what to expect—he had known about it for years—but he had somehow never believed it would happen, and now he was shocked into silence. The awesome power of the new genetic technology, which he had formerly considered to be just so many words in an overwrought sales pitch—the power suddenly became clear to him. These animals were so big! They were enormous! Big as a house! And so many of them! Actual damned dinosaurs! Just as real as you could want!
Gennaro thought: We are going to make a fortune on this place. A fortune.
He hoped to God the island was safe.
“You arrogant little snot,” Hammond said. He stood, and walked out of the room.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Gennaro said.
“I’m sorry,” Malcolm said, “but the point remains. What we call nature is in fact a complex system of far greater subtlety than we are willing to accept. We make a simplified image of nature and then we botch it up. I’m no environmentalist, but you have to understand what you don’t understand. How many times must the point be made? We build the Aswam Dam and claim it is going to revitalize the country. Instead, it destroys the fertile Nile Delta, produces parasitic infestation, and wrecks the Egyptian economy. We build the—”
“Excuse me,” Gennaro said, “But I think I hear the helicopter. That’s probably the sample for Dr. Grant to look at.” He started out of the room. They all followed.
Look, we’re not fools. We understand these are prehistoric animals. They are part of a vanished ecology—a complex web of life that became extinct millions of years ago. They might have no predators in the contemporary world, no checks on their growth. We don’t want them to survive in the wild. So I’ve made them lysine dependent. I inserted a gene that makes a single faulty enzyme in protein metabolism. As a result, the animals cannot manufacture the amino acid lysine. They must ingest it from the outside. Unless they get a rich dietary source of exogenous lysine—supplied by us, in tablet form—they’ll go into a coma within twelve hours and expire. These animals are genetically engineered to be unable to survive in the real world. They can only live here in Jurassic Park. They are not free at all. They are essentially our prisoners.
Yes […] Look here. The basic event that has happened in Jurassic Park is that the scientists and technicians have tried to make a new, complete biological world. And the scientists in the control room expect to see a natural world. As in the graph they just showed us. Even though a moment’s thought reveals that a nice, normal distribution is terribly worrisome on this island […] Based on what Dr. Wu told us earlier, one should never see a population graph like that […because it] is a graph for a normal biological population. Which is precisely what Jurassic Park is not. Jurassic Park is not the real world. It is intended to be a controlled world that only imitates the natural world. In that sense, it’s a true park, rather like a Japanese formal garden. Nature manipulated to be more than the real thing, if you will.
Ellie said, “You don’t think much of Arnold, do you?”
“He’s all right. He’s an engineer. Wu’s the same. They’re both technicians. They don’t have intelligence. They have what I call ‘thintelligence.’ They see an immediate situation. They think narrowly and call it ‘being focused.’ They don’t’ see the surround. They don’t see the consequences. That’s how you get an island like this. From thintelligent thinking. Because you cannot make an animal and not expect it to act alive. To be unpredictable. To escape. But they don’t see that.”
Island Symbol Timeline in Jurassic Park
