Just finished watching Jurassic Park 1 again.  I rented it for research purposes, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  It holds up oh so well...and is still a spectacularly good film, after all these years.  

For various reasons, I timed the film.  When they first arrive on the island, and at what point the dinosaurs go berserk.  And I discovered a rather interesting thing...

...the protags don't make it onto the island for 18 minutes.  And the shit doesn't hit the fan until a FULL HOUR INTO THE FILM!

Now, I'm not objecting to this at all.  It's a great, great film. And I was never bored.  But - I can't help but think about how this goes against so much of what writers are taught now in terms of structure.

These days, if a new writer were to pitch a spec where things don't go crazy for 60 minutes, I *guarantee* you that no studio would touch the thing.  (Or, at least the vast of majority of studios wouldn't.)  Yet - Jurassic Park's one hell of a classic, fun ride.  Not to mention the amount of exposition at the beginning of the movie.  Any unknown script with that degree of scientific discussion would be ripped to shreds by most readers.  Even if a portion of it *was* coated in a cute cartoon film...  

No, we're not all Michael Crichton.  But I'm just sayin'.  Food for thought....

I'm thinking, writers analyzing scripts is completely different than filmmakers analyzing scripts.

Why is Scriptshadow for example such a sought after guru/reader/analyst when he hasn't had anything produced?

Maybe I'm just getting tired...  

I think the fact that Jurassic Park is about dinosaurs in present day goes a long way. I know it's not 60 minutes before they put that out there.

Quoted from James McClung I think the fact that Jurassic Park is about dinosaurs in present day goes a long way. I know it's not 60 minutes before they put that out there.

- I was just gonna say the same thing. The concept is so huge and intriguing, we're prepared to wait.

I know - and I agree.  But if a modern day studio saw that in a spec script (and it wasn't put forth by Crichton and Spielberg) then they'd be INSISTING on having the dinosaurs go nuts by the 30 minute mark, and take out at least half of the exposition.    

And yes, you definitely know about the dinosaurs way before that.  There's the first scene, where the worker is eaten by an (unseen) velociraptor.  But you don't see the first live dino until 21 minutes.  

I think you get a lot of extra time when you adapt a novel of this magnitude into a screenplay. If it were an original screenplay, probably would've been pitched into the can by page 10.

I think they did a great job with it. The slow build makes it all the more intense. What's that say for the structure Nazis?

Two of my favorite novels, Frankenstein and The Count of Monte Cristo, have never been adapted well to film, IMO. There's just too much there.

Bringing in David Koepp to assist Crichton in writing the screenplay was genius. You could probably break this film into a 7 act structure easier than a 3 act.

As an amateur writer, I think you better just stick to the "Save the Cat" structure. I fucking loathe that book, but it has so many people in the biz looking for shit to happen on time.

James

I think this goes a long way in explained simply what we believe. We're told a whole bunch of stuff in some books, mainly written by poeple who produced very little, but somehow still know exactly how to write a killer script.

Jurrassic Park is unlikely to follow the STC regime as it was filmed 12 years before STC was published -- even though Synder and his ilk will have you believe they looked back on all these films to find the key ingredients.

Compare Jaws to JP - and you'll find similarities in structure, but neither fit neatly into STC.

Incidentally, this is a shortened version - Michael Crichton's original was final-drafted by David Koepp, which, I understand, took out a lot of exposition. Also, it is a little different for people like Crichton - JP was the sixth novel of his that was adapted to a screen-play - this wasn't pitched, and rumour has it that bids for the rights were going out before it was even published ...

Quoted from Forgive Compare Jaws to JP - and you'll find similarities in structure, but neither fit neatly into STC.

  I was actually going to bring up Jaws as a side note and took it out.  From what I remember, they didn't go after the shark until halfway through the film on that one.  Though - admittedly - I'm far more a fan of JP than Jaws.  But Jaws *is* still a classic, too...

Re: stuff like STC (and its ilk).  I'm coming to the conclusion that there's a difference between what makes a good "script read" and what makes a good movie.  Especially when the readers are professionals under a time constraint - burned out from reading too many scripts, and suffering from a severe case of ADD.    

Yes, there ARE similarities. and good rules to follow  IE: grab the reader/movie goer from the beginning.  Keep interesting things happening throughout.  Have characters that the audience cares about. Etc.  But the act of reading and watching a movie are too dissimilar to translate exactly.  Certain things that might come across as "boring" on the page can work as a suspenseful "slow burn" on film....at least in the hands of a good director.

Quoted from wonkavite I'm coming to the conclusion that there's a difference between what makes a good "script read" and what makes a good movie.  Especially when the readers are professionals under a time constraint - ...

... but more importantly, there's a big difference between a spec script and a development job. The majority of the market now is spec scripts, and it's a very competitive market, and I think that a good spec script is difficult to write - it does have to capture the reader early on and keep things moving.

As for writing a development job, this simply isn't true because you're not selling it to anyone (although someone else might be), you're crafting the idea and putting it on the page - the story has already been sold; so yes, you can get away with more.

Something that I thought was really interesting about Arnie's dubious comeback flick The Last Stand was what felt like very old-fashioned pacing. I didn't time it in the theater, obviously, but it felt like almost an hour into the film before the protagonists were really in the shit. That film relied on, oddly enough, character development building the stakes -- we know the big showdown is coming, and as the exposition and buildup reveal more about our characters, we're meant to invest more and more greatly anticipate the coming matchup. The main bad guy isn't so much an active force in the first half of the film as he is a ticking clock. And it felt very old fashioned, but I think it could have worked if the characters were better.

Also watched The Relic the other night, that Penelope Ann Miller one from 98 or something with the monster in the museum. That had a few people mauled by an unseen monster early on, but again, I think it was nearly an hour in before the actual rampage began. So again, they were relying on their monster being good enough and the anticipation around it being big enough. I think James and Col are right in saying the reason Jurassic Park succeeds (and where those other two fail) is that the premise simply holds the weight.

Another thing about Park is that it's a failed utopia story. So, even though we know where it's going, part of the film, and necessarily a large part, is experiencing the utopia as it might have been before it all crumbles to the ground. We aren't bored with just exposition, because we're experiencing the wonder of a new world, even if that new world is mostly just long sequences of exposition.

Quoted from Grandma Bear I'm thinking, writers analyzing scripts is completely different than filmmakers analyzing scripts. Why is Scriptshadow for example such a sought after guru/reader/analyst when he hasn't had anything produced? Maybe I'm just getting tired...

In the last week or so Scripshadow has given a 'wasn't for me' rating to scripts written by Sophia Coppola and William Goldman and 'what the hell did I just read' to a script by David Lynch.

What I learned?

Question everything. Especially the internets.

Back on topic, Aliens is similar.  How long before the first Xenomorph?  More than an hour?

I think its also important to keep in mind that the zeitgeist has simply changed over time. They weren't making films in 1993 and especially 1975 the same way they make them in 2013. Jurassic Park may seem anomalous to the so-called industry standards now but really, it isn't at all because it was made 20 years ago.  The Matrix too took the slow burn approach. That was only a year shy of the 2000s.

The difference between 2013 and 1975 is like night and day. They didn't even have summer blockbusters back then (Jaws was the first) and films were made for an older demographic who didn't demand instant gratification. William Friedkin mentioned this in an interview for Killer Joe and name-dropped The Godfather, Chinatown, and Taxi Driver as examples of what the 70s was about. These films were distributed by Paramount and Columbia. Films like that nowadays would probably come out almost exclusively of the indie circuit.

Times change.

That said, I think the difference between 30 and 60 minutes before the action starts in a script has more to do with how the industry and audiences have evolved and what current expectations are for screenwriters (in Hollywood, anyway) than what makes an engaging story.

Quoted from Heretic Another thing about Park is that it's a failed utopia story. So, even though we know where it's going, part of the film, and necessarily a large part, is experiencing the utopia as it might have been before it all crumbles to the ground. We aren't bored with just exposition, because we're experiencing the wonder of a new world, even if that new world is mostly just long sequences of exposition.

Also agree with this.

Quoted from Heretic Another thing about Park is that it's a failed utopia story.

The selling point at the time was the CGI, and big fat monsters. But what kept it selling was the layers it had to it - and I think this is one of the problems with STC - it's like a plastic identi-kit, one-size-fits-all, that (purportedly) makes it  easy for everyone to write 'that killer script'.

Very similar structure in Jaws and JP.  The opening, shocking death scene.  The authority figures who just don't "get" the danger that they're in.  The intellectual (Goldblum/Dreyfuss) who tries to warn them all.  The troubled everyman who winds up saving the day.

I think one difference to look at is how Spielberg first shows us the T-Rex versus the shark.  The T-Rex is this ominous buildup with the missing goat, the thudding footsteps.  In Jaws the shark comes out of absolute nowhere from the chum.  Tension versus pure shock.  Both techniques work beautifully.    

Glad to see some peeps are beginning to come to their senses over the age old structure debate.

Structure will never make a bad movie great.

Structure can make a good movie bad, though.

IMO, you really shouldn't analyze scripts adapted from huge bestselling, "groundbreaking" novels.