6/5/11

What if the lunch scene in Jurassic Park were a Post Modern critique of the writing process?

IAN: Don't you see the danger in what you're doing here? Entertainment is the most awesome force ever produced by man's historical progression, and you wield it like a kid who's found his dad's dictionary.

Gennero: It's hardly appropriate to start hurling generalizations before...

Ian: The problem with your entertainment is that it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge yourselves, so you didn't take any thought for the historical relevancy. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses and before you knew what you had, you patented it, packaged it, slapped it on a plastic lunch box, and then you sell it. You sell it.

Hammond: Give us our due credit! Post modern art has done things no one could do before. 

Ian: People like Pyncheon were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think about whether they should! 

Hammond: Epic poetry. Epic Poems are on the verge of extinction. If I was to create a flock of epic poems, you wouldn't have anything to say. 

Ian: Hold on. This isn't some outdated poetic form obliterated by generational stasis or ironic meta-art. Writing had its shot. Nature selected it for extinction. 

Hammond: I just don't understand this Luddite attitude, especially from a being who exists in space and time. How can we stand in the light of original creation and not act? 

Ian: What's so great about orignality? It's a violent, penetrative thing. What you call originality, I call the rape of the natural world. 

Settler: The question is, how much can you know about an extinct historical context and assume you can control it? You have books right here in this building that are poisonous. You wrote them because it looks pretty, but they are aggressive, living things that have no idea which century they're in and they'll defend themselves, violently if necessary. 

Hammond: Dr. Grant, if there's one person who can appreciate what I'm trying to do... 

Grant: Look. The world has changed so dramatically, and we're all running to catch up. I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but look: art and the narrative process have just been thrown back into the mix together. How can we have the faintest idea what to expect? 

Hammond: I don't believe this. You were meant to come down here and defend me against these characters, and the only one I've got on my side is the blood sucking lawyer!

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