: Study Questions: Week Three

Thrills from the First Bite to the Last.

Jurassic Park (1993)

Jaws (1989)

1. Why is it dangerous to spend the evening drinking and swimming nude? Is there a moral in the prologue of Jaws?

2. What does the billboard dominating Amity's beachfront say about the town's values? How does it echo Mayor Vaughn's attitudes toward the entrance of the shark? In what ways is he the opposite of Chief Brody? And how can one trust anyone who dresses like the Mayor?

3. In your opinion, does not seeing the shark until late in the film make the creature more or less frightening? Why? Why not?

4. What sort of hero does Quint represent? What does he have in common with No Name in Fistful of Dollars? How is he opposed to the heroism of Chief Brody? How is he opposed to the shark expert Matt Hooper? Do you see any significance in the fact that Satan has been referred to as "Peter Quint"?

5. What is the thematic significance of the mass shark hunt Why is it comic? What does it say about the men of Amity?

6. How do Quint, Hooper, and Brody differ from these men? What has their ability to face reality and work together exemplify this difference?

7. When the summer visitors encounter the shark, how do they behave (consider the adults and children in the water)? What is the dramatic effect of having a fake shark, a prank, introduce the real shark?

8. What is the significance (in terms of plot and theme) of the story Quint tells about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis?

9. What makes the final day of the chase so exciting? Consider the camera work, the editing, the imagery, etc.

10. In what ways could Jaws be read as a child's bad dream?

11. Jurassic Park opens with a prologue in which dinosaur is loaded into the Park with disastrous results. How does this sequence foreshadow the later events?

12. The main story begins with a corporate lawyer arriving on a raft. How does Spielberg use the shot visually to comment on the lawyer's character and shape our attitude toward the character?

13. When the scientists, Dr. Grant and Sattler, see the giant dinosaurs passing, they are awestruck. What is the lawyer's response. How does the Park's founder, John Howard, seek to reconcile these two reactions? And to what effect?

14. At the gate of Jurassic Park which resembles the gate in King Kong, the earlier film is specifically mentioned. What is the significance of this reference? To what degree is the film as much about earlier films as it is about actual dinosaurs?

15. Is there any reason why the huge piles of Dinosaur dung resembles the Devil's Tower in Close Encounters? Is this only a coincidence?

16. How is the fate of Dennis Nerdry (read nerd) the consequence of his earlier behavior?

17. To what degree does the visceral, visual thrills replace any real theme in the latter part of the film? Is the spectacle sufficient in itself?

18. Why do audiences laugh when the lawyer is eaten?

19. Even though all the dinosaurs are cloned as females, they manage to breed anyway. As Ian Malcom says, "Life finds a way." How does this fact comment on the ability of humans to control their environment?

20. Why does the scene of the survivors leaving the island feature the same flight of birds seen when the scientists first arrive? In what way might they symbolize the restoration of the natural order?