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Is the T-Rex a deux machina at the end of the first movie: A Defense

A fearsome beast or a deux machina savior?

I have heard others bemoan how the T-Rex shows up randomly at the very end of the first Jurassic Park movie right when the raptors have them cornered. They call her a deux machina, that is a common trope in movies where some big force inescapably arrives at the last moment and saves the day for the characters.

Whether something is a deux machina is usually subjective, generally labeling something as a “deux machina” if it goes against their expectations for the story and its themes and thus takes them out of the story. What I find interesting about calling the T-Rex a deux machina is that it really demonstrates the tensions between many viewers’ expectations of the movie as an action film and the fact that Jurassic Park is a really horror film. Based on this, it’s actually the second deux machina that no one talks about that I think breaks the story.

The major theme of the first Jurassic Park movie is that life/nature always finds a way. Life goes on because individual organisms are able to take advantage of lucky opportunities/breaks that happen to come their way to survive. The ability for particular species to adapt emerges out of this. Through this, life itself continues on, expanding beyond any boundary humans may set for it. For example, being able to make sex changes because of the frog DNA used to make them was a lucky break that allowed the dinosaurs to survive, and the electric outage was another that the T-Rex took advantage of to remake its world.

With this theme in mind, the characters spend the final act of the movie desperately trying to survive the coming advance of life/nature, specifically the raptors hunting them. The central question is whether they can use their human ingenuity and tools to stop this advancement, and the answer is no. No matter what they do (using a gun, locking the door, escaping through the vent, etc.), the raptors still continue to surround them. It’s all over. That’s when the T-rex comes in, causing the raptors to fight the T-rex, allowing the main cast of characters to escape.

This moment demonstrates the movie’s central theme about nature. Can they use their ingenuity, skills, and technology as humans to survive against nature’s ascension? No, they are ultimately subject to the whims of nature for their very survival. This conclusion to the fight illustrates the final dominance of nature over humanity. The sudden lucky break the T-Rex presents still reinforces this theme. Their only hope for survival lies in a lucky break presented by nature that they must take advantage of, and they do, using it to flee. Just like every other species, their only hope for survival lies in taking advantage of a lucky break.

This differs from regular deux machinas. A typical deux machina is a problem because it undermines the story’s themes by providing lucky coincidences or some overly powerful saving character, technology, or other entity as the reason the characters succeed. Did love save the day, or the grit of persevering, or whatever other central theme the story is based on? No, it was the divine superhero who showed up out of nowhere and fixed the problem. Whether the T-Rex came or not, they are completely subject to nature in that final moment. Thus, surviving based on a lucky draw from nature only reinforces that theme.

The deux machina in the next scene is the bigger problem, since it undermines the theme: the wealthy billionaire somehow arrives outside, with no dinosaurs around, ready with a helicopter to whisk them away to safety. (And for that matter, if he was out there in a car, why didn’t the T-Rex eat him and Malcom in an open convertible before coming into the building? They were easier prey presumably right where the T-Rex was right before.)

The implication of the theme of being subject to the whims of nature is that sure, they survived a few more moments, but they are forever trapped by this new emerging world. The dinosaurs are taking over the island, and outside there are endless more threats for them, whether that be other raptors or some other threat. The best they can hope for are lucky breaks, but you can’t expect that each time. But instead, the billionaire arrives and magically whisks away to the safe human world far away from this nightmare.

This gets to the heart of the tension as to what genre this movie is. In the US, people often categorize Jurassic Park as an action movie, and action as a genre tends to run counter to fatalistic themes. Action movies, at their core, center on how humans can develop and use their skills to surmount improbable odds and achieve success. This makes them inherently achievement-oriented, with viewers expecting the main characters to use their grit and skills to win the day. Hence, in such movies, a coincidence or lucky break being what causes success undermines the key theme of action as a genre and hence a deux machina.

Although officially classified as an action movie, Jurassic Park opposes this common theme of action movies. I would categorize it a horror film, which tend to explore how death is all around us. In the movie, in addition to being awe-inspiring, the natural world produces death. In these movies, survival is the key, but using one’s skills to achieve survival is always how characters survive depending on the film’s themes.

This reflects one of the major tensions in the movie. It wants to show how we should both marvel and fear nature, but it also wants to give regular people good clean fun. Obviously, it would not be as graphic as some horror films can be given that it was intended to be a family film. That’s fine, but horror films can still explore fatalistic themes in a child-friendly way (just look at the number of horror stories written for children).

Instead, though, we see the characters whisked off to safety. They wanted viewers to both feel the horror that the characters are now victims of the new natural world they accidentally unleashed but still receive the action-movie catharsis of seeing characters survive this apocalypse and literally fly into the sunset. These contradict each other and make the viewer feel cheated.

Most viewers blame the T-Rex as the source because they expect the characters will come up with a way to get out of their mess like a typical action hero. But if after the T-Rex accidently saves them, the group were still trapped in this hostile world instead of having the cavalry arrive to pick them up, viewers’ expectations based on action films would be firmly pulled out from underneath them, and they would have to confront the key theme that they are really subject to the whims of nature.

The Principle of the Five Why’s and How Can You Use It Better Listen to Others

The Five Why’s is a common technique among UX researchers and other qualitative researchers that has personally transformed my approach to conversations. UX researchers interview people all the time, and to understand what they think about something, they always make sure to ask five “why” questions about their opinion in order to get to the heart of their opinion on the matter. Humans often rush into assumptions and judgements about what the other person thinks, and this forces us to slow down and get to the heart of how they view the world.

Let’s consider a classic UX research example. Say you just developed a great new app, and you wanted to see whether people actually find it useful. So, you observe several people using the app and ask them what they think. The first person says, “I find it frustrating.” This is really useful information, but obviously, more details would help even more. So, a natural response would be, “Why do you find it frustrating?”

Say the person gives a quick answer like, “I find the interface confusing, so I can’t do what I want to do” or whatever their frustration might be. This gives you a better understanding of their frustrations, but you can dig even more. According to the Principle of the Five Why’s you should ask at least five follow-up questions about why (or in some cases, how) they feel the way they do.

This allows you to hone in exactly what their underlying needs and expectations are and how well your product meets those needs for them. Now, technically, not all follow-up questions have to be “why”. The idea is that like, “why” questions, ask questions that nonjudgmentally help uncover the underlying reasons for the opinions. For example, in this scenario, I may next ask, “What about the interface do you find confusing?” or “What are you trying to do, and how is it preventing you from doing it?” Both of these are not “why” questions, but they help orient me to understand why the person feels frustrated. Sometimes you have to learn some basic data about what their experience was before you uncover the next level of detail about why they had that experience.

I often use this principle in regular conversations as well. Too often people assume they know what the person is thinking and make assessments based on their initial judgements. Asking follow-up questions forces us to slow down and consider in-depth what that person is trying to communicate. After listening, one can still disagree with a person’s conclusions, but at least you will know why. In almost every situation, I have found at least some points of agreement even when I thought we had opposing, conflictual perspectives.

It also calms you down. In tense conversations, we often simply react. Maybe we presume they meant something hostile and respond in turn. This helps us survive threats but clouds our ability to empathize with others and reason through their ideas. Asking questions allows us to pause and reflect for a few more moments on what else might be influencing where they are coming from.

Feel free to try it in regular conversations, especially potential arguments or other tense conversations. Pause and ask a few “why” questions to understand the layers behind their thoughts before launching into your perspective on the matter. It will change the course of the conversation. Worst case scenario, by the end of it, you will still disagree with them just as much as you did initially, but often you will learn something and will discover a way to carry on nonconfrontationally in a way that involves both of you getting what you want. If you disagree, you have lost little by hearing them out and gained the ability to disagree productively since you now know exactly where the other person is coming from.

Now in every interaction, you don’t have to literally ask five questions. That exact number may not fit every interaction. The spirit of the rule is to ask follow-up questions that force you to engage with the reasons underneath someone’s impressions. For me, I often ask follow-up questions until it feels uncomfortable, until I feel my thoughts well up so strongly within me that I am eager to jump in. Then, I ask just two more follow-up questions. In the unlikely event that I still think they are totally wrong by the end of those two questions, I can jump in with my perspective. This slows me down and forces me to practice more constraint and helps me see a path to empathize and/or disagree in a positive and productive manner.

Seeing People’s Inner Child: De-escalating Adult Conflicts by Addressing Unmet Needs

Many adults still act like children. Some routinely; others only on their bad days. When you see someone lashing out impulsively or defensively when they argue with you, it can be helpful to step back and see their inner child to put their behavior into perspective.

This is not the same as agreeing with them: they still may be wrong. But seeing their tantruming inner child can help you understand what needs they feel are not being met and are causing them to lash out. This can be something you address directly. Figuring out a workable way to acknowledge and maybe address that need within the bounds of your own goals can be a practical way to get through the moment, especially when they are in a position of authority over you. This usually slows them down and helps deescalate the situation.

At the very least, it can help empathize with them. Empathizing is not the same as agreeing, nor is it the same as allowing or enabling any inappropriate behavior they may be doing. It is understanding their behavior enough to see the human inside, often a series of needs screaming to be heard, and confronting it directly. Even if your empathy is not safe to show in the moment or if they reject your empathy, empathetically acknowledging the feelings of another is about maintaining your own humanity and not allowing another’s behavior to curb your ability to acknowledge and address the humanity of others around you.

So, how can this help you respond? Others have spoken at length about how to use understanding to negotiate and reduce conflict (see this for example). One can use empathy to diffuse a situation by acknowledging their side, to demonstrate mutual self-respect, or if necessary, to set proper boundaries for one’s own needs.

Pausing to reflect on the needs the other has can help remove you from the intensity of the situation, which would help you form the nuanced response necessary. It can allow you to understand not only their needs, but your needs and develop an effective strategy for how to meet those needs in the moment. Often, when someone seems to come after us, our bodies move immediately into a reactive, defensive response. The perceived threat puts us into “go mode” and taking an extra second to understand empathetically gives us the space to pull back, assess the situation anew, and use both our emotions and reason to develop a better, strategic response.

Instead of launching, you pause and force yourself to think about it from their perspective, sometimes you realize aspects of your behavior that you do need to address. Worst case scenario, after you reflect for a bit, you still conclude that you are wrong, and in that situation, taking a step back allows you to help confirm that, and you are now in a better mental space to respond appropriately.

What You Can Learn about People based on the Questions They Ask

You can learn about some by the questions they ask. You not only learn what people think but more importantly, what people want to know about the world around them. This provides a window into who they are.

Here are a few common patterns of question askers to look out for:

1) Those who ask confirming questions:

When talking with you, these people ask questions to confirm what they already suspect. This can be a sign that they primarily resonate with their own past experiences.

Confirming questions are often close-ended, even yes/no questions. Examples might include:

“Oh you went to Italy. Did you like the pasta? I heard it was fantastic there.”

“Was that exam easy? I found that exam easy when I took it last year.”

These people expect a certain thing to be true, and only ask questions based on their past experiences or what they have heard to be the case. Obviously they may be wrong. For the above questions, maybe you found that exam difficult or did not enjoy or eat much pasta in Italy.

Habitually asking close-ended questions can demonstrate a retrospective orientation: they often consciously or subliminally are thinking about their past experiences, whether their own experiences or the experiences they have heard from others. Either way, their mental process for these questions often involves determining parallels from past experiences and using that to determine what must be the case for you in your situation.

2) Those who ask questions about facts

Another type of question asker asks about the facts or specific details of the situation, including the “who”, “what”, “when”, and “where”. For personal stories, their questions may focus on the details of the environment or on people’s external behavior rather than trying to understand internally what people were thinking or feeling.

Examples:

“What color was the car that cut you off?”

“What was the name of the town you visited?”

“What did she look like?”

Sometimes they can feel like detectives, uncovering the details for their police report. Sometimes a few of these questions can be helpful to understand to grasp what happened, but for emotionally intense experiences, for example, too many factual follow-up questions can form a type of distraction.

It can show a fixation of surface-level facts over emotional experiences. I often find these questions most frequently asked by people who are less likely to discuss feelings, preferring a more distant, action-oriented veneer.

3) Those who ask questions about feelings

Talking to this type of person can feel like you are talking to a therapist:

“How did that make you feel?”

“How do you feel about that now?”

“What was it like having that happen to you?”

In regular conversation, I find these less common than Type 2, but I still encounter them from time to time. They focus on how you feel and often seek to sympathize or empathize with your experience. I personally usually really enjoy these questions and frequently ask them, but some who are not used to talking about their emotions may find it overwhelming. This type tends to want to focus on and understand your subjective experience as a fellow human.

4) Those who ask questions about ideas

This type intellectualizes pretty much anything you are talking about. A philosophical conversation about the theory or social implications of the phenomena may seem like their favorite kind of conversation.

I will often see people who do this abstracting the specific things you are discussing into a broader theme to then discuss the merits of in the abstract (e.g. “I’m sorry you got broken up. What do you think the ideal person would look like for you?”). Some people may enjoy moving the conversation into such an abstract direction, but sometimes, it can also detract from the specific experience you want to talk about.

Some may also generalize to understand the social implications of the specific topic at hand (e.g. “I’m sorry that you had that experience during your last doctor’s visit. How do you think we should change the healthcare system to help prevent that from happening again?”). Doing this can veer the conversation close to “politics”, which may or may not be a good thing depending on the conversation.

People who ask these questions tend to themselves be abstract thinkers, those who generally prefer thinking about more theoretical rather than tangible topics.

5) Those who do not ask any questions at all

When speaking in one-on-one conversations, this type is the easiest to spot. They simply stand there listening to when you are done talking and do not ask any questions at all.

This group has two subtypes:

A) Those who seem to prefer to not talk at all: They may not ask any follow-up questions. That can mean they were not interested in talking with you or about that topic, whether they weren’t interested in talking with you specifically or they do not like talking in general.

B) Those who ask one or two simple questions (most often confirmation questions of what they already think like the first group) before ending the conversation. They also may not be interested in talking with you, but sometimes I will see people who seem genuinely interested in talking about the topic but not be able to ask more than one or two follow-up questions about the topic. This can mean they are an internal processor and may need your help guiding them through what about the topic you two should explore in more detail.

C) Those who, instead of asking follow-up questions, wait until you are done talking (or interrupt you) and go into their own point or story. Everyone can do this from time to time, but people who habitually do this often are not listening. Without being aware of it, they think of themselves and their experiences first and foremost.

6) Those who ask open-ended questions

This final group can be the most interesting but also the most complex. They usually ask follow-up questions, whether about your feelings, thoughts, or ideas of your topic. Good follow-up questions keep you within your own thought process and prompt you to explore it in more depth, but sometimes people will also ask open-ended follow-up questions that seek to extend or move your point or story to a related topic.

Examples:

“What do you think of what he did?”

“How would you have approached that differently if it happened to you now?”

“How has your perspective on that changed over time?”

They often have a genuine interest in understanding your perspective, but these questions can often be the most complex to answer, since they require you to think through how you would answer them.

Where Are You From: Navigating How I Answer While Traveling the World

While traveling the world, one of my most dreaded questions, I get asked the most frequently:

“Where are you from?”

Where am I from? That’s hard to answer. I have lived in many cities: do I tell them that I was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania? Should I provide them with my legal residence? I spent the last five years living in New York City. What about there? Should I just say I am from the United States?

I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but internationally, your average person does not know where that is. I lived in Brooklyn for the last five years, so my most common answer is to say, “New York City.”

Oh New York, it’s the city that no matter where I am in the world, everyone has heard of, and some people I meet tell me they have visited. Everyone has an opinion about New York City, even in some of the most remote places in the world. They may view it as a spectacular land of opportunity they really want to go to (or have already visited) or as a dirty, crime-ridden hell hole, or anywhere in between this extreme, but they have heard of it.

Thus, saying I am from New York makes me familiar to them, whether they have positive or negative associations with that place. I find that it is easier to start there, rather than desperately try to explain verbally to someone where Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania fits on a map of the United States. Most often when I say I am from New York City, people’s eyes will light up; that’s a place they have wondered about from all the TV shows, movies, etc. about the city.

Most often when I say I am from New York City, people’s eyes will light up; that’s a place they have wondered about from all the TV shows, movies, etc. about the city. I can use that energy to learn about how they view the city, the United States, and the world overall.

I prefer saying that I am from New York City than that I am from the United States. The latter also puts the emphasis on the country as a whole, changing the conversation. I find people have different associations with the United States overall than New York City specifically. Sometimes even people don’t know that New York City is in the United States, but that is rare.

Both have had distinct brandings overtime. I find most people who know that New York is in the United States still don’t have the same associations when they hear “New York City” and the “United States.” And to be honest, in my current relationship with the United States and its history, I find the associations with New York City to be more interesting, preferring both to discuss that.

So, there you have it. That is how I currently answer the most complicated everyday question I get: “Where are you from?”

Rethinking Presentations: Why You Should Stop Treating Presentations like Lectures

During my years of teaching teenagers, I have learned an important principle about trying to teach or otherwise foster knowledge in the world:

When teaching, those doing most of the mental work during your lesson are the ones doing most of the learning.

By this principle, if you want to teach something, then it is best to put them, not you, in the driver’s seat. To do so, position them to do most of the mental work during your lesson.

For example, take a classroom setting. In a lecture, the teacher does the most work: talking and thinking about how to explain things. Students are left with the mostly passive activity of listening (sometimes with some mild active activities like taking notes). ‘

Thus, lectures are designed to teach teachers, not the students, which is exactly backwards from what is supposed to do. I remember hearing this from many presenters: the act of preparing and then giving a presentation teaches them so much about the topic than anyone from their audience will ever be able to glean from it. This is because they are the ones doing most of the mental work.

This is similar in a workplace environment: presentations are one of the worst approaches to teach anything. If you want someone to learn or reflect on something you yourself have learned, it might be helpful to pause to reflect:

How did I learn this material, and how can I replicate that process during the time I have?

What kind of environment or activities would work to have my participants explore the activity on their own? How can I produce that kind of environment?

These would likely give you ideas for how to make interactive lessons where your participants, not you, are doing most of the active thinking.

In regular conversations, the principle applies the same. If you are talking with someone about a life problem, have them do most of the talking or other forms of thinking. In my experience, too many people interject and go into a type of lecture mode when they sense they have something to teach someone.

Not only do you not always have something to “teach” when only hearing a few short sentences about someone’s life, but more importantly, even if you do have something to teach, asking questions to get them to think it through themselves is almost always a better way to teach that thing. As you ask questions and hear them out, you can get them to come to your suggestion on their own terms.

How Do You Come Across in Other Cultures?

As I was walking through the Changdeokgung Palace in Seoul, South Korea, I overheard a very interesting conversation.

A Chinese tourist and a Dutch tourist were walking in front of me talking (in English). The Chinese tourist was explaining the different types of tourists he sees from around the world:

“Koreans, they are often silent. They may not say much the whole conversation, unless they have something very important to say. For example, they may say one thing in the conversation: something you should do. They’ll phrase it like a suggestion, ‘You might want to consider doing this.’ Absolutely do it. Don’t let that confuse you. It’s a complete necessity. That’s why they are bringing it up.

“Americans, on the other hand, never shut up. They will constantly ask you questions, like they are interrogating you. It’s their way to connect with you as a person and get to know you. They’re trying to be friendly, but it can take some time to get used to. They love long conversations where they ask you tons of questions about their life.”

When I heard this, I was trying not to laugh out loud because as an American it is so true for me: I love asking lots of questions as a way to get to know someone.

At the end of the day, this is only one person’s take on American vs Korean styles of interactions, but as an American, I found it helpful to hear the perspectives of US culture from others around the world. They shed new light on my styles of communicating that I often take for granted. We can become so used to our way of doing things that we can easily forget to see it for what it is: one way among many.

Thus, when you talk with others around the world, feel free to think about how they might see you, and if you are feeling particularly adventurous, you can even ask how you come across. It makes a fantastic edition to add to your long list of questions.

(If you find discussions of people’s experiences in other cultures around the world like this interesting, please let me know, and I will be sure to keep writing these.)