10 Screenwriting Lessons You Can Learn From Jurassic World

7. Don't Be Afraid To Get Technical...

It's all in the details. Aside from the dinosaurs themselves, the best thing about about the original Jurassic Park were its scientifically-inclined speeches (some would argue that these were the best thing). Take this now classic dialogue snippet, for example, one of many that have now come to define the core brilliance of the picture, courtesy of Dr. Ian Malcolm:

"Um, I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here, 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 for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now... you're selling it..."

There's nothing that even comes close to that level of dialogue-based awesomeness in Jurassic World, because characters aren't permitted to talk for more than a few lines at a time, before - roar! But if you're writing sci-fi, don't hesitate to get technical. Jurassic World attempts to explain things scientifically a few times, but always bails out - too scared to go all the way. But that's what's missing; when it's done right, audiences eat that stuff up!