- "Life cannot be contained. Life breaks free. Life... finds a way"
- —Ian Malcolm(src)
Dr. Ian Malcolm is a mathematician who specializes in a branch of mathematics known as "Chaos Theory". Malcolm is one of the main characters of the Jurassic Park franchise as well as the main Protagonist in the The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Malcolm appears in both novels by Michael Crichton. Malcolm serves as the mouthpiece of Crichton, who called Malcolm the “ironic commentator” on the action.[1] In the movies, Malcolm is portrayed by Jeff Goldblum. Malcolm also appeared in most other Jurassic media like comics, video games and toy lines.
Films
Jurassic Park
Ian Malcolm was invited to the park by Donald Gennaro as an insurance consultant as Donald apparently felt that Ian, as a fiduciary, would be able to notice any dangerous shortcomings the park had. On the helicopter ride to Isla Nublar, he met John's consults, Paleobotanist Ellie Sattler and Paleontologist Alan Grant, and travelled with them, along with John and Donald, into the park where he was stunned by the astonishing sight of a living Brachiosaurus. He then travelled to the visitor's center and learned how the dinosaurs of the park were created and watched an infant Velociraptor hatch. While his colleagues remained in awe of the event, Ian expressed scepticism of the Park's ability to control the animals they were breeding, and explained to his colleagues that "life finds a way".
Chased by the Tyrannosaurus rex
Ian later went on the tour through the Park only to express disapproval when none of the dinosaurs showed themselves. Bored, he took to flirting with Ellie, much to Alan's chagrin, while attempting to explain chaos theory. After watching the sick Triceratops, he returns to the tour with Alan Grant, only to have it break down in front of the Tyrannosaurus rex paddock. The T. rex escapes and attacks Donald's car, which Donald had earlier abandoned with the children inside. In an attempt to lure the rex away, Ian and Alan grab and ignite flares to cause a distraction, but Ian mistakenly keeps moving after throwing his flare and is chased to the bathroom, where he is tossed several feet and injures his leg before becoming unconscious.
However, Ian was fortunate enough to be hidden from the rex's sight after being covered in leaves following the bathroom's destruction, though the same cannot be said for Donald, who ends up being devoured by the rex. Alan escapes with the kids and Ellie and Robert Muldoon arrive to help Ian, only to be set upon by the Tyrannosaurus. Having put Ian in the jeep, they escape after a short but intense chase.
Ian is brought to the control room where he helps formulate a plan to restart the power. Ian is brought to a bunker where he and John talk Ellie through the process of turning the power back on. After the systems come back online, Ian and John drive back to the visitor's center to pick up Alan, Ellie, and the kids, all of whom then drive to the helicopter, leaving the island.
The Lost World
Malcolm in The Lost World
"The Lost World" takes place four years after "Jurassic Park". After the events of the first film, Malcolm attempted to go public about his experience on Isla Nublar, only to be discredited by Hammond's nephew, Peter Ludlow, who went to great lengths to make Malcolm appear insane to the public, resulting in the revoking of his University tenure. This is further complicated by Malcolm's book being an open violation of the non-disclosure agreement he signed prior to the events of the first movie, further damaging his ruined career. Despite these events, Malcolm managed to develop a relationship with an accomplished biologist named Sarah Harding. By the start of the second film, Malcolm is a shell of his former self, openly mocked in public and no longer expressing his beliefs in Chaos Theory.
Malcolm is eventually summoned to John Hammond's mansion, where an ill Hammond reveals to a shocked Malcolm the nature of Site B; a separate island where the dinosaurs were bred before being moved to the main island. Hammond then unveils his plan to send a team of researchers to the island to photograph the animals in their natural habitat in order to create public sympathy and discourage corporations, such as Ludlow's InGen, from profiting off the island. Malcolm, who is invited along, initially declines but changes his mind when Hammond reveals that Sarah was also hired and has already left for the island. Malcolm then meets up with Hammond's other men, Eddie Carr and Nick Van Owen, and makes preparations to leave for the island.
Upon arrival, the team immediately begins searching for Sarah using a satellite phone, and eventually find her following a herd of Stegosaurus. After a brief encounter with the creatures, they return to the trailer, where Malcolm finds out that his daughter, Kelly, has stowed away on board. He attempts to convince Sarah to leave with him but is interrupted when a fleet of helicopters bearing the InGen logo and carrying various automobiles arrive over the island. The team follows the new arrivals and watch as they chase down various dinosaurs in jeeps and violently capture several of the creatures. That night, they watch as Ludlow, who is in charge of the group, gives a presentation to his shareholders and announces his plan to recreate Jurassic Park in San Diego. He is interrupted however when Sarah and Nick set the captive dinosaurs loose from their cages, destroying the camp. In an attempt to avoid the chaos, Malcolm takes Kelly back to the trailer, and later, to the high-hide when Sarah and Nick arrive at the trailer with an injured infant Tyrannosaurus. However, after hearing the unmistakable bellows of the infant's parents, Malcolm leaves the safety of the hide and runs on foot back to the trailer just as the adult Tyrannosaurs arrive, and helps return the healed infant to its parents. However, the tyrannosaurs remain unimpressed and, seeing the trailer and its inhabitants as a threat, promptly push the trailer until it hovers precariously over a cliff. After barely saving Sarah from falling, Malcolm and Nick are rescued by Eddie who, in the process, is devoured by the Tyrannosaurs.
The three are then helped back onto the cliff by Roland Tembo, who is in charge of Ludlow's team. With all of InGen's equipment and automobiles destroyed, Roland decides that an uneasy alliance is the best method for escaping the island. Reunited with Kelly, Malcolm and his team agree to trek to the destroyed facility at the island's center. Along the way, Malcolm attempts to coerce Ludlow into realizing the error of his ways, but is unsuccessful. That night, the team is set upon by the tyrannosaurs, who followed the smell of the infant T.rex's blood on Sarah's jacket. The team is separated in the chaos, with most of them being chased in a massive stampede to a waterfall. Malcolm, Sarah, Kelly, and Nick end up separated from the InGen group, who are ambushed by Velociraptors in the long grass surrounding the facility. The four make it through the grass unharmed, but Ian is briefly hurt and Nick goes on ahead to call for help. Eventually Ian, Sarah, and Kelly follow, only to be attacked by three raptors. They eventually escape the compound where they board a helicopter that Nick called in, departing the island for good.
Unfortunately however, their troubles are not yet over as they eventually find that Tembo has tranquilized the
buck Tyrannosaur and the team are bringing it back to the mainland. Ian and Sarah try to visit the dock where Ludlow is holding a press conference when the freighter holding the animal suddenly crashes through the dock, releasing the Rex. As the animal goes on a rampage through San Diego, Malcolm and Harding drive to the site of the new Park and retrieve the infant. They then find the father and lure him away using the infant. After a brief chase, they bring the animals back to the freighter and drop the infant in the cargo bay, where it is followed by a greedy Ludlow, as well as the adult rex, who mutilates Ludlow with the infant finishing the process of executing him. Malcolm then re-boards the ship and closes the cargo bay, locking the beast inside.
In the aftermath, Malcolm is last seen resting on his couch with Sarah, while Kelly watches a news program showing the freighter returning to the island. The public finds out that Malcolm was telling the truth and his reputation is restored.
Jurassic Park III
Dr. Malcolm is mentioned by Alan Grant and Eric Kirby in a conversation. Eric disliked the book Malcolm had published, calling him "preachy" and "high on himself". Eric also states that Malcolm talked too much about "chaos". Alan smiled and remarked "that's two things we have in common", though his tone indicates he is not being entirely serious.
Jurassic World
After Zara had collected Claire Dearing's nephews, she briefly read one of Malcolm's books, during their trip to the hotel. Another one of his
Ian's book in Jurassic World .
books is seen inside the Control Room.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
- "These creatures were here before us and if we're not careful they're going to be here after. We're going to have to adjust to new threats we can't even imagine. We've entered a new era. Welcome, to Jurassic World."
- —Ian Malcolm (src)
Ian Malcolm appears for the first time testifying before a congressional committee. He talks to the committee about whether Nublar's dinosaurs should be rescued or not, for him the dinosaurs should not be rescued because the humans have this great technology in their hands and have shown to be unable to control it.
Malcolm reappears at the end after the dinosaurs have escaped and now live in the world free, Malcolm says a new era will arrive and the humans and the dinosaurs must prepare to live together and then says "Welcome to Jurassic World."
Novels
Jurassic Park
Along with Dr. Alan Grant and Dr. Ellie Sattler, Ian Malcolm was one of the consultants who was hired by John Hammond to provide information to aid in building Jurassic Park. Along with Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler, Malcolm was invited by Hammond to visit his theme park on Isla Nublar and give his opinion on it. Malcolm was the most pessimistic of the consultants and was confident from the beginning that the park would fail.
Malcolm went along with the others on a tour of the park. When disgruntled computer programmer, Dennis Nedry, shut down the power in the park to gain access to frozen dinosaur embryos, he inadvertently caused the electrified fences to shut down, allowing the dinosaurs to escape from their enclosures. When the T. rex escaped and attacked one of the cars near its paddock, Malcolm, who was in the other car, panicked and ran outside. The T. rex then chased him and picked him up in its jaws, then shook him and threw him down. Malcolm broke his leg in the fall.
Muldoon and Gennaro later found Malcolm and took him to the Safari Lodge, where he was taken care of by Gerry Harding. He was administered morphine and spent the rest of the novel giving emotional rants about science and philosophy while attempting to help the others survive. His condition continued to deteriorate, and by the time the Costa Rican Air Force finally arrived at the end of the novel, he was assumed to have died.
The Lost World
The novel begins with Ian Malcolm giving a lecture on Extinction and Chaos Theory. Though he was declared dead at the end of the first novel, he explains that the declaration was premature. After the lecture, while he and Sarah Harding were having lunch, they were approached by a rich, pompous paleontologist named Richard Levine who wanted Dr. Malcolm to help him find a "lost world", where "extinct" creatures may have actually survived from antiquity. Ian refuses to go several times, but his curiosity eventually gets the better of him, and he and Richard set out to find Site B. He injures his leg once again during a T. rex attack but, nevertheless, survives and escapes. During this expedition, he called John Hammond a hustler, and that his only true talent was raising money.
Personality
Ian started out as being cocky, sarcastic and a bit of an annoying know-it-all, described as a "rockstar" by John Hammond. He had an audacious sense of humor, even in times of great danger, which was rarely appreciated by others. By the time of the second film, his personality had been dragged more down to Earth, resulting in his attitude growing more serious and cautionary. He also was shown in the films to be unreliable, and not realizing that people didn't trust him because of that. By the time of the fifth film, an aged Ian has grown very weary and less eccentric, though retains his sense of dramatic flair to prove a point.
Ian can be considered a voice of reason, as he was the first to voice his concerns over the ethics of resurrecting dinosaurs. Despite this, he eventually concedes to the fact his warnings were ultimately ignored, and has accepted that mankind has brought down it's own destruction by ignoring the obvious danger of toying with nature.
Family
- Unnamed father (mentioned in The Lost World)
- Unnamed mother (mentioned in The Lost World)
- Various ex-wives
- Sarah Harding (girlfriend)
- Kelly Malcolm (daughter)
- Two other children (mentioned in Jurassic Park)
Quotes
Jurassic Park
Dr. Grant: "We're out of a job."
Malcolm: "Don't you mean extinct?"
"God help us we're in the hands of engineers"
"Life, uh, finds a way."
"God creates dinosaurs, God destroys dinosaurs. God creates Man. Man destroys God, Man creates dinosaurs."
"N-Now, eventually you do plan to have dinosaurs on your-on your dinosaur tour, right?"
"See! See! I'm right again! Nobody could have predicted that Dr. Grant would suddenly-suddenly jump out of a moving vehicle!" [Ellie follows Alan out of the car, calling his name] "There's uh, another example. [chuckles] See, here, now I'm sitting by myself, uh, uhh, talking to myself. That's-that's chaos theory."
"When you gotta go, you gotta go"
"Boy, do I hate being right all the time."
"That is one big pile of shit."
"[Sarcastically] Remind me to thank John for a lovely weekend."
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, we gotta get out of here, now, now, right NOW!"
"Must go faster."
"You think they'll have that on the tour?"
"Yeah, but John, when the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists!"
"Yeah. Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn't stop to think if they should."
"[pounds table] You're selling it, you're gonna sell it. well..."
" [after hearing T-Rex footsteps] Its-Its an impact tremor, is what it is... I'm fairly alarmed here..."
The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Hammond: "I'm not making the same mistakes again."
Malcolm: "No, no. You're making all new ones."
"Ah, where you're going is the only place in the world where the geese chase you."
"Actually, it would put them at a very convenient biting height." [regarding the 'high hide']
"Oh 'ooh aah', that's how it all starts. Then there's running, and then screaming..."
"Mommy's very angry."
Ludlow: "Hammond's reach exceeded his grasp; mine does not."
Malcolm: "Taking dinosaurs off this island is the worst idea in the long, sad history of bad ideas. And I'm gonna be there when you learn that."
"Just fed? I presume you're talking about Eddie? Hey, you might show a little respect! The guy saved our lives by giving his!"
"They say talent skips a generation, so I'm sure your kids will be sharp as tacks."
Sarah: "Ian, Ian, slow down a little."
Ian: [glances at the pursuing Tyrannosaurus] "Um....I don't think so."
Ian: (to Peter Ludlow) "Now you're John Hammond."
"Hang on to something!"
Sarah: "How are we going to find him?"
Ian: "Follow the screams."
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
"These creatures were here before us and, if we're not careful, they're gonna be here after."
"Life cannot be contained."
"Life breaks free."
"Life... finds a way."
"We've entered a new era. Welcome to Jurassic World."
"Change is like death. You don't know what it looks like until you're standing at the gates."
"Humans and Dinosaurs are now gonna be forced to co-exist."
"I think... that we should allow our... magnificent, glorious dinosaurs, to be taken out by the volcano."
Video Games
Chaos Island: The Lost World
Malcolm appeared in Chaos Island: The Lost World, as one of the playable units in the game. He moves slower than the other characters due to the wounds he sustained in the first film.
Jurassic Park: Builder
He's one of the characters to appear in Jurassic Park: Builder.
LEGO Jurassic World
Ian Malcolm appears as a character in the video game Jurassic World. He can light flares to illuminate dark areas and solve puzzles with his mathematics skills.[2][3][4]
Jurassic World: Evolution
Ian Malcolm appears in Jurassic World: Evolution, with Jeff Goldblum reprising the role.[5]
Cameo
- He is a playable character in The Lost World: Jurassic Park (SEGA Genesis Game), for Player 2.
- He also appeared in the bonus ending of The Lost World: Jurassic Park (console game), which can be earned by collecting all DNAs in all of the levels.
- He is a playable character in Jurassic Park (mobile game), alongside Dr. Grant.
Toys
Ian will be getting his own figure in Mattel’s line.
Trivia
- Malcolm seemed to have died in the first novel, but in the second novel, it is revealed that he was merely unconscious and still alive, likely to correspond with the film canon, in which Malcolm survived. It also makes a note to state that he was only 'slightly dead' and a lot of press reported his death. It took about 6 months to recover from his injuries and he walks with a cane more often than not. It is also worth noting, there are only 2 (3 at a stretch) comments on his death in the first novel, all of which are characters points of view, more than reports of true events.
- The trauma experienced in the first film, and the resulting fallout from his public discreditting have changed Malcolm's personality drastically in the second movie, though he retains his sense of humor and sarcasm.
- Malcolm was to return in Jurassic Park III, although Goldblum dropped out from the film early, feeling there was no reason for his character to take part in the events of the film.[citation needed]
- Kyoryu Black of Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger (a Super Sentai series), Ian Yorkland is named after him.
- Malcolm's quote "There haven't been any visitors on this island. There's no reason for it to fear man." in The Lost World (novel) was later used by Robert Burke in The Lost World: Jurassic Park (film).
- Excluding Dinosaurs, Ian and Henry Wu have made the most appearances of any characters with a total of three films, as well as being referenced in Jurassic Park III and Jurassic World.
- In the official trailer of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Malcolm recites his famous "Life finds a way" quote, although this did not make it into the final cut of the film.
Gallery
Jurassic Park
Jurassic World
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
References
- ↑ Crichton M. (Date unknown) The Lost World. Retrieved from http://www.michaelcrichton.com/the-lost-world/
- ↑ IGN - LEGO Jurassic World: Hold Onto Your Bricks! (March 16, 2015) Retrieved from http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/03/16/lego-jurassic-world-hold-onto-your-blocks
- ↑ Mike Taylor Interview. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfCcY_1oejw
- ↑ LEGO Jurassic World, Entwicklerbesuch im Studio
- ↑ http://ew.com/movies/2018/03/13/jurassic-world-evolution-jeff-goldblum-exclusive/