Jurassic Park’s Age Gap Between Ellie & Alan Was Inappropriate, Says Dern

Laura Dern’s Jurassic Park comments about the age gap between Dr. Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler highlight an awkward aspect of the classic movie. First released in 1993, Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park quickly became a massive hit as audiences flocked to see dinosaurs come to life on the big screen like never before. However, the human characters were just as important to the movie’s legacy. The film follows paleontologists Ellie (Dern) and Alan (Sam Neill) as they tour a state-of-the-art dinosaur theme park, which quickly devolves into a nightmarish struggle to survive after the dinosaurs escape.

Dern didn’t appear in 1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park but made a cameo in the third film, Jurassic Park III. In the first movie, Ellie and Alan were engaged in a romantic relationship, but the two characters disagreed on whether to have children. Ellie and Alan were no longer together and Ellie was married with children in Jurassic Park 3, although the two characters remained on friendly terms. However, Dern reprised her role once more in 2022’s Jurassic World: Dominion alongside original Jurassic Park co-stars Neill and Jeff Goldblum, continuing Alan and Ellie’s relationship.

What Laura Dern Had To Say About Ellie And Alan’s Age Gap

Unveiling Jurassic Park’s Problematic Romance

In an interview with The Times, Dern reflected on her role in the original Jurassic Park, in particular the significant age gap between her and Neill. Dern was 23 during the filming of Jurassic Park while Neill was a full 20 years older, with Dern pointing out the notable discrepancy after Neill says, “I am 20 years older than Laura!” Although Jurassic Park remains one of the most important and beloved movies of all time, it’s clear that not everything about Jurassic Park has aged well. Dern said:

Which at the time was a completely appropriate age difference for a leading man and lady! It never occurred to me until I opened a magazine and there was an article called ‘Old geezers and gals… Well, it felt completely appropriate to fall in love with Sam Neill. And it was only now, when we returned in a moment of cultural awareness about the patriarchy, that I was, like, ‘Wow! We’re not the same age?’ […] Our age gap in Jurassic Park was completely inappropriate.

Ellie is described in the original Jurassic Park script as being in her late 20s and Alan in his mid-30s, but the age difference between the actual actors who would play the parts was far more significant. The movie doesn’t outright say how old Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler are, but Ellie is clearly noticeably younger than Alan. Having been released in 1993, during a time when less attention was paid to problematic dynamics between men and women in film, it’s possible that the film’s producers didn’t realize (or care) that the age gap was inappropriate.

Alan And Ellie Rekindled Their Romance In Dominion Despite The Age Gap

Jurassic World Dominion Rekindles a Classic Romance

One of the biggest selling points for Jurassic World: Dominion was the return of the original characters, as Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler, along with Dr. Ian Malcolm, join the new cast to stop the dinosaurs. Jurassic World: Dominion gives fans what they want too, as Ellie is divorced, which leads to Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler rekindling their relationship, and they go on to live happily ever after together.

The 2022 movie was hugely criticized and has the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score of any movie in the Jurassic franchise at a paltry 29%, but the portrayal of the two characters was one of the movie’s biggest payoffs.

Dern and Neill’s ages were 55 and 74 at the time of Jurassic World: Dominion‘s release, which makes the age gap feel less jarring compared to 1993, as Dern was almost 30 years older than she was in the original Jurassic Park. However, while it wouldn’t be much of a problem if the two characters met for the first time in the 2022 movie, and though it marked a satisfying ending for the characters, the Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler relationship still had a problematic beginning.

Dern’s comment serves as an important reminder that even movies as beloved as Jurassic Park can contain elements that wouldn’t fly if the movie had been made today.

Other Big Movies With Similar Age Gaps

Classic Movies Like Silver Linings Playbook, Lost In Translation, And Singin’ In The Rain Have Awkward Age Gaps

Notable Movies With Big Age Gaps:

Age gaps are nothing new when it comes to relationships in Hollywood movies, but they’ve gotten called out more in recent years as something that adds a potentially problematic quality to the love story. There have been several notable age gaps in big movies that, despite receiving acclaim and popularity, are hard to overlook. Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper shared a charming romance in the Oscar-winning Silver Linings Playbook despite the fact that she was 22 and he was 37.

Jeff Bridges won his first Oscar for the movie Crazy Heart, in which he has a romance with Maggie Gyllenhaal, who is nearly 30 years younger than him. Age gaps were also very common in older, classic Hollywood movies. Debbie Reynolds was only 19 when she starred as the love interest to 40-year-old Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain. One of the most iconic movie romances of all time, between Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca, has a 16-year age gap.

There are some movies that don’t quite make these relationships romantic, but the implied feelings are still there, such as with Bill Murray, 52, and Scarlett Johansson, 18, in Lost in Translation. While time has brought more focus on some of these movie romances, like the one in Jurassic Park, in recent years, Entrapment is one very noticeable age gap that was immediately the source of talk when the movie was released in 1999. With the leads, Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones, having nearly 40 years between them, the age gap became what the movie was known for.

Jurassic Park

Huge advancements in scientific technology have enabled a mogul to create an island full of living dinosaurs. John Hammond has invited four individuals, along with his two grandchildren, to join him at Jurassic Park. But will everything go according to plan? A park employee attempts to steal dinosaur embryos, critical security systems are shut down and it now becomes a race for survival with dinosaurs roaming freely over the island.

Release Date

June 11, 1993

Runtime

127 minutes