Remix in Jurassic Park

Remix is an important aspect in literature, as well as in the media. It is essential to be able to recognize the differences between the types of remix and what would be considered plagiarism. There are different ways to classify literature as remix depending on what the purpose of remixing it was. Using Jurassic Park as an example, we can see three of these remix classifications being used. The first classification is a collaboration; the original novel author Michael Crichton, a science fiction writer, work with the movie director Steven Spielberg to write the script for the first Jurassic Park movie. A collaboration is the act of remixing a text by working with the original author to create the new updated version (Lethem 60). Jurassic Park is also an example of a redistribution, which is the sharing or adding to an already existing text with the purpose of reaching a new audience, offering an updated message, and/or spreading a text further (Edwards xxxiv). When making the novel into a movie, the intention was to bring the story to a larger audience and make it much more popular. Considering the other movies in the Jurassic Park franchise, the third movie can be classified as an assemblage of the book and the two previous movies. An assemblage is a method of composing wherein a composer builds a new text by gathering, repurposing, and redeploying a combination of already-existing texts (Edwards xxx). The third movie continues the storyline based on the book, while also including scenes and details that were missing from the first and second movies. There are now four movies that were all produced starting with one original novel but progressed into something much bigger. By combining these three forms of remix, Steven Spielberg and Michael Crichton turned Jurassic Park into the huge franchise that it is today.