Life finds a way and so do film adaptations. Join Emma and Greg to celebrate Valentine’s Day and Unnatural Selection’s third anniversary with the adaptation that both started their relationship and made Emma want to start this podcast—welcome, to the Jurassic Park episode! Emma and Greg get into the nitty gritty details of dinosaur development, blending lawyers and PR guys, and how sometimes making changes to characters based on who you cast makes things better, actually.

Content warnings for Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton include: dinosaur-related gore and death, death of an infant, children in peril, mild weirdly handled classism/racism, the folly of capitalism, and more computations than you’re expecting.

Content warnings for Jurassic Park (1993) include: dinosaur-related gore and death, children in peril, electrocution, and the folly of capitalism.

The book and articles Emma references in this episode can be found here:

Shay, Don; Duncan, Jody “Making of Jurassic Park” Copyright 1993. Published by Ballantine Books. New York

https://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/06/movies/film-visiting-jurassic-park-for-real.html

https://sffgazette.com/sci_fi/creating-jurassic-park-a-classic-interview-with-author-michael-crichton-a1296

https://abcnews.com/Entertainment/jurassic-park-turns-25-scenes-moments-iconic-summer/story?id=55332468

You can find Emma on bluesky @crabmoney.bsky.social and Greg on discord at Hamamelis. Unnatural Selection is a part of the Moonshot Podcast Network. If you like what you’ve heard and was to support the network, you can become a patron at patreon.com/moonshotnetwork.

The music for this show was commissioned from and composed by Jake Loranger. You can check out more of his work at https://amaranthine.bandcamp.com/https://amaranthine.bandcamp.com

Become a very technical boy with Emma and CJ as they break down how on Earth a $1.5 million pitch for a film of William Gibson’s short story Johnny Mnemonic became a $30 million Hollywood flick starring Keanu Reeves. They get into Gibson and director Robert Longo’s friendship, the fact a director’s cut does not really exist, and how sometimes editing is everything.

Content warnings for Johnny Mnemonic by William Gibson include: violence, cyberpunk gore, vaguely questionable portrayals of trans characters, and a junkie dolphin.

Content warnings for Johnny Mnemonic (1995) include: violence, cyberpunk gore, slightly more questionable portrayals of trans characters, memory loss, mourning the death of a child, an epidemic taking place in the early 2020’s (but not that one), and whatever the hell is going on with the Preacher.

The articles and resources Emma and CJ reference on this episode can be found here:

https://www.wired.com/1995/06/gibson-4/

https://www.wordyard.com/dmz/digicult/gibson-8-4-94.html

https://www.screenslate.com/articles/johnny-mnemonic-black-and-white-robert-longo-interview

https://web.archive.org/web/20070627074200/http://www.peak.sfu.ca/the-peak/98-3/issue7/gibson.html

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-05-24-fi-5524-story.html

https://legacy.aintitcool.com/node/5140

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/apr/30/johnny-mnmemonic-keanu-reeves-william-gibson

Smith PA, ed. Conversations with William Gibson / Edited by Patrick A. Smith. University Press of Mississippi; 2014.

You can find Emma on bluesky @crabmoney.bsky.social and CJ on most socials @nearfutures. CJ is a part of Sly Robot Games and you can find more of his work at https://cjlinton.com/ including his game Bring Down the House, which Emma loves dearly. Unnatural Selection is a part of the Moonshot Podcast Network. If you like what you’ve heard and was to support the network, you can become a patron at patreon.com/moonshotnetwork.

The music for this show was commissioned from and composed by Jake Loranger. You can check out more of his work at https://amaranthine.bandcamp.com

Journey forward to the year 2035 and take a trip to Chicago with Emma and Dominique to figure out just what all the robots are up to these days. These two read the quintessential robot sci-text I, Robot by Isaac Asimov and do a bit of their own puzzle solving to figure out just how this series of short conundrums with the three laws of robotics became a Will Smith cop action movie in 2004. Get real deep into the concept of robots as a metaphor, grounded near-future tech, and egregious product placement in this month’s Unnatural Selection. Content warnings for I, Robot by Isaac Asimov include: space religion, robotic puzzles, cave-ins, being trapped on an asteroids, being separated from your robot caregiver, and dying (but only for a little bit). Content warnings for I, Robot (2004) include: standard action-movie violence, drowning of a child, car accidents, robot racism, uncanny valley special effects, and an absolutely absurd price for two beers. The articles Emma references in this article can be found here: https://www.screenwritersutopia.com/article/d19127d8 https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/i-robot-movie-writer-interview-jeff-vintar-talks-isaac-asimov-ties https://variety.com/2025/film/news/alan-tudyk-i-robot-test-screenings-will-smith-1236486844/ You can find Emma on bluesky @crabmoney.bsky.social and Dominique on most socials @DomSDickey. You can find places to read their writing at https://dominiquedickey.com/ or through Neon Hemlock press for their novella Redundancies and Potentials. Unnatural Selection is a part of the Moonshot Podcast Network. If you like what you’ve heard and was to support the network, you can become a patron at patreon.com/moonshotnetwork. The music for this show was commissioned from and composed by Jake Loranger. You can check out more of his work at https://amaranthine.bandcamp.com