Life Finds a Way

About

"Life Finds a Way" is a memorable quote uttered by the character Dr. Ian Malcolm in the 1993 science fiction adventure drama film Jurassic Park. Online, the quote has been both genuinely celebrated for its profound nature and parodied in the form of the phrasal template "(X) Finds a Way" by the fans of the film franchise.

Origin

The quote stems from the 1993 sci-fi adventure drama film Jurassic Park in a scene wherein the character Dr. Ian Malcolm (portrayed by Jeff Goldblum) inquires John Hammond (portrayed by Richard Attenborough), the CEO and creator of the park, whether it is possible for the dinosaurs to breed in the wild, despite the staff's population control efforts by allowing only females to be born through the means of genetic engineering.

Dr. Ian Malcolm: But again, how do you know they're all female? Does somebody go out into the park and pull up the dinosaurs' skirts?

Henry Wu: We control their chromosomes. It's really not that difficult. All vertebrate embryos are inherently female anyway, they just require an extra hormone given at the right developmental stage to make them male. We simply deny them that.

Dr. Ellie Sattler: Deny them that?

Dr. Ian Malcolm: John, the kind of control you're attempting simply is… it's not possible. If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh… well, there it is.

John Hammond: [sardonically] There it is.

Henry Wu: You're implying that a group composed entirely of female animals will… breed?

Dr. Ian Malcolm: No. I'm, I'm simply saying that life, uh… finds a way.

Spread

On March 8th, 2005, Nature Publishing Magazine^[4] cited the quote in an article titled "Do you believe in life on Mars?" On April 22nd, an anonymous Wikipedia contributor added Dr. Ian Malcolm's quote to the Wikiquote^[2] article for Jurassic Park, though it was initially phrased as "life will find a way" before being corrected to "life finds a way." On August 19th, YTMND user Barenholtzd uploaded a site titled "Life Finds a Way,"^[12] featuring three still shots of Dr. Ian Malcolm and Henry Wu from the scene and a heavily distorted remix of the audio dialogue. On November 7th, SuperHeroHype forum^[3] user CF Kane shared a still-shot of a dialogue scene between Cecile and Kathryn from the 1999 American drama film Cruel Intentions paired with Dr. Ian Malcolm's quote from Jurassic Park in a thread titled "Mix Up Movie Captions."

Tributes

On February 5th, 2007, YouTuber Brandon Hardesty uploaded a reenactment video of the dialogue scene from Jurassic Park (shown below), which has garnered over 578,000 views over the course of nine years.

On February 20th, 2011, the quote was referenced in the opening scene of the Family Guy episode "German Guy."

Examples

On Reddit^[13] and Imgur^[6][7], the quote has been most often used as the title for "earth porn" images that show unlikely or highly improbable sightings of plant life spotted in extreme environments (shown below).

Derivatives

Keit-Ai Finds a Way

Keit-ai Finds a Way is a copypasta based on an original story that became popular in the /a/ board (Anime & Manga) on 4chan.

KyoAni Finds a Way

Kyoani Finds A Way is a phrase that has been photoshopped onto a picture of actor Jeff Goldblum playing his role of Dr. Ian Malcolm from the movie Jurassic Park during his now famous catch phrase scene of “life finds a way.”

Search Interest

External References