命は道を拓く inochi wa michi wo hiraku Life Will Find A Way
命は道を拓く (inochi wa michi wo hiraku), life breaks a way open, renders Ian Malcolm's life finds a way from Jurassic Park with the old idiom 道を拓く, where a fan site's Japanese has life only searching, 生命は道を探す. In Malcolm's sentence life does not look for a way; it makes one.
Abstract
命は道を拓く, life breaks a way open, renders Ian Malcolm's life finds a way in Jurassic Park (1993). It makes finds into opens, with 拓く, the land-clearing spelling of 開く; a fan quotations site gives the scene as 生命は道を探す, life searches for a way. 道を拓く is an ordinary idiom, in 700 books to 1946 in the National Diet Library.
Overview
The sense. A statement, life finds a way, in Japanese with no Japanese page behind the sentence, though its idiom is old.
The words. 命 inochi is life in a body; 生命 seimei is life as a phenomenon, the word a fan rendering used; 拓く hiraku is the land-clearing spelling of 開く, which the dictionary gives under the sense 未開拓の場所・土地などに手を入れて利用できるようにする, to break ground, beside 後進に道を開く, to open a way for those who follow [1]. The Japanese makes finds a way into opens a way, which is stronger and, for what Malcolm meant, truer.
The text in English. The English is Malcolm's line.
The historical record
1993. Life finds a way. Ian Malcolm's line in Jurassic Park is, in David Koepp's final-draft screenplay, I'm simply saying that life - - finds a way, his answer to whether an all-female population could breed [2]. A fan quotations site gives the scene in Japanese with the line as 生命は道を探す, life searches for a way, which is one rendering a Japanese viewer may carry [3]; 命は道を拓く, life breaks a way open, is a different and better Japanese for a wall, and 道を拓く is an ordinary idiom, in the Diet Library's index at seven hundred books to 1946 [4].
What is not a source. The line has no Japanese source; it is an English line put into Japanese, built on an old idiom.
Today. What a rendering must keep is 拓く rather than 探す, for what Malcolm meant.
A reading
The reading's one preference is for 拓く over the fan site's 探す, because life in Malcolm's sentence does not look for a way, it makes one.
References
- 「開く」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/開く-601707
- David Koepp, Jurassic Park, final draft screenplay. https://controlroom.jurassicoutpost.com/app/uploads/2016/05/JurassicPark-Final.pdf
- 映画スクエア, ジュラシック・パーク, quote 6. https://www.eiga-square.jp/title/jurassicpark/quotes/6
- National Diet Library Digital Collections, next-generation full-text search on 道を拓く, 700 books to 1946. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/