Sorry, Alan Grant And Ellie Sattler Were NOT A Couple In Jur

They have a big passionate embrace though when they are reunited in JP 1.
Not a hey buddy embrace. No kissing but its still overly dramatic.



That scene with her talking to Hammond and eating ice cream.
Goddamn. That was so lame.


Spielberg shoehorned in a parenting theme--he did the same thing in the Lost World with Ian Malcolm and dialogue about him being an absent parent.

I never had a problem with them breaking up in the years between JP1 and 3. They always seemed more like close colleagues who happened to date than long-term partners.

Granted, I have some personal experience that may be coloring my perceptions, however I also always got the impression from their interactions in JP3 that it was the differences that were just beginning to cause fractures in JP1, that had finally broken Ellie and Alan up. That she wanted children, possibly to get out of the desert (esp. after dinosaurs are nolonger just fossils, thanks to Hammond) to work someplace with AC/babysitters, and to put the Park experience behind her - Alan didn't want children, he is meant to be out in the field with his hands in the dirt [like the guy talks about with Hammond in the first movie "he's a digger"], and he wasn't about to pretend the Park incident hadn't happened as he just prefers to act like it wasn't such a big deal as it really was.

I had thought, ever since the first viewing of JP3, that Ellie had finally given Alan an ultimatum (either blatantly or subtly) and he chose science/fossils/childlessness and she left to go make the life she wanted, just without him. Perhaps she assumed, as many do, that someone who doesn't want children will change their minds with time/age/maturity. Maybe she just changed her mind, having started out being as cool with a childless-marriage as Alan was, but after a couple years, she drifted into the "wants a gaggle of babies" category. Or, quite possibly, the topic of children/families didn't come up for a good long while in their relationship and then, somewhere after JP1 and before JP3, it came to a head and they couldn't put it off/deny/whatever anymore and they had to make the choice that they could stay together with one of them giving (either Ellie giving up on kids, or Alan giving into Ellie's desire to have children), or to separate and each get what they wanted just with someone else.

I was glad to see they were still friendly in JP3, despite romantically and professionally going their separate ways. A friend of mine likes to say that if former couples can be friends post-break-up, that they had never really been in love in the first place or they were still mad about each other and just in total denial about it. I don't happen to agree with him, so I was glad that they didn't make either party really bitter or jealous/petty. They almost seemed like high school/college sweethearts who outgrew each other, but ultimately still share interests, history, and affection so there is still a weird little friendship between them.