When the film adaptation for Jurassic Park was released in 1993, 13-year-old me thought for probably the first time, “This is cinema.” Big dinosaurs brought back from extinction by science and a rich, out of touch old man. It was a leap forward for special effects. The score was so memorable that it still gives me chills. And that cast. So meme-able before we knew what a meme was. A near perfect movie. A pop culture moment that sent ripples throughout movie making which are still felt today.
That said, it might come as a surprise that it was 32 years later when I finally gave the book a read. Michael Crichton’s novel was something I always meant to read eventually but never found the right time to do so. When I heard that the newest film utilizes one of the scenes from the novel that went unused in the original film, I thought now is the time.
When I finished reading the last page, I couldn’t believe the difference between movie and book. I’ve read my fair share of books which were adapted to film and am used to the liberties taken by filmmakers. I was not expecting this novel to delve so deeply into the horror category since the film stayed in its friendly PG-13 action sci-fi lane. I’m not complaining, nor am I upset. I am very pleasantly surprised especially since rumor has it that the new film is far more gory than previous films.
The story is essentially the same between book and movie. Rich man buys a private island off the coast of Costa Rica and hires scientists to extract ancient mosquito blood from fossilized amber so they can use the dino DNA to create new dinosaurs. John Hammond is as a child when it comes to his dinosaur zoo, but completely blind to the ramifications of what he has created. He brings his lawyer / investor, two paleontologists, and a mathematician (chaotician, as the movie version calls himself) to his island to be the first guests to view his dinosaurs. He even invites his grandkids, which was probably the second worst decision the man ever made. Do I have to explain the first?
What surprised me the most in the changes made from the book, at least character wise, was that Lex was only 8 in the book while she was a young teen in the movie, and a hacker to boot. Hammond’s unique ability to do the most irresponsible thing in any given situation is put on display by bringing that small a child to his unfinished park where anything and everything could go wrong and her inability to stay silent at the most dangerous moments put everyone in mortal danger. This also means that she is not able to bring the computers back on line, and that ends up falling to Timmy. And, oddly, Henry Wu who gives Arnold computer tips when he is trying to get around Nedry’s techy sabotage.
Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler are essentially the same book to movie, except that they have no romantic relationship in the book. They are simply a teacher/student archetype. Ellie is still tenacious, and Alan is still an old school digger who hates computers. Muldoon, the animal wrangler played by Bob Peck in those little khaki shorts in the movie, is a little less of a badass raptor hunter in the book. He does survive the last page though, so props to Crichton for that.
Ian Malcolm likes to pontificate much more in the book. Paragraphs long speeches about how science can show us how to do something, but it does not tell us if we actually should. Jeff Goldblum’s Malcolm used far fewer words when saying the same thing, and in large part, gave us some of the most quotable lines of the movie. Life finds a way.
Except for Ian Malcolm’s life for he loses his in the book. And it happens while we are out of the room, as it were. His death is told to us through exposition in the final pages of the book. I can’t imagine the movies without him, and wondered how The Lost World could happen with him still alive, and I don’t ever remember everyone being big mad that he didn’t die in the movie. Thanks to Google, he was only mistakenly dead, sleeping really, and Crichton kept him alive for the sequel book. This made his death less substantial in the first book, but that’s okay. I don’t like this character as much in the book.
Now I’m going to discuss Arnold who was played so expertly by Samuel L. Jackson in the movie that I could hear his voice whenever Arnold spoke in the book. I could see him through the words and even knowing he does not make it out alive, Jackson’s performance and the character’s penchant for smoking cigarettes resonated in both book and movie. I could not say the same for the lawyer, Donald Gennaro, who I never really liked in the first place. While he dies in the movie, he survives in the book largely due to the fact that the book has a character that the movie skipped. Ed Regis was the tour guide, and he dies in the book in place of Gennaro when the t-rex escapes. A forgettable character so its understandable that he be left out of the movie.
Which brings me to Nedry. Wayne Knight’s portrayal as the human hacking saboteur that brought down Jurassic Park in the movie stuck with me and I could see him in every single sentence of Nedry’s character in the book. Nothing really changes here, and he still dies after being spit on and eaten by the Dilophosaurus.
And then there’s Henry Wu, the scientist who made it possible for their genetic DNA manipulation of dino blood. B.D. Wong played him memorably throughout multiple movies, so I was shocked to learn that in the book, he dies. Eaten by the very dinosaurs he created. I’m reminded of how he spent the entire scene of the movie where they see the raptor hatch from the egg erasing things on his clipboard. Always erasing. Never writing. As if he knew subconsciously that creating these animals was the wrong thing to do. In the book, there is no regret. He stubbornly believes that they had complete control of the situation. That the dinosaurs would die without lysine. That they could never breed or escape from their island zoo. Complete. Control.
Of course, a few raptors do escape in the book. They hop on a boat headed for the mainland and Alan, who witnessed this whilst they were on their tour, spent the rest of the book trying to get back to headquarters to warn the others. It reminded me of the end of The Lost World film when the t-rex landed in San Francisco and destroyed parts of the city.
There were many scenes in this book that took me back to various movies. There is a sequence where Alan, Lex, and Tim go into the aviary to find a working phone and encounter pterodactyl. They escape down a river. There is a scene in Jurassic Park III where a very similar sequence happens. In my opinion, it’s the best part of that movie.
At the beginning of the book, there are a series of events where something is biting small children and babies. It never gets thoroughly investigated and Hammond refuses to believe that the reptiles at fault were from his island. It really reminded me of the opening of The Lost World where a little girl is attacked on a beach.
Crichton’s descriptions of the buildings on the island were that of pyramid style architecture, which ended up being used as the main building in Jurassic World. At the end of this book, the Costa Rican army essentially destroys the island. Crichton’s writing sent me back to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom when the volcano was destroying the island and the dinosaurs on it. That scene always hurts when watching that movie. It was no different in the book and it is obvious that even as the sequels became a bit bloated, they still pulled from the original source material.
Lastly, I’ll discuss John Hammond who dies in this gory book after injuring his leg trying to get away from a t-rex he can hear in the distance. The little scavenger dinosaurs that the scientists put on the island to eat up the other dinosaurs’ poop and clean up any carcasses around the park find him and eat him alive. The irony of this situation, being eaten by the very dinos meant to eat shit, does not even occur to him as he stubbornly holds to his belief that what he had created was perfect to his dying breath. This version of Hammond is far more frightening a figure. There is no moment in the book like there is in the movie when he decides not to keep the park open as they escape. The book version of John Hammond is irredeemable. Blind to the catastrophic change his dinosaurs will bring, especially now that they are breeding in the wild.
Reading the book has given me newfound love for these big, dumb dino movies. I’ll always show up for them. And that scene that the new film pulls from this book? I’m hoping its from the end where Grant and Sattler descend into a raptor nest to count eggs and see how many have been born. How they made it out of that without getting eaten, I’ll never know, but I’m hoping that this new movie brings that to life, along with all the terrifying blood and gore. All horror here in this book. And I loved it for that.
4 out of 5 stars for the book. 4.5 out of 5 stars for the movie.
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Becky Tyler Art and Photography 
When the film adaptation for Jurassic Park was released in 1993, 13-year-old me thought for probably the first time, “This is cinema.” Big dinosaurs brought back from extinction by science and a rich, out of touch old man. It was a leap forward for special effects. The score was so memorable that it still gives me chills. And that cast. So meme-able before we knew what a meme was. A near perfect movie. A pop culture moment that sent ripples throughout movie making which are still felt today.
That said, it might come as a surprise that it was 32 years later when I finally gave the book a read. Michael Crichton’s novel was something I always meant to read eventually but never found the right time to do so. When I heard that the newest film utilizes one of the scenes from the novel that went unused in the original film, I thought now is the time.
When I finished reading the last page, I couldn’t believe the difference between movie and book. I’ve read my fair share of books which were adapted to film and am used to the liberties taken by filmmakers. I was not expecting this novel to delve so deeply into the horror category since the film stayed in its friendly PG-13 action sci-fi lane. I’m not complaining, nor am I upset. I am very pleasantly surprised especially since rumor has it that the new film is far more gory than previous films.
The story is essentially the same between book and movie. Rich man buys a private island off the coast of Costa Rica and hires scientists to extract ancient mosquito blood from fossilized amber so they can use the dino DNA to create new dinosaurs. John Hammond is as a child when it comes to his dinosaur zoo, but completely blind to the ramifications of what he has created. He brings his lawyer / investor, two paleontologists, and a mathematician (chaotician, as the movie version calls himself) to his island to be the first guests to view his dinosaurs. He even invites his grandkids, which was probably the second worst decision the man ever made. Do I have to explain the first?
What surprised me the most in the changes made from the book, at least character wise, was that Lex was only 8 in the book while she was a young teen in the movie, and a hacker to boot. Hammond’s unique ability to do the most irresponsible thing in any given situation is put on display by bringing that small a child to his unfinished park where anything and everything could go wrong and her inability to stay silent at the most dangerous moments put everyone in mortal danger. This also means that she is not able to bring the computers back on line, and that ends up falling to Timmy. And, oddly, Henry Wu who gives Arnold computer tips when he is trying to get around Nedry’s techy sabotage.
Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler are essentially the same book to movie, except that they have no romantic relationship in the book. They are simply a teacher/student archetype. Ellie is still tenacious, and Alan is still an old school digger who hates computers. Muldoon, the animal wrangler played by Bob Peck in those little khaki shorts in the movie, is a little less of a badass raptor hunter in the book. He does survive the last page though, so props to Crichton for that.
Ian Malcolm likes to pontificate much more in the book. Paragraphs long speeches about how science can show us how to do something, but it does not tell us if we actually should. Jeff Goldblum’s Malcolm used far fewer words when saying the same thing, and in large part, gave us some of the most quotable lines of the movie. Life finds a way.
Except for Ian Malcolm’s life for he loses his in the book. And it happens while we are out of the room, as it were. His death is told to us through exposition in the final pages of the book. I can’t imagine the movies without him, and wondered how The Lost World could happen with him still alive, and I don’t ever remember everyone being big mad that he didn’t die in the movie. Thanks to Google, he was only mistakenly dead, sleeping really, and Crichton kept him alive for the sequel book. This made his death less substantial in the first book, but that’s okay. I don’t like this character as much in the book.
Now I’m going to discuss Arnold who was played so expertly by Samuel L. Jackson in the movie that I could hear his voice whenever Arnold spoke in the book. I could see him through the words and even knowing he does not make it out alive, Jackson’s performance and the character’s penchant for smoking cigarettes resonated in both book and movie. I could not say the same for the lawyer, Donald Gennaro, who I never really liked in the first place. While he dies in the movie, he survives in the book largely due to the fact that the book has a character that the movie skipped. Ed Regis was the tour guide, and he dies in the book in place of Gennaro when the t-rex escapes. A forgettable character so its understandable that he be left out of the movie.
Which brings me to Nedry. Wayne Knight’s portrayal as the human hacking saboteur that brought down Jurassic Park in the movie stuck with me and I could see him in every single sentence of Nedry’s character in the book. Nothing really changes here, and he still dies after being spit on and eaten by the Dilophosaurus.
And then there’s Henry Wu, the scientist who made it possible for their genetic DNA manipulation of dino blood. B.D. Wong played him memorably throughout multiple movies, so I was shocked to learn that in the book, he dies. Eaten by the very dinosaurs he created. I’m reminded of how he spent the entire scene of the movie where they see the raptor hatch from the egg erasing things on his clipboard. Always erasing. Never writing. As if he knew subconsciously that creating these animals was the wrong thing to do. In the book, there is no regret. He stubbornly believes that they had complete control of the situation. That the dinosaurs would die without lysine. That they could never breed or escape from their island zoo. Complete. Control.
Of course, a few raptors do escape in the book. They hop on a boat headed for the mainland and Alan, who witnessed this whilst they were on their tour, spent the rest of the book trying to get back to headquarters to warn the others. It reminded me of the end of The Lost World film when the t-rex landed in San Francisco and destroyed parts of the city.
There were many scenes in this book that took me back to various movies. There is a sequence where Alan, Lex, and Tim go into the aviary to find a working phone and encounter pterodactyl. They escape down a river. There is a scene in Jurassic Park III where a very similar sequence happens. In my opinion, it’s the best part of that movie.
At the beginning of the book, there are a series of events where something is biting small children and babies. It never gets thoroughly investigated and Hammond refuses to believe that the reptiles at fault were from his island. It really reminded me of the opening of The Lost World where a little girl is attacked on a beach.
Crichton’s descriptions of the buildings on the island were that of pyramid style architecture, which ended up being used as the main building in Jurassic World. At the end of this book, the Costa Rican army essentially destroys the island. Crichton’s writing sent me back to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom when the volcano was destroying the island and the dinosaurs on it. That scene always hurts when watching that movie. It was no different in the book and it is obvious that even as the sequels became a bit bloated, they still pulled from the original source material.
Lastly, I’ll discuss John Hammond who dies in this gory book after injuring his leg trying to get away from a t-rex he can hear in the distance. The little scavenger dinosaurs that the scientists put on the island to eat up the other dinosaurs’ poop and clean up any carcasses around the park find him and eat him alive. The irony of this situation, being eaten by the very dinos meant to eat shit, does not even occur to him as he stubbornly holds to his belief that what he had created was perfect to his dying breath. This version of Hammond is far more frightening a figure. There is no moment in the book like there is in the movie when he decides not to keep the park open as they escape. The book version of John Hammond is irredeemable. Blind to the catastrophic change his dinosaurs will bring, especially now that they are breeding in the wild.
Reading the book has given me newfound love for these big, dumb dino movies. I’ll always show up for them. And that scene that the new film pulls from this book? I’m hoping its from the end where Grant and Sattler descend into a raptor nest to count eggs and see how many have been born. How they made it out of that without getting eaten, I’ll never know, but I’m hoping that this new movie brings that to life, along with all the terrifying blood and gore. All horror here in this book. And I loved it for that.
4 out of 5 stars for the book. 4.5 out of 5 stars for the movie.
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