Jurassic Park is the epitome of a summer blockbuster. It has action and humor, suspense and spectacle, all in large amounts. It debuted to critical acclaim in 1993, and soon after, it became the highest grossing movie ever, a title it held four for years until the release of Titanic.
It is one of the most well-loved movies of all time. Even if you’ve never seen it before, chances are you have heard quotes from this movie, Like:
Or:
Or:
But how much do you know about the book it is based off of?
(Obviously, SPOILERS for both the book and the movie here.)
I grew up watching the movie, but I only just read the book, and, as you would expect from a book-to-movie adaption in which the book’s author helped write the movie script, there is a lot the same.
But, as Ian Malcolm would love to tell you, even the smallest variations in complex systems can lead to drastically different results.
First, many of the characters were changed.
The children’s ages were flipped, and movie Lex was given book Tim’s computer abilities while he retained the dinosaur knowledge. This was a good move on the part of the movie, since Lex is basically there to be protected and to mess things up in the book. The changes provide a better balance between the siblings.
Dr. Grant in the book is quite different. He is older. He and Ellie Sattler (who is a doctoral student under Dr. Grant, not a doctor in her own right yet) are not romantically involved. And, probably most importantly to the story, he likes kids. He still grows to care for Lex and Tim over the course of the book, but he likes them, especially Tim, right from the beginning. It changes the whole dynamic (which is good, since they spend a lot more time in the park together in the book).
But the character who is most changed from book to movie is John Hammond. Hammond in the book is obsessed with money and the desire to make history, but he leaves most of the running of the park to others.
Book Hammond is scolded by one of his employees that he would know something if he were around more often, while movie Hammond makes a point of being there at the hatching of every single dinosaur in the park.
Book Hammond is the one touting that they can charge whatever they want for people to come to their park, and people would pay. Movie Hammond wants to let all the children of the world come see the dinosaurs, while it is the lawyer Gennaro who is seeing dollar signs.
And, most importantly, book Hammond has the more unbreakable hubris, believing that the failure of his park was due to the inadequacies of the people he hired, not flaws in the very idea of a dinosaur park, right up until he is killed by a pack of Procompsognathus, or Compies, as they are called throughout the book. Movie Hammond decides to abandon the island for safety, and agrees with Dr. Grant’s decision to not endorse the park.
In addition to character changes, the plot itself was simplified for the movie. The movie doesn’t have as many story beats, as many twists and turns. Instead, it focuses on a handful of set pieces and uses them extremely well. (This is, after all, Spielberg we’re talking about here.) These simplifications keeps the movie moving fast, and avoids much of the scientific and philosphical exposition that is interesting in the book, but would not translate well to the screen.
But there are two differences that I think change things from book to movie more than any others.
First is the difference in how the park fails.
In the movie, it is the convergence of the tour of the park with Dennis Nedry’s attempted corporate espionage and the arrival of a tropical storm. These work together to cause the park to fall apart.
In the book, the park has already failed. Before the events of the movie even really begin in the book, a little girl on a beach in Costa Rica encounters and is bitten by a Procompsognathus that has somehow made it to the mainland. The complete catestrophic failure of the park still happens in much the same way, but the book does a better job of capturing the idea that such failure was inevitable, rather than simply an unlikely and unfortunate coincidence.
Second is the ending.
In both the book and the movie, the surviving characters are airlifted off the island and are flown back to the mainland. The difference is that, in the movie, it is a helicopter flown by people who work for Hammond, while in the book, it is the Costa Rican military. This simple fact isn’t that big of a difference, but what the Costa Rican military does next in the book is: They bomb the island, working to make sure that not a single one of the dinosaurs survive.
By the end of the book, the dinosaurs on Isla Nublar have been killed.
But not the ones that have already made it to the mainland.
Overall, if you liked the movie, I would definitely recommend the book. The two downsides of the book are:
1) Liz, who is basically just there to be rescued, to complain, and to make too much noise and draw the attention of the dinosaurs. (Seriously, making her the older kid and giving her the computer skills was a great move on the part of the filmmakers.)
2) Ian Malcolm’s heavy-handed pontifications. I mean, even if you agree with most or all of what the character says, you will eventually get to the point where you say, “Oookay, enough with the ‘I told you so’ Ian. We get it, you’re smart.”
Apart from those, it is a great book. I would even go so far as to say the story is better in the book than it is in the movie. Some of the things that are just there in the movie (How does Dr. Grant know that the T-Rex can’t see movement from just the fossils?) are presented in better, more interesting ways in the book (Dr. Grant realizes that the T-Rex can’t see movement by observing it during its attack on the vehicles).
I greatly enjoyed the book, and will definitely be picking up Lost World to read it, as well.
Have you read the book? What did you think of it? Do you like it more or less than the movie? Let me know in the comments down below!
