Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

A few weeks ago a friend and I began talking about the novel Jurassic Park and how it differed from the movie. We also touched up on how various scenes from all three of the movies could be found within the first book, scenes like the girl on the beach with the procompsognathus in the beginning of the second movie being how the actual book began, the pterodactyl aviary scene from the third movie similar to the pterodactyl aviary scene in the later half of the book, the tyrannosaurs waterfall scene from the second movie being in the middle of the book, and the various raptor scenes from all three movies having been taken from elements of the raptor scenes from the book. Naturally we also touched up on the characters in the book and how they differed from the characters in the movie, the biggest difference being the lawyer Donald Gennaro. In the movie Gennaro was a coward that left the kids in the car to fend for themselves once the T-rex got through the electrified fence, but in the book he was much braver and helped Robert Muldoon fight off the raptors who were trying to enter the visitor center toward the end of the book. He also was never in the car during the T-Rex scene, though the cowardly actions within the movie that were shown did take place in the book with a different character, one who pretty much met the same end that Gennaro did in the movie. Hammond’s character is quite a bit different as well, as are his two grandkids, Tim and Lex. In the book Tim is the oldest and the one with computer knowledge, whereas Lex is a young brat who whines all the time and is often responsible for alerting the dangerous dinosaurs they are trying to escape from to their presence.

Despite the many differences in scenes and characters between the movie and book, the actual plotlines of the two are very similar, the movie just being a more condensed, quickly executed version of the book. Forced to undergo a safety inspection of his dinosaur park due to several worker deaths and the possibility that animals are hunting on the mainland, John Hammond invites two experts, Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler, to visit his zoo-like park for a kind of weekend getaway. He also wants their stamp of approval on the park; one which he hopes will quell the concern of his investors who are considering a shut down of the park before it even has a chance to open. Donald Gennaro, a lawyer who helped bring in the investors, but who now is very concerned about the park as well, brings in Ian Malcolm, a mathematician who specializes in Chaos Theory who had previously told Hammond and Gennaro the park would fail. Together the three are going to visit the park and help the investors decide whether or not it is safe. They also need to figure out if animals are getting off the island, something that Hammond and his scientists claim is impossible despite all the evidence pointing toward it being fact. Much to Gennaro’s dismay Hammond has also invited his grandchildren Tim and Lex to the island, an act that makes Gennaro once again think that Hammond is no longer fully in control of his mental state and is delusional to the situation within his park. Joining the group on the island is a man named Dennis Nedry, a computer expert who designed the parks extensive computer system who is being brought in to eliminate all the bugs that have been found within the system. Disgruntled because Hammond is refusing to pay money that is owned, and because InGen is getting him to do the extra work via a form of blackmail, Nedry agrees to steal dinosaur embryos for the Biosyn Corporation. In order to do this he has to shut down the security systems for a while so he can get to the embryos. He also has to shut down the electrified fences so he can get the embryos to a boat that will take them to the mainland. The whole theft event isn’t supposed to take very long, and Nedry plans on being back at his desk before anyone even realizes the security issues are anything more than his transferring of data to his fellow computer workers, but thanks to a storm he takes the wrong road and is eventually killed by a dilophosaurs. Because of this the security systems are unable to be put back online right away, which allows the dinosaurs to start escaping. Worse yet, evidence that the dinosaurs have been breeding is uncovered, one of the species being the raptors. Topping all this off the parks electricity, once it is turned back on, is accidentally left to run on the auxiliary power, which will only last for several hours. Once that shuts down everything on the island will fail and no one will be safe from the dinosaurs that roam free.

As a result of the discussion I had with my friend I decided to pick up the book, which I had read eleven years ago, and flip through some of the scenes we had talked about. I wasn’t expecting to actually read the entire book, but after completing the first few chapters I kept going and before I knew it I was over two hundred pages into the book. The reason for this was simple, the first half of the book is an exciting page turner that completely sucks you in, and even though the story follows a similar plot as the movie, there is enough differences within that one doesn’t really know for sure what will happen. One also doesn’t know who will live and who will die, and for those who have only seen the movie and its two sequels, they might be really surprised to see what the different outcomes are for the characters within the book -- outcomes that I had forgotten about after eleven years. Another aspect of the book that I really enjoyed was how the science was layered into the text in a way that is very readable for a person who isn’t well versed in the various formulas and theories being presented. It also doesn’t interrupt the flow of the story at all, the only exception to this being when Ian Malcolm gets very preachy toward the end of the book on his disgust toward the mainstream scientific view of the world and humans in general. In addition, it is my opinion that the last third of the novel is the weakest part of the book. The exact reason for this is hard to pinpoint, but I know a big part of it for me was due to the character’s action and dialogue which begins to feel very unrealistic and, at some points, a bit over the top. Things also seem to drag out as the book nears it conclusion, which kills the momentum established in the first part of the novel. Overall, however, the book is an exciting read, one that I strongly recommend to everyone. I also must admit that even though I had read the book previously, I was surprised by several things, things that I think others will be surprised by as well and should experience.