Jurassic Park

Thoughts

Coming soon!

Observations From The Novel

Warning

Spoilers Ahead!

Naturally, there’s quite a bit more exposition for just about everything compared to what you get in the film. That’s not a guaranteed positive thing in every case, but for Jurassic Park, I feel like everything extra that you’re able to fill in the gaps with is beneficial.

The Dinosaurs

There is way, way more going on with the dinosaurs in the book compared to the movie, especially when it comes to the tyrannosauruses. The film does a good job covering the main plot beats from the book, but the T-Rexes are more of a recurring nemesis of Grant and the kids as they try to get back to the visitor’s center/control room. You also get a lot more descriptions and details about some of the various dinosaur species on the island.

Characters

There are a lot of differences when it comes to the characters in the book versus the movie! I thought it might be interesting to plot out differences in fates of each of the major ones just be able to easily visualize them.

Character	Novel Fate	Movie Fate
John Hammond	Killed by dinosaurs	🟢Escapes the island
Dr. Alan Grant	Escapes the island	Escapes the island
Dr. Ellie Sattler	Escapes the island	Escapes the island
Dr. Ian Malcom	Succumbs to injuries	🟢Escapes the island
Dennis Nedry	Killed by dinosaurs	Killed by dinosaurs
Robert Muldoon	Escapes the island	🔴Killed by dinosaurs
Lex & Tim Murphy	Escapes the island	Escapes the island
John Arnold	Killed by dinosaurs	Killed by dinosaurs
Dr. Henry Wu	Killed by dinosaurs	🟡Unknown
Donald Gennaro	Escapes the island	🔴Killed by dinosaurs
Ed Regis	Killed by dinosaurs	🟣Not depicted

Overall, I was pretty surprised how different things pan out for many of the characters! One thing to note is that Malcom’s fate in the novel ends up being retconned in Jurassic Park: The Lost World.

John Hammond

I was surprised at how different the characterization is of Hammond in the novel compared to the movie. In the latter, he’s really quite likable, and more of a sympathetic character: intelligent and ambitious, but also misguided. The novel version of Hammond has noticeable selfish air about him, and he is much more interested in the financial potential of the park than anything else.

Dr. Alan Grant

Grant is similar in both forms of Jurassic Park. The biggest difference I noticed was that he is actually quite fond of kids in the novel, which is a strong contrast to the film version.

Dr. Ellie Sattler

Sattler doesn’t really get a lot of attention, so I don’t have much for thoughts on her character.

Dr. Ian Malcom

I actually strongly prefer the film version of Malcom over the novel’s. I feel like he personifies the weakest aspects of Crichton’s writing. In this case, Malcom just knows things that will happen based on pseudoscience, and those things do indeed occur. One could argue the same things that the character does: well, it’s an island full of genetically-engineered dinosaurs, of course things will go wrong. That makes sense to me, but I still don’t like the hand-waviness of his assertions.

Dennis Nedry

Ol’ Dennis gets a fair bit of representation in the book, but not that much more than in the film. Much of the plot that involves him is just slightly more fleshed out, including the software bugs that he intentionally introduces into the park’s codebase in order to accomplish his scheme in stealing the dinosaur embryos. Probably the most noticeable difference is the scene in the book where Muldoon and Gennaro find Nedry’s remains while searching for the heavy weaponry that he inadvertently stole when he took the jeep to escape to the docks.

Robert Muldoon

Muldoon gets a lot more to work with in the novel. He has quite a few excursions with Gennaro while trying to find Grant and the kids, as well as dealing with the whole escaped velociraptor — which in reality would actually be a Deinonychus — situation.

Lex & Tim Murphy

The kids in the movie are fairly, well, loud. I think the actors did a pretty good job, though, in their roles. Honestly, if the film was more accurate to the book, the kids would probably be even less well-received given how much trouble they cause in getting away from the dinosaurs. I actually kind of enjoyed how much Lex got on Tim’s nerves towards the end of the book when he trying to get the power back on — that seemed pretty realistic for siblings.

One thing that was a little silly to me was how Tim managed to spot a the mysterious room where nerve gas weapons were stored because of reasons. He’s like 10 or 11 in the book, so why would he even think that a random unmarked door on a random security camera is suspicious at all?

John Arnold & Dr. Henry Wu

These characters get quite a bit more exposition in the book. Arnold has quite a few more pages focused on him trying to untangle the mess that Nedry left behind, and Wu has much more of a backstory in how he met Hammond and got started working for InGen.

Donald Gennaro

Gennaro gets a lot more time in the book compared to the film. He is actively participating in much of the events alongside Muldoon, and ends up surviving the ordeal in the end. The film version of this character is an amalgamation of Gennaro and Regis, and doesn’t last a very long time, instead meeting Regis’ novel fate.

Ed Regis

Regis gets a fair amount of time in the first half of the book, and I think he works well as a separate character from Gennaro.