Jurassic Park: Book vs. Movie

[NK1988]

Which did you like more and why?

For me, it has to be the original novel version by Michael Crichton.

The problem with the movie is it simplifies too many things and so the central theme is lost. For example, a lot of people ask "why didn't they just try to restart Jurassic Park? It was working great until it was sabotaged." And that's true....in the movie. In the book, Jurassic Park had already failed spectacularly by the time the team got to the island. All Nedry did was deliver the final nail in the coffin. Well, it wasn't even him really, it was the fact the team shut down the park's systems then brought them up on auxiliary power without realizing it.

Dinosaurs were breeding and escaping the island in droves. The former is very, very briefly touched on in the movie but it's a central element to the book version.

The point is that the book not only offers up superior plot in how it explains Jurassic Park's failures, it offers up superior action as well. Sure we might not be able to see the dinosaur in the book version but we still got Muldoon shooting off raptor legs and chasing after the T-Rex with a rocket launcher. I mean, COME ON. Isn't that more awesome than anything in the movie? There's also the whole T-Rex chasing Grant and the kids in the raft segment. I love that part so much. Or when the raptors are chewing their way into the lodge where the survivors are held up and just waiting their gory end.

The novel is just...it's the total package.

But that's my piece. What do you all think?

[Arvandor]

The movie. Easily.

The book is trite crap, filled with shallow cardboard cliché characters. In the book, Hammond is a stereotypical rich white man, where in the film he is well-meaning but misguided. And Ian Malcolm is nothing but a shallow author insert. The film does more to develop the characters in two hours than the book does in 400 pages.

[kingmyth]

The movie. Easily.

The book is trite crap, filled with shallow cardboard cliché characters. In the book, Hammond is a stereotypical rich white man, where in the film he is well-meaning but misguided. And Ian Malcolm is nothing but a shallow author insert. The film does more to develop the characters in two hours than the book does in 400 pages.

I've enjoyed the book, I read it it was very enjoyable.

[t hedge coke]

I think the movie is great fun, exciting and fantabulous.

There are dinosaurs that look real! And there are some great actors, a few of whom are genuinely immensely sexy.

The movie. Easily.

The book is trite crap, filled with shallow cardboard cliché characters. In the book, Hammond is a stereotypical rich white man, where in the film he is well-meaning but misguided. And Ian Malcolm is nothing but a shallow author insert. The film does more to develop the characters in two hours than the book does in 400 pages.

The movie changes Grant to being standard Spielberg man, can't handle kids, doesn't like them, can't understand them. While, Ellie, is touchy-feely as hell, because of course she is.

The lawyer is turned into a pure bloodsucking parody of a bastard.

And, Hammond is given a whole lot more rope to hang himself, and it's more colorful, nostalgic rope, so we feel like maybe he hung himself trying to do good.

Crichton isn't the best author ever, certainly, and he had some dodgy politics and social politics. He loves leading his reader by the nose with rhetoric or stacked decks, when he can. But, just with those four characters, I think his versions were much sharper, and unexpected, than what the movie gave us.

Plus, the various Alice stuff spread throughout the novel is funny, and his use of equations/signs/diagrams as signs, themselves, and not information, is kinda brilliant. The visual component to the novel should not be ignored. It buys so much veracity for him, to appear to have math or warning signs, when really, there's no useful function in them, except as signs directing a reader to feel/believe a certain way.

[Hiromi]

Just so long as we can all agree the Lost World novel beats the daylights out of the movie

[NK1988]

Just so long as we can all agree the Lost World novel beats the daylights out of the movie

Oh absolutely. Book Sarah Harding is not only actually competent at her stated profession, she's a badass.

It should be noted that Crichton actually co-wrote the screenplay for the Jurassic Park movie. He had nothing to do with the trainwreck Lost World adaptation however.

[sunofdarkchild]

The book lacks the sense of wonder because it doesn't have cg and robot dinosaurs, but in every other way it is superior.

[Twickster]

I remember watching the movie then reading the book years later and thinking, where the hell was *this* Muldoon?! Book Muldoon was distilled awesome, and in the film he ends up as raptor poop. For this disservice alone, I prefer the book.

Also, Hammond being a slick shyster actually plays out as more believable than the lovable grandpa in the film. Film Hammond always seemed trite to me, even as a child.

[Pharozonk]

I grew up watching the movie so when I read the book in high school, I was amazed at how much of a douche they painted Dr. Hammond to be. In that regard, I prefer the movie, though the book is still very enjoyable in it's own right.