A very popular movie, directed by Steven Spielberg, called Jurassic Park, is a marvel for the ages. Although most know of the movie, it is less known as a book by Michael Crichton, who created the eerily accurate descriptions of what dinosaurs would look like in the twentieth century.

The book and the film are similar in many ways, but there are some obvious differences for those that have read the book. Although in the movie the character John Hammond was lovable, and almost dopey, he was actually one of the most prominent bad guys in the novel. His initial goal was to create money off genetic advances from modifying animals, but eventually came up with the idea of Jurassic Park, as a way to make more money and have the first ever recreated dinosaurs known to man. He is cruel and does not listen to his employees when they mention danger, and does not care about the obvious flaws in his own system, which become more prominent as the novel progressed.

The two children, Lex and Tim, have their ages switched in the film. In the novel, Tim is older and Lex is younger, although the two bicker like they are younger than they actually are. Lex, in the book, is like her father, who enjoys sports, and always carries a baseball mitt, whereas in the movie she is adept with the inner workings of the computer. What is accurate, is the interest that Tim has in dinosaurs, and his fascination with the paleontologist Alan Grant.

The Tyrannosaurus Rex, who escapes from its enclosure and destroys two road cars, actually had a juvenile Rex living with it in the book. What saves Grant and the kids from being eaten while they are floating down the river (in the book) is the juvenile trying to steal a kill from the older dinosaur, causing the larger Rex to swim back to shore to protect its food.

Jurassic Park the movie has some particularly gruesome scenes, but the book has more gore. Crichton goes into disturbing detail with the characters’ and dinosaurs’ deaths, describing the disembowelment of Dennis Nedry, rocket launchers shot into a group of velociraptors, and Ian Malcolm’s terrifying run-in with the T-rex, in which it grabs him by the torso, shakes him, and then throws him, causing a nasty break to his leg.

These are just a few of the differences between the movie and the film, but there are plenty more that have been discovered while examining both.

Sources:

Crichton, Michael. Jurassic Park. Ballantine Books, 1990.

Glennon, Neave. “Jurassic Park: The 10 Biggest Differences between the Movie and Michael Crichton’s Book.” MovieWeb, movieweb.com, 5 Aug. 2023, movieweb.com/jurassic-park-biggest-differences-between-movie-and-book/#the-deaths-are-different.

Spielberg, Steven. Jurassic Park. 1993. The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/watching/jurassic-park-movies-streaming.html