Last year we lost one of the world's most prolific science fiction writers, Michael Crichton, which was a terrible loss.  I wanted to pay a little tribute to him by taking a look at his most lucrative work, Jurassic Park, a story of a bioengineering corporation who bring back extinct animals to market in a zoo-like attraction and it goes terribly wrong.  Often you hear people say "the book is always better," and most of you who still read, probably agree on nearly all counts, so let's actually look at these two sources and how they vary and how they are similar.

Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park in 1990 as a warning to what he apparently saw as the next evolution of science discovery, the bioengineering takeover.  In essence, bioengineering isn't the study of anything, as most scientific research necessitates, it's more of a fix to a natural problem.  If you have someone who is allergic to cats, they generally try to avoid them, as Crichton paints it, the solution of a bioengineering firm would be to somehow create a cat that carries no dander, or at least none that can cause allergy.  The bioengineering company in the book is InGen, who has used past research and untraditional techniques to extract DNA samples from long preserved amber fragments, basically tree sap that has hardened over top prehistoric mosquitoes or bugs, who sometimes would land on a dinosaur and suck it's blood.  Their plan isn't to create these animals for scientific research, oh no, it's for the all mighty dollar.  The film was directed by Steven Spielberg, probably the most acclaimed director of our generation in 1993, which featured the very precipce of cutting edge technology in both animatronics and computer graphics at the time.  The plot of both the film and the book remains generally the same, a team of experts that works unknowingly for John Hammond, the mastermind behind the whole project, is brought down to an island in Costa Rica for a weekend excursion, so he says, but really it's for his investors to assuage their fears that the island is unstable.  The visitors are mostly unaware of what they are getting into.  So let's look at the central characters and see how they change or don't from book to novel.

I will caution a certain Spoiler alert, even though all these materials are over a decade old:

John Hammond- the crux of the Jurassic Park project, a rich industrialist who wants to create a theme park of sorts with living dinosaurs as the main attraction.  In the novel, he's ancient, and a shrewd man, with very short foresight into what his project is doing, both to the essence of nature itself and to the people invovled in the tragic events of the island.  He curses all who oppose him in the book, his lawyer, his game warden, his experts, even his young grandchildren.  He falls prey to his own creation though in the end, and is injured falling down a hill and promptly picked apart by Procompsognathids, small chicken like scavengers who attack and feed on injured prey.  In the film, he is played by lovable Octogenarian Richard Attenborough, himself an Academy Award winning director, for his efforts on Ghandi.  He harbors the same love for his creations in the film, but shows none of the surly qualities he did in the novel, and probably for good reason.  You can see his enthusiasm in his work and you feel a bit of sorrow for him that it went so awry, in the end, he is redeemed by giving up on the project himself.  He survives the film and even makes a brief cameo in the 2nd film, Lost World also directed by Spielberg.

Alan Grant- our top paleontologist and foremost dino expert in the novel, he is written as a burly man, with a long shaggy beard and completely enthralled in all areas of dinosaur behavior and research.  In the film, he's played by character actor Sam Neill, who brings an aura of intelligence and warmth to the role.  He's more of an action hero in the film than the novel, but does have the same attachment to the children in both pieces.  The character was also used in the 3rd film, JP 3, where Grant travels to Isla Sorna, or Site B, the main location of both book and film, The Lost World.  In this 3rd movie, several ideas from all sources are used, such as the stranded kid who adapts to the island (ex. Richard Levine in the novel Lost World does the same thing), Grant also encounters the Pterodan airy in a big action scene in this film, which happened in the 1st novel.

Ellie Sattler- Grant's research partner in the first novel, a plant expert, and medical technician, in the Jurassic Park film, they are clearly a couple, and we find out in Jurassic Park 3, that she married someone else, and it's briefly mentioned in The Lost World novel that they once dated, briefly.  She's virtually the same in both JP book and film, strong, tenacious female character who from the get go after seeing a violent plant in the lobby of the main entrance, believes that what has happened was in fact, wrong in the natural order of life.  Laura Dern, most famous for her David Lynch films, plays the strong female lead.

Ian Malcolm- The Chaotician, rock star like mathmetician who's main theory is Chaos, which basically states that any system in the world can behave unpredictably and often times will, he uses weather as an example, that humans try to control and predict what they never can and have spent billions and billions of dollars over the years doing just that, when the weather is perfect for following the Chaos Theory of unpredicitability in complex systems.  He is played by the awesome Jeff Goldblaum, who is pitch perfect in the first movie, and has some occasional good lines in the 2nd, but used more as an action star.  Malcolm is the central character in the Lost World, both film and book, used as the opposition to the InGen executives who keep pushing the project.  In both novels, he becomes severely injured and is basically out of action in both last halfs of the books.

Sarah Harding- researcher of African predators, mainly hyenas and lions, who is an old girlfriend of Malcolm's she gets pulled into going to Isla Sorna to help investigate what is perceived to be a completely untouched Lost World, where a population of long extinct dinosaurs and plants were again left to thrive, even though they find out it was the doing of InGen using the island as a growing factory to perfect the dinosaurs they would hopefully use on Jurassic Park.  She is an extremely independent, strong willed woman who never gives up, and is portrayed so in the film as well, played by Julianne Moore.  She becomes the hero in the book when Malcolm is incapacitated and plays role model to the young girl, in both pieces, even though she's a different character in both.

Now, for the dinos:

Apatosaurs- These are giant 4 legged creatures, more a mix of elephants and giraffes with their extremely long necks, plant eaters only and are featured in all 4 of the materials, although never in a major part.  Used mostly as amazing scenery in Jurassic Park and The Lost World the films, but explored somewhat in both novels.  The bones and carcasses of these large majestic animals are used as set pieces in the Lost World film, but are intrigal to the study of the ecological system Levine and Malcolm do on the island in the book.

Stegosaurs- These are the 4 legged creatures with the spiny plates that run all along their backs and the spiked tails they use as defense.  In the book, the group finds a sick one along their tour, in the film, they find a Triceratops.  They are not really used in any way besides background in the films and they make a small cameo in the Lost World novel.

Triceratops- as stated, this was the sick animal Ellie was working on in Jurassic Park the film.  They are more akin to Rhinos, with their thick large bodies, and giant triple horns on top of their heads.  They are explored in the novel Lost World as very protective parents and are shown how they defend themselves symbiotically with the Apatosaurs.

Velociraptors- the aggressive pack hunters that were the more dangerous threat in all 3 movies and both books.  They are shown as highly intelligent, resourceful and unmistakeably violent.  In the first novel, much is made about finding their nest, which shows how they tend to their young and gives many clues about their avian ancestry, the film shows them as merciless hunters.  In the Lost World novel, they are cannibalistic killers, with no parents to show them how to behave as a proper raptor, but in the film, while still dangerous, are evaded by every main character in due time.  More is made of their bird like nature in the 3rd film, but also brings up continuity issues with the script.

Tyrannosaurs- The largest apex predator in the novels, he nearly becomes the hero at the end of the first film, fighting off the Raptors to allow the humans escape.  He is given one of the coolest scenes in the novel, where he follows Grant and the children into a raft and gives chase down a river, like a giant crocodile.  His material is broken up in different ways, such as the waterfall scene was used in the Lost World movie and Muldoon hunts him down in the first novel but there's a new hunter character intro'd in The Lost World film that uses the same scenes from the first book.  His caretaker nature is explored in both Lost World materials, and the trailer attack scene is a major plot point of both.

Overall Thoughts:
We'll go chronologically here: the first novel is a very fun read, scientifically chocked full of facts and data, but not only deals with some really good action scenes, but shows the instinct to care for these animals, learn from them and not just see them as dangerous killers on the loose, so it never feels like a horror novel about deadly animals, lots of charcters with tons of depth; i could see where long, lengthy speeches about Chaos Theory could bore people but overall it's a recommendable read.  A

Jurassic Park the film was a big achievement at the time, the animatronics put into the dinosaurs shown on the screen were among the biggest milestones in creature development that had ever been filmed, and gives the dino characters more weight and gravity than just CG monsters that's been done 100 times.  It's largely an action picture, at some points breezing right through most of the books' exposition, we get a few characters developed and some extra romance/survival/parenthood stuff thrown in there for the casual viewer,not as captivating as first watch, but still gives some excitement in the performances long after the effect of the amazing creatures has worn off.  A-

The Lost World novel is a curious piece that often times feels like it really didnt' need to be written.  The main crux of the story is that there is this 2nd island, the dirt and grime of Hammond's original Jurassic Park project, where thousands of embryos didn't survive, or meet their standards, the island abandonded and left to be ruled by these prehistoric creatures as they once did 65 billion years ago.  Ian Malcolm is surprisingly uncharacteristic in his approach here as he jumps headfirst into finding this island and exploring it for scientific purposes when he must have known the same effect would happen once people were killed?  the dinos eradicated for our own safety, as they had found a way to survive off the island, by eating lysine rich food and staying hidden.  Still, it has some satisfying pieces: Sarah Harding, and her troupe of supporting players, even more interesting dino scenarios w/o being way over the top, and some of Crichton's own self professed "amateur" hypothesis about the different species and their behaviors.  B-

The Lost World film is more suited for unnecessary trips back into successful, familiar territory and met it's somewhat meager expectations.  Site B is also discovered here and a cast of unwilling and curious characters explore the island only to find a mad CEO who is now wanting to take the JP project to the states and hires a team of animal mercenaries to help him capture species to bring back, it's like when couples on the verge of breaking up decide to have a baby, putting a band aid over a larger hole.  As expected, we get tons of actions scenes (where curiously the raptors, while every bit as intelligent and voracious, yet can't seem to catch our main heroes in the decrepit jungle scene) and an extended finale that I'm sure looked much better on a computer screen than what came off on screen.  C-

I won't even go into Jurassic Park 3 too much, only to say it had the typical dino action, actually amped up quite a few degrees, brought back several original players, intro'd new dinos and concepts and had an equally blasphemous ending as the 2nd film.  D+/C-

I think dinosaurs will always capture our imagination and Michael Crichton brought them to life on his pages, i think that's why this brand will remain a popular one, i expect to see another film at some point in the future because as Malcolm mentions many times in these materials, we can't seem to get enough of those things.

- Jessie