After being surprised by Jaws (novel) I was really curious how much Spielberg changed for the movie. While I have reviewed the Jurassic Park series and while the movie is pretty much a cultural phenomenon, I’m not going to regurgitate the plot because the general plot is the same. What I’m going to do is basically talk about the differences and while I actually really enjoyed the book for some pretty damn different reasons.
So the book for Jurassic Park, while having a lot of the splendor and wonder of the movie, there is actually a lot of smart ethical questions and corporate evil in the book. In fact, Hammond is actually an eerily evil sociopath that is hell-bent on basically being his own god, no matter who dies in the process. The book never feels preachy about the ethical issues and the science but expertly feels like a grim kind of foreshadowing of how everything goes belly up. Another huge difference is the body count and gore in the book which is definitely past the pg-13 boundary and a lot of characters die in the book that don’t in the movies. The climax is more intense and well, a bit more brutal but also more realistic and fitting. Pretty much the only part of the book I couldn’t stand was Alex, Tim’s now younger sister (in the movie she was the older); she’s annoying and I swear she almost gets her, Timmy, and Grant killed at least half a dozen times in some pretty idiotic ways. Hammond maybe my favorite part of the book, starting as the kindly if not delusional grandpa figure he was in the book to becoming a heartless bastard as the story unfolds. The book is reasonably paced and Crichton had a great way of not talking down to his readers but not dumbing his themes down. In the end, I highly recommend the novel for Jurrasic Park, especially on Audible like I enjoyed it. May the gaming gods bring you glory.
Savior Gaming 