The book is so much more fleshed out and grand. The opening of the book alone would have eaten up 40 minutes of screen time. It's just way more powerful and mysterious than the film's quick and cheesy opening. You learn the the worker was mauled by a Raptor, but InGen is covering it up.
A TV mini-series would've been amazing... obviously with the same 1993 cast and Hollywood budget!
I love the build-up in the book.... the mystery of the infants being attacked in Costa Rica, the dying construction worker, the investigation into the lizard leg the doctor finds on the beach...
I listened to a podcast review of the book recently (http://www.sfbrp.com/archives/1060) - he thought the film was better because it just got rid of all the "unnecessary" plot - it's called Jurassic Park and has a dinosaur on the cover, so there is no mystery about what's happening on the mainland. To me that misses the point, it gives the book a much broader focus, feeds into Chaos Theory, explores what could happen if such a park were made, and ultimately reinforces the idea that man can't control or contain nature which is the main theme of the book. (I stopped listening to the review halfway through when he said he skipped some pages and then referred to plot holes that aren't plot holes).
There's so much more foreshadowing too, especially when the guests arrive and find the design of the hotel has changed since the original plans - eg. bars on the skylights. I love the tension in the scenes where they're trying to restore power to the hotel while the raptors are on the roof chewing through the steel bars on the skylights. The only section that could do with a rewrite is when they go into the underground raptor nest to try and estimate how many have hatched, that scene didn't really work for me - they've spent the whole book trying to survive and then voluntarily place themselves in extreme danger. I know it's out of a sense of duty but it seemed unnecessarily risky to do it they way they did.
I missed a lot of exposition from The Lost World in that film too - the discovery of the scale of operations on Site B, the disease and high mortality rates of the dinosaurs... all gave a sense of the cost of the park (in lives as well as dollars). There were glimpses of the scale in TLW and JP3 but they were just used as locations, neither film had anything to say about them, whereas the novel took it to some pretty dark places when it comes to the disposability of life. Then follows it up saying the "wild" dinosaurs will probably die out because they lack the social intelligence needed to sustain populations, because all dinosaurs there originated from groups of infants being raised without parents. Harsh!
Yeah exactly or even if Spielberg shot additional scenes from the book like Peter Jackson did. It should have taken a few hours until we first see the dinosaurs.
I completely disagree with that guy from that podcast. It's about the mystery of it all and watching the characters figure things out. I also don't like Spielberg's ending with the T-rex. It feels contrived and fan service to 9 year olds.
Maybe a nine year old can appreciate this movie better than you can at any age. I was 8 when I saw this in theatres and it was the best cinematic experience I'll ever have. Would it be fan service if Speilberg made it appealing to 65 year olds? What the hell is fan service anyway?
shareI agree.
I was 7 when I saw it in theaters and it still remains my best experience in movies ever. Only The Lord Of The Rings trilogy has come close.
For within each death there is always a new life, a new beginning - Dillon, Alien 3
A TV mini-series would've been amazing...obviously with the same 1993 cast and Hollywood budget!
Saving this from oblivion.
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It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing .
You really think people would watch a movie that was 7 hours long?
Green Goblin is great! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1L4ZuaVvaw
The point is that there's enough material in the book for a much longer adaptation, not literally that it should be one 7 hour film.
Admittedly it wouldn't have mass market appeal.... the family audience who want to see dinosaurs won't necessarily be interested in hearing about pgymy elephants engineered for the pet market, or want to see blinded Nedry trying to hold his intestines while he's eaten alive.
I would.
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Yes, the book's story is a 12 hour sci-fi masterpiece. There's so much great intelligent dialogue. There's more mystery to it. Spielberg went for the generic family friendly "we just want to see dinosaurs" cop-out.
JP would be perfect as a 10 or 12 part mini-series.
Did you not find that the novel kind of dragged on towards the end?
The first half is great, I'll give you that. Crichton had a knack of making excellent openings that really hook you.
But towards the end I was just thinking 'c'mon let's wrap this up'. Also the ending of them bombing the island seemed a little unsatisfactory for me.
I think Spielberg & Co. did a great job with the changed ending. The last act of the film is really well-paced and suspenseful.
I think if you could combine the first half of the novel and the last half of the film it would be ideal, but there's no real way of marrying the two up.
Besides, there's no way you could do an adaptation of the book that was both faithful and worthy of its great concept.
It'd have to be a mini series, and the budget for the dinosaur effects just wouldn't have been there. A mini series, while more faithful, would have looked cheaper and the dinosaurs less realistic.
To be as visually captivating and groundbreaking as it was, you could only do it as a blockbuster movie. And to do it as a movie means sacrificing a fair bit of the novel.
I think we got the best possible adaptation in 1993. No sequels or TV series could ever live up to what the film achieved.
Did you not find that the novel kind of dragged on towards the end?
You do not find that the novel kind of dragged on towards the end?
I think if you could combine the first half of the novel and the last half of the film it would be ideal, but there's no way of marrying the two up.
But there was plenty of intellectual debate, on the part of Hammond and that guy that Jeff Goldblum played. They considered the MORAL implications of cloning dinosaurs, not just the 'thrill' of seeing them.
shareI kind of agree. The only way I'd accept a remake of this film is if they made a mini-series of about 10 episodes and made it darker and more violent, like the book.
But instead they should make a Sphere and a Timeline mini-series. These two books deserve worthy adaptations.
Nah, it's not War and Peace. It's action/adventure story and they did exactly what they needed to do to make it work as an action/adventure movie. Could they have still stuck closer to the book? Sure, but frankly I think a lot of the changes they made were improvements.
shareI couldn't get into the novel. I went in all excited to read it, but it just dragged on, and on, and on, and on. There was SO much philosophical drabble, with pages of dialogue and never ending talking, and a whole bunch of pointless stuff, not to mention it was so preachy. And a lot of the things I found to be kind of stupid, like the way Grant poisoned the raptors. Hell, the main characters weren't even introduced until like 6 chapters in. I mean, did they really need 4 chapters of tracking down a compy and sending it to various institutions before an off-handed comment of a drawing of it identified it of possibly being a dinosaur. It just went on far too long. Overall, I'd say it was about 20,000 words too long. It eventually got to the point where I WANTED it to end, and with as much as I enjoy reading, that's REALLY saying something. I'm not saying the book was bad, just far too long with a lot of unnecessary things in it. And OMG, the kids were like 10 times more annoying than in the movie, especially the girl.
shareI couldn't get into the novel. I went in all excited to read it, but it just dragged on, and on, and on, and on. There was SO much philosophical drabble, with pages of dialogue and never ending talking, and a whole bunch of pointless stuff, not to mention it was so preachy.
The book is the book. The movie is the movie. Two completely different mediums.
Those who expect a movie to be just like the book, even if the book is a flawless masterpiece of literature, simply don't understand the medium of film.
Originality needs a reboot.
I guess that could have worked but IDK. It's been a while since I read the book.
Metallica and Iron Maiden are Bronies
I personally enjoyed the book as it went into so much more details in the science.
I haven't read the novel for a while but i do rememeber the really strange out of place ending where they all went back to try and count the raptor eggs....how STUPID and what an anti climax to an otherwise great read.