Book

There is very little doubt in my mind that as soon as you read this title, the beautiful score of the 1993 Jurassic Park began to play in your mind. The movie was an instant classic and is still seeing remakes to this day, but very few people know that it was a novel before it became a movie. Published in 1990 the book saw massive success and the rights to the movie were quickly acquired by Universal Studios, where Steven Spielberg immediately began work adapting the terrifying story to the big screen. The novel of Jurassic Park, though similar in many ways, is also very different from its movie. Hammond is not the sweet lovable grandfather that we all know and adore. He is instead a greedy manipulator of reality who does not seem to care who gets hurt or even dies in his attempt to bring dinosaurs to life simply for the profit. Alan Grant does not hate children and in fact absolutely adores them and finds their sense of fascination particularly with the world of dinosaurs to be endearing and one of the reasons he loves his job so much. There are a number of dinosaur attacks from the novel that are skipped in the movie, as well as a surprising amount of death rearranging and character personality trait reversal. But when all is told, the same moral is left at the end of the story. Life should never be manipulated by mankind.

The book is full of terror as the smarter than anticipated dinosaurs begin to hunt down the humans trapped on the island with no means of escape. The characters face a variety of terrifying animals and situations when the park electronics go haywire due to the work of a greedy employee who wishes to sell the dinosaur DNA to the highest bidder.

The party is all split up into smaller groups as they initially try to find their footing back to one another, each encountering terrifying dinosaurs along their way - to include Velociraptors, Tyrannosaurus Rexes, Pterodactyls and a myriad of other brutal and gentle giants.

Movie

As previously stated, this movie is widely considered a cinematic classic. During the height of Steven Spielberg’s success, Jurassic Park made $47.02 million in domestic ticket sales alone during its opening weekend. It is known for being a thrilling adventure across an island full of deadly dinosaurs. Shockingly, the movie is less scary than the book, cutting out multiple instances of violent and terrifying encounters that the characters face, and some aspects of characters that made the events surrounding their death more brutal or tragic. The blood is vaguely shown and dismembered body parts are hinted at, this level of cinematic fear does not come close to the terror found within the book. The movie is not only known for its score but its creative use of both practical and CGI effects that bring the dinosaurs to life in a time where computer generated creatures did not look all that convincing. This movie and its book bring up a wonderful opportunity to discuss what it means when we manipulate nature to be as we wish it to be, especially when that is done for a profit.

Rating

The movie has a rating of PG-13 and is perfectly acceptable for most teenagers to watch given how the story was made into more of a dark adventure than the horror of the original novel. However, the novel I will give a rating of R, as it not only has much more intense suspense, it also has much more graphic depictions of gore and violence. Michael Crichton, the author of Jurassic Park, was a medical professional at the time of writing this particular book. This enabled him to write about graphic and specific medical information that lends the story a very real and visceral feeling. It is advisable that individuals who read this book are OK with and understand that it contains graphic depictions of death and maiming that may be very disturbing to some audiences.