Jurassic Park Movie Vs Book Analysis

In many instances and in many ways, novels and stories have made the great leap from page to film. The sheer number of books being converted and adapted into movies has been steadily increasing for quite some time. And there are times, more often than not, where the recreation is mocked and criticised for being less than the original. This is where an interesting novel comes in, the science fiction adventure, Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park was written by Michael Crichton in november of 1990. The book become a huge success, somewhat rapidly, raking in a sisable profit. Because of this success and the people 's desire for more, only a mere three years later Steven Spielberg had created Jurassic Park: the movie. The film, quite like the book, was …show more content…
Now, when a book gets adapted into a film, there is obviously going to be differences. It’s not exactly a simple task translating a 300+ page book into a one and a half hour movie. For instance, when Peter Jackson adapted J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings into a major motion picture, the amount of content from the book that was left out was rather large. The main thing is that the task of deciding what goes into the movie and what can be removed or set aside from the film, is put on the director. The parts of Jurassic Park that are left out in the movie are very clear to see. For starters, the opening of the two are very different. Where the book starts out with telling a story of a nurse and a raptor attack victim, as well as a story of a dinosaur being found on the mainland; the movie starts by telling a story of a workman being killed at Jurassic Park, and a story of Gennaro meeting with some of Hammonds miners. Another significant change is where most of the action in the book is missing in the movie. There is no scene on the jungle river, which some could argue that that is one of the most exciting and action-packed part of the book. Grant and the kids spend hardly any time in the jungle on screen, when they spend a good majority of their time in the book in that jungle. Lastly, the endings of the two are vastly different. The book ends with the remaining …show more content…
While the dinosaurs of the story are considered to be the main antagonists, in the original novel John Hammond comes as a very close secondary antagonist. Which becomes interesting when one then looks at the movie adaptation, where John Hammond is not only doubtful to be considered an antagonist, but an all around nice character with a likable personality. In the book, Hammond is portrayed as an egotistical, short-tempered, greedy old man. He openly disrespects those he hired and makes decisions that only strengthen the reader’s aggravation. But the creators of the film manage to change almost everything about his personality, instead of being an egotist he cares and acts pleasantly to those around him. In the novel, Hammond flat out admits that he made Jurassic Park for a profit, while in the film, Hammond says that he made Jurassic Park for the children, to give them a real sense of wonderment. These changes of the character 's main motivation and personality, although small, do manage to change the character significantly. Because of this, some people see the film adaptation as too light-hearted or not as impactful without the certain “sting” of Hammond’s original character, while others see the “new version” of Hammond as charming and likeable, drawing the viewer closer to the film. Overall, Hammond’s character ends up going through the most change with the adaptation, making him one of the main characters to look at when looking at said