Jurassic Park is the thunder lizard of science fiction franchises.  In between gory dino attacks, the novels wax poetically about the boundaries that science shouldn’t cross.  While the PG-13 films don’t have as much time for preaching or as much stomach for blood, they have one big advantage over the novels. Their monsters can roar.  Michael Crichton’s novel “Jurassic Park” has been cloned into several novel and film sequels.  The story line is simple.  People create dinosaurs; someone says that is a bad idea; then dinos run amok and kill the antagonist and some side characters.  But, I am just focusing on the eponymous 1990 novel and the 1993 film directed by Steven Spielberg.

I have a soft spot for the film because it was the first “scary” movie I got to watch.  I am sure there were other scary films.  I remember the heart ritual in “The Temple of Doom” was horrifying.  However, JP was the first film I went into knowing it would be scary.  I screamed all night, and I am pretty sure I wet the bed. Autobiography aside, JP was the first film that didn’t just rely on CGI as a gimmick but as everything.  If you watch JP now, your experience will be completely be determined by how you stomach the CGI.  In brief, I think it holds up really well.  And Spielberg was only testing the waters, so when there is a closeup of a dino crushing a Ford, a big scary puppet crashes through a car.  Story wise, the film is classic Spielberg.  Nedry is the bad guy.  We want Grant to like the kids.  The goal is to survive.  Everyone laughs when the lawyer dies on the toilet.  All the good guys live.  Jeff Goldbloom’s mathematician character delivers his witty “I told you so” lines perfectly, but his character is mainly ornamentation and not the philosophical linchpin of the story.

The novel feels much more dated than the film.  Watching the characters groan with frustration as they pound old mainframe consoles is more timeless than reading pages on pages of outdated computer jargon.  Crichton is a techno writer, and schematics are to be expected.  However, in the opening and middle scenes, the jargon drones on and on.  But, not all the jargon is a flop.  In the final scenes, especially when Timmy is navigating the controls, the interplay of action and computer screen enhances the tension.  The jargon didn’t ruin the novel for me. The kid loathing Grant in the film doesn’t work as well as the heroic and resourceful Grant in the novel.  Although, I don’t think I could ever find Sam Neill endearing, so maybe it was a good change (“Event Horizon”, no need for eyes).

Finally, here is why the novel is better.  Spielberg’s fancy CG dinos are in the story to impress and awe us, but the message of Jurassic Park is “Don’t do Frankenstein.”  The movie ends with the macho T-Rex scene that makes you say, “That was awesome!”  Crichton’s dinos are menacing, ominous, and relentless.  In the prologue they are likened to evil spirits.  They rip apart children’s faces.  They are something that should never have been made.  But, nature, or should I say Michael Crichton, found a way.