Jurassic Park was written by critically-acclaimed author Michael Crichton, and published more than 3 decades ago.
Jurassic Park Summary
Although it is an older book, it has remained hugely popular thanks to an excellent plot that revolves around man’s endless infatuation with dinosaurs. The story begins with Mike, an average American that went holidaying in Costa Rica with his family.
While on a beach there, Tina, Mike’s unattended daughter encountered something that looked like a lizard but had bird-like qualities. She got too close and the animal bit her, leaving a nasty saliva-infested wound that left her ill, in pain, and in need of medical attention. There’d been reports of lizard-like animals snatching sleeping kids from their cots in the area, so Tina’s case wasn’t an isolated incident, but her account of events was sufficient motivation for Dr. Guitierrez, a local wildlife expert to return to the beach and investigate.
On the beach, Dr. Guitierrez found the half-eaten remains of a lizard that matched Tina’s description, so he took it and had it sent to a lab for analysis. At the heart of the story is John Hammond, a billionaire oligarch obsessed with dinosaurs. He desired above all else to open a park where people would pay to watch dinosaurs of all kinds. He wouldn’t be dissuaded , and to achieve his vision, Hammond assembled paleontologists, archaeologists, wildlife experts, IT experts and biologists, funding their research, and poaching them to work for him. In amber, Hammond finally found a way to bring back dinosaurs, cloning their DNA from blood samples found in insects that had bitten them millions of years ago.
Hammond had his team breed dinosaurs of different sizes on a remote Costa Rican island. With virtually unlimited funding from a motivated owner, the park was equipped with everything from electric fences to motion sensors and the latest tech gadgets. There were elaborate enclosures for Triceratops, Sauropods, Velociraptors and other species. Hammond somehow thought he could, with the right gadgets and personnel, breed dinosaurs and keep them under check but that was his biggest miscalculation and the fall of his paradise.
Commentary
The events in Michael Chrichton’s Jurassic Park were vividly described in a manner that allows readers to visualize events in a virtual-reality esque manner, thus providing ample material for cinematic adaptations. We all know how movies bring stories alive and ramp up the fun for fans, and the Jurassic Park movie series is no different. They’ve brought the series alive, expanded the fun and even made the Jurassic Park book series more popular thanks to wide-reaching appeal of cinema.
Steven Spielberg, one of Hollywood’s finest movie-makers, released his movie adaptation of the classic novel in 1999, taking the entire planet by storm and setting the tone for a new age of CGI-aided movie visuals. The release was a landmark moment in 90s cinema, with the project quickly becoming one of the most thrilling movies of the decade.
Jurassic Park Movies
Just like the novel, Spielberg’s movie adaptation talks about John Hammond and his park of dinosaurs. With the aid of phenomenal CGI , Spielberg brought dinosaurs to life with images that wowed audiences. No one had seen such realistic-looking dinosaurs on screen before that point, so fans trooped to the cinemas to see it.
Four years later, The Lost World:Jurassic Park was released as the first sequel, and the second sequel, Jurassic Park III was released in 2001. Ultimately, none of the sequels were as successful as the original 1993 release, which grossed more than $914 million worldwide at the box-office.
2015’s Jurassic World is the 21st century take on the classic story, which became the second-highest-grossing movie of 2015, and the best-performing movie in the entire movie series. It’s release was preceded by a lot of hype because CGI had come such a long way since the 90s, and when it was all said and done, Jurassic World earned $1.67 billion worldwide at the box office. With a cast headed by Chriss Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Nick Robinson, and Irrfan Khan, this was one of the most exciting releases of the 2010s.
I found the Jurassic Park series a joy-ride about cloned dinosaurs, relentless capitalists, remote islands and archaeology in the books and movies. It’s a fun story that plays out with parks that appear to be in excellent order, cloned dinosaurs going about dinosaur business in their enclosures to the delight of guests. Everything appears right with the park until the supposedly caged animals get loose and humans and everything else becomes prey.
Conclusion
Those looking for a truly immersive ride free from cuts should check out the books first because movie adaptations tend to cut out chunks of the story. On the flip side, because movies bring the best part of stories to life with an efficacy words don’t always attain, the Jurassic Park movies should be on your to-do list as well.
Written by by Umar Qudus
1 thought on “Jurrasic Park by Michael Crichton Book Review”