By now, almost everyone has seen the Jurassic Park movie and enjoyed it to some degree. Several people also know that Jurassic Park was originally a novel written by Michael Crichton. However, many people have never read the novel and take all their knowledge of Jurassic Park based on the movie itself. I read the novel for the first time last year and was touched by some of the amazing things that were mentioned in the book and not even mentioned in the movie. I’ll discuss two key reasons why I think you should read the book if you haven’t already.
Reason # 1: The stories and interactions of the characters are much greater in the book than in the movie.
Although the characters Alan Grant and Ian Malcolm are key characters in both the film and the novel, several characters are underused in the film. Some of these characters include Donald Gennero the lawyer, Robert Muldoon the game keeper, and Dr. Henry Wu the scientist, all of whom played minor roles in the film, but played just as prominent roles in the novel. In reality, the novel takes the time to describe each character’s background, such as their educational background and their personal goals in life.
In the movie, Alan Grant never has a serious interaction with Gennero, Muldoon, or Wu. However, the novel details each of Grant’s interactions with these three characters. Grant uses Wu’s help via walkie-talkie to turn on the backup generator so he can restore power to the park. Grant talks to Muldoon about how dinosaurs can reproduce even though they are all female. In particular, from my point of view, Grant has a heated exchange with Gennero when he tells Gennero that he must take responsibility for his decision to sell investors in the Jurassic Park construction. These are some examples of the various interactions of the characters in the novel, but there are so many that you could understand your own article.
Reason # 2: The dramatic situations in the book are much greater than in the movie
The movie has its fair share of dramatic scenes, such as the kitchen scene, as well as the escape from the visitor center. However, the novel uses several dramatic elements of its own that a film simply cannot capture.
One of the scenes in the book that comes to mind is Ellie Saddler jumping from the building’s balcony into the pool to escape the raptors. Crichton paints this situation in such a way that Ellie had to time her jump perfectly to land in the pool. The way this situation was written made it seem like Ellie couldn’t get to the pool.
Another scene that comes to mind is when Grant is trapped in a dark room in the visitor center where he has to outsmart two raptors. Grant had to use everything he knew about dinosaurs to escape this situation. It had to outsmart a group of dinosaurs known for their intelligence that nearly equaled that of humans, as Crichton described them.
Another scene is when one of the raptors tries to break through the roof barriers to enter the small house where John Hammond, Ian Malcolm and Gerry Harding were. This is in the middle of the raptors escaping from their cage and trying to get into the house. The raptors had almost passed through the barriers just as the electricity was turned on and power was restored. But because of the way this situation was written and with the various deaths that have already occurred in the book up to that point, the raptors could have entered and killed all three characters in the house.
