First Unitarian Church of Rochester

Jurassic Park

File:Jurassicpark.jpg First edition cover
Author	Michael Crichton
Cover artist	Chip Kidd
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Science fiction, Techno-thriller
Publisher	Alfred A. Knopf
Publication date	November 1990
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback) Audio
Pages	416 (original hardcover)
ISBN	ISBN 0-394-58816-9 (original hardcover)
Followed by	The Lost World

Jurassic Park is a science fiction novel that was written by Michael Crichton and published in 1990. Often considered a cautionary tale on unconsidered biological tinkering in the same spirit as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, it uses the mathematical concept of chaos theory and its philosophical implications to explain the collapse of an amusement park showcasing certain genetically recreated dinosaur species. It was adapted into a blockbuster film in 1993 by director Steven Spielberg.

The book has one sequel, The Lost World, in 1995, which was also adapted by Spielberg into a film in 1997.

Plot summary

In its introduction the novel is presented as a report on the consequences of "The InGen Incident", which occurred in August 1989. This "fiction as fact" presentation had been used by Crichton before, in Eaters of the Dead and The Andromeda Strain, and is used again in Rising Sun. The concept of an amusement park going haywire was also used before by Crichton in his 1973 film Westworld

The narrative begins by slowly tying together a series of incidents involving strange animal attacks in Costa Rica and on Isla Nublar, the main setting for the story. After paleontologist Alan Grant and his paleobotanist graduate student Ellie Sattler enter the sequence of queried experts they are abruptly whisked away by billionaire John Hammond (founder and chief executive officer of International Genetic Technologies, or InGen) for a weekend visit to a "zoological preserve" he has established on an island 120 miles west off the coast of Costa Rica.

Recent events have spooked Hammond's considerable investors, so, to placate them, he means for Grant and Sattler to act as fresh consultants. They stand in counterbalance to a well-known mathematician and chaos theorist Ian Malcolm and a lawyer representing the investors, Donald Gennaro. Both are pessimistic, but Malcolm, having been consulted before the park's creation, is emphatic in his prediction that the park will collapse, as it is an unsustainably simple structure bluntly forced upon a complex system.

A mosquito in Baltic amber.

Upon arrival the park is revealed to contain cloned dinosaurs, which have been recreated using damaged dinosaur DNA (found in mosquitos that sucked Saurian blood and were then trapped and preserved in amber). Gaps in the genetic code have been filled in with reptilian, avian, or amphibian DNA. To control the population, all specimens on the island are bred to be female as well as lysine-deficient. Hammond proudly showcases InGen's advances in genetic engineering and shows his guests through the island's vast array of automated systems.

Countering Malcolm's dire predictions with youthful energy, Hammond groups the consultants with his grandchildren, Tim and Alexis "Lex" Murphy. While touring the park with the children, Grant finds an eggshell, which seems to prove Malcolm's earlier assertion that the dinosaurs have been breeding against the geneticists' design (the population graphs proudly introduced earlier were naturally distributed, reflecting a breeding population, rather than displaying the distinct pattern that a population reared in batches ought to display).

Malcolm suggests a flaw in their method of analyzing dinosaur populations, in that motion detectors were set to search only for the expected number of creatures in the park and not for any higher number. The park's controllers are reluctant to admit that the park has long been operating beyond their constraints. Malcolm also points out the height distribution of the Procompsognathus forms a Gaussian distribution, the curve of a breeding population.

In the midst of this, the chief programmer of Jurassic Park's controlling software, Dennis Nedry, attempts corporate espionage for Lewis Dodgson, a geneticist and agent of InGen's archrival, Biosyn. By activating a backdoor he wrote into the system, Nedry manages to shut down the park's security systems and quickly steal 15 frozen embryos. He then attempts to smuggle them out to a contact waiting at the auxiliary dock deep in the park. But his plan goes awry: during a sudden tropical storm Nedry becomes lost and stops his stolen Jeep at a dead end. He exits the Jeep to determine his location. A Dilophosaurus approaches him from afar, blinds him with its poisonous saliva and then kills him. Nedry's plan called for him to secretly deliver the embryos and return to the park's control room within fifteen minutes, but, without him to quietly patch the system, the park's security is left off, leaving the electrified fences deactivated. Without the barriers to contain them, dinosaurs begin to escape. The adult and juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex attack the guests on tour, destroying the vehicles, killing InGen public relations manager Ed Regis, and leaving Grant and the children lost in the park.

Ian Malcolm is gravely injured during the incident but is soon found by Gennaro and park game warden Robert Muldoon and spends the remainder of the novel slowly dying as, in between lucid lectures and morphine-induced rants, he tries to help those in the main compound understand their predicament and survive.

The park's upper management — engineer and park supervisor John Arnold, chief geneticist Henry Wu, Muldoon, and Hammond — struggle to return power to the park, while the veterinarian, Dr. Harding, takes care of the very injured Malcolm. For a time they manage to get the park largely back in order. But a series of errors on their part plunge the park into greater disarray. The viciously intelligent Velociraptor finally escape. They soon kill of Wu and Arnold, and injured Muldoon, Gennaro, and Harding. Finally, Grant and the kids slowly make their way back to the central compound, carrying news that several young raptors, bred and raised in the island's wilds, were on board the Anne B, the island's supply ship, when it departed for the mainland.

Grant was then able to turn the power back, while Ellie distracts the Velociraptor so that they wont get to him. After escaping from several Velociraptor, Grant, Gennaro, Tim, and Lex were able to make it to the control room, there Tim was able to contact Anne B and tells them to return. The survivors were then able to organize themselves and eventually secure their own lives. Word soon reaches them that the crew of the Anne B had discovered and killed the raptor stowaways.

Gennaro tries to order the island destroyed as a dangerous asset but Grant rejects his authority, claiming that even though they cannot control the island they have a responsibility to understand just what happened and how many dinosaurs have already escaped to the mainland. Finally Grant, Sattler, Muldoon, and Gennaro set out into the park to find the wild raptor nests and compare hatched eggs with the island's revised population tally. Cautious and nonviolent, they emerge unharmed. Meanwhile, Hammond, while taking a walk around the park, becomes furious at being ignored and determined to restore the park to its original state, becomes injured and is killed and eaten by a pack of compys.

In the end the island is suddenly and violently razed by the fictional Costa Rican Air Force. It is implied that Malcolm has died (Although he is shown to have survived in the sequel The Lost World). Survivors of the incident are indefinitely detained by the United States and Costa Rican governments. Weeks later, Grant is visited by Dr. Martin Guitierrez, an American doctor who lives in Costa Rica, and is the founder of a Procompsognathus corpses. Guitierrez informs Grants that an unknown pack of animals has been eating crops rich in lysine (the molecule the animals were designed to be deficient in) and killing livestock as they migrate toward the Costa Rican jungle. He also informs Grant that none of them, with the possible exception of Tim and Lex, aren't going to be leaving any time soon.

Dinosaurs and other extinct animals featured

Dinosaurs and other extinct animals confirmed to be on Isla Nublar in the novel:

• Apatosaurus (Camarasaurus in some editions)
• Cearadactylus (Pteranodon in some editions)
• Dilophosaurus
• Euoplocephalus
• Hadrosaurus
• Hypsilophodon (Dryosaurus was used in context to describe this animal)
• Maiasaura
• Microceratops (Callovosaurus in some editions)
• Othnielia
• Procompsognathus
• Stegosaurus
• Styracosaurus
• Triceratops
• T.rex
• Velociraptor mongoliensis (the shorthand form "Raptor" is used in the book)

Later editions of the novel list Microceratops in place of Callovosaurus on the population tables presented in the book. Microceratops, however, is observed by characters in the park whereas Callovosaurus is not. Later editions also use Camarasaurus in place of Apatosaurus, although Apatosaurus remains on the population tables presented in the book. In the story, it is mentioned that a dinosaur presumed to be a Coelurosaurus had just begun the DNA extraction procedure as events are unfolding. In addition to dinosaurs and pterosaurs, several prehistoric plants and at least one species of insect, Meganeura, was also resurrected from extinction for the park.

Biological issues

Main article: Biological issues in Jurassic Park

Scientists have argued that much of the book's content is impossible for various reasons, most notably the suggested means of recovering dinosaur DNA from mosquitoes trapped in fossilized tree sap. While this theory is largely a plot device by Crichton, both novel and movie sparked debate on the feasibility of cloning dinosaurs.

Three arguments why it would not be possible to obtain dinosaurs with this process are summarized thus:

1. Dinosaur DNA would be very difficult to correctly sequence without a complete, intact DNA strand for comparison. It would be unlikely to find a complete sequence because DNA is typically unstable outside living organisms (unless it is in the proper buffer).
2. Any gaps in the resulting DNA sequence must be filled with dinosaur DNA; using frog DNA as the story suggests would likely produce an organism that varied from the original animal.
3. In order to clone a complete DNA sequence, an oocyte from the same organism is required. Since no Mesozoic dinosaurs are alive today, this would be impossible.

Furthermore, it is likely that any prehistoric DNA obtained from a fossilized mosquito would have become contaminated with the mosquito's own, again making it problematic to clone an 'accurate' and viable organism.

A theme expressed throughout the story and its sequel is that of homeothermic (warm-blooded) dinosaurs, a then-recent theory popularized by paleontologist Bob Bakker. While the cinematic adaptation of Jurassic Park used ostrich eggs as vessels to facilitate expression, the novel described "a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell." The plastic was called 'millipore', invented by an eponymous company subsequently bought by InGen (Millipore Corporation is also the name of a real company that manufactures materials for use in biological sciences, although they are not known to make dinosaur eggshells).

Another note, most of the dinosaurs featured in the novel are not from the Jurassic period; they are actually from the Cretaceous period, the last period during which non-avian dinosaurs lived. However, this may be chalked up to an ignorant or naïve marketing decision on InGen's part.

Differences from the film adaptation

Main article: Jurassic Park (film)

Universal Studios paid Michael Crichton $2 million for the rights to the novel in 1990, before it was even published. In 1993, the Steven Spielberg-directed film adaptation was released. Many plot points from the novel were changed or dropped. David Koepp wrote the screenplay for the film, with Crichton's assistance.

Crichton also wrote a sequel to Jurassic Park, called The Lost World, which was also made into a film. Jurassic Park III, a film not based on a Crichton book, came out in 2001.

Some significant changes include:

• The book includes several scenes with the Procompsognathus dinosaur. All these sequences and any reference to the dinosaur was dropped from the film adaptation, resulting in significant plot differences.

• The book's opening chapter shows a young American girl vacationing at the shore with her family in Central America getting attacked by Procompsognathus while her parents are not looking. Instead, the film's opening showed the events that are alluded to by the bedridden patient in the book's prologue. This is because the film drops the Procompsognathus dinosaur and also the entire subplot about dinosaurs escaping from the island, consequently this scene, the climax of the book in the raptors' nest and the scene with raptors on the boat were all deemed useless. The sequence was later recycled as the opening of the film The Lost World: Jurassic Park, with a British family cruising to Isla Sorna instead of the mainland.

• Dr. Martin "Marty" Guitierrez, a character who'll return in the novel's sequel, The Lost World, never appeared in the film.

• The first Iteration(chapter) never happened in the film, meaning all the characters from the Iteration never appeared, most notable Dr. Martin Guitierrez.

• In the novel, Dr. Grant is described as having red hair, a full beard, and a love of children. In the film, he is brown haired with no facial hair, and initially dislikes children.

• In the novel, Hadrosaurus are running near Grant, Lex, and Tim, but in the film, they are replaced by Gallimimus.

• The identities of Lex and Tim were different in the film; in the novel, Tim is the eldest and good with computers, although still interested in dinosaurs, while Lex is a young tomboy. In the movie, Lex is very good with computers, and Tim is a huge Dinosaur fan.

• Characters Dr. Henry Wu and Dr. Gerry Harding both have major roles in the novel, yet in the film they only appeared as cameos.

• The entire sequence involving the pterosaur enclosure is dropped from the film. Like the Procompsognathus scenes, this was recycled for usage later in the film series (in Jurassic Park III).

• Another sequence involving Dr. Grant and the children being chased by the Tyrannosaurus Rex down a river on an inflatable raft, was also dropped from the film, However, this river raft sequence became the inspiration for Jurassic Park: The Ride at Universal Studios Hollywood, a ride based on the film. This scene is also included in the video game adaptation for the Sega Genesis. It is possible that the scene where Dr. Grant, Paul, Amanda and Eric Kirby are sunk in the river by the apatosaurus in the third film is a homage to this scene.

• In the novel, the tour cars are Toyota Land Cruisers, but in the film they are Ford Explorers. In subsequent material outside the films, the cars are typically referred to as Land Cruisers regardless of their make.

• In the novel, Dr. Ellie Sattler disembarks from the tour to tend to a sick Stegosaurus. In the film, a sick Triceratops was used instead.

• The name of the character John Arnold was changed to Ray Arnold in the film.

• In the novel, John Hammond is killed by compys while still planning to salvage the park instead of escaping realizing his mistake.

• In the film, the survivors take shelter in a emergency bunker, but in the novel they hide in the bedroom where the injured Ian Malcom is being tended.

• In the novel, John Hammond has more cynical and greedy motivations: in the film, most of Hammond's negative personality traits are given to the lawyer instead.

• In the film adaptation Robert Muldoon, the Game warden, is killed by the Velociraptor, while in the novel he survives the attack by diving into a pipe where the raptors cannot follow. In the film, it is Lex who hides herself in a pipe, but to hide herself from the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

• In the film, there is a bonus scene where they are having lunch at a restaurant, but in the novel, it is only mentioned.

• In the novel, Ed Regis is eaten by a juvenile tyrannosaur. In the movie, the character is not present, and instead Donald Genarro is eaten by an adult tyrannosaur.

• In the book, Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler are not romantically involved, as they are in the film, and Dr. Sattler is said to be nearly twenty years younger than Dr. Grant and engaged to the man she is married to in the third film.

• In the novel, there are more Velociraptor, which is referred to in the movie when Muldoon said they had originally bred eight.

• In the novel, the Velociraptors did not have the complex, bird-like vocalizations evident in the film; they simply snarled or hissed, and occasionally roared when angered.

• In the novel, Dr. Grant learns that the tyrannosaurus has difficulty finding motionless prey when he becomes petrified with fright during the tyrannosaurus's attack. In the movie, as soon as the first tyrannosaurus attack begins, he immediately tells the several other characters to sit still because "Their vision is based on movement." It is highly improbable that that could be determined by looking at a creature's bones.

• Dr. Grant restores power to the park in the novel, while in the movie, Ellie Sattler does.

• The Velociraptor pen is described as a chain-link enclosure in the novel, and is a more solid looking structure in the film.

• Only one Velociraptor follows Tim and Lex into the kitchen in the novel. In the film, there are two Velociraptor, and another one shows up soon.

• In the novel's ending, Tim and Lex fled the building after Tim locked the raptors out and played with the Tyrannosaurus Rex roaring call that fooled Hammond from the raptors, while in the film, Alan, Ellie, Tim, and Lex all had escaped and climbed onto the dinosaur skeletons in the Visitor Center until the two velociraptors try to eat them until the Tyrannosaurus accidentally saves their lives by snatching it.

• Tim Murphy used the computer to lock out the Velociraptors while in the film, Lex sorted out the computer while Grant and Ellie Sattler held the door against the Velociraptors.

• The sequence where Grant and the children climb over the electric fence takes place shortly after the Tyrannosaurus rex attack in the novel. As well, Tim is not electrocuted by the fence in the novel.

• Tim escapes from the tour car in the tree by himself in the novel. In the film, Alan Grant helps him because he is too injured.

• The Tyrannosaurus Rex does not appear again in the novel after it snatches a Hadrosaur in the book, but in the film, it shows up again after eating a Gallimimus and snatches the two Velociraptors to save the survivors.

• In the novel, Grant, Genarro, Tim, and Lex are being attacked by three Velociraptors. All three Velociraptors were poisoned and killed by Grant. In the film, Grant, Ellie, Tim, and Lex are being attacked by two Velociraptors.

• The dinosaur species (excluding Compsognathus, and the non-dinosaurs Pterosaurs) in the novel Apatosaurus, Miceratops, Othnelia, Styracosaurus, Euoeplocephalasaurus, Hadrosaurs, Hypsilophodon, and Maisaura do not appear in the film adaptation. Apatosaurus is replaced by Brachisaurus, Hadrosaurs are replaced by Gallimimus, and Stegosaurus was only seen in a tube label, despite being misspelled as Stegasaurus.

• The survivors in the novel are Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, Lex Murphy, Tim Murphy, Donald Genarro, Robert Muldoon, Dr. Harding, and several workmen. Ian Malcolm is later revealed to have survived the incident, only for the sake of bringing him back for the second movie. However, he did indeed die in the book, as stated at the end how while in Costa Rica, authorities would not allow for the burial of Malcom and Hammond. In the film the survivors are Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, Lex Murphy, Tim Murphy, Ian Malcolm and John Hammond. In the film, Henry Wu and Dr. Harding, along with all the workmen, left before the crises happened.

• The park's computer systems are updated in the movie; the novel called for three Cray X-MP supercomputers to be used for sequencing the dinosaur DNA; in the movie, the 'Mr. DNA' tour animation reveals that the park uses Thinking Machines supercomputers, specifically eight Connection Machine CM-5s (as revealed by Dennis Nedry) and Silicon Graphics workstations. The supercomputers are not shown to the visitors in the movie, but are visible in the control room scenes as large metal towers covered in red lights, presumably for the visual effect of thousands of indicator lights.

Reception

The book became a bestseller and Michael Crichton's signature novel. It was also given good reviews by critics. It became even more famous when the film came out, and becoming the most grossing film of all time(it's currently 10th), grossing over $914,691,118.

Bibliography

• Cano R.J., Poinar H.N., Pieniazek N.J., Acra A., Poinar G.O. Jr. (1993). Amplification and Sequencing of DNA from a 120–135-Million-Year-Old Weevil. Nature, 363:536–538
• Weaver, R. F. (2002). Molecular Biology. McGraw-Hill, New York, p. 76. ISBN 0-07-234517-9
• Noonan, J.P., et al. Genomic sequencing of Pleistocene cave bears. Science 309(5734):597-9, July 2005.

Further reading

The Science of Jurassic Park and The Lost World. Or How to Build a Dinosaur. Rob DeSalle and David Lindley. BasicBooks, New York, 1997. xxix, 194 pp., illus. $18 or C$25.50. ISBN 0-465-07379-4.

External links

• Official site
• Jurassic Park at the official Michael Crichton website
• Jurassic Park Legacy - A JP Encyclopedia
• JPdb - Jurassic Park Database
• The Jurassic Park Wiki
• Jurassic Park: Horizontal Evolution by Harrison Mujica-Jenkins at latephilosophers.com
• Jurassic Park Trilogy
• Jurassic Park & Dinosaur News