“God creates dinosaurs, God kills dinosaurs, God creates man, man kills God, man brings back dinosaurs.”

– Dr. Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park

I remember watching Jurassic Park when it was first released in 1993 and it blew my mind. I was only 12 at the time and seeing the way the dinosaurs looked and moved on screen, it was hard to believe that they weren’t real. The music filled me with awe, the acting was charming and grounded, the story was gripping and fun — there truly was something for everyone in this superb film. Steven Spielberg created an adventure full of wonder and thrills for the entire family.

It took me until my later high school years to find the joy in reading (thank you Mrs. Henne and Terry Brooks). The only thing I can attribute not reading Jurassic Park at that time to was my insatiable love of medieval fantasy and galactic sci-fi. I couldn’t be bothered with more modern novels, I guess. Now, over 30 years later, I have finally gotten around to it, and I have feelings.

Not too surprisingly, the film follows Michael Crichton’s novel closely hitting on all the major plot points in a condensed manner to fill out its runtime. That said, the novel includes many more scenes and creatures I thought were suspiciously missing from the film, which we actually see in subsequent films. It also expands on ideas and characters, both good and bad. The novel is quite a bit darker than the movie “showing” more violence and situations that aren’t so family-friendly.

The biggest surprise for me was how much Spielberg changed the character personalities and relationships.

Everybody from Grant and Sadler to Lex and Hammond have different relationships and personalities, small and large. The biggest expansion from the movie is Dr. Henry Wu who gets much more page time which makes sense as he’s the one to give exposition on how the dinosaur process actually works and is a major player in Hammond even getting the island off the ground. The biggest character change would be a tie between Gennaro (the lawyer) and John Hammond. Gennaro is a core member of the group in the novel rather than a sniveling lawyer who dies early (albeit it memorably) in the movie. The big man himself, Hammond, is a cold, greedy little tycoon, a big change from his loving grandfather and dinosaur enthusiast aesthetic in the movie.

At times it felt like I was reading another timeline these characters were trapped in. I wanted desperately to tell them of the Spielberg timeline where they could be in a loving relationship and maybe make it out alive. Instead, there in this more negative one where some big characters die and the rest go back to their regular lives happy to be alive and with the knowledge that you should never play God.

The themes are the same as I got from the movie, it’s just the movie left me a little more happy on the helicopter ride home.

4.0 out of 5.0 stars4.0