Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park is a 1990 science fiction novel written by Michael Crichton. 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 genetically recreated dinosaurs. In 1993, Steven Spielberg adapted the book into the blockbuster film Jurassic Park, which won 3 Oscars, 19 other awards, and 15 nominations. The book's sequel, The Lost World (1995), was also adapted by Spielberg into a film in 1997. A third movie, directed by Joe Johnston, was also created that did not relate to either book.

 

Easton Press Jurassic Park editions

  Jurassic Park - Signed Limited Edition - 2008
  The Lost World - 2008

Franklin Library Jurassic Park editions

  Jurassic Park - signed first edition - 1990
  The Lost World - signed first edition - 1995

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Plot summary

The narrative begins in August 1989 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. One of the species, a strange small lizard-like creature with three toes, is identified later as a Procompsognathus. Paleontologist Alan Grant (based on real life paleontologist Jack Horner) and his paleobotanist graduate student Ellie Sattler 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 "biological preserve" he has established on an island 120 miles west off the coast of Costa Rica.

Upon arrival, the preserve is revealed to be Jurassic Park, a theme park showcasing cloned dinosaurs, which have been recreated using damaged DNA found in mosquitoes that sucked dinosaur 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 lysine-deficient females. Hammond proudly touts InGen's advances in genetic engineering and shows his guests through the island's vast array of automated systems.

Recent events in the park have spooked Hammond's considerable investors. To placate them, Hammond 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 unsustainable simple structure bluntly forced upon a complex system.

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 a Velociraptor 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 normally 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, one of each of the park's fifteen species. He then attempts to smuggle them out to a contact waiting at the auxiliary dock deep in the park; however, during a sudden tropical storm, he exits his stolen vehicle to get his bearings and is killed by a Dilophosaurus. Without Nedry to reactivate the park's security, the electrified fences remain off, and dinosaurs begin to escape. The adult and juvenile Tyrannosaurus Rex attack the guests on tour, destroying the vehicles, killing 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 injured Malcolm. For a time they manage to get the park largely back in order, restoring the computer system by shutting down and restarting the power, resetting the system. Unfortunately, a series of errors on their part soon plunge the park into greater disarray. During their time trying to restore the park to working order, they fail to notice that the system has been running on auxiliary power since the restart; this power soon runs out, shutting the park down a second time. The vicious and intelligent Velociraptors, referred to by characters as just "raptors", finally escape, killing Wu and Arnold and injuring Muldoon, Gennaro, and Harding. Finally, Grant and the children 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.

While Ellie distracts the raptors, Grant manages to turn the main power back on. After escaping from several raptors, Grant, Gennaro, Tim, and Lex are able to make it to the control room, where Tim is able to contact the Anne B and tell them to return. The survivors are then able to organize themselves and eventually secure their own lives. Word soon reaches them that the crew of the Anne B has 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. Grant, Ellie, and Muldoon set out into the park to find the wild raptor nests and compare hatched eggs with the island's revised population tally. Cautious in this pursuit, they emerge unharmed. Meanwhile, Hammond, taking a walk around the park and contemplating making a park improving on his previous mistakes, is attacked and eaten by a pack of Procompsognathus. Concerning the dinosaurs' breeding, it is eventually revealed that using frog DNA to fill gaps in the dinosaurs' genetic code enabled a measure of dichogamy, in which some of the female animals changed into males in response to the all-female environment.

In the conclusion, the island is suddenly and violently demolished by the fictional Costa Rican Air Force. It is stated that Malcolm dies (the Costa Rican government refuses to bury both Hammond and Malcolm's bodies). 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 has found a Procompsognathus corpse. Guitierrez informs Grant that an unknown pack of animals has been migrating through the Costa Rican jungle, eating lysine-rich crops and chickens. He also informs Grant that none of them, with the possible exception of Tim and Lex, are going to be leaving any time soon. 

Dinosaurs in Jurassic Park book

Fourteen dinosaur species were cloned in Jurassic Park, Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptor, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Dilophosaurus, Procompsognathus, Apatosaurus, Maiasaura, Hypsilophodon, Hadrosaurus, Microceratops, Othnielia, Euoplocephalus, Styracosaurus and pterosaur Cearadactylus. Many other species are mentioned and one non-dinosaur, Meganeura, appears in the story. 

InGen

The fictional company InGen (International Genetic Technologies, Inc.) is based in Palo Alto, California, and has one location in Europe. Nevertheless, most of InGen's research took place on the fictional islands of Isla Sorna and Isla Nublar. While official records indicated InGen was just one of any number of small 1980s genetic engineering start-ups, the events of the novel and film revealed to a select group that InGen had discovered a method of cloning dinosaurs and other animals (including a quagga) using blood extracted from mosquitoes trapped in amber during various periods in time, ranging from the Mesozoic era to the 1800s. Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction describe InGen as comparable to another "sleazy organization". Other sources reference the company's receiving the baby T. rex as an allusion to other exploitative entrepreneurs depicted in King Kong. Ken Gelder describes InGen as "resolutely secretive, just like the firm in Grisham's novel." 

Biological issues and accuracy

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 resin (amber). While this theory is largely a plot device by Crichton, both novel and movie sparked debate on the feasibility of cloning dinosaurs.

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

Research indicates 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).
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, unless it was non-coding or DNA shared, both species (such as metabolic proteins) or DNA with highly conserved functions like homeobox genes.

Cloning a complete DNA sequence requires an oocyte from the same organism. Since no Mesozoic dinosaurs are alive today, this is impossible.
The processes of CpG methylation and cytosine deaminization are especially important. The process of CpG methylation is a common regulatory device in eukaryotic DNA, where cytosine immediately preceding a guanine on the same stand is methylated. This acts as a molecular flag to control gene expression. The problem is, over time cytosine deaminization can occur—where a cytosine loses its amine group, which is replaced by a carbonyl group. un-methylated cytosine results in uracil, which is not found in DNA, so can it be assumed to be a de-aminated cytosine. On the other hand, if the cytosine has methylated, then the product of deaminization is thymine, which is found in DNA—so it would be impossible to know which Ts are Ts, and which are de-aminated methyl cytosines.
 

Over such a long time, the entrapped DNA molecules would reform into minerals, just as conifer resin crystallizes into amber, effectively destroying any viable DNA strands. Brownian motion and entropy (energy losses) make the atoms go to their lowest energy states, which would be crystals rather than amorphous material. The same processes causes obsidian and other volcanic glass to crystallize in less than 100,000 years. In addition, heat and pressure from burial would also tend to metamorphose the DNA just as it metamorphoses the resin into amber.
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.

Crichton appears to have been aware of most, if not all, of the scientific objections raised, a consequence of his own medical background (having earned a medical degree from Harvard Medical School). Within the novel, Dr. Wu reflects on the nature of his dinosaurs. For Dr. Henry Wu, they are his creations, made from fragments of DNA available, and corrected and changed according to the needs of the client, Mr. Hammond. The animals replicated in this way would have represented a truly towering achievement in the biological sciences - the manufacture of fully synthetic organisms with structures based on theoretical models as opposed to truly observed biology. That the dinosaurs thus manufactured display the characteristics of natural organisms, including responding to environmental pressures (such as the all-female population, and lysinergic biochemical pathway degradation) increases the magnitude of the achievement.

A theme expressed throughout the story and its sequel is that of endothermic ("warm blooded"), homeothermic (able to maintain a stable body temperature), 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.) 

Jurassic Park Movie

Before Crichton's book was even published, studios such as Warner Bros., Columbia TriStar, 20th Century Fox, and Universal had already begun bidding to acquire the picture rights. Spielberg, with the backing of Universal Studios, acquired the rights to the novel before its publication in 1990, and Crichton himself was hired by Universal Studios for an additional US$500,000 to adapt the novel into a proper screenplay. David Koepp wrote the final draft, which left out much of the novel's exposition and violence, and made numerous changes to the characters.

Steven Spielberg directed the Jurassic Park movie, filmed at the Hawaiian islands of Oahu and Kauai in September 1992. Opening on June 11, 1993, it starred Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum. Many plot points from the novel were changed or dropped, and the cautionary aspect of the novel was reduced. A subplot involving animals escaping to the mainland was dropped, and the cast of dinosaurs was made smaller and more manageable. Many secondary characters were also dropped. Many scenes are left intact from the novel, but have the species of the relevant dinosaurs changed. The film was extremely popular though, grossing $919,700,000 worldwide, the highest ever at the time, and the sixth-highest worldwide box office take for a feature film as of 2006.

Largely credited for the movie's success were its special effects. Through the use of CGI and conventional mechanical effects, the dinosaurs in the film appeared relatively lifelike, due to the experience ILM had on previous effects films such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Jurassic Park marked the Hollywood effects industry's transition from conventional optical effects to digital techniques

The movie won Academy Awards for Visual Effects, Sound Effects Editing, and Sound, and spawned three sequels, The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) and Jurassic Park III (2001). Jurassic Park IV (IMDb) is currently in pre-production. There are rides based on Jurassic Park in the Universal Studios theme parks in Orlando, California and Osaka.

Original ending

Originally, the movie was to end with the T. rex skeleton (in the Visitor Center) falling onto the raptors before they attack Alan Grant, Tim, Lex, and Ellie Sattler. Hammond arrives and is then able to gun down the raptors with a shotgun. Later when the original ending was seen as too simplistic a resolution, the skeleton was replaced with a living T. rex that attacks the raptors, saving Grant and the others. This ending also eliminates the shooting of the raptors, which is why a brief scene was included in which the shotgun is left in another room. In both versions, the surviving humans quickly flee with Hammond in his jeep to the helicopter and escape the island.

The original ending was used in the original Sega Genesis Jurassic Park video game. The scrapped ending is used as the ending for Grant's campaign, with a minor alteration, in which the player uses concussion grenades to cause the skeletons to fall. Alternatively, if a player chooses to play as the Raptor, the end of the game involves kicking the skeletons' bases, causing them to collapse, thereby defeating Dr. Grant. 

Dinosaurs in Jurassic Park movie

Brachiosaurus
Dilophosaurus
Gallimimus
Triceratops
Tyrannosaurus rex
Velociraptor 

The Lost World: Jurassic Park 2 movie (1997)

As soon as the novel was published, a film was in pre-production, with a target release date of mid-1997. The film was a commercial success, breaking many box-office records when released. The film had mixed reviews, similar to its predecessor in terms of characterization. Much like the first film, The Lost World made a number of changes to the plot and characters from the book, replacing the corporate rivals with an internal power struggle and changing the roles/characterizations of several protagonists.

When a vacationing family stumbles upon the dinosaurs of Isla Sorna, a secondary island where the animals were bred en masse and allowed to grow before being transported to the park, Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) is called in by John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) to lead a team to document the island to turn it into a preserve, where the animals can roam free without interference from the outside world. Malcolm agrees to go when he discovers his girlfriend, paleontologist Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) is already on the island, while at the same time Hammond's nephew Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard) has taken over his uncle's company and leads a team of hunters to capture the creatures and bring them back to a theme park in San Diego. The two groups clash and are ultimately forced to work together to evade the predatory creatures and survive the second island. The film also stars Pete Postlethwaite, Richard Schiff, Vince Vaughn, Vanessa Lee Chester, Peter Stormare, and a young Camilla Belle. 

Additional Jurassic Park movies

Jurassic Park III (2001)
Jurassic World (2015)
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
Jurassic World Dominion (2022)
Jurassic World Rebirth (2025)


Source and additional information: Jurassic Park