Jurassic Park: Book vs. Movie
There was a Jurassic Park thread elsewhere with people questioning why Jurassic Park (the fictional island attraction) was abandoned. It was pointed out to the questioning party that, in the book, Jurassic Park was destroyed and for damn good reason. FOr one thing, the death toll was a lot bigger than in the film. Also the dinosaurs were escaping the island in droves.
Anyway, it got me thinking about this topic.
Now I re-read the book about once a year. I love it. It has been many years since I watched the movie though. I still don't hesitate to say I liked the book a lot more. I remember the movie well enough and I remember how it, being an adaptation, has to give you the Cliff Notes version of all the themes and ideas from the source material. It also did little things that kinda irk me, like having Sam Jackson mention the lysine deficiency. WHy did he mention something that will literally never be discussed again? Because it was in the book and they wanted to be "faithful" in the lipservice sort of way.
Possibly a better example of my earlier criticism though is the scene where Sam Neil says the dinos are breeding. Now this is a HUGE plot point in the bok, what with the tracking system failing and all the talk about Dr. Wu's method of engineering the dinosaurs, and it really hammers home how the Park was doomed from the beginning. This also leads into the whole raptor nest part, as well as the bit about dinosaurs escaping to the mainland and surviving there because they can now breed.
In the movie though....what does this scene really contribute? Nothing. There are still only a handful of raptors, one Rex, and that's it. It's just kinda there.
The first JP movie is by no means BAD...it's just not as interesting to me so I don't see a lot of value in revisiting it.
So that's my views. How about you all? Which do you prefer and why?
