In 1989, strange animal attacks occur throughout Costa Rica and on nearby Isla Nublar. One of the species behind the attacks is believed to be Procompsognathus, an extinct species of dinosaur. Paleontologist Alan Grant and his paleobotanist graduate student Ellie Sattler are contacted to confirm the animal's identity, but are abruptly whisked away by billionaire John Hammond – founder of bioengineering firm InGen – for a weekend visit to a "biological preserve" he has established on Isla Nublar.
The "preserve" is a cover for the construction of Jurassic Park, a theme park showcasing living dinosaurs. Construction is nearly complete; the dinosaurs have been recreated using ancient DNA found in the blood inside insects that were fossilized and preserved in amber. Gaps in the genetic code were filled in with reptilian, avian, or amphibian DNA. All dinosaurs are engineered to be female to prevent unauthorized breeding.
The recent animal attacks have made Hammond's investors skittish. Hammond requests that Grant and Sattler tour the park and endorse it ahead of the park's opening. They are joined by mathematician and chaos theoristIan Malcolm, and a lawyer representing the investors, Donald Gennaro, both of whom are pessimistic about the park. Malcolm, consulted before the park's creation, is emphatic that the park will collapse. Hammond also invites his grandchildren, Tim and Alexis 'Lex' Murphy, to join the tour. The park's staff includes engineer John Arnold, biotechnologist Henry Wu, game warden Robert Muldoon, public relations manager Ed Regis, and veterinarian Harding. While touring the park, Grant finds a Velociraptor eggshell, seemingly proving Malcolm's assertion that the dinosaurs are breeding against the geneticists' design.
The disgruntled chief programmer of Jurassic Park's software, Dennis Nedry, commits corporate espionage for Lewis Dodgson, an agent of InGen's rival Biosyn. Activating a backdoor he wrote into the park's software, Nedry disables the security systems and steals frozen embryos for the park's fifteen dinosaur species. Attempting to rendezvous with Dodgson's agent, he becomes lost due to a tropical storm. Without Nedry to reactivate the park's systems, the dinosaurs are able to roam freely. Nedry is killed by a Dilophosaurus, and a Tyrannosaurus rex attacks the tour group. Grant saves the children before escaping with them into the jungle, Regis is killed by a juvenile T. rex, and Malcolm is gravely injured, but is rescued by Muldoon and Gennaro.
The park staff try rebooting the park's computers to reverse Nedry's sabotage, but fail to notice that only the auxiliary power generator restarts. Its fuel supply soon runs out, shutting the park down again. The park's intelligent and aggressive Velociraptors escape their enclosure and kill Arnold and Wu. Grant and the children make their way back to the island's control complex by rafting down the jungle river, narrowly escaping multiple dinosaur attacks. Grant switches on the park's main generators and Tim reactivates the park's systems. Gennaro contacts a supply boat travelling to the mainland from the island and recalls it, acting on suspicions by Grant and the children that dinosaurs are aboard.
Hammond, walking outdoors while contemplating InGen's future, is killed by a pack of Procompsognathus after he falls down a hill and breaks his ankle. Grant deduces that using frog DNA to fill gaps in the dinosaurs' genetic code resulted in an environment that was conducive to dichogamy, causing some of the female dinosaurs to become males and establish a breeding population. The park's automated computer tally failed to include newborns, having been programmed to stop counting once the expected total number of animals was found. Grant, Sattler, Muldoon, and Gennaro find the wild raptor nests and compare hatched eggs with the island's revised population tally, before realizing that the raptors are attempting to migrate off the island.
Malcolm supposedly dies from his injuries. Everyone else is evacuated by the Costa Rican Air Force, which has declared the dinosaurs hazardous and razes the island with napalm. The survivors are detained in a Costa Rican hotel. Weeks later, Grant is visited by Dr. Martin Gutierrez, an American doctor who lives in Costa Rica. Gutierrez informs Grant that an unknown pack of animals has been migrating through the Costa Rican jungle, indicating that dinosaurs have escaped the island and been reintroduced into Earth's ecosystem.
Development
The novel began as a screenplay that Crichton wrote in 1983 about a graduate student who recreates a pterosaur.[4] Eventually, given his reasoning that genetic research is expensive and "there is no pressing need to create a dinosaur", Crichton concluded that it would emerge from a "desire to entertain", leading to a wildlife park of extinct animals.[5] The story was originally told from the point of view of a child, but Crichton changed it because everyone who read the draft felt it would be better if it was told by an adult.[6]
Animal species featured
The following specified prehistoric animals are featured in the novel:
Jurassic Park critiques the dystopian potentialities of modern science. Ian Malcolm is the conscience that reminds John Hammond of the immoral and unnatural path that has been taken. The final condition of the park is epitomized by the word "hell", which highlights the nature of Hammond's sacrilegious attempt.[7]
Michael Crichton's novel is another version of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, where humanity creates something without truly knowing anything about it. Henry Wu is unable to name the things that he creates, which alludes to Victor Frankenstein not knowing what to call his flawed imitation of God's creation. The immorality of these actions lead to human destruction, echoing Frankenstein.[8]
As Dale Speirs notes at p. 18 of "Vanished Worlds: Part 6" in Opuntia 483 (Sept. 2020),[9]Jurassic Park resembles Katharine Metcalf Roof's November 1930 Weird Tales story "A Million Years After", about dinosaurs hatching from millions-of-years-old eggs.[10]
Similar to how his other novels represent science and technology as both hazardous and life-changing, Michael Crichton's novel highlights the hypocrisy and superiority complex of the scientific community that inspired John Hammond to re-create dinosaurs and treat them as commodities, which only lead to eventual catastrophe. The similar fears of atomic power from the Cold War are adapted by Michael Crichton onto the anxieties evoked by genetic manipulation.[11]
Reception
The book became a bestseller and Michael Crichton's signature novel, with largely favorable reviews by critics. In a review for The New York Times, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt described it as "a superior specimen of the [Frankenstein] myth" and "easily the best of Mr. Crichton's novels to date".[12] Writing for Entertainment Weekly, Gene Lyons held that the book was "hard to beat for sheer intellectual entertainment" largely because it was "[f]illed with diverting, up-to-date information in easily digestible form".[13] Both Lyons' Entertainment Weekly piece and Andrew Ferguson's review in the Los Angeles Times, however, criticized Crichton's characterization as heavy-handed and his characters as clichéd. Ferguson further complained about Ian Malcolm's "dime-store philosophizing" and predicted that the film adaptation of the book would be "undoubtedly trashy". He conceded that the book's "only real virtue" was "its genuinely interesting discussions of dinosaurs, DNA research, paleontology and chaos theory".[14]
The novel became even more famous following the release of the 1993 film adaptation, which has grossed more than US$1 billion and spawned five sequels.[15]
In 1991, Steven Spielberg received the rights to the novel and adapted it into the blockbuster film Jurassic Park. Following the first film’s release in 1993, as well as its critical and commercial success, Spielberg adapted the book's sequel, The Lost World, into a film in 1997. A third film, Jurassic Park III, directed by Joe Johnston, was released in 2001. It drew several elements, themes, and scenes from both books that were not used in either of the previous films, such as the aviary and boat scenes.
^Geraghty, Lincoln (2018). "Jurassic Park". In Grant, Barry Keith (ed.). Books to Film: Cinematic Adaptations of Literary Works. Vol. 1. Retrieved 2018-08-02 – via Gale Academic OneFile.
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