For those who aren't aware, the Jurassic Park movie is based on a novel written by Michael Crichton. I have no idea how many times I have seen Jurassic Park but I'm still not sick of it. I have just finished reading the original Jurassic Park novel for the second time. I thought it would be interesting to compare the novel to the movie. If Jurassic Park is my favourite movie, then does that mean that Jurassic Park is my favourite book?

As is the case with many movie-adaptations of books (or even book-adaptations of movies), the book is able to include more detail. This is certainly the case with Jurassic Park. The novel has many more scenes and goes into the sciency stuff in greater depth. The book has the ability to explain concepts in more detail which certainly can be beneficial. Whilst a lot of the science stuff still goes over my head, I could appreciate it more this time now that I understood a little of what they were talking about. Something I also love about the book is the additional storylines. The whole idea of dinosaurs breeding in the wild has more of a focus in the book. There are also additional scenes that would have been amazing to see in the movie. However, I already think that the movie is perfect so, as much as I love these scenes and subplots, adding them in may have made the movie worse.

The Jurassic Park movie isn't as graphic as the book is detailed when showing dinosaurs eating people. The book makes it all feel more like a horror movie that would have likely reached an MA15+ rating (rather than the family friendly PG rating). Some people may enjoy this gory nature but I think that if the movie had been made exactly as the book had described, the movie would have been much worse and I wouldn't be writing an article on why the movie is my all-time favourite movie. Of course, the suspense that is common in the Jurassic movies and the sometimes comedic nature of people getting eaten are some of the best elements in the movies. But how these deaths are described would be too much to take when shown on the big screen.

When I re-read this book, I had forgotten how different it is to the movie. The events actually play out quite differently and some of the characters are described in a very different manner. Some of the characters have entirely opposite character traits to what we see in the movie and a lot of the major events and turning points happen very quickly, therefore, losing the suspense that is done so well in the film. Whilst I do like the idea of 'what if this happened instead?' and I like to see how the characters could have been portrayed, I don't think there is anything that happens in the book that I prefer over the movie.

Two of my favourite parts of Jurassic Park, seeing the dinosaurs and hearing the sounds (including the gorgeous soundtrack), are obviously lost in the book. This may sound crazy but there is much less of a focus on the dinosaurs in the book; it is more focussed on the science. I love the sounds in Jurassic Park so much that I even wrote a whole article on it! We get none of that in the book. I know that literally none of this could have made it into the book so maybe it just comes down to the fact that I prefer movies over books.

I know I've kind of been harsh on the original novel but it can be hard to say good things when you're comparing something to your favourite movie of all time. However, I do really love the book; seeing how things could have been played out differently and getting a more inside look at the making of the dinos are still things that I can appreciate. And one of the parts I love the most about the book is how it continues to influence the movies. There are multiple elements and scenes that have been incorporated into the later sequels and I would be surprised if this doesn't continue to happen.

I am not going to go back to the easy conclusion that I usually have from these Compared reviews that the book and the movie are just 'different' because that is not true. I much prefer the movie over the book if that wasn't clear by now. However, I still love reading the book and my conclusion could just come from the fact that I generally prefer movies over books (this is called Only The Best Movies after all). Or it could just be that any sequel, adaptation, spin-off or even the original novel of my all-time favourite movie will never top my all-time favourite movie.

JURASSIC PARK (original movie)

Director: Steven Spielberg

Starring: Sam Niell, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough

Year released: 1993

My rating: 10/10

Compared with...

JURASSIC PARK (original novel)

Author: Michael Crichton

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf

Year published: 1990

My rating: 7/10

Review by Tristan Carr

Last edited: 05/06/2022