5 Ways the Jurassic Park Novel is Different from the Movie

I had been wanting to read the novel to the Jurassic Park film for the longest time. It was definitely worth the wait, and it was one of the best sci - fi horror novels I have read in years. While I personally believe The Season of Passage by Christopher Pike is the best sci - fi novel ever written, I think Jurassic Park is a very close second. 

You can feel the terror of the characters, their desperation as they struggle to survive against hungry beasts that should not exist. I started to picture the chaos that the characters were experiencing, and I found myself so uncomfortable in several scenes in the book. 

While the movie and the novel are vastly different from one another, I still think both of them hold up quite strong. 

5. John Hammond was pure evil in the book.

John Hammond's character came off even more evil in the book compared to the movie. While the movie version portrayed Hammond as somewhat of a sympathetic character when it came to his dream of bringing dinosaurs to life, the book version of him is a major piece of shit. 

He did not give a damn about his grandkids, he constantly blamed his staff for messing up with containing the dinosaurs, and he had a massive ego. 

His character was the most annoying dude in the book, and I didn't feel a thing when the old bastard died. And it was kind of hilarious that his grandkids 'accidentally' got him killed. They had played the sound of a T - Rex roaring from speakers in the main control room of Jurassic Park, causing Hammond to panic and run into the jungle. He was then killed by baby dinosaurs. 

It was a fitting end for the bastard. 

4. The dinosaurs were harder to control in the novel.

From the beginning of the novel, we find out that Jurassic Park wasn't the best option to contain the dinosaurs. The majority of them had already broken out of the park to head to the beaches on the island, attacking unaware people that had no idea of their existence. 

The staff constantly denied the allegations of the dinosaurs breaking out of the park, but I think they were afraid to admit they had failed with their experiments. The staff also got into so many arguments with Dr. Grant, Malcolm, and even Muldoon, who all realized that the park was useless for the dinosaurs to be contained. 

These arguments really added to the novel too, because it really showed that Hammond was 100% out of his league to design a park for creatures that had been dead for millions of years.

3. Dr. Grant and the kids went through a much more horrific ordeal in the novel.

I felt like Dr. Grant and the kids suffered even more in the novel compared to the movie. The kids and Dr. Grant were viciously attacked during the car sequence when the T - Rex is first introduced, they barely escaped from the T-Rex again when they were trying to get away in a raft on the river, and they one of the kids was almost eaten by the T - Rex in one scene. 

The trio also struggled to fight the raptors toward the end of the novel, when they go back to the main building. Tim and Dr. Grant had to always use their wits to escape from these monsters, while Lex kept on complaining during all of their deadly adventures. 

I can't believe that Dr. Grant or Tim never lost their minds with Lex. She was the second most annoying character in the book, and I know that she is a child, but damn, I felt so sorry for both characters, having to deal with her awful attitude and constant complaints!

2. The novel strongly focused on the hunger of the dinosaurs.

From the very beginning of the novel, the dinosaurs were depicted as hungry beasts when it came to finding any human they came across. The way that the beasts hunted each of their prey was so disturbing and tough to read. The sequences were so scary, knowing that something bad was possibly going to happen to multiple characters in the book. 

The dinosaurs were ten times more vicious with their attacks, determined to get their next meal when it came to their victims. All of the attacks were violent, and I felt so bad for the people that were caught by these monsters. 

1. There are more deaths in the novel.

It's crazy how many deaths are presented in the novel. The book has even more main characters to follow, and everyone's deaths are so freaking brutal. We even get two kids who die in the beginning of the novel, by dinosaurs that had escaped to the beaches. 

The deaths are so difficult to read, because these dinosaurs take their time killing everyone they come across. One death that deeply disturbed me was Dennis Nedry. In the movie, his death was mainly offscreen, but in the book, we get an even more disturbing outlook on his death. 

Nedry was poisoned by a dinosaur, got his stomach ripped open, and then the dino bit his head, sinking its teeth into Nedry's skull. 

It's so messed up, and it was insane that Nedry was alive through it all!

I highly recommend that you horror fans read the Jurassic Park novel. It's a great read, and it's the closest we will ever get to a Rated - R Jurassic Park!

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Thank you for reading!

Emy Quinn