The Lost World: Novel/Film differences Part one-The Gatherers

The Lost World was Michael Crichton’s follow-up to Jurassic Park, and naturally, it quickly received a movie adaptation directed by Steven Spielberg-but like with Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park”, several changes were made between page and screen. Both novel and film deal with Ian Malcolm and others stumbling upon a second Dinosaur island-Site B, or “Isla Sorna”-which was the large-scale laboratory and factory complex for Jurassic Park, and are filled with a lot of Dinosaur awe and action, but apart from that, novel and film differ quite a bit. Let’s start with the characters-the good guys, or, as Steven Spielberg put it, “The gatherers”.

 

 

Ian Malcolm

First things first, Ian Malcolm ‘sort of’ dies in the first “Jurassic Park” novel, but Michael Crichton, perhaps encouraged by the popularity of Jeff Goldblum’s take on the character, or realizing that maybe Alan Grant or some other new protagonist wouldn’t really be able to communicate the complex issues communicated in the novels, “resurrected” Malcolm, revealing that although he suffered a leg injury, he managed to somehow escape Jurassic Park before it was sterilized, and despite Muldoon implying he was a goner.

In the TLW novel, Malcolm begins to see evidence from one of his colleagues, Dr. Richard Levine, that there’s another Dinosaur island out there, although he’s initially reluctant to tell Levine of his involvement in Jurassic Park. Nonetheless, he’s intrigued, and when Levine goes missing on Isla Sorna, he likewise goes to the Island, with two other men-Dr. Thorne and Eddie Carr, scheduled to join Levine’s expedition-to find Levine and discovery the mystery of Isla Sorna.

There’s a bit of a divergence here. Like in the book, film Malcolm goes to the island to search for a missing paleontologist-but in that case it’s his girlfriend Sarah Harding. Likewise, film Ian went public with the events of Jurassic Park, to initial public disbelief (which has faded by the time the Dinosaurs were public anyway by film’s end).

Ian’s attitude is also completely different once he arrives. In the film, he’s desperate to get off the island, something which is accelerated even further when it turns out not only is Sarah on the island, but his daughter Kelly as well.

In the novel, he pretty much is in no hurry whatsoever, somewhat relishing the opportunity to study these creatures, much like Levine…and also to study a theory of extinction he’s developing in his head….until the latter events of the novel, where he suffers yet another T-rex related injury, and the Raptors start attacking everyone, leading Sarah to call for an evacuation helicopter. In the novel, he also surmises that the Dinosaurs are dying anyway, due to Ingen’s poor feeding techniques which have led to an outbreak on the island, and that perhaps the Dinosaurs-which were nurtured in a lab and not naturally grown-may be a poor basis for his study anyway (as he notices the Raptors are particularly vicious).

 

Sarah Harding

Julianne Moore’s Sarah is a combination of two characters from the novel, her namesake and Richard Levine. Novel Sarah is an animal behaviorist, and although a former girlfriend of Malcolms and aware of the expedition to Site B, doesn’t initially believe the Dinosaur stories until she sees them in the flesh. Her way to the island is a bit different; instead of going early to the island (like Levine), she hitches a ride with the villains Dodgson, King and Baselton, unaware that they’re bad guys from Biosyn who want to steal Dinosaur eggs and use them for their own Dinosaur genetic experiments….they throw her overboard once they’re close to the island, but she manages to survive and reunites with Malcolm and co. Like in the film, she assists in tending to the injured young T-rex, and is attacked as well. She seems a bit more ‘badass’ than their film counterpart, as well, although Moore did have some pretty good scenes here and there.

Levine’s inspiration for the character is the paleontologist aspect, as well as the character’s somewhat over-the-top giddiness, occasional frustration and sometimes clumsy field work (The NIKON camera incident for instance, and the bloody jacket, although neither happened to Levine, Levine still makes many other errors, including one incident that gets his initial guide killed).

The combination also makes Sarah an expert in “Paleontological behavior study” which sort of mixes her two professions together (and is “sort of” a real thing, although of course based a lot on theory and conjecture since we don’t have actual living Dinosaurs apart from their evolutionary descendants, birds!).

Book Sarah also gets to ride a motorcycle against Raptors (and around a herd of apatosaurs), something used in concept art for the film but ultimately left out for her….

We just get this random guy instead.

Although Jurassic World would also use similar imagery, but the Raptors working with the main characters (well, at least at first).

Eddie Carr/Nick Van Owen

 

Now here’s where things get a bit more complicated. There’s no “Nick Van Owen” in the novel, but there is an Eddie Carr. However, novel Eddie is the assistant to Dr. Thorne, a character that does not appear in the film…..however, many of film Eddie’s technical skill-the rifle, the trailers, High Hide etc. are Thorne’s work in the novel, and Eddie is mainly his assistant. It’s also Thorne who helps to rescue Ian and Sarah from the T-rex trailer attack, much like Eddie in the film. Some of novel Eddie’s mannerisms are incorporated into Nick Van Owen; his sense of humor to a degree (although not his environmentalist background) and perhaps most importantly, Eddie’s the one who saves the infant T-rex and brings it to the trailer, much like Nick in the film. However, whereas Nick survives in the film, both versions of Eddie die; novel Eddie falls over the high hide during a Raptor attack and becomes Raptor food; Film Eddie is torn apart by the Tyrannosaurs during the rescue attempt.

 

Kelly

Kelly is another character that’s kind of a mix between other characters. Two of Levine’s students, Kelly and Arby, stow away on the trailer much like Kelly does, although unlike movie Kelly, there is no family relationship to Malcolm. There’s also no rush at first for them to leave the island, until the Raptors attack; and Kelly also finds herself looking up to Sarah much like her movie counterpart, and also saves the day; although in the novel, it’s not gymnastics, but her locating a crawlspace and boathouse (after the rescue helicopter decides to leave) that allows the characters to escape-and just in time, too.

 

Hammond

…..is still dead in the book-verse; despite Malcolm’s miraculous recovery, Hammond stays dead, as he was killed off in the original novel….Hammond in the original novel is portrayed as a very greedy man who is unwilling to believe anything could possibly go wrong; while the movie version displays this arrogance for a bit, the novel version is a far colder, dangerous man and in many ways is more of a villain than Nedry, and gets killed by falling into a ditch and getting eaten by compsonathus, while the movie version repents of his park, although he still wishes to preserve the Dinosaurs in Site B (although not in a park), and before his death, tasked Masereti with reviving Jurassic Park with Jurassic World.

Some of Hammond’s greedy traits from the first book are incorporated into TLW’s villain, his nephew Peter Ludow…

but his death in the JP novel is pretty similar to Dietar Stark’s demise in TLW (Although Dietar’s death also shares some similarities with Peter King’s death in the novel; I’ll go on about that in a separate article).

 

 

 

 

Jurassic Park in Review: Jurassic World Part I

In 2013, perhaps emboldened by the recent Disney sale of Star Wars and the promise of new films, Universal Studios began to work on briging back one of their big franchises: Jurassic Park. Although the last two films had been set on people getting stuck on the “factory floor” island Isla Sorna. However, the new film “Jurassic World” would return to the concept that started it all, and on the original island.

Despite the inciddents in the original trilogy, at some point Ingen-after the passing of John Hammond-came under the control of Masareti, who like Hammond, is well-meaning but a bit naive about things. Using what’s left of the original park’s Dinosaurs, he succesfully rebuilds the park (although on the other end of the island, apparentally, leaving the old Visitor’s center abandoned and decaying)….and manages to run it sucessfully…for a time.

The concept of a Jurassic Park that actually was completed and functions was also the idea behind the simulation Operation Genesis, which came out in the early 00’s, during the height of the Sims/tycoon genre of games.

 

 

Paying a visit over the holiday season are the the sons of the Mitchell family, who are being sent to the island with the mother’s sister, Claire Dearing (Operations manager of the Park), to watch over them. Similar to the first film with Tim and Lex, this is actually in part to help them cope with their parent’s divorce.

The film begins with a creature quickly hatching from an egg, alongside another egg, looking somewhat like the Raptor hatchling from the first film….but this thing isn’t a Raptor….well, sort of.

We then cut to a scary-looking foot, but one that turns out to be simply that of a bird; once again selling the Dinosaur/bird connection first established in the original film.

 

….and then an unusual setting for a Jurassic Park film-a snowy house. It’s around Christmas, and we meet the two kids of the film, Zach and Gray.  They’re sort of similar to Tim and Lex thematically-their parents are getting a divorce, so they’re being sent to the island over Christmas vacation, with the mom (Played by Judy Greer, who played a  divorcee in Ant-Man later that same summer) jokingly telling the kids to ‘run’ if something chases them. Now that’s some advice that’s going to come in handy…and of course they’ll be in the care of her sister/their aunt, Claire, who it turns out pretty much runs the day-to-day operations of the island-also reflecting in part, Hammond’s relationship with Tim and Lex in the first film.

Since this is a fully-fledged Jurassic Park, it has it’s own ferry from the mainland, instead of the helicopter from the first film. Gray states that there were “eight species” when the Park first opened, which might be a slight reference to the number of different Dinosaurs seen in the original Jurassic Park film (although off by one). The film never really explains what happened to the Dinosaurs of the original park, with the exception of the Tyrannosaur who the directors and writers confirm is the same as the original, and even given a name (off-screen) “Rexy.” I’m guessing these are mostly new Dinosaurs, as it’s stated that they’re all female, which means that Wu might’ve gone back to the drawing board and gotten rid of the frog DNA (or used something else) that caused the mutation. Except for Rexy, but presumabely she’s the only one of her kind on the island.

Isla Sorna is also not brought up at all, despite being the setting of the last two films (although there a few nods, here and there, to the other sequels).

 

Here we also meet Zara, Aunt Claire’s sort of secretary, who clearly doesn’t want to deal with these kids. She’s also at the core of one of the film’s more controversial moments, later on.

And of course we get the ‘gate’, supposed to be the same one, but rebuilt, relocated, and placed on a monorail track.

And we get our first real look at the Park’s main center, which seems to have gotten some design tips from Disney and Universal’s own parks-a bunch of fancy restaurants-including a Margaritaville!(more on that later) and booths.

 

Soon, we’re introduced to Claire, our heroine, although she initially comes off as a bit cold and unlikable, at first. She’s giving some stockholders a bit of a private tour of the Hammond creation lab, JW’s genetics chamber (It’s presumed that, unlike the original park, that most of the Dinos here are bred on the island-it seems like a much larger operation than JP’s small hatchery anyway).

 

Speaking of said hatchery, we meet Jurassic World’s only familiar (non-Dinosaur) face-Dr.Henry Wu.

Wu of course was the chief geneticist in the original movie, who cast doubts on Ian Malcolm’s reasoning about the Dinosaurs being able to breed.  Despite his being wrong-and being involved with the troubled first park-he’s been re-hired, and is breeding a new ‘designed’ Dinosaur, Indominous Rex, since people are apparently getting bored of the same ol’ Dinos (JW’s apparently been open for around a decade according to some of the supplemental stuff for the movie, but I gotta echo what Owen says later on: “They’re Dinosaurs. Wow enough”). Of course Wu does have his own motives for creating this ‘new’ Dinosaur.

Next we get the innovation center, a new Visitor’s center but far more high-tech, with holographic dinosaurs and touchscreens instead of bones.  It also sees the return of Mr. DNA, the cartoon mascot from JP’s short film on creating the dinosaurs (and also mascot of pretty much every tutorial in a Jurassic Park video game).

Claire visits her nephews in the center, but it’s obvious she’s completely out of touch.

We next meet the Park’s control room, with Lowery and Vivian, who function largely as the film’s comic relief (and they’re certainly more likable than the original control room crew from JP, especially Nedry), while also functioning as a bit of meta-commentary on the film itself. Lowery in particular, is frustrated that the park is a bit too commercial-an accusation levied at the first film’s product tie-ins, especially the cafe scene (A criticism-well, at least of that scene as there’s no denying JP is a major universal cash cow-that I debunked a bit in my JP review a few months back). He’s also a fan of the original park, which Claire finds in bad taste because of the deaths involved-and wears a JP T-shirt. He figures since the I. Rex is sponsored by Verizon Wireless, next thing is that they’re going to let the corporations name some new Dinosaurs, like “Pepsisaurus”. He also refers to the Dinos and mess on his desk (Well, that’s one thing he shares with Nedry) as a ‘living system to keep the system from collapsing into anarchy’-which seems like something Malcolm would say.

Which is fitting, since he’s reading Malcolm’s book (It’s unclear whether this is the one Eric was referring too in the last film).

We also learn that despite being a tighter operation than the original (which was still being developed anyway and never opened) Jurassic World’s got it’s ocassional glitches. Instead of the electrical fences of the original park (as well as bits of Isla Sorna), The Dinosaurs are implanted with ‘invisible fence’ implants, which unfortunately get shorted out when certain Dinosaurs butt heads-literally, as we learn with the Pachycephalosaurus. (It seems that with the Raptors, Mosasaurus, Rex and I. Rex, they’re not taking too many changes, and we clearly see both fences, concrete or unbreakable glass surrounding them.).

Next we see Simon Masarani, Ingen’s current head, and like Hammond, doesn’t really care as much about the bottom line as much as people having fun. He also comes off as slightly less naive about the dangers of a Dino park. This scene-set to pretty much the same music as the old copter scene from the original (What I like to call the Park’s “Adventure” theme) also confirms that Hammond died, and apparently didn’t completely go from Capitalist to Naturalist entirely as Malcolm stated in The Lost World, as he asked Masarani to pretty much rebuild his “dream”. Kind of reminds me of his old qoute….

 

“You’re right, you’re absolutely right. Hiring Nedry was a mistake, that’s obvious. We’re over-dependent on automation, I can see that now. Now, the next time everything’s correctable. Creation is an act of sheer will. Next time it’ll be flawless!”

I guess he didn’t take Malcolm or Ellie’s advice to heart-especially this from Malcolm:

If you want to leave your name on something, fine. But stop putting it on other people’s headstones.

Masarani flies over to the I.Rex’s Paddock, and takes a look at the new Dinosaur. To quote JP once again…ou stare at him…and he just stares right back. (Although I’m pretty sure I.Rex here is a she).

Although he hasn’t seen too much of what she can do, Masarani is somewhat alarmed by a few signs of problems with the Dinosaur-it’s thermal vision, the near-loss of a worker, it’s cannibalism of it’s sibling, and cracked glass. Like the Raptors in the first film, this thing knocks it’s locked up and it’s testing for weaknesses. It wants out. Masarani figures it’s time to bring in more of an expert to make sure the paddock is super safe. Enter: Owen Grady, the film’s hero.

 

 

 

Jurassic Park in Review: The Lost World JP Part III

As Sarah and Nick try to repair the baby Rex’s leg, Ian takes Kelly to Eddie’s “high hide”, but decides to go back once he hears that familiar roar-and when Ian returns, we get not one, but two Rexes, who want their baby back.

 

 

 

Although it’s a bit hard to see in the dark, I like that there’s some considerable differences between the two Rexes-while the female looks pretty much like “Rexy”-her JP/JW “sister”-the male has a somewhat darker color scheme, and a more bulky head with more ridges around the nose.

The group give the baby Rex back, and after a few moments of calm, the Rexes decide to charge the trailer and destroy it, leading to the film’s main action scene pretty much, although it’s a bit too similar, I feel, to the attack from the first film-but with a few key differences.

First is that once half the vehicle goes over the cliff, Sarah falls, but is saved by a window-but one that is rapidly cracking under her weight, in a very tense scene.

 

Once it gives way Ian is able to save her by grabbing a hold of her “lucky pack” backpack. Eddie, however, tries to go back for his friends, and gives them a rope to pull them back up-but unfortunately, the Rexes decide to come back yet again and share an Eddie meal-causing the whole trailer and Eddie’s vehicle to fall over the cliff, although miraculously Sarah, Ian, and Nick somehow survive.

…and then they’re rescued by the hunters, who quickly reveal that with both their camps destroyed, they’re kind of stuck, and have to go to Ingen worker village at the center of the Island to send out an SOS. Here we’re also given a bit of socio-political commentary on the differences between the groups.

 

Tembo: “You’re that Earth first bastard, aren’t?”

Ludow: “What’s Earth first?”

Tembo: “Industrial saboteurs”

Nick Van Owen: “Environmentalists!”

Tembo: “Criminals.”

In a way, Tembo’s right, as they’re kind of stuck in this mess largely due to Nick’s actions here. The two decide to combine their efforts to head to the village, although Ludow sort of half-halfheartedly warns that’s where the Velociraptors hang out, and seems just plain bored (and a bit drunk) when Sarah suggests that the Rexes might still pursue them too. Especially since Sarah-who always seems to be so “cautious” about this kind of thing according to herself and Hammond, is wearing a jacket that still has the scent of the Rex infant’s blood on it. Great going, Sarah.

 As the teams trek towards the Island center, we get a bit of character development with Ian mocking Ludow’s motives, and some ‘bonding’ of sorts between Nick and Tembo, as he explains his motivations.

Nick Van Owen: You seem like you have a shred of common sense, what the hell are you doing here?
Roland Tembo: Somewhere on this island is the greatest predator there ever lived. The second greatest predator must take him down.
[grins]
Nick Van Owen: [referring to Roland’s gun] You gonna use that?
Roland Tembo: If he doesn’t surrender, yes.
Nick Van Owen: [chuckles] The animal exists on the planet for the first time in tens of millions of years and the only way you can express yourself is to kill it.
Roland Tembo: Remember that chap about twenty years ago? I forget his name. Climbed Everest without any oxygen, came down nearly dead. When they asked him, they said why did you go up there to die? He said I didn’t, I went up there to live.

 

Eventually they stop for rest, with Tembo noting the Rex blood. However, he doesn’t do anything about it either. This is the same guy who was concerned about the Rex sniffing them out when he tried to capture the infant.

Meanwhile, Dietar-the least likable of the hunters-wanders off to use the ‘facilities”, and is slowly killed by Compies, in a tense, if somewhat overlong and slightly padded sequence. This is actually very similar to the fate of Hammond in the original novel, and like the early Compsonathus scene seems to be another thing they borrowed from the original novel that was not adapted in the original film.

Tembo of course, shows his likeability again when he not only starts his own search party for Dietar (Who doesn’t really deserve it) but says that nobody should tell Kelly, to not alarm her.

The group returns later on, and tells Malcolm they’re fairly near the village. However, things take a turn for the worst when the Rex’s smell Sarah’s jacket. It’s another very intense scene as the Rex sniffs around the tent, with it’s head directly over the terrified Sarah and Kelly.

Outside, Malcolm sees and hears the tell-tale Impact tremors (demonstrated of course by the classic water ripple in a nearby puddle), and also sells the terrified nature real well, as he watches in other horror.

 

Carter-the mercenary whose ignorance earlier in part led to Dietar’s death-then wakes up and panics, waking up the entire camp but also distracting the Rex’s long enough for Kelly and Sarah to escape.

Chased by the female Rex, Ian’s group along with Burke split with the rest of the hunters, and seek cover behind a waterfall (another scene adapted from the first novel). Burke becomes Rex chow when he freaks out about a snake, perhaps believing it’s poisionous, and breaks cover.

 

 

Meanwhile, the rest of the hunters-apart from Roland whose still at the camp, and without shotgun ammo because his gun has been emptied by Nick, instead having him resort to Eddie’s tranqs; and Carter, who wound up squished by the female Rex’s foot…-wander into some long grass despite the warnings of Arjay. Maybe not the best idea….

 

Next, I’ll cover the film’s climax and finale.

 

Jurassic Park in Review: The Lost World Part One

In 1995, Michael Crichton penned the sequel to Jurassic Park, “The Lost World”-a sort of reference to the old Arthur Conan Doyle novel about an isolated land where Dinosaurs still existed, and some of the inspiration for Jurassic Park itself (as well as other films like King Kong, and TV shows like Land of the Lost). Surprisingly, the novel featured as it’s hero not Alan Grant, but Ian Malcolm, who had apparently perished in the original book. However, in the movie he survived, and some feel that the popularity of Goldblum’s character in the film inspired the Resurrection of his novel counterpart.

The novel, like the film, deals with the revelation of a second Dinosaur island, one where the creatures were created and then shipped to the park. When a paleontologist friend of Malcolm-investigating washed-up Dinosaurs in Costa Rica-travels to the island and goes missing, Ian leads a rescue operation, but also has to deal with the resurfacing of Ingen’s rival company, Biosyn, who has led their own expedition to get some eggs to make up for the loss of Nedry. Several other characters, including Ian’s ex-girlfriend Sarah Harding, also get involved. Naturally, the sequel was optioned for a film given JP’s massive success.

While the movie basically follows the basic concept of the book, it does make several changes. Ian is not shown to be in bad shape (he had a cane in the book from his earlier injuries), although his reputation is certainly not in great shape-he went public with the park information, but nobody believed him (Ingen certainly did their best to cover things up as well), and he lost his tenure.

In the opening, we’re introduced to a sort of upper-class British family who’ve decided to dock on the island and enjoy a fancy lunch. Their daughter wonders off, and encounters one of the film’s new Dinosaurs (but one that debuted and played a fairly large part in the novel-Compsonathus). There’s also kind of a nice nod to the Dinosaur/Bird connection when she mistakes the creature for a featherless bird (Compsonathus are very similar in their skeletal structure to early birds) which quickly gather and attack her. It’s also borrowed from the first Jurassic Park novel, in which a similar attack happens on the mainland, and which actually helps set the plot in motion when Grant suspects the creatures that attacked the girl are living compsnathus.

The daughter, Cathy, is actually a young Camilla Belle. Although she’s not a majorly high-profile actress she’s been in a few films here and there, most notably as the lead in the remake of “When a Stranger calls” a decade later.

Anyway, her mother screams and we get a transition to Malcolm yawning in front of a sign on a subway-where he’s lightly teased by some guy and also is given some looks. It should be noted that there were two deleted scenes around this point, one where Peter Ludow addresses Ingen’s board of directors about the incident and how they should use these Dinosaurs for profit rather than just have them sit around and attack random visitors…and also to get rid of Hammond, who wants them left alone. Another scene also deals with the introduction of Roland Tembo, who is bored since he’s hunted pretty much everything in the world. After a small fight with some jerks at a bar, he listens to the proposition that Ingen has given his friend, Arjay. I think these scenes might’ve better explained the motivations of the villains, although they would be a bit narratively redundant (Hammond brings up some of Ludow’s plan in his scene, and Tembo’s motivations are explained later on).

Next Ian arrives at Hammond’s mansion, where he’s greeted by his butler, played by Ian Ambercrombie. Ambercrombie of course was well-known for playing other butlers (Such as Batman’s butler Alfred in the Birds of Prey series) and for his voice-acting work including Palpatine in the Clone Wars. Most people probably know him best as Mr. Pip, Elaine’s eccentric boss for a season or two on Seinfeld.

Here we get a brief, somewhat awkward cameo of Lex and Tim, who have a few quick lines and then are sort of just walked off screen..and then we meet our main non-Dinosaur antagonist, Peter Ludow, an original character creation for the film.

Ludow’s kind of played off as a jerk of course, somewhat one-dimensional self-absorbed and later out of his element rich guy, who seems to have been at least partially responsible for dragging Malcolm’s name through the mud. Ironically though, he sort of subtly lets Malcolm in on his plan, saying his problems are about to be rendered moot (as he’s planning to bring the Dinosaurs to the mainland, which would validate Malcolm’s claims).

Next we get to Hammond, who by now seems mostly bedridden (In an older version of the ending, we would see his funeral, but that was cut and replaced with the San Diego stuff at the end).

Attenborough once again lends gravitas to the role, mixing whimsy, seriousness, and once again a bit of a naive’ nature to the characters, as he reveals the existence of Site B-and what Ingen wants to do with it-to Malcolm. We also see he’s also a bit manipulative as well, as he’s sent Ian’s girlfriend Sarah to the island, not only because she’s qualified as an animal behaviorist (and apparently a paleontologist as well?) but also to lure Malcolm it seems. He also of course gets to say the title of the film (minus the Jurassic Park bit), with the cool line: “….and now it’s only a matter of time before this lost world, is found and pillaged.”

Although the rescue part was in the book, I do find this a bit contrived that Malcolm’s girlfriend (Who apparently believed his stories) also happens to be the most qualified paleontologist/behaviorist/whatever for the Island. But it’s a small point, really.

Malcolm of course wants to get to the island as fast as possible to rescue her….cue Jurassic Park theme (The “Adventure” part of it at least).

Next we meet three of our supporting characters.  First Eddie Carr, played by Richard Schiff, who’s the technical engineer and designer of the vehicles they’re using. (He’s pretty much a combination of two book characters here, one with the same name and also Jack Thorne). Schiff plays him as very socially awkward but intelligent, with sort of a lovable, selfless nature to him.

Vince Vaughn is Nick Van Owen, in an early role. Vaughn is early in his career here, and following TLW he would have a bit of a lull for a few years, making some questionable roles mainly as murderers, before finding his feet with comedy films such as Old School, Wedding Crashers and Dodgeball. It’s easy to see why here, he’s pretty much a lot of the film’s comic relief, although it’s often his actions which result in a lot of the film’s deaths, which I’ll go into later.

Finally, we meet Kelly, one of Malcolm’s 3 kids, presumably from an “Ex mrs.Malcolm”. No mention is really made of her brothers or sisters, although maybe they accompanied the Ex-Malcolm to Paris. She’s sort of a combination of two characters from the book, but with the added connection to Malcolm. Perhaps Spielberg wanted to not repeat Tim and Lex from the first movie by having two characters (That’s pretty much Crichton did unfortunately. There’s even a computer scene later on!). Vanessa Lee Chester does sort of OK as Kelly, but she often comes off as a bit annoying, even compared to Lex and Tim, especially since she sort of has a rocky relationship with her father. She’s also learned some ‘big words’ from her father, mainly “Troglodyte”.

Which kind of brings me to another point, we don’t really get a great deal of Malcolm being a chaotician in this. In fact, I’m not sure the word “Chaos” shows up once. Although obviously still intelligent and caring (If a bit unreliable, as Sarah and Kelly point out), a lot of Malcolm here is mostly snark rather than scientist, but that’s probably in part due to him being the leading man, Goldblum’s influence on the movie character, and the humiliation he’s suffered between the films making him perhaps a bit more jaded. Although he doesn’t appear in III or Jurassic World in the flesh, it seems he does eventually return to his chaotician ways, writing tell-all books about the park which deal with Chaos (As mentioned by Eric Kirby in III, and actually shown in Jurassic World). It’d be nice in a Jurassic World sequel perhaps, to catch up with Malcolm and find out what he thinks of this latest mess.

Anyway, it’s off to the Island to “rescue” Sarah-although Kelly has stow-awayed….here we get our first taste of the film’s theme, which is sort of more primal and exotic sounding than the themes for the first two films. We also get some important exposition-that the boat guy doesn’t want to stick around due to the island’s reputation (not only from the deaths, but the name of the island chain “The five Deaths”) and of course Eddie’s fancy rifle (whose extremely venomous tranquilizer darts are important later). We also get the reveal of the film’s first automobiles, obviously designed for more off-road stuff than the colorful “Park” vehicles. It should also be noted that the film is less colorful as a whole-the influence perhaps of cinematographer Janusz Kamiński, who started working with Spielberg on Schindler’s list and a great deal of his films since.

Finally, they come to Sarah’s tracking device, which is in her damaged pack. We get a bit of a funny scene as they yell out for her, with Nick saying her last name getting a rebuke from Malcolm: “How many Sarahs do you think are on this island?”

Then, we get our first Dinosaur reveal, as massive Stegosaurs emerge. It should be noted that although these are somewhat accurate to the ‘real Stegosauruses appearence wise, they seems quite a bit larger. The CG’s pretty good on these as well. The Stegosaurus was also something present in the original Jurassic Park novel, originally having the place of the sick animal which is Triceratops in the final film.

Next, I’ll go on with the introduction of Sarah, the reveal of Kelly’s hiding, and of course, the Ingen hunters making things more complicated for everybody.