Jurassic Park Themes

At its core “Jurassic Park” is a cautionary tale of the dangers inherent of scientific discovery for its own sake. . The premise involves a Dinosaur park located in an island in Costa Rica, where visitors can travel and see real dinosaurs for the first time in human history, of course things go wrong and people begin to die. Both the novel and the movie maintain this theme as well as share the core plot which remains essentially the same. There are however many points of separation between the novel and the movie resulting in two distinctly different stories.

Through its sub plots, characterization of main protagonists, and overall tone ,Jurassic Park was one of the biggest block busters of the 90s. There are several plot points spread throughout the film to draw the audience in. Firstly two central plot points, safety and feasibility are introduced right at
the beginning of the movie.
The opening scene shows an accident involving the death of an employee via a dinosaur attack, the end is a lawyer raising concerns regarding the parks safety and feasibility. Las Additional sub plots are introduced focusing mainly on character development. Dr. Alan Grant and John Hammond are to of the main protagonists introduced early on in the film and whose characters evolve the most. To start within minutes of Dr. Grant’s first appearance, he illustrates his distaste of children by frightening a small boy with a fossilized claw. During the course of the film he begins to see kids in a much more appreciative manner. This is shown numerous times by Allan’s constant encouragement of two children he ends up babysitting for most of the story. Concurrently John Hammond is increasingly torn between his dream for a real dinosaur park and the welfare of the people that are now trapped within it. Eventually it’s the love for his grandchildren that forces him to drop the pursuit of his dream. Jurassic Park theme is more of a
sci-fi horror than anything else. It achieves this through a dramatic and suspenseful manner in which approaches the dinosaur attacks. For example there is a scene involving tyrannosaurus-rex and some kids in a land rover. The build up to the attack begins with a cup of water vibrating on the dash of the rover for a few moments before a goat leg suddenly lands on the vehicles glass roof. The attack itself begins a few minutes later. The Jurassic Park executes a multilayered narrative filled with character development and added tones horror to an overall sci-fi movie.

The Novel form of “Jurassic Park” shares many of the same attributes as its cinematic counterpart, however it’s additional subplots, characterization of its main protagonists, and theme that make this story different.

The novel starts off with a sub plot involving dinosaurs escaping the park. A little girl is vacationing on the mainland with her family is confronted and subsequently attacked by small bipedal dinosaurs on the beach. Shortly after Dr. Alan Grant is contacted the local Costa’Rican authorities after they stumble across the remains of an animal they cannot identify. It is during this investigation that John Hammond phones Dr. Grant and inviting him to the park. Mr. Hammond is the owner of the ambitious dinosaur park which has yet to officially open. Shortly after arriving one of the supporting characters notices a dinosaur out of its pen, and that the skin on it body is changing color, indicating that the genetic manipulation may not be as fine-tuned as the visitors have been told. There isn’t much character growth in the novel however as both Alan Grant and John Hammond remain essentially the same throughout the story. Grant is described as being rather fond of children, as they share the same infatuation with dinosaurs as he does, whereas John Hammond is far more concerned with money and ambition. Dr. Grant demonstrates his affection throughout the book by patiently listening to the children and educating them on the various dinosaurs they encounter. John Hammond on the other hand blatantly blames his own grandchildren for the many failures that occurred throughout the parks, before announcing his plan to start anew Jurassic Park. Through Alan the novel ends up exploring a great deal of the island emphasizing both the scale of the park as well as the variety of animals contained on the island. The Jurassic Park Novel is very much an action adventure through it various subplots, characters, and over all tone.

Overall Both the movie and book versions of Jurassic Park are well rounded stories that have been well received around the world. However to inherent constraints tied to their respective formats, for example visual effects or time, whether one is better than the other is up to the individuals personal preference..