You are encouraged to read the 1990 novel
by American writer Michael Crichton
before the movie showing.
In Steven Spielberg's massive blockbuster, paleontologists Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) and mathematician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) are among a select group chosen to tour an island theme park populated by dinosaurs created from prehistoric DNA. While the park's mastermind, billionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), assures everyone that the facility is safe, they find out otherwise when various ferocious predators break free and go on the hunt.
Both the book and film follow the same basic outline, but the film excludes many scenes and storylines, including a subplot about dinosaurs getting off the island and making their way to the Costa Rican mainland. It has been said that the Spielberg film is more of a family-adventure story, while Crichton’s novel is more of a hard sci-fi thriller, which spends much of its length discussing and meditating on the mechanics of the park, paleontology, the ethics of de-extinction, and many other attendant issues. Read the novel, watch the movie, and come join the discussion — what do you think???
