Jurassic Park is a 1993 American science fiction adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. Here are the differences between the two:
- The book includes several scenes with the Procompsognathus dinosaur. Many of these sequences and references to the dinosaur were dropped from the film adaptation, resulting in significant plot differences.
- The book’s opening chapter describes a young American girl on vacation at a beach shore with her family in Central America getting attacked by Procompsognathus while her parents are not looking. Instead, the film’s opening showed the events that are alluded to by the bedridden patient in the book’s prologue. This is because the film dropped the Procompsognathus dinosaur and also the entire subplot about dinosaurs escaping from the island; consequently the opening scene, the climax of the book in the Velociraptors’ nest, and the scene with Velociraptors on the boat were all deemed useless. The sequence was later recycled as the opening of the film The Lost World: Jurassic Park, with a British family cruising to Isla Sorna instead of the mainland.
- The first Iteration (Crichton titled the book’s sections as “iterations”) was omitted from the film, meaning all the characters from the Iteration never appeared, most notable Dr. Martin Guitierrez.
- In the novel, Dr. Grant is described as having a love of children. In the film, he initially dislikes children.
- In the novel, unspecified Hadrosaurs are running near Grant, Lex, and Tim, but in the film, they are replaced by Gallimimus. The Hadrosaur stampede, consisting of mostly Parasaurolophus and Corythosaurs, was later used in Jurassic Park III.
- The characteristics of Lex and Tim were different in the film; in the novel, Tim is older and good with computers, although still interested in dinosaurs, while Lex is a young tomboy and interested in sports. In the movie, their roles are switched around, with Lex being older and good with computers, while Tim is a huge Dinosaur fan.
- Dr. Henry Wu and Dr. Gerry Harding both have major roles in the novel which were reduced to cameos in the film.
- The entire sequence involving the pterosaur enclosure is dropped from the film. Like the Procompsognathusisis scenes, this was recycled for usage later in the film series (in Jurassic Park III).
- Another sequence involving Dr. Grant and the children being chased by the Tyrannosaurus Rex down a river on an inflatable raft was also dropped from the film, However, this river raft sequence became the inspiration for the Jurassic Park River Adventure ride at Universal Studios Hollywood, a ride based on the film. This scene is also included in the video game adaptation for the Sega Genesis.
- In the novel, the tour cars are Toyota Land Cruisers, but in the film they are Ford Explorers. In subsequent material outside the films, the cars are typically referred to as Land Cruisers regardless of their make.
- In the novel, Nedry dies outside the Jeep. In the film the dilophosaurus follows him into the Jeep and kills him there.
- In the novel, Dr. Ellie Sattler disembarks from the tour to tend to a sick Stegosaurus. In the film, a sick Triceratops was used instead.
- In the film, Dennis Nedry is the only character to encounter, let alone get attacked by, a Dilophosaurus; in the novel, the visitors first encounter the Dilophosaurus in its enclosure on the tour and later, Grant and the kids encounter a pair while on the river. (It could also be noted that Nedry is the only character in the film series to encounter a dilophosaur, as this dinosaur did not appear in The Lost World: Jurassic Park or Jurassic Park III.)
- The name of the character John Arnold was changed to “Ray Arnold” in the film, possibly to avoid confusion with the character John Hammond. In a deleted scene from The Lost World: Jurassic Park, he is referred to as “John Arnold”, albeit posthumously.
- In the novel, Hammond is killed by compys after being frightened by a recorded Tyrannosaurus roar, falling down a steep hillside and breaking his ankle. In the film, Hammond is among the survivors who escapes the island, returning in the sequel having reformed his ways, seeking to protect the dinosaurs rather than exploit them.
- Donald Gennaro does not go back to the tour cars after tending to the sick stegosaur (a triceratops in the movie) and therefore is not present for the Tyrannosaur attack. Therefore, he does not die, as he does in the film.
- In the novel, John Hammond has more cynical and greedy motivations; in the film, most of Hammond’s negative personality traits are given to Donald Gennaro instead.
- In the film adaptation Robert Muldoon, the Game warden, is killed by the Velociraptors, while in the novel he survives the attack by diving into a pipe where the raptors cannot follow.
- In the book, Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler are mentor and student(a role filled by Billy Brennan in Jurassic Park III.) respectively, not romantically involved, as they are in the film.
- In the novel, Dr. Grant learns that some of Jurassic Park’s dinosaurs, including Tyrannosaurus, can see only movement. In the novel, he makes his discovery when he freezes during the Tyrannosaur attack on the Land Cruisers, later confirming it after waking up in a tree from which a Hadrosaur is eating. In the movie, he already knows this before arriving on the island (due to fictional palentological theory), immediately warning several other characters to sit still during the Tyrannosaur attack because “their vision is based on movement!”. The scene in the tree with the Hadrosaur is reworked, omitting the theory confirmation and replacing the Hadrosaur with a Brachiosaur.
- In the novel, several of the survivors take refuge from the Velociraptors in the Safari Lodge, a guest hotel intended for the park’s future visitors, and a portion of the plot is centered around reactivating the Lodge’s security systems (which include electrified skylights) to prevent the raptors from getting inside. This sequence is completely omitted from the film, replaced with the much smaller-scale situation of reactivating the Visitor Center’s electronic door locks to keep the raptors out of the control room.
- The dinosaur species (excluding Procompsognathus, and the non-dinosaurs Pterosaurs) in the novel, Apatosaurus, Microceratops, Othnielia, Styracosaurus, Euoplocephalus, Hypsilophodon, and Maisaura, do not appear in the film adaptation. The only Hadrosaurs observed in the first film are Parasaurolophus. Apatosaurus is replaced by Brachiosaurus, unspecified Hadrosaurs are replaced by Gallimimus, and Stegosaurus was only seen in a tube label, despite being misspelled as Stegasaurus. Ankylosaurus, a relative of Euoplocephalus, does appear later in Jurassic Park III.
- The survivors in the novel are Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, Lex Murphy, Tim Murphy, Donald Genarro, Robert Muldoon, Dr. Harding, and several workmen. It is implied that Malcolm died, but in the sequel it is revealed he survived, although he was left with lasting injuries. In the film the survivors are Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, Lex Murphy, Tim Murphy, Ian Malcolm and John Hammond. In the film, Henry Wu and Dr. Harding, along with all the workmen, left before the crises happened.
- The park’s computer systems are updated in the movie; the novel called for three Cray X-MP supercomputers to be used for sequencing the dinosaur DNA; in the movie, the ‘Mr. DNA’ tour Animation reveals that the park uses Thinking Machines supercomputers, specifically eight Connection Machine CM-5s (as revealed by Dennis Nedry) and Silicon Graphics workstations. The supercomputers are not shown to the visitors in the movie, but are visible in the control room scenes, notably the Connection Machine computers, which have red LED panels that blink with usage.
- In the novel, Ellie Sattler comes across a Velociraptor with a genetic mutation that allows it to change the colour of its skin. The device is so minor it is left out of the film, as the Velociraptor in question is juvenile and does not appear again.
- In the novel Tim Murphy is quite skilled in climbing trees but in the film he does not want to climb down until the Land Cruiser starts to fall down the tree.
- The character of Ed Regis is omitted. Parts of his character are present in the film version of Genarro, such as his fleeing the car during the T-rex attack, only to be killed.
- In the novel, the only lethal weapons Muldoon was allowed to have were a pair of rocket launchers (although a shed of nerve gas grenades that Muldoon did not know about was found). In the film he opens a locker full of shotguns and AR-15’s and he probably had more, because some of the members of the loading team in the beginning had guns.
- In the novel, the suspicion that several of the dinosaurs are breeding on their own is made during the initial tour when Malcolm questions an apparent population increase displayed on one of the computers; in the film, Grant first discovers this when he comes across a nest of hatched eggs while he and the kids are stranded in the park.
