S03E05 — Jurassic Park

SPOILER ALERT: This episode and transcript below contains major spoilers for Jurassic Park.

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Featuring hosts Timothy Haynes, Donna Haynes, Rebekah Edwards, and T. Josiah Haynes.

Hold on to your butts, it’s Jurassic Park! With ruthless billionaires and baby dinos to chaos theory and that iconic “clever girl,” we’re diving deep into the prehistoric difference between Crichton’s dark, nerdy novel and Spielberg’s blockbuster masterpiece. Expect family debates, scientific shade, and more screaming than Lex in the kitchen scene. The takeaway? The book bites harder, but the movie roars louder!

Final Verdicts

If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, we recommend waiting to read our verdicts. (But you’re probably grown, so do what you want!)

Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park novel is a darker, more cerebral take on chaos, greed, and genetic hubris—where nearly everyone meets a grisly end. Spielberg’s film trades the cynicism for wonder, trimming the body count and turning a blood-soaked cautionary tale into a thrilling, family-friendly adventure where dinosaurs (mostly) steal the spotlight instead of the scientists.

Donna: The film was better.
– Book Score: 9/10
– Film Score: 9/10

Rebekah: The film was better.
– Book Score: 8.5/10
– Film Score: 9/10

Tim: The film was better.
– Book Score: 9/10
– Film Score 9.5/10

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Full Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Tim: Donut, what is all over your face? 

[00:00:04] Rebekah: It’s make Call. Kaia is teaching me how to use it. 

[00:00:09] Donna: I refuse to take any responsibility for that monstrosity 

[00:00:16] Tim: donut. I think it looks ridiculous. 

[00:00:22] Rebekah: I’m a princess Carl. I believe I know what looks ridiculous and what doesn’t. Also look, I gotta these little, these little earrings and they look just like Mongo.

[00:00:34] Rebekah: Oh my Happy Halloween Happy dress.[00:01:00] 

[00:01:00] Rebekah: Hey, welcome to the book is Better podcast, and we invite you to enjoy this episode released on Halloween, which hopefully explains our get ups, which I guess for one of us looks a lot more ridiculous and one of us looks slightly more ridiculous than normal and one of us looks kind of normal and is wearing a t-shirt we would wear out in public.

[00:01:21] Tim: So hey, hey, hey. It’s my special Star Trek shirt. Hello. 

[00:01:26] Rebekah: Can you keep telling yourself 

[00:01:27] Tim: that it’s my captain’s uniform? 

[00:01:30] Rebekah: You may notice that there are only three of us today. Oh. You know, our fourth member is off doing theatery things and making beautiful, creative things. So we decided to, you mean 

[00:01:42] Tim: we’re not in an alternate timeline?

[00:01:44] Tim: No, he still exists. 

[00:01:47] Rebekah: We miss you, Josiah. Yeah, we do a lot. Well, as we get into today’s episode, I wanted to make sure that you have the spoiler alert. We are going to [00:02:00] spoil the first Jurassic Park film as well as the book. Also, there is a sequel we are covering in our next episode on The Lost World. Um, we will probably not spoil a ton from there, but we might mention it.

[00:02:13] Rebekah: So if you’ve like only seen the first movie, just be aware of that. I did not know until planning for all of this that there is a book for the Lost World. So that was kind of a, a fun little pleasant surprise. Um, today I am dressed as Princess Donut, the Queen Ann Chunk, uh, leader of Donuts, princess Posse, and, uh, many other things throughout the Dungeon Crawler Carl series.

[00:02:38] Rebekah: Um, and my earrings are on, on, you know, on target for today’s topic, but also represent, um, her pet slash child, Mongo, the Mongols. 

[00:02:50] Tim: Can you say obsession? 

[00:02:54] Rebekah: Obsession. Yeah. 

[00:02:59] Donna: Yes. [00:03:00] Uh, I am Donna, or you can also call me Squirrel Kin, the Costa Rican Princess. 

[00:03:08] Tim: Ah. So Dr. Haymond here. Crazy captain of this chaos.

[00:03:15] Rebekah: Welcome. Why don’t you tell us what Jurassic Park is all about? 

[00:03:20] Tim: Dad, I’d love to. Well, it’s about lots of money and dinosaurs. 

[00:03:29] Rebekah: Okay. Well that’s good. Do you wanna go to the next section of the one? 

[00:03:32] Tim: Oh, do you, do you think, do you think more detail would work? Okay, maybe a little more. Okay. There’s a billionaire mogul.

[00:03:38] Tim: His name is John Hammond. He sets up, uh, a remote, uh, island theme park. Uh, it’s an island off the coast of Costa Rica that he has purchased or leased from the government. Um, he invites, uh, paleontologist grant and paleo botanist satler, um, to join in a [00:04:00] tour of their new attraction. Uh, there is also a chaos theorist, mathematician Malcolm and an attorney Genaro, as well as, uh, John Hammond’s, two grandchildren, uh, that join.

[00:04:16] Tim: They’re going to go on this tour and Hammond is just sure. Once the tour is done, everybody will be happy. Well. 

[00:04:24] Rebekah: That’s what I always think, you know, when you’re bringing people into a dangerous and untested place, you should definitely make sure there’s children there. 

[00:04:30] Tim: What’s dangerous and untested about dinosaurs that haven’t lived on the planet for a long time?

[00:04:36] Tim: You’re right. Well, he has hired some less than savory characters, one of which is, uh, the hacker, Dennis EDRi, and he sets off a chain of events, um, that turns out to be disastrous. Uh, there is a discovery that the animals are not abiding by the rules that they set. Uh, and they are breeding out in the wild.[00:05:00] 

[00:05:00] Tim: They found a way. There are raptors, T-Rex, and lots of other dinosaurs, and there’s a rampage around the island and it kills several of the characters and the remaining characters escape the island, uh, just in time. And they hope that the carnage is contained. However, since we’ve had a total of seven movies, I think we’re pretty sure that it’s not, 

[00:05:27] Rebekah: you don’t say The carnage is not contains seven films later.

[00:05:33] Rebekah: Um, so there are a few interesting things I thought about the book layout just for those readers who are nerds like me. So I have the little, uh, audible layout in front of me. So they break this up into chapters, obviously like a book, but did throw me off at the very beginning because there is an intro and there’s a prologue.

[00:05:52] Rebekah: Then there’s the first iteration. So it’s a really interesting setup, but they have like sections of the book, I believe there are [00:06:00] seven, seven total iterations and an epilogue. And each iteration has, let’s see, it looks like four is the least. One of them has like 12 chapters in it. So I don’t even know how many chapters are actually in the book, but each iteration is, uh, starts with a quote from Ian Malcolm, which is really interesting, um, in the book.

[00:06:19] Rebekah: And I just thought it was a really cool way to, uh, to set that up. Okay. Let’s get into differences from the book to film. I wanted to start to with setting and then we’ll do characters before we get into the plot stuff. So the first thing I noticed in the setting that I thought was really an interesting change is that there’s mentioned several times over of cold weather paleontological digs.

[00:06:43] Rebekah: So there was this whole thing where John Hammond, uh, would invest in company or in like paleontological organizations. I don’t know, I guess is it universities that do those kinds of things. But he would invest universities Yeah, in digs, but he only invested in digs in cold [00:07:00] weather areas. So like very far away from the equator, which I thought was interesting because they don’t get into it a whole lot like it is said several times, but I don’t think they get into the reasons behind it a lot.

[00:07:12] Rebekah: But in reality, what ends up happening is just that. Like John Hammond probably is kind of what I’m putting together, although I don’t know if they explicitly stated it. He was trying to support digs for animals that were living in a climate closer in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and all of those things to what the climate is on earth today in the equator, because from what he’s looking at, the equatorial climate would’ve been much hotter, um, than it is now.

[00:07:41] Rebekah: So I thought that was just an interesting change. I dunno if it’s exactly a setting change, but it’s just mentioned several times, uh, that that was something he was doing intentionally 

[00:07:50] Tim: in the franchise. Apparently Dr. Wu, uh, spends time in the digs or at the digs in Siberia. [00:08:00] And, uh, just to be absolutely certain, I made sure, um, to look up Siberia to make sure it was the one, the cold place, uh, in Russia, former Soviet Union.

[00:08:10] Tim: So, 

[00:08:10] Donna: um, the film also emits, uh, the aviary, the whole aviary setting on the island, um, with the cactus. OSAs. 

[00:08:23] Tim: Really. Sure. 

[00:08:25] Donna: Good job. I should get across for that. Thank you. You should get a prize. You should get a prize. I have to say thank you so much. 

[00:08:31] Tim: I, I realize it’s not based on a book, so it doesn’t quite, quite fit, but I really appreciated that in the third film they included the flying dinosaurs and the aviary and all of that stuff.

[00:08:42] Donna: Yeah. It’s in, 

[00:08:43] Tim: it’s interesting that they did use a lot of material from the first book to make the second film and some to make the third film. Yeah. So actually all three of these are connected to this first book. 

[00:08:58] Donna: Yeah. And I didn’t, [00:09:00] and this being the first time I’ve read the book, uh, as I would go through, I’d be like, that’s not in the first movie.

[00:09:07] Donna: Oh, that was over. Oh, yeah. And I did think you, I recognize that from something, not the, the first movie. Yeah. And I think this was a very, uh, I, I did think this was really a very cool scene. A whole, this whole scene, this whole part of the story of the third movie going through there and. Um, building the bridge over and, and the, all the things that come along with that.

[00:09:30] Donna: Yeah. 

[00:09:30] Tim: It’s, it’s really neat. One of the other things mm-hmm. That, that shows up in the third film as well, that was in the first book, but not in the first movie, was the River Lagoon Ride in the novel they raft, uh, there’s a T-Rex Chase involved with it. That’s not in the first movie, but, um, a similar scene is in the third film.

[00:09:52] Tim: Uh, I don’t think it’s T-Rex at that time. I think it’s the dinosaur that they created that 

[00:09:58] Rebekah: well in, [00:10:00] in the one we just saw, the seventh film that we saw this summer. Didn’t they have a thing where he like. There’s a T-Rex that tears apart a raft. Yeah. Like, and has another one. So I think they actually use it multiple times.

[00:10:13] Rebekah: Yeah, yeah. Also, we’re going to Universal in January and if you have forgotten, it’s funny ’cause it’ll be closed while we’re there ’cause it’s January, but there is a, uh, a Jurassic Park River ride where it’s like, you know, the, one of the big, I don’t know what 

[00:10:28] Tim: they’re called. It is, it is inspired by this part of the book, although it doesn’t make it into the movie.

[00:10:35] Tim: I was watching some, uh, people review the book and film and they said, okay, this is part of the Universal theme park, but it’s not part of the first movie. So, 

[00:10:45] Donna: oh, I have a great idea. Let’s see. If we tell them that our podcast is coming in January, would they open up the river ride so we could ride on it?

[00:10:56] Donna: Review it like as, 

[00:10:58] Tim: yeah, [00:11:00] maybe all wearing wetsuits, because it’ll be cold. Hey, it’s still Florida. It’s still Florida, but 50 is cold in the water. 

[00:11:09] Donna: Sweetheart, 

[00:11:09] Tim: I would love to see you in a wetsuit. 

[00:11:11] Donna: So let’s, let’s go on to the next place. No thanks.

[00:11:16] Rebekah: I have 

[00:11:16] Donna: to throw 

[00:11:17] Rebekah: up once an episode. Um, the novel also mentions a couple differences in the dinosaurs on page. There’s like a, there’s probably quite a lot more that I’m covering here, but the three that stuck out to me were number one. There’s two T Rexes in the book. So there’s a juvenile that’s not full grown, and there’s a fully grown T-Rex, I believe the film only has a full grown single T-Rex, uh, way more raptors in the book.

[00:11:44] Rebekah: Um, they’re mentioned as one of the breeds, one of the like dinosaurs that’s breeding in the wild. The raptors in the book are also smaller. They’re like four feet tall, but there are dozens of them. And uh, the film only uses like, what, [00:12:00] four or three, like four. And then it’s like they decrease in number, obviously.

[00:12:03] Rebekah: Um, the other thing is the comign methods, if I said that right. I think that’s how they pronounced it. Um, comp those, mm-hmm. Yeah, they call ’em copies, which is actually spelled C-O-M-P-Y, but when you hear it, it’s just copy. Com Comi is harder to say, as you can hear me stumble over. But those are like a feature of the book.

[00:12:25] Rebekah: So at the beginning we’ll talk about how the beginning of the book changes, but like you find out about these coms that are essentially like have already escaped off the island. They are seen on screen, they’re seen on page several times, and I’ll leave it at that until we get more into that. But I thought it was really interesting just some of the changes.

[00:12:44] Rebekah: We don’t mention this either, it’s like, not in any of our notes, but I believe Ellie, um, in the film, the one dinosaur that is sick is a triceratops, but in the book it’s Ste Asar. So like [00:13:00] they changed some of those things. Honestly, not sure why 

[00:13:04] Tim: for a Dino lover, uh, the book would’ve been great to to read about all of those dinosaurs.

[00:13:10] Tim: Mm-hmm. There are fewer different types of dinosaurs mentioned, at least on screen. So they, they get, uh, I imagine that was probably, probably a choice in the production, just to make it easier. Okay. We’ve got these five or six different Dinos instead of, you know, two dozen different ones. I understand that Nubla has a safari lodge, the guest hotel, uh, with barred windows.

[00:13:45] Tim: It does exist in the novel, but it is absent in the film, although I’m not sure that we don’t see it later. Yeah, we, uh, it’s part, you see it in 

[00:13:56] Donna: other films they’ve got, 

[00:13:57] Tim: I’m pretty sure it’s in the third film, yeah. [00:14:00] Oh, cool. Because it’s connected to the aviary in that, I believe. Mm. It’s so that you can look out over the aviary.

[00:14:08] Tim: Yeah. I’m pretty sure that’s the same thing. 

[00:14:10] Rebekah: For those of you who do not remember, or maybe who haven’t seen later films, and this is not huge spoiler, but the second film that we’ll cover in an episode two weeks from now is primarily not like in Costa Rica at all. It takes place in, is it California? Is that right?

[00:14:28] Rebekah: I don’t remember. Or no, it would, no, the, the second one 

[00:14:30] Tim: takes place on the sec on, on site B, the second island. 

[00:14:35] Rebekah: But isn’t most of it on the mainland or is that just part of it? 

[00:14:40] Tim: Part of it. Just some of it happens. Okay. In San Diego. 

[00:14:43] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. And then the third film is on the, not the original, it’s on another island again, the site B, or is it 

[00:14:51] Tim: It is on the site B Island.

[00:14:53] Tim: And that’s, that’s one of the things that Dr. Grant says, I’ve never been to this island. ’cause they said, we brought you [00:15:00] ’cause you’re the expert, and said, I’ve never been to this island. 

[00:15:03] Donna: So, uh, another setting change is. Uh, and this has come up in our conversations about past books of films too, in the novel.

[00:15:14] Donna: A lot of engine workers and staff and people were still on the island and they’re here and there and you, you know, you get see d you get to see different pieces and parts of what they’re doing and all that. In the film, storms coming, they get off the island and you get left with a small cast that you can develop and use and make the story because again, the viewer can it.

[00:15:44] Donna: We’ve all been in films where we’re overwhelmed by the ridiculous amount of characters they bring in and, you know, enter Spider-Man three, the original Spider-Man series, when they bring in all these villains, it’s the same thing here. So I [00:16:00] thought it was very wise of Spielberg to, to go in and, and cut that back and kinda stay with a small cast that you can deal with.

[00:16:11] Tim: I thought, I thought it was an ingenious way for them to get to slash a whole lot of people off of the cast because they made it clear there are lots and lots and lots of other employees, not just the few of us that make this park go before the movie. Get rid of them all as quickly as you can so you don’t have to pay all those actors and follow all those plot lines.

[00:16:35] Tim: ’cause a lot of times we’ll look at things and, and it’s like, this is a plot line that just went nowhere. You know, sometimes it’s a red herring and it’s a red herring on purpose to kind of divert your attention. And sometimes it’s just a plot line that just vanishes. They never, they never finish it.

[00:16:55] Tim: Never close the loop. But this was, I thought this was an ingenious way to [00:17:00] do it. So, 

[00:17:01] Rebekah: uh, another thing that they leave out of the film, which I kind of thought was interesting, uh, was they talk a lot in the book about how they have automated motion sensors and the computer is regularly using these to tally the number of dinosaurs in the park.

[00:17:16] Rebekah: Um, I’m Princess Donut needs to take off these sunglasses ’cause she cannot read her screen because they are very dark. Sorry. Um, anyway, uh, I thought it was interesting ’cause it’s used as it sets up one of the chaotic things. It’s a plot device. It’s a plot device in the book where basically the computer for convenience, uh, knows the number of people.

[00:17:40] Rebekah: People maximum. Yeah. It like, it like has a maximum of how many dinosaurs it’s supposed to be looking for. And I believe, if I’m not mistaken, it’s supposed to like only flag, like in the way that it’s set up, it will only flag if there are. 

[00:17:57] Tim: You were 

[00:17:58] Rebekah: dinosaurs than [00:18:00] expected, but it didn’t like, because of that setting.

[00:18:03] Rebekah: Like they didn’t realize dinosaurs were breeding in the wild. So just a little bit different, you know, in the, in the setting. But 

[00:18:11] Donna: can I say, when I read this part of the book, as they first mentioned this, it heightened the intensity of stuff so much when he said, mm, I think you need to check that again.

[00:18:26] Donna: Do this. And they retag. How about 

[00:18:28] Tim: this higher number? Oh, how about this higher number? Oh, 

[00:18:33] Donna: yeah. And it kept coming back and it would add a few more. And it was like, was like, your stomach just like drops and you’re like, okay, 

[00:18:41] Rebekah: how many? Oh no. Yeah. 

[00:18:45] Tim: Yeah. The, um, the book also mentions, uh, the use of motes and electrified fences around some of the paddocks or enclosures.

[00:18:54] Tim: Uh, the film shows that, uh, but they don’t, they don’t really say anything about it. Mm-hmm. I [00:19:00] saw some reviewers that said, I don’t quite understand. They said something about moats and this, that, and the other. You know, maybe that’s what that was supposed to be. But, um, I’ve been to zoos and most zoos with predator and animals have enclosures that have a large moat in between the people and the animal.

[00:19:24] Tim: And that’s not a moat filled with water. They could swim across it, some of them could, but, um, it puts a additional separation as well as certain types of fencing or, you know, high net things like that. So that would’ve been a, a fairly common thing for zoos. And they just amped it up a little bit because hey, they’ve got animals there, these creatures that are huge predators.

[00:19:49] Tim: But yeah. 

[00:19:51] Donna: And they also, you know, they make a big deal about the raptors learning where the electric charge hits and it, [00:20:00] and the electric charge moves and they figure it out and they, and, and so they use it wisely. But I understand what you’re saying, how it more 

[00:20:08] Tim: show don’t tell, which is better for a movie?

[00:20:12] Tim: Show us. Mm-hmm. Let us figure it out for ourselves. You don’t have to tell us every little piece. 

[00:20:18] Rebekah: I do think it was, it was interesting in the book to have more complexity there because as you have like Hammond talking in the film about the lack of, um, what’s the word I’m looking for? The lack of like.

[00:20:36] Rebekah: What was it? Humility. Oh, I loved, yeah. I loved 

[00:20:39] Tim: it’s hub’s. Lack of humility. Yeah. 

[00:20:42] Rebekah: Yeah. The lack of humility in all of this stuff. And it felt like in the book it was, it was a little clearer that there had been quite a few steps taken to avoid problems and stuff. So it was nice context, but again, I think it was fine not to.

[00:20:57] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. You know, have it in the film. 

[00:20:59] Donna: [00:21:00] Yeah. Uh, let’s, we’ll move on down into characterization changes and just overview to me, they kept a lot of things the same, which I thought was pretty cool. But then as you kind of dig into people, you can see as you go through the book, how they developed. And so I found, I found this very interesting.

[00:21:23] Donna: Um, we’ll start with John Hammond, who is, uh, kind of the, the grandfather, the dumble door of this thing. Right. Um, well with the, I know Godfather differences, a few differences. The title of Godfather. Yeah, that’s it. The, he, he is, he is that, um, that, that titular, that titular character for you? So, uh, first of all, you know, one big thing is in the book, he already knows Grant, where in the film, the only connection he had to grant initially [00:22:00] was.

[00:22:00] Donna: He had supported some of their digs, but they had not met, they, you know, he was just the, the money. He was the, the banker. The banker. That is 

[00:22:10] Tim: a comical addition there though, when they realize that the person who’s been funding their dig, it’s this person. ’cause you know, Ellie runs in and says, who’s the idiot?

[00:22:22] Tim: Or whatever, you know, who’s the jerk? Yeah, yeah. Who’s the jerk with the helicopters? And he’s just smiling. It’s like, uh, this is, you haven’t met our benefactor, you know? Yeah. So, 

[00:22:32] Donna: um, in the book, he does not go out to the dig to visit and draw Grant and LEN. This EPA, a guy from the EPA goes out and, and does it, it’s a similar meeting, similar purpose, but it’s, uh, but it’s not Hammond.

[00:22:51] Donna: Um, he, well, I felt like they 

[00:22:52] Rebekah: used that to set up, like the attorney in the, the film is investigating on behalf of like [00:23:00] a family that’s suing and all of that. Whereas in the book, it’s like the government is looking into John Hammond, which I thought was. That was interesting. ’cause it what’s in the, you know, it’s different.

[00:23:12] Rebekah: Anyway. I just thought that was, those are higher, higher stakes. 

[00:23:14] Tim: There again, that’s something that happens in the second film is that the government is getting involved. 

[00:23:21] Donna: Right. And so they kind of, they do meld those a lot. Um, the last two things that changed to me we’re, we’re pretty pivotal in the book.

[00:23:32] Donna: Hammond is a fairly, he’s pretty ruthless. He’s like, I mean, evil, not in what you would traditionally just think is evil, but like corrupt. He’s so determined and I always found it. I found it so interesting. Even to the end of the book, he’s like, yeah, they don’t [00:24:00] know I can still make this work. He has such 

[00:24:02] Tim: a narrow focus.

[00:24:04] Tim: Yes. And he brought 

[00:24:05] Donna: his kids on and he, he brought the kids in and he’s thinking, okay, they’re, they’ll be useful for this emotional pull on these people. Then he gets it and he is like, it’s stupid. Why did I bring these kids? Oh, it’s wild. Where in the film they make him more of a humble kind of genius.

[00:24:30] Donna: Grandpa who loves his kids. I did remember to, I did pay attention to, in the book, he made a perk point to say the kids’ parents were divorcing and he kinda used that as his excuse to get them on the island. And he didn’t really, you don’t really get that in the film necessarily. And the issue with Tim and his dad’s relationship and all that.

[00:24:52] Donna: Um, but then the last one goes along with that he, he refused to [00:25:00] see in the novel. He refused to admit he could be wrong in the film. However, you get to the end, you get to the end and they’re like getting in the Jeep and they’re like, we’re sorry, uh, Dr. Hammond, we can’t, uh, endorse your park. And he was like, me neither.

[00:25:18] Donna: And they drive away. 

[00:25:20] Rebekah: It was the most, I like, I got like halfway through the book and I’m like, okay, I, you know, we’ve talked about this before. I hate it when people lump individuals together that don’t need to be, but you know, the trope of like the evil billionaire and like, see there’s so many hungry, they dont care who dies of, okay, I don’t love that trope.

[00:25:41] Rebekah: Or I got halfway through the book and I was like, all right, they’re talking about John Hammond, the book. Like everyone that ever complains about that, I think you’re just talking about this exact character. It, it started like making me mad, like partway through. I am. So grateful that the film just said Nope, [00:26:00] we will do a, like he’s the genial grandpa.

[00:26:03] Rebekah: He feels more like the Dumbledore character and he still obviously is like still hopeful. Right. He still hopes, like even after Ellie kinda shouts at him a little bit, he still hopes in the film that it would work. But there’s this sense of like, well, he even makes a comment to the lawyer that he’s not as concerned about the money.

[00:26:23] Rebekah: Right? Like he, he really wants this to be, he wants, 

[00:26:26] Tim: I want this to be available for everyone. 

[00:26:28] Rebekah: Yes. And so he is less money hungry and a lot more concerned with the like, experience of it and really giving them something real. And I just thought that was so much more charming and relatable and Oh yeah.

[00:26:44] Rebekah: Bookham. And it’s like, yeah, we’ll go over what happens to all of these people differently at the end of the films and the books. Yeah. Yeah. But I think I was happy that his story went the way it did, 

[00:26:58] Donna: Kenneth, and I think they [00:27:00] rolled some of that personality into the guy that was representing the board of directors.

[00:27:06] Donna: I think they rolled some of that greed and ’cause at the time when he said, no, I want everybody to see it, and the guy’s like, so we could have like a coupon day or something. Okay, let’s do that. Bring all the little poor kids in on coupon day. What? 

[00:27:24] Tim: Yeah. So I, I kind of think that, um, it was, it was lazier writing to, to build Hammond as the trope of he’s got billions of dollars.

[00:27:41] Tim: Yeah. So he’s gonna, he’s gonna gonna be the evil, the evil, blah, blah, blah. Um, Creon was actually involved in, uh, writing the screenplay mm-hmm. For the movie. And I wonder if after reading it, and maybe after hearing reviews, reading reviews or something, he decided that [00:28:00] he should have made Hammond a deeper character than that because that, Hey, you’ve got lots of money.

[00:28:08] Tim: You think you can do anything, so you run over people. Wow. How deep? That’s, that’s just a very shallow how original. Yeah. So I think maybe he decided we could make him a deeper character, because he’s a great grandfather, loves his grandkids. He’s got this genial character, but he’s still reckless. Yeah. But not for meanness, because he wants to share things with people.

[00:28:34] Tim: He just doesn’t see the danger. And so there’s a lot more depth to that character, I think, than the John Hammond in the book. Mm-hmm. 

[00:28:42] Rebekah: I also will say it’s possible though, you say the trope. I’m sure that this is not like the only time it had been done, but this book was written in 1989. It was. So maybe this was kind of the start to when that trope became a lot more common.

[00:28:56] Rebekah: I don’t know. That’s partly just a guess, but [00:29:00] 

[00:29:00] Tim: yeah, I would think there’s probably been a lot more movies, uh, where the, the rich guy is just bad. Mm-hmm. Uh, the super rich guy is bad, but I’d have to look at that too. Um, there’s another character that, uh, is pivotal to both the book and Phil, and that is Dr.

[00:29:17] Tim: Alan Grant. Um, in the book, he likes children because of their wonder, and, um, he likes the fact that they, uh, love dinosaurs and he loves dinosaurs. However, in the film, he doesn’t like children. He’s very uncomfortable with children. Um, in, in the, in the film, he seems to take, uh, more active, well, lemme put it this way.

[00:29:49] Tim: He’s more actively engaged with the kids because of what takes place in the park. Um, in the book, I think he is, um, he’s [00:30:00] more, he tries to guide the project a little bit more, uh, and talk to Hammond more in the film. He doesn’t seem to get a lot of opportunities to talk directly to Hammond once the tour starts.

[00:30:14] Tim: Does that sound right? 

[00:30:17] Rebekah: Uh, yes. Yeah, because, because they’re, I mean, ’cause he and the you with Grant, like being gone with the kids longer and stuff, is that part of what you’re talking about? Yeah. He doesn’t 

[00:30:27] Tim: interact with, with Dr. With, uh, Richard Hammond. Oh. Or John Hammond Very much. Not much 

[00:30:32] Donna: at all after.

[00:30:33] Donna: Not in the, not in the book either, really. Oh, okay. He’s, I mean, I think it’s more pronounced in the film that his sub, his subplots off on kind of its own thing. They’re till they get, come back together in the end. But, 

[00:30:46] Tim: um, something that we don’t, we don’t see in the film or hear about is that, uh, grant is a widower.

[00:30:55] Tim: We only find that in the book. Um, that may, that may have something to do with, [00:31:00] you know, 

[00:31:01] Rebekah: I felt like his feelings, that aspect might be why he’s a little bit of a softer character in the books. Like, not softer, like in a bad way. Just a lot more like, I don’t know, I, there’s just, I don’t know exactly what the right word is for it, but it, it’s more kind, like, more compassionate.

[00:31:17] Rebekah: Yeah. He’s the grant that is, you know, he’s in a relationship but not married and he doesn’t really like kids and stuff. It feels a little more antithetical. Um, you know Yeah. To someone who would’ve like, already been married and like, it’s a little more genial, cherishes kids, stuff like that. 

[00:31:37] Tim: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:31:38] Tim: Somebody who, who’s lost their spouse, I would think has, uh. Probably a clearer understanding of I need to cherish every moment. Mm-hmm. Because there’s, you know, no telling how long that’ll last. 

[00:31:52] Donna: Sure. Yeah. 

[00:31:52] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:31:53] Donna: Uh, Sam Neil did not complete his like, [00:32:00] signing, or, or was really pulled in until like, three weeks before they started filming, which I thought was interesting.

[00:32:05] Donna: But, um, wow. Because I don’t, can’t, I know other people could have portrayed Alan Grant, but you know, now Sam Neils, it’s, he’s in my head there. He lives in my head. Right. It’s so iconic at this point. Yes. Um, but also, uh, he has a a per, he has a British accent and he tried to come up with an American accent.

[00:32:33] Donna: ’cause the ca Alan Grant is from Montana or Works, has worked in Montana a long time. 

[00:32:38] Tim: Well, Hammond has a British accent, so maybe they didn’t want. 

[00:32:42] Donna: I don’t know. He tried, he tried to be overtly American and then Spielberg was like, eh, I don’t know. Let’s go, let’s try British just to speak your regular accent.

[00:32:55] Donna: And then after a, a few more days, Spielberg’s like, um, Keith, find something in the [00:33:00] middle. And so it’s funny ’cause we don’t get any of that, obviously. We just get what’s on the film. Um, and for a long time I didn’t realize Sam Neil had a British accent, so he’s convincing to me at least. So, yeah. 

[00:33:15] Rebekah: Um, so another obviously person related to Alan Grant is Dr.

[00:33:21] Rebekah: Ellie Satler in the book. She is a little younger, she’s in her early twenties, whereas in the film she looks like she’s what, maybe thirties or something. She’s obviously a little younger than Grant. Mm-hmm. But not by a ton. 

[00:33:33] Tim: Yeah. The not a, oh go ahead. Not a student, like not a student intern, whatever that’s working for the older professor.

[00:33:40] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:33:40] Rebekah: Yeah. Um, she is still a paleo botanist. Um, she works alongside the veterinarian in both. Um, but the biggest part is that she and Grant are not actually romantically involved in the, in the book, which I threw me off ’cause I wasn’t sure. ’cause it sounds, at one point when they’re [00:34:00] talking about getting to the hotel on the island, I was like, oh, they’re like staying in the hotel.

[00:34:04] Rebekah: And then like, I, I don’t know, it just like hit me later and then they say it more. Overtly that she’s actually engaged to a doctor living in New York. Mm-hmm. Which I thought was interesting. Um, 

[00:34:16] Tim: there, there’s a funny line that she says that, that I picked up on this time when I watched the movie. Um, somebody’s explaining something, I think it’s Dr.

[00:34:26] Tim: Hammond and says, says for the kids, and Grant asks a question, what is, what is that? Or who are they? And he’s actually responding to something he said, you know, two sentences ago or whatever. And Ellie looks at him and says, they’re the, they’re the little adults, dear or hun. Mm-hmm. Or something like that.

[00:34:45] Tim: Oh. He’s like, 

[00:34:45] Rebekah: what? Are what? That made 

[00:34:46] Tim: them a little more connected. 

[00:34:48] Rebekah: Yeah. And it was, it was cute. Like, uh, okay, this is my opinion. I mean, I, I don’t know how much different you guys feel. I loved that they added this whole romantic [00:35:00] thing like that they were dating in the film. To me it just like, I don’t know.

[00:35:05] Rebekah: It was really clever. I thought it gave them a reason. Like, I liked the way that it made Ellie so much more nervous about Grant, like when he went missing. I really, I thought it was funny like that. Then Ian Malcolm, like kind of hitting on her a little bit, was this like, it was kind of a dramatic thing. I thought that that was like a really good change from book to film.

[00:35:27] Rebekah: I don’t always like when relationships are added from like, what’s in the book, but I thought that this one was really, really clever 

[00:35:33] Tim: and I thought it was added lightly. It was not heavy handed. Mm-hmm. They weren’t, you know, they didn’t wake up in bed together kind of thing. Yeah, no, not at all. It was, there’s the connection to them that’s a bit more than just friends.

[00:35:48] Tim: Um, and, and yeah, there again, that pops up more in the third film 

[00:35:54] Donna: then, you know, we come down to [00:36:00] Ian Malcolm Down. 

[00:36:01] Tim: Sounds right. 

[00:36:03] Donna: No, honestly, I am, so this character threw me more than any of the other characters in the book because in the film, I mean, he’s still, he’s a similar character book to film. It’s not that there’s, uh, it’s not that there’s a huge difference in that part of his personality.

[00:36:27] Donna: Um, he is more heroic in the book, um, in, you know, he’s, he’s brought in by an attorney instead of in, in the novel instead of the film where Hammond includes him because he’s, uh, he has some background with him, but he comes from a different, you know, a different take or a different type of science. And he and Hammond go [00:37:00] back and forth a little bit, back and forth in the film.

[00:37:02] Donna: They have some banter about, oh, well, Ian thinks this, or whatever, and. Hammond really was hoping he would come alongside him. And, and of course that didn’t work out. But the other personality trait about Malcolm that they changed, which I think is so funny for a few different reasons, he’s very flirtatious in on film.

[00:37:24] Donna: Ian Malcolm on screen is like, I mean book Malcolm is he, he, he loves himself. He’s into himself. But Phil Malcolm, he’s a lo he’s more flirtatious, which is literally, that is so hilarious to me. For one, I think Jeff Goldblum is a pretty cool actor. I think he kind of has one person he plays. Um, he’s, you know, he is who he is in the films he is in.

[00:37:59] Donna: He doesn’t [00:38:00] do kind of like the Tom Hanks character actor where you see a different character. He’s Jeff Goldblum. 

[00:38:07] Tim: Do you think that was, that’s my question. Do you think, do you think there’s as much Jeff Goldblum in this character as there is Ian Malcolm from the book, but we’ve seen him in lots of different things and there’s always seemingly this gold bloom thing?

[00:38:26] Donna: Well, I think, I think the concept of. The sexual tension between he and Satler and Grant made this, it made, it, it, it made a lighthearted part of a movie that can be all dark. I think it added a little bit of light in there where he goes through this. Uh, he’s obviously taken with Ellie as soon as he sees her, and I think he even, [00:39:00] I didn’t, I didn’t note this.

[00:39:02] Donna: Isn’t there a Oh yeah, he’s the conversation between he and Grant where he is asking if Ellie’s taken or whatever, and they’re in the GP there and he says, I’m just looking for the next ex, Mrs. Malcolm. Yes. And I thought that was, that is Jeff Goldblum. Yeah. Yes. I thought that’s, thought that was very funny.

[00:39:22] Donna: Anyway, I wonder, 

[00:39:24] Rebekah: it’s hard for me to answer the question because this was my first exposure to Jeff Goldblum. Yeah. And so it’s hard for me not to just see in Malcolm, him other Charact characters. Every, every other character. Does 

[00:39:36] Tim: he in Malcolm. Yeah. Gotcha. But 

[00:39:37] Rebekah: I do think that the biggest shift or like difference is in this, he’s constantly always talking about the chaos theory stuff.

[00:39:49] Rebekah: And I, while his cadences of the way he talks and he and he, and he, and he has that like little stuttery thing that he does, um. All of that is very [00:40:00] Jeff Goldblum. But I did think the chaos Tian stuff was like pretty cool. So, 

[00:40:05] Tim: uh, no, I thought, I thought his take on the character putting so much of goldblum in it, and I’ve seen him in other things before and since, um, but I think it made his character more relatable and a little less abrasive.

[00:40:24] Tim: Um, you, you would not have cared if he lived or died, um, necessarily if it was all mm-hmm. Just the mathematician. He knows he’s right. He knows he’s better than everybody else. There’s something that gold bloom brings to that character that puts a lightheartedness in it. It’s like, oh, everything’s horrible and the world is going to, to fall apart.

[00:40:48] Tim: Doesn’t that bother you? You know, he, I mean, he, he always brings something that makes it a little more lighthearted that allows you to be able to handle it. I mean, in Thor, Ragnar Rock, he plays a [00:41:00] dictator, a horrible dictator, but there’s a lightness to it that makes it a tolerable character. 

[00:41:06] Rebekah: Yeah. I think that we also, in this particular film, um, we see some of.

[00:41:15] Rebekah: What we’re, well, the character we’re about to talk about, um, the attorney in the book, he has some of the more, like, heroic stuff. He’s not really funny, but he does bring like a different perspective and I think that as we’ll talk about him, like changing quite a bit. Some of that like heroism and some of the other things were kind of pushed into Ian Malcolm’s character.

[00:41:40] Rebekah: Um, but then I, I don’t know. I don’t know that the humor part, I just, I think that it was a good addition because honestly, this movie doesn’t feel like, it doesn’t feel overly serious. And I think that that’s in Great thanks to Jeff Goldblum. 

[00:41:54] Tim: Yeah. One of the reviews that I was watching, um, was a group of [00:42:00] young adults, probably in their early, early twenties, uh, that were watching the film.

[00:42:06] Tim: One of them, one of the four for the first time, the other three had watched it but couldn’t remember too much. And they, the whole beginning of the film, they’re like, oh, I don’t remember this at all. So it had been a while since they’d watched it, but obviously the film was before they were even born. Um, but as they, as they talked about it, one of the, one of the girls said, oh, and this is where it becomes a horror film, you know?

[00:42:33] Tim: So it could have gone that way and stayed that way. ’cause she was talking about, you know, um, the moment when the worker is killed by the raptor toward, right toward the beginning. Mm-hmm. Um, and if it had stayed that it would’ve been a horror film instead of what it was. 

[00:42:52] Rebekah: Well, that’s funny ’cause that’s sort of why I chose it for our Halloween episode.

[00:42:55] Rebekah: ’cause we don’t watch a lot of like true horror films. Mm-hmm. Or read a lot of those, but this is [00:43:00] a pretty scary, it’s scary like story. Yeah. 

[00:43:03] Donna: Yeah. A couple things about Malcolm before we move on, just short little, uh, observations. One, the reason that I realize when I realized that he has this character about him that’s kind of built into gold bloom that comes across is I saw him on the YouTube show Hot Ones where he eats 10 wings and doesn’t interview you.

[00:43:31] Donna: And he’s every character he’s ever played and it’s, he’s just him. He’s quirky. He’s the, he’s, um, sometimes you look at him and go, man, he’s so intelligent. That’s so, that’s so cool. Other times you he’ll say stuff and it’s like, you’re, you’re an idiot. And, and I loved it and I, I realized that day, oh, this is who he is.

[00:43:54] Donna: The second thing is his character in the book, [00:44:00] some in the film, but in the book. Like I, other than the fact that he fully believes the earth is billions of years old, which I don’t, I, he’s the wise, one of the group, uh, to me to say, uh, what is our lifespan less than a hundred years? Um, in the scope of all of Tom, that’s nothing.

[00:44:27] Donna: You know, this world has been here and you think we could destroy it, dah, dah, dah. And he’s like, you think? And I, I was like, oh, I kind of, other than the, the young Earth, I’m a young earth. But other than that, it’s like, oh, I, I really agree with his thing about quit making more of yourself than you are and just realize, you know, you’re just a spec here.

[00:44:52] Donna: You’re just it, you’re just a part of this puzzle. You aren’t the most pivotal, you know, we are not going to be, there’s a [00:45:00] lot more to the world than just what we can do in our space. 

[00:45:04] Rebekah: I thought a lot of his observations were like you just said, like, they were really interesting. There are things that somebody needed to say, and I thought they were so good to have, um, to have done in the book.

[00:45:16] Rebekah: I felt like it is funny. Like it is, he’s just always gonna be Jeff Goldblum as Jeff Goldblum. But, um, it, it felt, I, I thought that his character in the book was like. I don’t know how to say it. Not a plot of ice. ’cause he’s a character, but he, he felt a little milk toast to me in the book. 

[00:45:36] Tim: Hmm. 

[00:45:37] Rebekah: He wasn’t all that interesting.

[00:45:38] Rebekah: He wasn’t all that brave. He wasn’t all, like, there wasn’t a lot going on. And I thought that in the movie, there was just like a lot more to him, you know what I mean? 

[00:45:45] Tim: It, it just goes to character development, choosing to make characters deeper. Uh, and sometimes they do that by compositing characters together, choosing smaller 

[00:45:56] Donna: cast.

[00:45:56] Tim: Yeah, for sure. And that’s what they did with the, with the next person. We’re gonna talk [00:46:00] about, uh, Janero. Donald Janero, the attorney, um, in the book, he’s young athletic in the film, excuse me, in the film. He’s, um, older, clumsy. As a matter of fact, when we first meet him, he’s getting out of the raft and he trips over the rocks.

[00:46:21] Tim: Uh, and we get the picture right off the bat. This is different than the person in the book. Uh, the film seems to, uh, bring in a portion of Regis, ed, Regis, uh, the cowardly part, uh, and some of the darker parts of Hammond’s greed. Uh, so, and in the book, Janeiro’s a bit more, uh, heroic. Um, and he’s a major factor in the resolution.

[00:46:51] Tim: Um, we won’t say it, but. He’s not a major factor in the entire film. 

[00:46:57] Donna: That’s true. He’s there and he [00:47:00] adds a, he adds things to the conversation. Um, I 

[00:47:07] Rebekah: don’t know, like, honestly, the only things he really is saying that I caught, he’s just the 

[00:47:12] Donna: antagonist against Hammond and Yeah. He, and he’s concerned with the board, blah, blah.

[00:47:16] Donna: Right. He’s then he’s representing me, he’s representing 

[00:47:19] Rebekah: the clients, you know? Yeah. Then he 

[00:47:20] Donna: turns his tone a little bit when he is like, we’re gonna make so much money, and he’s looking around, we’re gonna make a fortune. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:47:27] Tim: And then Hammond says, I brought you guys down here to be on my side, and now everybody’s against me, except the blood sucking attorney.

[00:47:35] Rebekah: Yes. I thought the amalgamation and he looks at it. Yeah. Yeah. I thought the amalgamation, it was because I’ve seen the movie so many times and I’d never read the book. It took me a minute. Like, I was very confused during part of it. Like, I, I was like, wait, what’s that guy’s name? And then what’s the, like, I was trying to figure it out, but I think now that I’ve kind of, I’ve read it all, I’ve seen the movie [00:48:00] again, it made a lot more sense to me.

[00:48:02] Rebekah: And I, I think it was honestly brilliant, like how they like paired down the cast and used Janero as kind of, you know, in the movie as like to combine a few other things and then put some other stuff on there. I thought it was really well done. 

[00:48:16] Tim: Well, one of the things that, in that, when we’re talking about the newest, uh, movie in the franchise.

[00:48:24] Tim: There were way too many people in the cast. Um, and, and it felt like there were way too many people in the cast. You only got the depth of a couple of them by the time it was done, you know, the, the father and the family were, oh man, they were just there. Uh, you didn’t get a lot from them. And that’s a danger when you have a large cast.

[00:48:50] Tim: You know, we did a, we did a disaster movie, and the, the trope of the disaster movie is, it’s an a huge cast of very [00:49:00] well-known actors. That’s one of the things that they always did. And you had to make sure they all got screen time and their stories could be fully told and fully fleshed out. And the collapse of the disaster films in the beginning of the eighties, uh, kind of came because they had bigger stars wanting more time.

[00:49:21] Tim: And it’s like, oh goodness, we can’t get all that in the story. So, okay, let’s tell this little story here and let’s tell this little story here. And everything became fragmented. And you know, it’s like we’ve got all these people in here, but it doesn’t really make sense together. So it’s a really good thing to be able to trim down the cast from a book.

[00:49:38] Tim: You want lots of interesting characters in a book. It’s gonna take you, the average person, not Rebecca, but it’s gonna take you many hours to read a book. Uh, you’re gonna listen to it. It’s gonna take many hours to read and less, of course, like Rebecca, you can listen to it at on two double speed. Um, but [00:50:00] in a, in a film, here again, you’re trying to take this thing that’s 16 hours long, turn it into a two, two and a half hour movie.

[00:50:08] Tim: You’ve gotta cut something and you might as well trim down characters. So you give. People, someone to root for and even to root against. But you don’t make that so large that you’re like, I’m not sure am I, do I like this one? Do I do I care? You know, all that. Yeah. 

[00:50:25] Rebekah: It’s just too much to try and decide, honestly.

[00:50:28] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:50:29] Rebekah: Well, the amalgamation part of this was that they eliminated a character in the film, uh, named Ed Regis. He was the park’s PR manager. The book? The book. He was the one in the book. Yeah. That was super cowardly. Very like, well, he just didn’t like anything and he was supposed to watch the children and he was very bad at it.

[00:50:51] Rebekah: Um, so they basically took, ed Regis took some of the stuff out of, uh, oh my gosh, I just forgot his [00:51:00] name. Janero, sorry. I was like, it’s a G uh, took a bunch, took some stuff out of Janero, made Janero the cowardly one, and the one that was kind of supposed to be in charge of the kids, even though it was like, why is this person supposed to be in charge of the kids?

[00:51:12] Rebekah: And they just eliminated Ed Regis, which is like, again, I I really good call. Totally made sense. 

[00:51:19] Tim: So we’ve got, um, Tim and Lex Murphy, the kids. So, um, I’ll talk about my namesake. Uh, their ages are reversed. Tim is older in the film, or excuse me, Tim is older in the book, younger in the film. Um. He is still the d dinosaur expert in the book.

[00:51:43] Tim: He’s also the computer guy, um, which we’ll talk about what that does to Lexi character in a second. But the actor, Joseph Mello, uh, that played Tim, he had auditioned for a [00:52:00] previous Spielberg film Hook in 91. He was turned down because he wasn’t the right age. Uh, but Spielberg had told him that he wanted to use him in in his next project.

[00:52:11] Tim: Uh, and so they cast him and then flipped the age so that it would fit. Um, since he was a little younger than the role seemed to be, uh, he became the kid, so, 

[00:52:26] Donna: yeah. Um, and so for his sister, Lex or Lexi

[00:52:36] Donna: don’t like that name? I don’t, no, no, not the name. She drove me all insane, all through the book and all through the movie. It didn’t matter what age she was. She’s one of the 

[00:52:47] Tim: reviewers I listened to said there is, she has no redeeming character quality except that she’s a kid. That’s like, the only reason you don’t want to see a [00:53:00] dinosaur chop her head off.

[00:53:01] Tim: That’s what another reviewer said. So that’s, that’s how, that’s hilarious. Yeah. 

[00:53:07] Donna: L. In the book, you know, you, they establish a few other things that they don’t really mention in the movie. Uh, Lexi is what is more into sports because she’s more in tune with her dad, and he, she’s closer to him where Tim feels like dad because he, because Tim is more studious or more interested in science and things like that, not so much sports.

[00:53:34] Donna: There’s, there is some backstory there and some, and some conflict between the two kids occasionally, uh, because she will pick at him and mention, kind of throw in there that, well, dad and I are closer, you know, she, she doesn’t say it exactly like that, but she throws out some things like that. So you don’t get that in the film [00:54:00] necessarily.

[00:54:01] Donna: But, um, in both book and film, the similarity is she’s just, she’s similar to the her, to her Mighty Granger in Harry Potter in the fact that she thinks that she’s got the answer, but she’s also super skeptical and her mind’s not always like that, obviously, but young Hermione is always like, we shouldn’t do that.

[00:54:28] Donna: Should we do that? Is that, uh, is that safe? Well, we should, uh, she’s the one ques that’s always questioning everything. Um, a little bit of trivia about her, um, her whole audition, the, the, I say whole, the bulk of the audition for Lex was for the actress to stand in front of the camera and scream and terror.

[00:54:52] Donna: That was what they were asked to do. Oh, joy. 

[00:54:54] Tim: Because can you, you scream 

[00:54:56] Donna: Spielberg wanted to see how they would be [00:55:00] scared. That’s that’s what he was looking for. Which to Tim’s point about her having no redeeming qualities or interesting, you know, that she was so irritating. Well, if that’s what he wanted from her, that’s what, that’s what he was going for.

[00:55:14] Donna: He wanted to see her terrified and he, he leaned toward her as the pick, because he was watching audition tapes at home one day of each girl screaming. And Lex, uh, well, it’s Ariana, um, oh, what’s her last name? I have it. Richards, Ariana Richards screamed and it woke up his wife, she jumped up off the couch and went running down the hall to see which one of the kids was screaming and authentic.

[00:55:46] Donna: So he knew. Yeah. So he knew that work, that that was the kind of, oh, that’s the one. She evoked that emotion or she caused that fear. Um, so I thought that was very interesting. And I will say. [00:56:00] The one thing she did really well on the screen was scream and look terrified. I mean, she, she, you could feel or sense the, the abject fear all over her.

[00:56:15] Donna: So she pulled that off really well. Yeah, 

[00:56:17] Rebekah: I think that she, I think that it worked so much better in the film, in my opinion, because in the book, the whining little girl just felt like a distraction. And while I understand Lex in the movie is a kind of an unfd person in general for a lot of people, I do think that it’s important to note that like, at least in the film, you have the younger boy who’s the dinosaur fan and he loves Dr.

[00:56:50] Rebekah: Grant’s work and all of that. But then Lex is the hacker who’s able to help them with some of the computer systems and stuff. Both of them kind of serve a purpose, not [00:57:00] just 

[00:57:00] Tim: whining, uh, 

[00:57:01] Rebekah: distraction, whining and like ultimately getting people hurt. And so I did appreciate that they tried to rework that in the film.

[00:57:10] Rebekah: And I think that it worked better because yeah, in the, it also totally worked with the way that they redid grant’s character as kind of reticent to interested being interested in kids and then like Ellie in the film because they’re dating, wants him to like kids. And, you know, it’s so, I, I thought that it, it worked a lot better in the film, but it was, she’s, uh, Ellie, or not Ellie, sorry, Lexi had the line in book and film.

[00:57:39] Rebekah: When they say, she says he left us, he left us, you know, when Regis slash Janero in the film leaves the kids. And it’s just like, that was so iconic, but it, it was hard that, that it was not the little kid saying that like it was the older kid and I don’t know. So I get it. I have mixed feelings I guess.[00:58:00] 

[00:58:00] Rebekah: Okay. So another character, very similar book to film in a lot of ways is John Arnold. So he’s the chief engineer and systems administrator, just the guy in charge of making sure the park runs. He is the chainsmoker in the book that he is in the film. I thought that was really cute. Like it was just this like funny like through line.

[00:58:19] Rebekah: I liked that they retained that. Um, he is pretty similar book to film, however, the big changes in the book, he is convinced until the end that it’s gonna work. Like the park is gonna work, it can be made safe. Like don’t worry, we can get it back online. We can fix these things. In the film, he’s much more doubtful and cautious, um, throughout like all of those things that go on.

[00:58:45] Rebekah: And he’s still, you know, he’s pivotal to trying to make sure that the park gets back online and all that stuff, but he’s a lot more, he’s even more sarcastic in the film than in the book, um, which I thought was a good change. I think his character’s very memorable the way [00:59:00] that, that John Arnold was portrayed.

[00:59:02] Rebekah: Like, I really like him in the film. I think he added, honestly, he adds variety to the plot. Um, in a lot of ways. The way that he like, I don’t know, it’s like you’ve got some of the people that are like, oh, we’re really anti Jurassic Park right now ’cause of all these things. And then you’ve got John Hammond and the lawyer, you know, to a lesser degree that are like, no, this is gonna be great.

[00:59:22] Rebekah: This is gonna be great. And it’s just funny. It’s like you have this one guy that’s like, I am exhausted and everything is falling apart, and like, dude, I can just put one step in front, like one foot in front of the other. It was cool to have somebody that wasn’t so for or against what was happening. You know what I mean?

[00:59:39] Rebekah: He added like this different voice in my head. 

[00:59:41] Tim: It’s funny that, um, and someone mentioned this in a different review that I was listening to that he was, he was in almost every big franchise in the, in the nineties. That’s funny. Into the early two thousands. Yeah. So yeah, [01:00:00] the actors, 

[01:00:00] Donna: um, so we have four characters that had very similar.

[01:00:06] Donna: Portrayal a similar character arc or you know, character, personality and all that. Um, you have he, Dr. Henry Wu, Robert Muldoon, Dr. Jerry Harding, and Louis Dodson. And so all of them have this role in creating Jurassic Park and in the inner workings of it and all that. Um, Harding gets a lot more book scenes.

[01:00:33] Donna: He’s, he’s very briefly shown on screen in the film. Um, 

[01:00:38] Tim: is that the veteran, the veterinarian? 

[01:00:41] Rebekah: Yes, that’s the vet at the tri. I did wanna, I did wanna clarify. Lewis Doon is, is the, uh, guy from the other corporation trying to steal. He’s the one that meets with Nedra at the beginning of the film. So, and they are pretty much as present from book to film too.

[01:00:57] Tim: He become, Doon becomes more [01:01:00] important as the franchise moves forward. 

[01:01:03] Rebekah: Yeah. Well, the other, I will say, I didn’t think about this until just now, but Muldoon, I think he’s French right in the book, but he is not like, he’s Australian maybe in the films. Is that right? Does that sound right? So he was very much a portrayal of, um, what’s the guy that he died, like from a Stingray attack.

[01:01:29] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. What the heck? Who am I thinking of? 

[01:01:32] Tim: Crocodile Hunter? 

[01:01:33] Rebekah: Yes. He’s very Rocco or Crocodile Dundee. Steve? 

[01:01:36] Tim: No, crocodile Dundee is the movie. Steve. Steve something. 

[01:01:40] Rebekah: Steve Irwin. Mm-hmm. Irwin. Okay. I don’t know why it took me so long to go with that. Yeah. So the film version of Muldoon is very, Steve Irwin similar in the book, but he’s French and he was like a zoo expert or something.

[01:01:54] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. Right. You get a little more backstory on what, you know, what he was all about. 

[01:01:59] Donna: Um, [01:02:00] a little bit of trivia at, at this point, I thought this is probably the best place to mention it. BD Wong, when he read for the part, the whole screenplay had, wasn’t even, had not been fully developed. So he was thinking his part was gonna be pretty prominent.

[01:02:18] Donna: And so as he went along, you know, he, he goes along with this, he’s very, um, he’s, he’s, uh, in the billing, he’s in top billing and all those things in marketing, but he only has, uh, he has just short of two minutes screen time. And he said at one point that he, he was, this was very like disheartening to him.

[01:02:44] Donna: He, he was very, uh, not happy about this, I guess, however you best way to say that anyway. Um, but he said he felt like it was due to the racial exclusion in Hollywood during this time period. And. [01:03:00] Um, interestingly enough, he comes back and reprises the role of, of Dr. Uh, Dr. Wu more. He reprises this role more than any of the other main characters do.

[01:03:14] Tim: Every time I see the film, I’m surprised at how little screen time he gets Yeah. Be because he is such a big part of the franchise. So sorry he didn’t get the time in the first one, but yeah, he got time in all of the rest of them. And he, except for the second one, it’s, he’s 

[01:03:31] Rebekah: probably should be glad for the rest of the time that he got the other ones that they didn’t keep his character arc the same as the books.

[01:03:37] Rebekah: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For one, I, I like his role coming back in and I thought, I know it’s only two minutes, but man, it’s a memorable two minutes. Yeah. And I thought, I thought it was just so interesting. Well, he looks like a 

[01:03:48] Tim: child though. 

[01:03:50] Rebekah: I know. He’s so young. Yeah, 

[01:03:51] Tim: very young. Yeah. Moving right along. Um, the plot and timeline has a [01:04:00] little, uh, little change from book to film.

[01:04:03] Tim: Uh, like we’ve mentioned before, some of the changes actually show up in the next film or perhaps in the following film, uh, or referenced somehow in even, uh, some of the later ones. But the book intro discusses bioengineering. DNA, uh, lots of info about the engine incident. Uh, and the story of the little girl, uh, Tina Bowman, who was bit by a com and her getting infected.

[01:04:33] Rebekah: I do wanna say the, the, so I mentioned at the beginning, like the way that the book is broken down, I was a little bit confused because there’s an introduction, which is like, it’s very academic, and that’s where they’re talking about like, the bioengineering thing, and they get into what the engine incident is kind of like.

[01:04:52] Rebekah: It’s after the fact of the events that are about to happen in the book. Then there’s a prologue, and that’s where Tina Bowman’s story comes in, [01:05:00] where she gets bit, and then you kind of like, learn later. Like that comes back in later. But I just, and then after the prologue, you get into chapter one, which is where the main characters actually are involved.

[01:05:11] Rebekah: ’cause I’m like, okay, am I, is Tina Bowman’s family in the rest of this book? Like, I, I didn’t know what was going on. So Is she 

[01:05:16] Tim: connected? Yeah. Yeah. Well, the film jumps through all of that and starts on the island with the worker being killed by the Raptor. Then we meet the attorney Janero as a result of the $20 million lawsuit.

[01:05:33] Tim: And, you know, talking about, uh, representing the dead men’s family or representing the company mm-hmm. Uh, in the lawsuit with the dead men’s family, um, I think, I think it would’ve been very difficult. To start the film the way the book begins. Uh, I think it was really good to jump right to the action, although there’s, there’s no time to breathe, to be [01:06:00] perfectly honest.

[01:06:01] Tim: The Mr DNA, the cartoon education film, uh, it’s movie only. There is no equivalent technically in the book, but I think that it was Spielberg’s way of taking all of that exposition at the beginning of the book and turning it into a quick, you know, 32nd one minute science lesson. So I think it took all of that and condensed it.

[01:06:31] Tim: I thought that was, I thought that was pretty magical actually. 

[01:06:34] Rebekah: There was a lot, like, I, this is one of the things I like about books is like, there was a lot of exposition of, in this one in particular, there was a lot of exposition with like, talking about genetic engineering, which, and bioengineering, which was like, I find really interesting.

[01:06:52] Rebekah: It’s more of that like hard sci-fi feel like you get in the Martian or Project Hami. Um, I didn’t mind that. I thought it was a brilliant way to [01:07:00] transform it in the film by using this little Mr. Dan cartoon, so it didn’t bother me. Um. I thought it was actually really interesting context ’cause it kind of, it made me feel more of like what the author was going for or like the purpose of it.

[01:07:15] Rebekah: However, on screen it works really well to just, it’s called in media res, where you start in the middle of the action. And so you start in media res you are watching like you see the very real danger that the park workers are suffering from and all of these things. And then like the results of that are the lawyer getting involved and then that’s why everybody else comes to the park.

[01:07:37] Rebekah: So it’s like very like, like the plot, it now has like a really clear through line versus novels, which can be, it’s so much easier to make them, yeah. To like use setup and like, kind of have these disparate things. It’s similar to why it’s easier to have a large novel like cast, whereas in a film it’s better often to like reduce the number [01:08:00] of like, main characters and things.

[01:08:01] Donna: Yeah. And at the point that they got, at the point where they saw the, the cartoon, you also have a lot of anxiety going on from Allie and from Ellie and Grant because they’re both like, we wanna see how they do this. What are we doing here? And they didn’t wanna sit and John was trying, you know, Hammond wanted them to go through the experience and, and take it all in.

[01:08:24] Donna: And they were like, no, what are you, what are you doing? So I really thought that was, it was good placement because it did give you. So much information that the book took a long time to tell you. Um, 

[01:08:37] Tim: and a lot of it’s so scientific and deep and it’s accurate because that’s, Creighton works very hard at that.

[01:08:45] Tim: That’s one of his, uh, markers, but mm-hmm. Oh, you couldn’t have, you couldn’t have taken that in the, in the film. You would’ve lost your audience. Yeah, 

[01:08:54] Rebekah: I thought it was, yeah. I thought this was definitely brilliant. Um, the film, uh, also [01:09:00] adds a dig site sequence in Montana. So you meet a grant in the book in Montana as well.

[01:09:06] Rebekah: But there’s this whole sequence where they’re kind of using the equivalent of like a ground x-ray machine and they get like a raptor, they see a picture, it’s sono of like a raptor. It’s skeleton sonogram, and 

[01:09:17] Tim: it’s using sound like a sonogram. So, 

[01:09:19] Rebekah: and so then there’s like, I don’t know why there was a kid there, like if it was somebody on a field trip or something, but there’s this little kid that Grant says this whole sequence of scaring him, like with a raptor claw and about how it would like cut him and his intestines would fall out and stuff.

[01:09:35] Rebekah: And I was like, dang. Like, but it, it really is funny ’cause it, it just like, like puts to the forefront grants kind of, I don’t understand children. I don’t like them and I, I don’t know how to talk to them. He’s kind of a grouchy old guy and whatever. And so there’s no equivalent scene in the novel for that.

[01:09:52] Rebekah: But I think that is, we, I’m gonna use the word iconic way more than I probably should in a single episode. But as we get through the plot, there are [01:10:00] so many scenes that become iconic. They’re either memes now or like, I’ve seen it so many times that like I could quote exactly the way that they say phrasings.

[01:10:08] Rebekah: Yeah. And this particular scene is really iconic to me. Um, just to kinda up the scare factor at the beginning, you know? 

[01:10:15] Tim: Yeah. One of the reviewers I, I listened to and I, I watched several about, about the whole series and, uh, they said, who brought their kid to work that day? Yeah. Because he is the only kid there.

[01:10:29] Tim: So, 

[01:10:29] Donna: and he, and he was a great funny, he was a great, just what you think, he was a good actor, right? A snotty nose kid. It was just like, and he had that kind of sneer on his face. Like, what are you talking about? Um, yeah. I don’t, I love children, but I can’t teach him. Um, so then we go to Dennis Ry, who casting, casting, casting.

[01:10:51] Donna: They picked a great guy to portray this guy in the film. Um, I didn’t exactly see the same guy in the book when I read him, [01:11:00] but regardless, um, he has a similar setup. Uh, one difference is he’s working as kind of a, as as a contractor for Hammond. Rather than coming in to be an N engine, uh, uh, an employee, but it, 

[01:11:17] Tim: but it does still come an in Dependen contractor, 

[01:11:20] Donna: but it does still come down to money.

[01:11:21] Donna: Uh, you know, the, his, his decision to turn or to, to try to, to get the eggs or whatever, um, does still does come down to financial issues. And so they, they bring that together. Um, the whole thing with the Barbs saw can, that’s, that’s in the film, but the book does that great job of bringing the two guys together on the, on the other island and Ned’s like, yeah, whatever.

[01:11:49] Donna: I don’t even care about all your specific things. I just want to go in to do it, and I want the money and I can pull this off. It’s no problem. And he gets all excited about the, the can [01:12:00] opening, you know, and again, to the word, to to princess there, iconic, the, the Barb saw can, um, uh, I liked, I, I did like the way they condensed it in the film.

[01:12:12] Donna: I thought that was fine. I thought his interaction in the, in the workroom with Samuel L. Jackson and. And Hammond. I know I just now forgot who? Samuel Jackson. What his name? Arnold. John Arnold. He was John. That was John Arnold. Sorry. Yeah, I had names mixed up. The chain smoking guy. Yeah, his, his interaction with Arnold and Hammond in the, in the computer room.

[01:12:38] Donna: I thought that was great. Um, so I thought the change that they, changes they made were, were good. Um, 

[01:12:46] Rebekah: I thought it was interesting they went through the whole process of explaining that there was like a board meeting where they were hiring Dodgen to like get with Ned and all this stuff. Also, one of my favorite parts of that scene of them, like at the [01:13:00] little restaurant with the barbers saw can is when he’s like, Hey, Dodge, sit over here.

[01:13:04] Rebekah: And he’s like, don’t say my name. And he is like, no one cares Doon. This is Dodge. Like, and he’s using it. Hey everyone, so hey. I love that. Yeah. I don’t know why, but that just always tickles me. Yeah. And I’m thinking 

[01:13:14] Tim: the people probably don’t even speak English, so as far as what he’s saying is Yeah, nobody really knows what he’s even saying.

[01:13:23] Rebekah: So, uh, as the characters arrive on site, uh, in the book, like we said a couple times, some of the dinosaur stuff is just done a little bit differently. And so the first thing that the characters see in the book, the first dinosaurs are an OSAs herd, which is, so the one funny is that one with the long 

[01:13:43] Tim: who, uh, the long it’s Ornish thing behind their head.

[01:13:45] Rebekah: No. See, this is the, the part that is funny to me and like this just gets into like dinosaur nerd people will probably be like, uh, but in the film we see the Brachiosaur herd, if I’m being honest, I just Googled a PSUs and they look exactly the same to me. I [01:14:00] don’t understand how they’re different. 

[01:14:00] Tim: So, hey, listen, when I was growing up, it was the, it was the Brontosaurus and Oh, that’s funny.

[01:14:06] Tim: I think they all look the same. 

[01:14:08] Rebekah: Literally. Like I know they’re different. Brachiosaurus just has a much longer neck from what I’m understanding. I’m trying to like look it up. So anyway, they do a couple of different things like that, uh, but they see a NEPA SARS herd at the lake. Um, in the book. I, oh my gosh, like I want, I don’t know how to bottle what you experience in that scene, but I love just like Grant and then he like taps Ellie and that whole scene where he just sees it and it’s like that wonder.

[01:14:45] Rebekah: Just overcomes you, man. That is, it’s, it’s the Lucy, it’s special, 

[01:14:48] Tim: it’s Lucy in the, in the winter world through the wardrobe. Yeah. Yeah. It’s that moment. It’s like you get this wonder. They did it, you know, with her, they made sure that the [01:15:00] kids had never experienced that. They didn’t see them setting it up or any of that stuff.

[01:15:03] Tim: So when they step in, that is completely new, uh, completely authentic, their response. Um, and I think that the actors did that same kind of thing. They were able to capture that absolute wonder. We’ve been studying these all our lives. We’ve heard about all of this. We’ve, we’ve looked at this history, and suddenly it’s there in living form.

[01:15:29] Tim: I, I think they did capture that wonder at the beginning of that. And, uh, there again, one of the reviewers that I was listening to said, does anybody realize that’s dangerous? It’s still dangerous. They’re huge. They could step on you and not even know it. Yeah. 

[01:15:43] Donna: Okay. 

[01:15:44] Tim: So 

[01:15:44] Donna: for all the Dino aficionados out there, you’re gonna hate me, but none of these words mean anything to me.

[01:15:51] Donna: I, they never have, I can’t tell you the difference between anything. But except that I know the T-Rex has little short arms because of the dumb [01:16:00] memes about him that he can’t reach anything. He see his little short arms. This is what I think a dinosaur is, but it’s, I’m gonna draw it the same time. Way time that is, is a 

[01:16:08] Rebekah: stick stick.

[01:16:09] Rebekah: Okay. Hold on. For, for those who are listening only and not watching, what I see is an oval shaped head and a stick person. And then, yeah, long neck stick dog. It’s a stick dog with long necks, the leg, long neck, long tail, and then a really long tail. And then what are what Sta of sous 

[01:16:30] Tim: humps on the back, his 

[01:16:31] Donna: leg.

[01:16:32] Donna: They’ve got, they have spikes, they have like spikes on their bikes. Some of ’em the stegosaur. 

[01:16:35] Tim: So she’s got thete of brosso gives, 

[01:16:38] Donna: who gives a Rip? Ste, ofor, brachy, blah, blah blah. So they’re all SOEs. They’re all sores. That’s my whole point. I’m so sorry. I feel bad, but I love this movie and this franchise.

[01:16:51] Donna: Uh, but let me go back to something you just said. The scene where he see, and in every Jurassic Park movie, they [01:17:00] have a moment where somebody sees the animals for the first time and they all have the awe and wonder. And they all have John Williams amazing score. And I think most of they may all use the same part of the score.

[01:17:21] Donna: And my eyes tear up. I just sit there and just because the music takes me away and Oh, it’s amazing. Mm-hmm. 

[01:17:30] Rebekah: It, this score is 

[01:17:32] Donna: mm-hmm. Wow. Like, oh yeah. Wow. Uh, John’s a man. Um, then we come to this, why, how do you not say iconic? It’s the same thing as, it’s the same thing as it’s not personal, it’s business.

[01:17:51] Donna: And get the, take the gun, leave the canno, or get the, leave the gun, take the cannoli. I mean, it’s that, that thing that you [01:18:00] grow up with and they become in ingrained in your, in your brain somehow. This water scene where, uh, ma where Malcolm’s trying to describe chaos theory. Okay. It’s totally not in the book, in the book.

[01:18:15] Donna: It’s in a different place. It’s, it’s him, it’s their, they’re whole different setting way out farther in the book. So I thought it was genius that they brought it in early into the movie to help you see how Ian thinks differently and where he is based versus where Mal, uh, where Grant and Satler are, and Hammond and all that.

[01:18:40] Donna: And so you had this, uh, little moment of great sexual tension. There’s nothing. It’s, this is a very clean movie as far as any, any overtone like that. But you clearly see he’s just barely touching her hand and he just [01:19:00] drips the, you know, whatever. Um, so I did love, I did think it was, that was a genius move to move it to that point, to create this love triangle that doesn’t overshadow the movie.

[01:19:13] Donna: Um, but a little bit of trivia here, after they filmed Jurassic Park, or during the filming of Jurassic Park, uh, Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern struck up a romance and were actually engaged for about two years. And then they broke up. And interestingly enough, I guess back in the eighties and nineties, Jeff Goldblum had this reputation where he would fall for far, fall for somebody.

[01:19:43] Donna: He was involved in a, in a movie, on a movie set, uh, fall for one of the, the co-stars and struck up, uh, relationships. Yeah. So he, and he and Laura Dern never ended up marrying, but they were engaged for a couple years. And [01:20:00] so, um, gold Bloom has a, a had his own little trope there on, uh, on film sets, so found that fascinating.

[01:20:09] Donna: Again, he’s, again, Barry, Jeff Goldblum. Yes. Barry, Jeff Goldblum. And, uh, he’s just, he’s such an unattractive man. And I think it’s a total hoot. I think it’s not that you, it’s not about looks. I’m not saying I’m not, I, I don’t mean to say that, but I just look at him and go, 

[01:20:27] Tim: why? 

[01:20:28] Donna: Hmm. 

[01:20:29] Tim: Yeah. 

[01:20:29] Donna: Sam Neil’s there in that room with you.

[01:20:32] Donna: And that’s, you know, doesn’t matter. 

[01:20:35] Tim: Okay. I know this is a, this is probably a strange place to insert this, but you said, you know, the iconic, uh, film, the moments and the music and all that kind of stuff. So I decided to look up awards for this film. You know, a lot of, a lot of times they’re nominated for awards that they don’t get.

[01:20:54] Tim: It won. It won the Academy Award for Best Sound. It won the Academy Award for [01:21:00] best effects and sound engineering or sound effects, uh, editing and best effects and best, best visual effects. Um, it won a lot of awards with the Academy of Science Fiction. Um, all of the actors, excuse me, won awards. The director won awards.

[01:21:18] Tim: Um, there were awards, uh, given, let’s see, the Grammy award went to John Williams for his instrumental composition. He should have for the movie. 

[01:21:29] Donna: He should have won the Oscar for it, but. That’s just me, 

[01:21:33] Tim: and I’m just, I’m looking down this list and it is a massive list of awards. And they even went so far as, uh, the young actors, uh, young Actor Awards or something, something like that.

[01:21:47] Tim: If I can, if I can find it again. Um, the Young Artist Awards, uh, outstanding family motion picture. Uh, best youth actor, uh, was Joseph Mazzello. Uh, [01:22:00] best youth actress was Ariana Richards. So I mean, it won award after award after award. And it, we say it’s iconic and it’s like, oh, we shouldn’t use that term.

[01:22:11] Tim: It’s like, well, you know, it was a real award-winning movie, bunches of awards. So, back to the film itself or the movie. In the film, the Tropical Storm prompts an early shutdown in evacuation, which is key to Ned’s Escape Plan. Uh, in the novel, the storm hits, but some of the staff stays and the timeline of the disaster is, uh, more extended.

[01:22:40] Tim: So I think in the film, the storm acts as the. The other antagonist. You’ve got, you’ve got the dinosaurs, especially the raptors and the T-Rex, but you’ve also got the storm, you [01:23:00] know, it’s never ideal. It’s pouring down rain, everything’s slippery, you know, so it’s another antagonist. And I like the fact that they condense, it, condense the whole story into this very short period of time.

[01:23:16] Tim: You know, from the moment they start in the cars, it’s like, oh, the storm is coming. Maybe it’ll pass. Oh no, it’s not gonna pass, it’s gonna hit. And so everything happens during the storm and it, it just builds that tension, builds that tension up 

[01:23:32] Donna: back on Malcolm. You, he, he gets injured there when they are out in the Jeeps and Aw.

[01:23:37] Tim: Being heroic. 

[01:23:38] Donna: His one, yeah, his one Crazy. 

[01:23:40] Tim: But heroic, 

[01:23:41] Donna: big act of heroism is trying to distract the T-Rex from the kids and he, he, uh, ends up falling farther away and breaks his leg. And that part, you know, that does happen. Um, but I, I, [01:24:00] yeah, I guess, I guess you’re right. That’s his biggest heroic act in the, in the film 

[01:24:06] Tim: or from then on.

[01:24:06] Tim: He’s, yeah, he’s laid up well then 

[01:24:08] Donna: if Yeah. For true for, that’s for sure. Yeah. I did think it was interesting later in the book, toward the end of the book, how sick he was like. To the point of almost they, they weren’t sure he was gonna make it and, and all that. I did think that was interesting because, because he, the 

[01:24:24] Tim: book he kept, the book seems to imply that he dies.

[01:24:27] Tim: Although the second book says he didn’t. He was just very, very sick. 

[01:24:34] Donna: Well, I, I thought it was interesting at the end how he said when they thought he was fading in and out or whatever, and he was like, it’s completely, everything’s different now. It’s so different on the other side. And they were trying to figure out what he was saying and he just kept saying, wow, I thi I see everything so differently.

[01:24:52] Donna: So I thought that was an interesting thing to add to the novel. Um, 

[01:24:57] Rebekah: well I didn’t know that he was gonna come back in [01:25:00] other books. I just assumed he was gone. So they do a good job of basically making it clear that he’s gone. So that’s an interesting difference. Uh, so another little spot of trivia, Malcolm’s quirky must go faster line in the back of Jesus, which is very funny.

[01:25:19] Rebekah: Must go faster. Uh, it was a favorite of Director Roland Emerick. So he had gold bloom, actually use that again in Independence Day. And it’s in the scene where they’re in the mother, like they’re escaping the mothership in the little alien ship. And he goes, must go faster. Must go faster again. So that was intentional, uh, intentionally repeated.

[01:25:39] Tim: Oh goodness. Go Jeff. Well, the, uh, T-Rex breakout. Up killing the PR manager in the book, ed Regis, uh, in the film, it’s the lawyer Janero who runs away from the kids and is quickly killed in the film, so he doesn’t come back. Oh my 

[01:25:57] Donna: gosh. That, that [01:26:00] scene the first time I saw it, I’ve, I did not, I was not ready for the dinosaur to just pick him up.

[01:26:06] Tim: Oh, I really was not. I was like, that was great. I know I’ve mentioned, mentioned this many, many times, but I, I had so much fun watching reviewers, especially younger reviewers, watching the film for the first time, things like that. One of the Ford had not seen it in the moment that he, that the T-Rex reaches down and pulls a Janeiro off of the toilet.

[01:26:28] Tim: Um, the guy just screams on the, and I thought, you know, that’s the response that, that I’m sure Spielberg was looking for. Oh, 

[01:26:37] Donna: to a hundred percent. Um, the dinosaur breeding reveal of how all this takes place, it is discovered earlier in the book, like, grant, uh, grant finds hatched eggs on the tour and, and things like that instead of where he found them out in the wild later in the film.

[01:26:58] Donna: Um, I [01:27:00] thought this was, I thought it was okay that they, that they leave it. Um, again, like I said before, the part where they were talking, where they were tracking animal numbers. And then the, they realized they were not figuring it, configuring it. Right. And they started to see that was terrifying. So this might have been an interesting, some of that could have been interesting, but I felt like the decisions they made in the film were right.

[01:27:29] Donna: You know? Yeah, yeah. 

[01:27:31] Tim: Ramps up the tension. Know? Mm-hmm. They, they’ve been talking about, well, you know, there’s the, you know, they’re, they don’t breed. They don’t breed. They don’t breed. They don’t breed. And they’re out there, uh, here are eggs. They do. And Malcolm 

[01:27:44] Donna: Life finds away. Yep. Life finds away. How many times did he say it?

[01:27:48] Donna: Life finds away. 

[01:27:50] Rebekah: I think one reason maybe that changed a little bit. ’cause when, when they reveal it earlier in the book that the dinosaurs are breeding, I was like, isn’t that like a [01:28:00] major thing? I think basically they used that in the film. They just replaced that instead of the thing with the motion detectors where you have this huge thing near the end where you’re like, oh my gosh, there are more.

[01:28:13] Rebekah: We just didn’t realize because of this, you know, thing. So I think that’s interesting. But, so there’s a book only subplot, uh, that I thought was really interesting kind of going towards, uh, back to emphasizing the intelligence of these animals where. Might, might be Raptors. We were kind of unclear if it was a affor or not.

[01:28:37] Rebekah: I’d have to like go back and look in the text for certain. Yeah. Mom is right. It’s a stick au One of them, um, where there had been di juvenile dinosaurs that were stowing away on a supply ship to Costa Rica, which circles back to how the comps were like on the other islands and like biting people and all of those things.

[01:28:57] Rebekah: And then Grant sees more of them like [01:29:00] lining up on the beach as another ship is approaching. Am I saying that right? 

[01:29:04] Tim: One of the supply ships is getting ready to leave 

[01:29:07] Rebekah: and he has to like race back to the control room to like alert the authorities. And uh, like the radio fails. Is that where like the boy Tim mm-hmm.

[01:29:20] Rebekah: Is on the computer trying to get the radio to work and all this stuff and the people are like gonna ignore him and then John Arnold jumps on and he basically says that he’ll have them all arrested if he doesn’t do it. It’s like this is real, do it. So, um, that is not part of the film at all. I thought it good.

[01:29:35] Rebekah: It was a good thing to cut ’cause it just didn’t feel as relevant. But I did like it in the book like that he notices they’re so intelligent that they can, that you know, they talk at, near the end of the book, they talk about how, and this goes back to the connection of like dinosaurs connected with birds, how they want to migrate.

[01:29:53] Rebekah: Like they’re ready to migrate, they’re just following this. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, instinctual thing 

[01:29:58] Tim: here again. [01:30:00] Some of these concepts are fleshed out in books further into Yeah. The franchise. Yeah. In slightly different ways. You know, they’re not waiting on in films on the shore, whatever, but in the films Yeah.

[01:30:14] Tim: Ed books. Yeah. That’s in the franchise. Mm-hmm. Uh, in the franchise, some of these are fleshed out, uh, yeah. In future films. So Grant, Tim and Lexi’s journey is more expansive in the book, uh, including taking shelter in a maintenance bunker and using a gas jeep to return to the compound. The film sequences, sequences are condensed.

[01:30:40] Tim: They spend one night in a tree and walk back toward the main area. Uh, I think this, I think this is probably a, a good decision to have shortened this a little bit. I think it felt important enough. Um, and during that journey is when we, when we get the, uh, T-Rex chasing them as [01:31:00] they’re going down the river and stuff like that, a scene that’s superimposed into the third film in a different way.

[01:31:07] Rebekah: And I think the timing felt, I think that the timing felt. Decent still, like in the film, like it still felt like they were gone a long time, but in the book there’s just a lot more. Yeah, that happens. 

[01:31:21] Tim: So, well, most of the action takes place, like I said, during the storm. And they, the storm eases, they fall asleep for the night and then they go to the compound the next day.

[01:31:32] Tim: So the timeline is condensed. And I think that’s good for the, uh, for the tension because it’s like, okay, well day before yesterday, the, the dinosaur did this thing is a lot less tense than a few minutes ago this happened. So, 

[01:31:52] Rebekah: so there’s a big like, massive power outage plot in the film that is kind of the [01:32:00] central thing that causes a lot of these things to go wrong.

[01:32:03] Rebekah: ’cause like they’ve got this 50 miles of perimeter fence. Oh no, it’s, they’re off. Like, and they can’t, the phones don’t work ’cause the power’s out and all this stuff. So that’s pretty different In the book. It, there is a power issue, but the biggest, like, it was really interesting to me, it reinforces the hubris of John Arnold in particular, like he.

[01:32:24] Rebekah: Where in the book he thought Hammond or Arnold? No, Arnold. Okay. Because in the book he was convinced that it would be fine, but it was him. Basically what happens is he doesn’t realize when the power, there was like a power surge or something or whatever, and they reboot the main power and then realize hours or they re, they’re able to reboot the main power hours after this happens.

[01:32:46] Rebekah: But what they didn’t realize, and this was on John Arnold for not catching in the book, I believe the auxiliary power was what was on, which meant that there were a bunch of things that didn’t actually have power for several [01:33:00] hours, but hubris they thought, well look, we got it back on. Look, see it’s fine.

[01:33:05] Rebekah: And then they discover hours later that actually not everything was on and absolutely not everything was fine. And then like then they expose all of these other like issues. So like I said in the book, the powers out for a long time and it’s a big part of like Ellie having to go manually reboot the system.

[01:33:25] Rebekah: And that’s actually how Arnold dies, which is also not on screen in the film. It’s that again iconic thing where like the arm falls on Ellie’s shoulder, which is so wild. Like that’s such a crazy, I love that. That was so effective. Um, in the book, he actually dies on screen. So like they see him being cornered by raptors, like through a window is like they’re watching it happen, which is.

[01:33:49] Rebekah: A little creepier, but then in the movie it worked that you just didn’t know what happened to him, in my 

[01:33:54] Donna: opinion. Well, for the Lexi haters out there, [01:34:00] the scene where Grant goes up and touches the fence and goes, ah, and she screams and Tim just, just laugh. He’s dying laughing because Grant just turns around and goes, you know, um, yeah.

[01:34:15] Donna: That’s a great, that’s a great use of, that’s a great use of that reminder that the power’s off. And then of course, just after that, then Tim, who in the book, they do establishes afraid of heights, but they don’t make as much about it in the film, then he falls back off the thing. I mean, they’re, they, they make use of the problem in some very, uh, some very terrifying ways as well as use it for a little bit of comic relief.

[01:34:43] Donna: Um, this is 

[01:34:44] Tim: good. This is good filmmaking. 

[01:34:47] Donna: Yeah. You’ve, 

[01:34:47] Tim: you’ve got a, and Spielberg’s not always on that. It rises up and then there’s some calm and it mm-hmm. And then it rises up again. And I think that’s really good filmmaking. Sometimes, uh, it [01:35:00] happens that way because that’s the way you plan it. Sometimes it happens that way because the animatronics T-Rex, uh, gets so soaked in the water scenes in the raining scenes that it won’t move anymore.

[01:35:16] Tim: The animatronics can’t. It’s too heavy now. It won’t, lip won’t move. So you have to do things differently, um, differently. Spielberg has run into some problems with, uh, with animatronics and things from, from jaws on forward, and sometimes the problems have made it better. Um, you know, they were gonna, they were going to lean more heavily on the T-Rex and they had to cut some of those things short because the T-Rex with the water, ’cause he is made of latex, um, becomes too heavy.

[01:35:54] Tim: So, 

[01:35:54] Donna: yeah. And some of the things that they used were so large and heavy [01:36:00] just because of the way they had to be made and their size. They had to be really careful that they didn’t get hit by dinosaur tales when the, when the, uh, the things were like term moving around or whatever. Yeah. There was a, um, I read several things about that I thought were fascinating that you just assume now in CGI world.

[01:36:21] Donna: Or did they even have any, but they had several, a lot of physical animals that they, that they put together. Yeah. Um, 

[01:36:30] Tim: practical effects. They used a lot of practical effects. 

[01:36:32] Donna: Yeah. A few things, and we’ve alluded to this a little bit, uh, early or through earlier on, uh, early on, a few things that they had in the book that they don’t use in the film, but we do see in subsequent films, they use the same, uh, um, scene, or the same occurrence is, uh, they, uh, grant and the kids [01:37:00] escape, escape down a river on an inflatable raft, and that’s when they go into the aviary and, and you see the birds and things like that.

[01:37:09] Donna: So that comes back. We 

[01:37:12] Tim: flying dinosaurs 

[01:37:13] Donna: different with the different characters, obviously, but that comes back in, um, the third movie. And, uh, so they, they use that there. And also, um, 

[01:37:29] Tim: there’s, there was an attack scene at the waterfall. 

[01:37:32] Donna: Yeah. The, the, yeah. That, that whole thing, all those things come up in later films.

[01:37:38] Donna: That’s in the second one, which is fine. I mean, I’m, I’m okay with that. Uh, I’m okay with that too. The other one that we didn’t. I don’t think we noted was, uh, the beginning of the second movie is, is a scene from the first book. Yes. And we’ll worry about that for the, when we cover the second film, but Yeah.

[01:37:57] Donna: Yeah. I had, it had been a while. Yeah. For 

[01:37:59] Tim: me too. [01:38:00] So the novels finale, uh, is more central, uh, to multiple Velociraptors on the loose in addition to that kitchen scene where the raptors are chasing the kids. The Book Raptors Assault, the Visitors Lodge, uh, where survivors other survivors are hiding. This is when Dr.

[01:38:22] Tim: Wu is killed in the book. The film finale focused primarily on the two raptors hunting the kids and any other survivors, uh, without a larger siege on the building. Uh, and then you’ve got T-Rex coming in to save the day. Um, ’cause he doesn’t like raptors apparently, 

[01:38:42] Rebekah: which is so wild. So a couple of things stuck out to me here, but like the woo thing, he was much braver than obviously his two minutes of screen time in the film gave him the opportunity to be, uh, in the book.

[01:38:56] Rebekah: And so he is a big part of why the [01:39:00] survivors like narrowly escape the, the book Raptor assault. And so I thought that was interesting also. It was such, I, I have such mixed feelings about the Raptors dying to the, the T-Rex. It’s so weird. Like, but it, like, it feels inspiring and it’s like, you’re supposed to think that the T-Rex is the hero and then that’s like a theme, like through other movies.

[01:39:28] Rebekah: Like Yeah. Once you get to, to Rex comes back in like attacks world bad. Like, but the T-Rex is deadly. It’s not as if he’s not like he’s got Zilla King 

[01:39:38] Donna: Kong 

[01:39:39] Rebekah: where they want guess to make him, instead 

[01:39:41] Donna: of making him into the bad pre the bad predator, they make him into the hero. They make him like them from the one you, 

[01:39:47] Rebekah: yeah.

[01:39:47] Rebekah: The one you relate to. So I think that’s so weird. Yeah. Maybe that’s pretty cool. 

[01:39:55] Tim: It was an interesting choice, but I think part of the choice is because the [01:40:00] T-Rex is the number one most popular dinosaur. 

[01:40:05] Rebekah: So basically that’s how the resolution happens. The T-Rex kills the last raptors. There’s uh, you know, there’s an additional thing that happens in the book that they skip and then the survivors fly off in the helicopter and the island is intact, which, which sets up for a bunch of sequel things.

[01:40:22] Donna: And that’s kinda, isn’t that the way Poseidon ended the film ended with them. They got outta the boat. They flew off where the book gave you more context and such. 

[01:40:33] Tim: Mm-hmm. 

[01:40:34] Donna: So the book. Resolution, which I happen to really, really like. This grant takes the lysine contingency that they talked about, be in the book, uh, earlier, and shoot injects some lysine into the eggs that he’d found that will subdue the adult raptors because [01:41:00] he could also have 

[01:41:00] Tim: killed the little raptors.

[01:41:01] Tim: ’cause they’ll eat the eggs. 

[01:41:03] Donna: Yeah. But he’ll, he’s, his hope is his assumption, which does work out, is that the raptors will come, they’re gonna eat the eggs because they are ruthless. They’re not the parental thing, you know, that we want to make them into whatever, supposedly. Um, then they’re, they, they find the remaining na raptors in a nest.

[01:41:29] Donna: Uh, they’re gasped by Grant Jane and Muldoon and Satler, and then the Costa Rican Air Force evacuates the survivors by helicopter while Napalming lar to wipe out any remaining Dinos that might exist. There 

[01:41:45] Tim: could be no sequels to the book. Oh, 

[01:41:47] Donna: no. So sad. I don’t think still was, if I remember correctly, I don’t think Creighton Creon wasn’t sure he was gonna write a sequel.

[01:41:55] Donna: Um, 

[01:41:55] Tim: what, what I looked up about it was he didn’t want [01:42:00] to write it. Because he didn’t, because he didn’t want it to be the same thing again. Yeah. Which is why we’ll find next time that there may be a lot of difference between the second book and the second film, because the author didn’t really want to do it, but it was a cash cow that needed to be done.

[01:42:26] Tim: When a publisher says, Hey, we’ve got to have a second one. It was so popular, made so much money. And you’re like, yeah, but I’m done with that. I don’t wanna write that. Yeah. But it has to be done. What do you do? Okay, so we’re gonna call this survivor deaths, which is an oxymoron. Um, but we love it. Yeah. John Hammond dies in the book.

[01:42:52] Tim: He falls and he’s eaten by the com. Oh no. A scene that we may see in the future film, but [01:43:00] not of John Hammond. In the film version, however, John Hammond survives and he rides away in the helicopter, still holding his cane with the amethyst and the little mosquito inside. Um, Ian Malcolm dies from injuries in the book and is presumed dead.

[01:43:20] Tim: Although in, well I said died for injuries. Yeah. Subsequent films. Mm-hmm. We realized he didn’t die. We were just assuming he died. Well, 

[01:43:29] Rebekah: subsequent books, because he obviously doesn’t die in the film. 

[01:43:32] Tim: Right. The subsequent books. Mm-hmm. And films he survives in the film, Robert Muldoon, he hides from the Raptors and he survives in the book.

[01:43:43] Tim: Due to his cunning and skill, he is killed in the film, which gives us one of those lines that became a meme. Clever girl. Um, yeah. And we also have Donald Genaro, the lawyer. [01:44:00] He lives in the book, but he dies in the film ’cause he’s such a wiener and he runs away from the kids and got, gets killed on the toilet.

[01:44:13] Tim: Oh terrible. Henry Woo. He is killed by the Raptors in the book and BD Wong wouldn’t have had a long career in the Jurassic Films. Less than 10 minutes, but though he is briefly featured in the film, he leaves the island safely and is featured in most of the later movies. 

[01:44:34] Rebekah: Yeehaw. How do we feel? Do, are we like regretting that any of these changes happened?

[01:44:41] Rebekah: Like I thought, I thought they were pretty good. Yeah, 

[01:44:44] Tim: for the most part. Yeah. Yeah. I, in the book I had some problems with some of the people that died. I thought, oh man, that’s, yeah. 

[01:44:51] Rebekah: I am glad that Ian Malcolm doesn’t actually die. So that’s good to know for future in the book, I was very glad that John Hammond was gone.

[01:44:58] Rebekah: I was like, this guy’s gotta be outta the [01:45:00] picture that John Hammond. Yeah, he, that version of John Hammond was like, he was so bad. Well, he just like was determined that everyone else, like he was willing to let anyone else die, sacrifice anyone, like for what he wanted. So, um, I thought the janero scene in the movie was just so good.

[01:45:14] Rebekah: The Clever Girl line from Muldoon was amazing. And I think that it actually makes the mo and I, I don’t know if this is why filmmakers did it, but to me it makes the most sense that you have a through line of characters that Henry Wu is like the guy that worked for Jurassic Park that is back in later movies.

[01:45:33] Rebekah: ’cause he was the person, they had a whole backstory for him in the book that we don’t get in the movie at all about his like, school life and him, and got him right outta grad school and he’d only ever done this professionally. It looked like it. And, um, I think that it makes sense, like, the way he was set up to say that, like that’s the person that, um, that’s the person that would like come back and know what’s going on and have [01:46:00] insight into this.

[01:46:00] Rebekah: So I thought it was all smart. 

[01:46:01] Tim: I, I think it works. 

[01:46:02] Donna: And to bring him back. Especially bringing it back in the later movies so many years later. And you saw him as this young boy, basically. It’s like just post-college age kid, basically. And then you see him as an adult and he has to deal with the effects of what he’s done and that he looks at it.

[01:46:23] Donna: Uh, do I, am I crazy about what they do with him overall in the last couple movies? No, but I do love that he, uh, emotionally it carries this whole thing through as a full, like an epic story over decades of time. And so I thought that was a genius move. That’s probably 

[01:46:47] Tim: Rebecca, why the first three feel like a trilogy and the next three, many years later feel like a trilogy.

[01:46:55] Tim: Yeah. But he’s in, he’s in them in most of them. Mm-hmm. Um, in [01:47:00] one way or another. 

[01:47:01] Rebekah: I don’t have a problem, by the way, with like doing multiple series within the same world. Like, I think that that’s mine. But he, but, but he’s not, 

[01:47:08] Tim: he’s not in, he’s not in the, the most recent one That seems like a new movie by itself.

[01:47:14] Tim: And I think when you lose that through line, if you didn’t have another one, like he’s not in the second film, but Ian Malcolm is, he’s not, it’s not in the third film, I don’t think, unless it’s just a small, small part. But you have. Grant in the third film, you want to reboot everything and start, you know, in the same world.

[01:47:41] Tim: You bring him back and you bring him back and you bring him back and then he’s not there. And it’s like, okay, what continuity do you have? How are you connected to all the others? The dinosaurs? ’cause they live, they die. We’re not sure who they are. And for some people they’re just aau, Longneck Stick. Oau.

[01:47:59] Tim: So [01:48:00] listen 

[01:48:00] Donna: and Grant, I mean Grant, sorry. Movie people that look at movies differently than I do, and a lot of people do. They didn’t like when, uh, the last, they didn’t like the last three Star Wars films. No one liked the last three Star Wars films. Anyway, continue. The first, the first of the three, I, I thought it was cool.

[01:48:27] Donna: They brought Luke Leia and Hanback. Okay. As a movie, as a whole, was it wild or whatever? But for the old chick, the, it took me back to the first, and I know they didn’t have to do it. And it was just, you just redid the, the movie four, the very first one you put out and blah, blah. I know all that. But for the, purely for entertainment purposes, it worked for me.

[01:48:51] Donna: And so I guess. I, I guess that’s just person to person. That’s, you know, that, that just means we’re all individuals with [01:49:00] different mindsets and thoughts, patterns, or whatever. Um, we’ll move on to a few numbers and, uh, head headed toward the end here. So the book release was in October of 1990. Little trivia here, universal actually paid $2 billion for the novel rights.

[01:49:20] Tim: 2 million. 2 billion 

[01:49:21] Donna: be 2 million, okay. Before the book was even published. So they already knew Creighton was doing it and they wanted it. It wasn’t 

[01:49:28] Tim: his first novel. 

[01:49:30] Donna: Yeah. And a lot of, uh, and they weren’t the only studio that wanted it as, uh, actually, which is amazing to me that even before he is done with it, they’re all vying for it.

[01:49:41] Donna: Um, the movie released three years later in June of 93 at the Uptown Theater. Uh, and then on June 11th in the rest of the us uh, well, worldwide probably, I think, I think that’s what I saw. Uh, let’s see. Book rating. It was good. [01:50:00] Reads gave it 4.13 out of five. And that’s with over a million ratings. I kind of would rank, I’m gonna rank it a little higher myself, but we’ll get.

[01:50:09] Donna: Um, rotten Tomatoes and Flixter audience score both 91. It holds a 91. And I thought that was great. We don’t see those numbers the same very often. IMDB gave it 8.2 outta 10 for the film. So that was a few things that critics and fans thought. Uh, and we paid for it. The production cost was $63 million. The opening weekend in the US was 47 million.

[01:50:40] Donna: So I don’t, I don’t remember seeing that. That was like a sad thing though. I still think they felt like, okay, it’s strong. That was a strong start. And when did it, when did it open? Uh, June 9th. In the middle of summer 1993. Yeah, it was a June. It was a summer blockbuster because, you know, jaw [01:51:00] started that.

[01:51:01] Donna: Um, I do Shameless. We do know that we 

[01:51:03] Rebekah: covered that movie. Shameless Plug. Go listen to our Jaws episode guys. It’s so 

[01:51:08] Donna: good. It’s, it is, it’s one of the best ones. I think Opening weekend in the US was 47 million USA Canada gross 407 million. The international gross is was 700 million, which is interesting that it was that much more.

[01:51:26] Donna: A lot of it’s always interesting to me when the International gross is so much more than the US Canada, USA Canada, um, which, which gave us a total of $1.1 billion. Box office and the film, the film held the box office record until Titanic came out in 97. And a little, uh, connection there. Cameron actually wanted Jurassic Park.

[01:51:54] Donna: He vied for it. He was trying to get the rights to it before Universal snapped it up. [01:52:00] Um, and then after the film, after he saw the film, he said, no, Spielberg nailed it. He said, I would’ve, I would’ve made it more. Uh, I would’ve, Cameron would’ve made it closer to a horror film. 

[01:52:11] Rebekah: So inflation wise, $1.1 billion in 1993 is worth 2.46 billion today.

[01:52:20] Rebekah: So it’s basically two and a half billion dollars worth. So like that would be, that, that would be like a movie making that much. And now, so wait, hold on. How much did Jurassic World Rebirth make? 867 million worldwide. So compared to the first one, not that that’s bad, obviously they will. Yeah, well if you compare it 

[01:52:40] Tim: dollar to dollar, improve upon it made twice.

[01:52:43] Tim: But if you, you adjust for inflation, it was a little less successful. The original 

[01:52:49] Rebekah: made like what, four times or something 

[01:52:50] Donna: closer. So 1.1 billion also. Well, I’m 

[01:52:54] Rebekah: saying for the inflation number, if you compare it, the inflation, because it was this year was two point. Yeah. 

[01:52:58] Donna: Yeah. Also, [01:53:00] none of those figures include Jurassic World.

[01:53:03] Donna: And all their marketing. I mean, the theme park and the 

[01:53:06] Tim: theme 

[01:53:06] Donna: park, all those things too. So 

[01:53:09] Tim: good 

[01:53:09] Donna: for 

[01:53:09] Tim: them. And I discovered, I discovered while we were researching for this, that there, there’s even a, an animated series with at least three seasons that I haven’t seen yet. Um, camp Dinosaur or something like that.

[01:53:25] Tim: Okay. Some trivia and, oh, with a question, tell me if you recognize any of these Michael Creon books? Mm-hmm. 

[01:53:36] Rebekah: Okay. 

[01:53:38] Tim: The Andromeda Strain. Mm-hmm. 

[01:53:40] Rebekah: This movie, 

[01:53:41] Tim: right? West World TV show. Jurassic Park. Well, it was a tele, it was not too, it was a movie before. It was a television show. Uh, Jurassic Park, rising Sun Murder, mystery Disclosure, a high tech company, lost World, Jurassic Park, twister.

[01:53:57] Tim: Minority Report and The [01:54:00] Terminal Man. Wait, he wrote all of those. These are all Michael Kreon books. Uh, coma was a medical thriller and he wrote Congo as well. Um, was the, uh, movie. Lots of movies. So Kreon. Has made a few bucks on movies. Uh, and the Andromeda strain was 1971. Westworld was 73, Jurassic Park was 1990.

[01:54:26] Tim: So it makes sense that they had, uh, that they bought the rights ahead of time. And Congo, I think was before Congo was before that, um, before, before uh, Jurassic Park, I believe. Mm-hmm. The Andromeda Strain. Jurassic Park. Yeah. Um, what was the re Congo was 1980. Yeah. Sphere was 1987. Rising Sun. 91. Uh, twister 96.

[01:54:52] Tim: Timeline prey. 

[01:54:55] Rebekah: As we get into this next section, you may notice that we look a little different and let’s just be honest, [01:55:00] we’ve been talking longer than we go trick or treating for, and uh, my crown was hurting my head, which is the burden of a princess, obviously. But, um, yeah, we were starting to be in pain.

[01:55:12] Rebekah: My headpiece was scratching. Oh no, it was bothering you too. Yeah. It’s a very long headpiece. I feel like they’d be very disruptive. Yeah. I still have Mongo earrings. I did not forget. ’cause Yes, they are dyno related, so, yes. Uh, we have a couple fun little pieces, so. I’m going to read you this one, including mom’s comment at the end so that you can get a view into the brain of her.

[01:55:37] Rebekah: Oh, you took that one. The triceratops poo. Ellie digs through at about an hour into the film was made of clay, straw and mud, then drizzled with honey and papayas. So it didn’t smell bad at all. The honey and papayas were used to draw the flies to it. Mom’s comment, how cool would it have been if [01:56:00] Ellie had tasted it?

[01:56:03] Rebekah: Okay, that’s Molly. Molly 

[01:56:04] Tim: even commented to Molly did 

[01:56:05] Rebekah: not like that. She was really bothered by it. 

[01:56:09] Donna: I just had a picture in my head of Laura Dern just trying to be funny and picking it up and sticking some in her mouth or something as a part of, you know, when the 

[01:56:16] Tim: kids are looking or somebody’s looking going, 

[01:56:18] Donna: but they do a good job of making you think.

[01:56:20] Donna: It totally is a big breaking pile of poo. I’m 

[01:56:24] Rebekah: just saying that your comment, I don’t know, it just really disturbed me somehow. It was really like, um, and then I tried to imagine how like Ian Malcolm already in the book is like, are you gonna wash your hands before you eat? Like, and he made sick comment That would’ve made it much more interesting.

[01:56:43] Rebekah: Mm-hmm.

[01:56:49] Tim: Well, when Michael Creon began the novel in 1981, it was going to first be a screenplay about a grad student who was working in [01:57:00] secret to create a dinosaur. He stepped away from the project for a while, not wanting to get caught up in the dyno mania of the time. He returned to his work changing it over from a screenplay to a novel in 1988.

[01:57:15] Tim: So that’s seven years later? Yeah. Wow. In a Sin. Fantastic article from 1993. Creighton said, quote, it wasn’t clear that anyone would ever make this story into a movie because it would be very expensive. End quote, seeking to avoid certain ideas that had already been done in media, such as dinosaurs in a city.

[01:57:40] Tim: Creighton set the story on a tropical island, and the rest is history. 

[01:57:46] Donna: I thought that was a very interesting take into his, his mental process through this. But then listening back to what Dad said [01:58:00] about all the things he is written, you know, this wasn’t a first thing for him. Yeah. You know what I’m asking?

[01:58:05] Donna: First novel, 

[01:58:06] Rebekah: I just, I really appreciate that he was trying to do something. It hadn’t been done before. Uh, I think it’s hilarious that they do end up being dinosaurs in a city later on. Not in the first movie. Um, but I’m glad somebody made a movie about it and, you know, it was expensive, but apparently it paid off.

[01:58:23] Rebekah: So 

[01:58:24] Tim: in the nineties there was also a television show called Dinosaurs that was pretty popular. Oh yeah, for a little while. 

[01:58:30] Rebekah: I remember. That is the one that thing no one puts baby in a corner. 

[01:58:33] Tim: Yes. Well kind of. 

[01:58:34] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. 

[01:58:35] Tim: Not that no one’s, that’s Baby In a Corner is a different movie. Wait, altogether. 

[01:58:39] Rebekah: Not the Mama.

[01:58:40] Rebekah: Not the mama. The Mama. Not the, that’s it, that’s, sorry. I don’t know how I got those two. 

[01:58:44] Tim: Yeah, that was a great, that’s okay. That a great show. You were a mere speck at the time. 

[01:58:49] Donna: I was little. I wasn’t that skinny. Aw, you were amazing. Thanks. Uh, our last little piece of trivia for all the dino nerds out there, which would [01:59:00] not be me because they all would look like this to me so I wouldn’t have known.

[01:59:05] Donna: Uh, but the cover, uh, of the book is actually a dinosaur supposedly from the Cretaceous period. And when somebody asked Creon, why not use that in the title, if that’s the dinosaur you’re gonna use, he said the word Jurassic just made the better looking design. And honestly. Yeah, I would, like I said, I wouldn’t, I would never have known.

[01:59:32] Rebekah: Oh wait, is this the same one that you just showed? Yep. Mm-hmm. Oh, funny. So the one that is on the physical book that I’ve seen at Barnes and Noble looks a little different and I, wow. I like the, the way this, but maybe they 

[01:59:45] Tim: grabbed the dinosaur that was from the Jurassic period instead. Oh. 

[01:59:48] Rebekah: Because a bunch of people care.

[01:59:50] Rebekah: Hmm. To be fair, it’s also easier to say Jurassic Park. I think Flirtatious Park is just kind of clunky in general. So that would not, that wouldn’t have taken 

[01:59:59] Tim: off. [02:00:00] And it would’ve also, it would’ve also been very awkward. Michael Creighton’s, Cretaceous Park that, yeah, that would be, yeah, that would be awkward to say.

[02:00:15] Rebekah: So funny. Uh, well, why don’t we get into final verdicts? Uh, let’s see. So I. First of all, like I mom mentioned earlier, but like, I loved this book. I thought it was really great. Um, it’s up my alley. I like sci-fi and I like a little bit of scary stuff and there wasn’t really a lot of humor in the book, which was totally fine.

[02:00:38] Rebekah: I do occasionally tend towards liking stuff like that, but not always. Um, I’m just, I am, I’m actually kind of shocked that I, it took me this long to read the book ’cause I have loved this movie for a long time too. Um, as I was reading it, I got very much the same vibes as I have from like The Martian, where both of them are just so good.

[02:00:56] Rebekah: Like, it’s just a really good experience. Um, [02:01:00] I would probably rate the movie like a nine out of 10 and I would give the book like an eight and a half outta 10. Um, I, I liked both of them quite a bit. I would say. I think the, the movie does edge out the film a little bit, or sorry, the movie does edge out the book a little bit, mostly for rewatch ability.

[02:01:17] Rebekah: Um, I will probably read this again, like I can totally see re-listening to the audiobook or, or rereading it. There are, um, these really beautiful collector edition copies of both of the books, Jurassic Park and Loss World that I’m really, really hoping to get at some point. It’s just that they, they’re made in England, so they’re really expensive to ship this way.

[02:01:38] Rebekah: Um, but like, I would like to reread them, but I think. It doesn’t have that exact same like, oh, I like, I wanna pick it up as soon as I finish. Although, to be totally fair, I think part of it might just have been that I have seen the movie, so I knew a lot more about what was gonna happen even though they did change some things.

[02:01:55] Rebekah: Um, but the film is like so re watchable. We [02:02:00] actually, I was o over an hour into it yesterday when we went to watch it this time, and Nathan came in and we ended up just starting it from the beginning so that he could also see it because he’d never seen it. And we’re trying to, uh, introduce him to a lot of like, good classic like films, you know, iconic films, whatever.

[02:02:17] Tim: Another reason why we so often say so there’s not a lot of good things out when that’s, yeah. Yeah. 

[02:02:24] Rebekah: But I love both. I think the film gets it for me just like a little smidge, but this was a really enjoyable book I would say. Um, if you’re into this kind of thing at all slash if you enjoyed the movie, I definitely think this is a good book to recommend you read.

[02:02:39] Rebekah: That’s me 

[02:02:39] Tim: by the way. Uh, book illustration Credit Chip Kidd. Chip Kidd. Chip Kidd’s, that’s his name. That’s 

[02:02:49] Donna: such an interesting name. 

[02:02:50] Tim: Yep. 

[02:02:51] Donna: I like that. Um, I’ll go next. So I think this was definitely a [02:03:00] set for, which I’m glad I watched the movie first because the book added and opened up so many other. Parts of it and increased my knowledge, increased, gave, gave me some detail that would’ve been superfluous in the movie, but they didn’t really need it.

[02:03:23] Donna: But it gave me a, a, like a new fascination or a new love for it. Um, so I definitely think that this was, this was the good order to see the movie first and then to read the book. Um, my biggest surprise of the whole thing, just as a personal discovery is in the film, Malcolm is just always, he’s just made into more of a buffoonish character.

[02:03:51] Donna: Even though he has serious points and he has serious belief about, about who he is and what he thinks about this world, [02:04:00] he’s still awkward enough or just goofy enough that you pay more attention to Grant and saddler and you, you give them more credence or whatever. But as I read the book, like I alluded to earlier, I mean, I get Ian’s thing about we don’t look at the world broadly enough.

[02:04:24] Donna: We compartmentalize the world into this little piece of, of what we can mentally absorb. And that’s what we make the world. And that’s not what the world is. The world is bigger and broader. And even though maybe one person can’t destroy the world, like he, you know, like he was talking about in the end, toward the end of the book, I think it reminded me that, uh, or, or just kind of drove the point home to something I’ve thought about a lot lately is [02:05:00] what is my, what can my impact be in the world?

[02:05:03] Donna: Um, not as it relates to dinosaurs or anything like that. And, and I also said what? It doesn’t relate to dinosaurs. I’m just kidding. As I said before, I, I’m a younger person, so, you know, thinking about, uh, uh, something being alive for 87 million years, I, I don’t specific, I don’t, uh, personally agree with. Um, but I did love the magic of the books and I liked the story and I liked the conflict that they dealt with and, and the, the difficulty they had, difficulty they had resolving a lot of things in their own minds.

[02:05:41] Donna: Um, the amazement that Grant had when he went through all these, all his journey through this story and realizing, Hey, I was right about these things. Oh my gosh, I was wrong about these things. Yeah. And so I liked a lot of that. Uh, I’m going to [02:06:00] agree with Rebecca that, that the film Edge is out the book, but I am so glad I read it and it is something I would listen to again.

[02:06:08] Donna: Um, I, I, I’m very, uh, I was very intrigued by it, and so it was a good experience. 

[02:06:17] Tim: Well, mine’s probably going to be a bit controversial. I hate it at all. No, no. I, it doesn’t sound like you. No, it’s not. Um, I, I love the book. I love the film, film, gut Jokes. Um, I really appreciated the same kind of thing that, that Donna was talking about.

[02:06:32] Tim: I appreciated the fact that I watched the film first, then the book expanded the world. I love it when that’s what I get from a book and film. I like to be able to watch the movie and then see the book expand it. Unfortunately, I’ve read more books first, and sometimes it’s disappointing. So, um, I just, I wanted to make a comment here, and [02:07:00] you, you may think this is controversial or even crazy, but, um, now with the science and the things we’ve discovered in the, what is it, 35 years?

[02:07:11] Tim: Uh, 30 plus years. 

[02:07:14] Donna: 93. 

[02:07:15] Tim: Yeah. So, so 

[02:07:16] Donna: 23 would’ve been 30 years. 

[02:07:18] Tim: Okay. So, so we’re 32 years. Mm-hmm. Um, the science that we’ve, the things that we’ve discovered that are available to all scientists, whether they believe in a young Earth or an old earth, and all that stuff, the facts, the, the actual evidences we see.

[02:07:36] Tim: Are the very same things. We just interpret them differently. Mm-hmm. We don’t use different evidences. Um, but one of the things that’s been discovered in the last 10 years or so are things like skin cells that are still part of the dinosaur skeletons, um, indicating they may not be as old as we thought they were.

[02:07:59] Tim: Um, [02:08:00] and then, uh, blood cells as well that, um, they’ve been reconstituted. Um, and those were discovered by people that would consider themselves old earth scientists. But those, those evidences have been discovered and it would make Jurassic Park a different kind of thing today. They wouldn’t need the blood from the mosquito necessarily.

[02:08:25] Tim: Um, and they may find that, you know, there are some things that they didn’t know otherwise. Um, I would give the, I would give the film a 9.5 because I’m terrible at giving tens. Um, that’s just the way I am. There’s always some room for improvement. And the room for improvement here is, there are a couple of things that don’t stand the test of time in the film.

[02:08:53] Tim: Uh, the scene where Lexi falls through the ceiling and the raptor is jumping at her. I know [02:09:00] that is, um, that is a, um, stunt woman. Uh. With her face superimposed on it. I, I’ve known that that’s the part of the magic, but the dinosaur below his coloring is wrong. It, it looks wrong compared to the rest of it.

[02:09:19] Tim: And, and that’s very evident Rebecca said several times, you know, when you watch this thing on a four D television, blah, blah, all that stuff. Um, the techno technology we have today allows us to see some of those things and think, eh, that doesn’t quite work. And of course when Lexi comes into the computers and she’s so excited to see those computers.

[02:09:40] Tim: Um, and I’m thinking, Ooh, those CRTs, we haven’t even had those in our, in our office at church for the last 15, 16 years. Um, so some of that doesn’t stand the test of time, but by and large, the special effects, the music, the [02:10:00] acting, the whole feel, it’s amazing. And so I’d give it a 9.5. I would give the book a nine.

[02:10:06] Tim: I really like it. Um, some of it’s darker than I, than I care for though, uh, but I really do like it. Mm-hmm. So that’s my verdict. 

[02:10:17] Rebekah: I love it. Well, thank you guys for, uh, just loving something with me. Uh, if you enjoy this episode, we really appreciate those five star ratings or reviews. They mean a ton to us.

[02:10:32] Rebekah: Uh, they’re super helpful in getting new people to find the episodes. And yeah, it’s just a really, really wonderful thing. So thank you for that. And, uh, also if you wanna connect with us, it’s pretty easy to do so on either Discord. If you want to join our free Discord, uh, you can also, uh, email us at book is Better pod@gmail.com or DM us on social media.

[02:10:52] Rebekah: We’re everywhere at Book is Better Pod, so feel free to reach out there. And, uh, also no listen questions, [02:11:00] 

[02:11:00] Tim: no listener questions. This time 

[02:11:01] Rebekah: we don’t have any this time, but if you have some that you would like to share, discords the easiest place to share. Awesome. Um, we love answering those on our episodes.

[02:11:10] Rebekah: Uh, our Patreon is also live with some fun tier options, so we would love to see you, uh, in there as well. And like, and subscribe. Like, and subscribe, like, and subscribe. Oh yeah. We’re on YouTube now. Like and subscribe. Please, please, if you love us, you should do that for us. Mash the button. True that. And then, uh, until next time, uh, long

[02:11:50] Donna: our commercial break, you go Princess Donut. 

[02:11:55] Rebekah: Thanks. Thanks, Carl. I mean, cartio, I mean, [02:12:00] whatever. 

[02:12:02] Tim: Oh, that’s about right.