S03E12 — Jurassic Park: The Lost World

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

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

Alright baby listeners, buckle up, because this episode fought us every step of the way. We’re talking The Lost World: Jurassic Park, a sequel that somehow managed to give us more dinosaurs and less joy. We break down why Michael Crichton’s book, while not his strongest, still feels thoughtful and intentional, and why the movie feels like it was assembled by committee five minutes before filming started. We rant about wasted potential, weird chemistry, and the difference between tension and noise, all while asking the same question over and over: how did this follow one of the greatest movies ever made? Come for the dinosaurs, stay for the disbelief, and learn an important life lesson—greed never ends well, especially when it involves prehistoric murder machines.

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!)

The book focuses on ecology, scientific curiosity, and survival on Isla Sorna, with tension driven by observation and ethical conflict. The movie prioritizes spectacle and action, adding crowded subplots, emotional shortcuts, and a San Diego finale that has no grounding in the source material.

Donna: The book was better.
– Book Score: 6/10
– Film Score: 3.5/10

Rebekah: The book was better.
– Book Score: 5/10
– Film Score: 2/10

Tim: The book was better.
– Book Score: 6.5/10
– Film Score: 5/10

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Full Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Rebekah: I actually got a harmony there. I got, I hit a harmony there right before you finished 

[00:00:17] Donna: Strange chicken in the background trying to harmonize with me.

[00:00:39] Rebekah: Welcome family. Pay no attention to the Christmas trees in the background. They’re not even there. Welcome to the book is Better podcast. We are covering the Lost World, Jurassic Park today. And friends, baby listeners, if you will. Let me tell you. Getting this episode recorded for some [00:01:00] reason is the hardest episode we’ve ever recorded, ever.

[00:01:02] Rebekah: Was the movie hard to watch? Okay, well, a little but not for the reasons it sounds like. Uh, was the book hard to read? Not really. Was the podcast episode hard to outline? No. Did everything in the entire universe act like it did not want us to do this episode, meaning every computer and device and schedule and illness?

[00:01:23] Rebekah: Yes, actually, that is what happened. And so I’m so grateful to be here, joined by you two today. We are doing this episode. As you can see. If you are watching, if you’re listening, obviously you would not know, uh, without the lovely Josiah, which is very sad. However, we thought that this would be a fun prank to pull on him.

[00:01:44] Rebekah: So for you longtime listeners, if you hear me say this today, you’ll hear eventually when Josiah discovers that we are not doing fun facts today. We’re just telling you that if you watch or hear this episode and you hear me say [00:02:00] this, we will all buy you Taco Bell gift cards. What? It’s like winning the lottery.

[00:02:08] Rebekah: Alright. If 

[00:02:09] Tim: you listen 

[00:02:10] Rebekah: or what? If you listen and is this because we are picking on him a little bit about listening to the podcast or not? Yes it is Irv. Alright, enough picking on Josiah. Spoiler alert for today. We are covering Jurassic Park, the Lost World, or actually I think it’s the Lost World, Jurassic Park.

[00:02:30] Rebekah: I think it’s in the other order. Uh, so we will be spoiling the book by that name, obviously the film by that name, and we’ll have to spoil some of the original Jurassic Park. Although if you’re listening to this, I assume you listened to our first episode on Jurassic Park from last fall. Um, it was a fun one and, uh, we might spoil a little bit of the Jurassic World stuff as well.

[00:02:51] Rebekah: So keep an ear out for that. We’ll try to warn you for that one. Uh. But yeah, we can jump right into it. Uh, Daddio would you like to tell us what [00:03:00] happens in the Tale of the Lost World 

[00:03:03] Tim: since there are changes between book and film? I’m gonna give the short version, uh, that’s common to both book and film.

[00:03:12] Tim: Psych B, which was mentioned in the original book in film, has surviving dinosaurs. Malcolm, who was presumed dead in the novel ventures back to another dinosaur island. Despite his horrible first experience, along with a team of scientists and activists, Malcolm once again finds himself in peril. Another team seeking to mine the dinosaur island for monetary gains initially works against Malcolm and his group until they join efforts to try and survive the Jurassic Melee.

[00:03:46] Tim: There are more dinosaurs, more victims, and higher stakes, familial and romantic. The gruesome deaths continue to mount until the remaining survivors bid farewell to Isla Sorna. 

[00:03:59] Rebekah: It’s [00:04:00] interesting how, when you mention what’s common to both book and film, somehow there’s no mention of a downtown city more on that later.

[00:04:13] Rebekah: All right, so let’s talk about differences today. We’re gonna do, uh, characterization first, then into plot timeline, then into the quite notable setting changes. Uh, and then basically there are a few things that are mentioned, several. That are mentioned in the book that we’re not in the Lost World film, but have actually come back in several other Jurassic films, which is kind of fun ’cause there’s seven total.

[00:04:41] Rebekah: So lots to, uh, to work with there. Uh, I will get us started. So our first characterization change that we noticed, and these will drive a lot of the changes through the entire storyline, so I’m kind of giving you a little bit of plot in a lot of these. But, so if you [00:05:00] listen to Jurassic Park, the episode we covered, or if you’re familiar with the book, you’ll know that actually, uh, John Hammond died at the end of Jurassic Park.

[00:05:08] Rebekah: Uh, which was crazy ’cause I remember getting to that part in the book and going, wait, what? He comes back? No. What? He’s the hell he 

[00:05:15] Tim: saw the helicopter with them. 

[00:05:16] Rebekah: Yeah. So the film, Jurassic Park obviously did not, uh, have him dying at the end of, uh, the first one, but. He comes back, he’s alive in the second film and he’s the one that like asks Malcolm to take a team to is Las Sorna.

[00:05:31] Rebekah: And so he’s like, I think trying to make up for the greed, uh, that he showed in the first film, he’s more of a conservationist and may, I’m gonna try to do this in a less greedy way. Maybe now you’ll remember the first book also, John Henry was like the worst version of a greedy CEO of a multi-billion dollar company.

[00:05:51] Rebekah: So he’s, you know, he dies at the end of the first one, but he was already kind of in that position. And so I think the films do give him a chance a [00:06:00] little bit too. Maybe redeem a little of himself unsuccessfully if I find it. 

[00:06:05] Tim: Well, that’s true too. Malcolm says, uh, you’re just making different mistakes this time.

[00:06:10] Tim: Um. There are protagonist allies that do appear in the novel, don’t appear in the film or changed. Levine, thorn and Eddie are all in the novel. Um, Dr. Richard Levine is the reason that the expedition begins in the novel. Uh, the rescue team in the book is led by Dr. Doc Thorn, a field engineer with his assistant Eddie Carr, providing the technical expertise, the film, omits Levine, and Thorn entirely.

[00:06:45] Tim: Their roles are largely folded into other characters, primarily Eddie Carr, who remains, but he combines the traits of both novel Eddie and Doc Thorn serving as the team’s technical expert and [00:07:00] vehicle specialist. Um, Eddie’s fate differs somewhat as well. 

[00:07:05] Rebekah: Did we like that character? The um. Eddie Carr character.

[00:07:10] Rebekah: Did you guys like him in the film? 

[00:07:13] Tim: I think he’s one of the most likable characters in this film. 

[00:07:18] Rebekah: I probably would agree with that too. 

[00:07:20] Tim: Yeah, I would, I would like to have seen Dr. Levine, the one that kind of began the whole thing from the novel, but I, I get why they didn’t want him there because he’s kind of like Malcolm, except he’s got money and he’s quite an accomplished scientist.

[00:07:39] Rebekah: Dr. Levine was incredibly annoying, but a really good character in the book. 

[00:07:43] Donna: Yeah. Um, another change that’s so near and dear to you, I hear 

[00:07:51] Rebekah: your humming there. How does she feel about this one? 

[00:07:55] Donna: It’s near and dear to all that makes me cringe. [00:08:00] They switched out the novels to. Really resourceful children. Kelly Curtis and Arby Benton, who in the novel, they, they were stowaways, they were, they’re both really intelligent kids in different ways, and they’re kind of in school a nerdy outcast.

[00:08:19] Donna: Yeah. 

[00:08:20] Rebekah: They’re Levine students. That’s how we, 

[00:08:22] Donna: them, they’re right. They, they work with Dr. Levine and they stow away to the expedition, which, I mean, that’s kind of a leap. We’re talking about some stuff that’s super top secret and blah, blah, blah, and these kids were just somehow able to get on onto the craft and go, but, but that’s, 

[00:08:39] Rebekah: it was a little unbelievable.

[00:08:40] Rebekah: I would 

[00:08:41] Donna: say that’s, but it’s a cool thought. Like in the book, I thought it was really cool that they could do it, and you, you know, you’re cheering for them. They’re not related to Malcolm, they don’t know Malcolm, et cetera, et cetera. So for some reason, unbeknownst to anything that’s holy or sacred, they streamline this [00:09:00] into a single character, Kelly Malcolm.

[00:09:04] Donna: And give Ian a daughter from one of his multiple marriages and he talks in the first movie. He, he brags, you know, I’m looking for my next ex mix, Mrs. Malcolm. And so they, they give him this daughter. 

[00:09:19] Rebekah: Didn’t he say in the first one that he didn’t have any kids? 

[00:09:22] Tim: He does. Um, 

[00:09:23] Donna: he, I think that’s true. Yeah. 

[00:09:25] Tim: I don’t 

[00:09:25] think 

[00:09:25] Rebekah: I thought that he said that in the first one.

[00:09:27] Rebekah: ’cause I 

[00:09:27] Donna: don’t think so. 

[00:09:28] Rebekah: Yeah, he was talking about, but what, like how he’s not gotten lucky with all the women. He is married to have kids or whatever. 

[00:09:34] Donna: Yeah. But you also think at the end of the book, at the end of the first book, you also think he’s dead. So it’s kind like everybody’s just taking license with it.

[00:09:43] Tim: Well, the epi, the epilogue of the previous book was explicit that he was dead. 

[00:09:48] Donna: Yeah. So at any rate, we have Kelly, and as much as I don’t like her or do like her or whatever, she’s in the movie. Um, 

[00:09:58] Rebekah: she, spoiler alert, [00:10:00] doesn’t like her. 

[00:10:02] Donna: I love and hate to feel so strongly about a character. Like, honestly, she just, maybe she kept me in it because she aggravated the daylights out of me, but it’s for this emotional stake, you know, it ramps up the emotional stakes because now Malcolm has somebody besides himself to care for.

[00:10:23] Donna: And you know, though he does have a girlfriend in the film, it’s, he has this daughter who he’s trying to reconnect with. I think that’s where Spielberg was going with this. I think that they wanted to give him a little bit of emotional depth because in the first movie he was, he was a selfish, aloof 

[00:10:44] Tim: looking for the next Mrs.

[00:10:47] Tim: An ex, Mrs. Malcolm. 

[00:10:48] Donna: Yeah, exactly. So anyway, um, in, in the novel, you know, Kelly and Arby. They, they love science. They’re into this whole thing. And, and [00:11:00] yes, they do use Kelly Malcolm. 

[00:11:03] Rebekah: Yeah. It’s not at all the same character. So 

[00:11:05] Donna: character, it’s, I think they just, same first name, but they, they use, they use Kelly Malcolm.

[00:11:11] Donna: Not only as an emotional, in the emotional part of this, but you know, there’s a lot of, I think he tries to throw in a personal story there. Basically. I could have summed it up in that sentence with Ian and a girlfriend and then his daughter who thinks he’s disconnected from her, and the trope of, you’re never there, dad.

[00:11:33] Donna: You know, blah, blah, blah. I’m sure later we’ll talk about it, but Kelly has been in the film. She was a gymnast. Ian was thinking she was still going along with this, and she tells him at the beginning of the film, she’s backed out of that. She’s not in that anymore. So that’s another little break in their communication.

[00:11:56] Donna: So that’s Kelly. 

[00:11:58] Rebekah: I think if I could say, I [00:12:00] think the reason that it doesn’t work is because it tries so hard to change Malcolm’s backstory. You take out, uh, Kelly and Arby from the book, you take out the fact that they were actually like both interested in science. Like they had purpose and agency in being there, 

[00:12:18] Tim: and they were working with Dr.

[00:12:20] Tim: Levine. 

[00:12:20] Rebekah: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kelly Malcolm is just a literal kid that like, wanted to hang out with her dad and wanted to do something he told her not to do. Like that. There’s no like actual motivation there. And so you, you change one person’s character. Then you, you take out two people who are actually connected to what’s going on, and then you add someone who.

[00:12:41] Rebekah: Is in no way helpful. And then you try to like do these bad, like special effects, which we’ll talk about to make her look like she actually was like, oh, the hero all along. And I’m like, actually it just makes you look like a really bad father. Like I, it doesn’t, I don’t know, it just didn’t work [00:13:00] for me.

[00:13:00] Rebekah: Like I understand the why, but I think there were many other ways to probably try and do that better. 

[00:13:05] Donna: Uh, maybe it was a little bit like, um, the Nickelodeon, uh, when you all were children, we didn’t let you watch a whole lot of Nickelodeon or anything like that because they had a common theme that the dad was the stupidest of the parents.

[00:13:25] Donna: The mom was probably a little more intelligent, seemed a little cooler, but the kids al always knew best. And to me, I kind of got that vibe from this where. You want to think, Ian, come on, come on with it. Get up, get with the program. Bad dad, blah, blah, blah. And I just, that didn’t, maybe that’s why it didn’t resonate with us as well.

[00:13:52] Donna: Um, she did find her acting was fine. There wasn’t anything wrong with the actions. She, yeah, she didn’t, 

[00:13:58] Rebekah: she didn’t do a bad part, a bad job [00:14:00] at the part. It was just a really, it just was not a part that would’ve worked for anybody. ’cause it this, it was not a good addition to the story. Weird 

[00:14:06] Donna: chemistry and all that crap.

[00:14:08] Donna: Yeah. 

[00:14:08] Rebekah: Speaking of chemistry, nope. I hit the mic, so I’m gonna do that again. Speaking of chemistry, let’s talk about Sarah Harding. Again, this did not work. I’m just telling you upfront, if you haven’t seen this movie, a lot of what they did did not work. Uh, Sarah Harding is a brave scientist, a doctor like Malcolm as well.

[00:14:27] Rebekah: Um, there are, there’s a couple significant differences, but they’re smaller than some of the other characters. So Harding is a wildlife researcher in the book. She had had a very brief past romance with Malcolm. Dr. Levine, uh, calls her to come to Isla Sorna and like it was like mostly disconnected from Malcolm.

[00:14:53] Rebekah: The film Sarah played by Julian Moore is, uh, she’s a more established behavioral [00:15:00] paleontologist, so she’s not quite as young. They age her up to give her a little more like, uh, professional extended professional background in the movie. She’s already on the island like before the whole movie starts, but Malcolm has been actively dating her and now her being there is what Hammond used to uses to get Malcolm to be like, yes, I’ll go.

[00:15:20] Rebekah: ’cause he doesn’t wanna go to useless Sorna. He knows what it was like, but it’s just Malcolm’s like, oh no, I gotta save my girlfriend. So then you’ve got like the girlfriend and the daughter. 

[00:15:29] Tim: There’s nothing in this world that could get me to go back to the island. 

[00:15:33] Rebekah: Yes. And. It didn’t seem like Hammond set it up intentionally to manipulate him, but it did.

[00:15:39] Rebekah: It was like clearly like drama that just felt weird. It was a necessary change or at least changing. ’cause she, there is no Dr. Levine, so it was necessary to change like how she comes in. But the character herself too, I feel like they’re both pretty brilliant. They’re both pretty independent. I would say the book character of Sarah Harding seems to be a lot more like, kind [00:16:00] of above it all.

[00:16:00] Rebekah: Like she’s not a love interest really. She’s not like, you know what I mean? Like, she’s not like a, like a, 

[00:16:07] Tim: they had, they had a past relationship while he was recovering. Yeah. From 

[00:16:11] Rebekah: Yeah. 

[00:16:11] Tim: Previous time on the album. 

[00:16:12] Rebekah: Right. 

[00:16:13] Donna: And so maybe because I had issues with Kelly, then I had issues with Sarah and and Ian and then all of a sudden in my strange brain.

[00:16:24] Donna: I started putting straight white hair on her and thinking of President Coin, and I’m like, wow. Oh, okay. Yeah, I’m, it’s over. You’re re you’re 

[00:16:33] Tim: not suspending your disbelief. 

[00:16:35] Donna: Yeah. So I try, I did try hard and, and it’s funny because the, the whole thing about the movie, the, the thing about dinosaurs, they’re the group that wants to use them for bad purposes versus the group that wants to preserve them and, and be right to them since they didn’t create themselves.

[00:16:53] Donna: I, I liked that part of it. There was some entertaining values, but really when you sit and to pick [00:17:00] apart the people, some of those, uh, theme and topic subject matter subplot, I guess. So some of the subplot decisions were just weird for me. 

[00:17:07] Tim: Yeah. Well the, the antagonists were changed as well. Dodge Son, he was the primary villain in the first film and he was the villain in the novel.

[00:17:18] Tim: The second book, uh, he masterminded. The embryo theft at Jurassic Park and Creon used him again as the chief antagonist who was going to send people to the island to steal dinosaur eggs. But the film leaves him out completely and it introduces nephew to John Hammond, Peter Ludlow. He is the new antagonist and he is driven by greed.

[00:17:46] Tim: What you have uncle is something very valuable and I’m going to push you out and I’m going to make it valuable to me. Uh, he leads an engine harvest expedition to [00:18:00] capture dinosaurs for a San Diego Zoo exhibit, which was actually one of Hammond’s, um, original thoughts was bringing it to San Diego. So he’s actually built it and he’s going to get dinosaurs, the living dinosaurs, so they can make money.

[00:18:15] Tim: At a park there in San Diego, the change shifts the evil corporation from Bios in Back to engine. Uh, so we keep that same one. The film gives Ludlow, uh, his comeuppance, which is similar to book Dodgen, although that comes up a little bit later. I did not care for this character. I would, I would’ve been perfectly satisfied at it if it had been Doon ’cause it seemed awkward that Ludlow is now in charge of Hammond’s company.

[00:18:45] Rebekah: I get what you’re saying. Honestly, I feel like what they were trying to do was maybe bring in more, ’cause obviously Hammond was like in the movie, in the first movie, Hammond was greedy, but he was like just a kind of an old man that was like [00:19:00] trying to do something that could also be fun while making him a lot of money.

[00:19:02] Rebekah: Right. Which is kind of what happens in the second film too. But also I think maybe what the film was trying to do. By getting rid of Dodgen and using the Ludlow character. I think what they were trying to do is play on that like horrible c bad CEO guy. Like, you know, like that, that kind of thing. They were trying to like maybe pull that out.

[00:19:22] Rebekah: I don’t think it worked. And so 

[00:19:24] Tim: in the books, Dodge Son is a very complex, very intelligent person, but he has, he has done the finishing work on quite a few people’s projects. So he has escalated himself up the corporate ladder to this point. So, I mean, he’s, he’s got a lot of depth. Ludlow is, is a little bit flat in that respect, 

[00:19:48] Donna: and Ludlow also makes Hammond worse, a worse person in a way.

[00:19:54] Donna: But beyond that, for me, he became the unbeatable foe. Like he goes through the whole [00:20:00] thing. He’s not brave, he’s not self-sacrificing. He’s constantly, he threw anybody else in front of a dinosaur to save his own neck. And it got to the point where like he goes on, it goes on and on and on and yeah, I mean, there is some end for him or whatever, but by that time it’s just like, dude, you should have been gone a long time ago.

[00:20:22] Donna: A few other new characters in the film who have no novel counterparts at all. You’ve got like, uh, for example, Nick Van Owen was Vince Vaughn. He was a videographer and actually a saboteur on Hammond’s team. He’s not in the book at all. I like Vince Vaughn in this. 

[00:20:41] Tim: I thought it was a good character, but I, I think too, maybe it’s, maybe it’s appropriate that you were never clear exactly who he really worked for.

[00:20:50] Donna: Yeah. Uh, you had the big game Hunter Roland Timbo and his crew, and then they were, uh, the engine, [00:21:00] they were the engine faction since we bought, brought engine in as this. Evil. The most evil part. It’s funny. It’s like the evil and the evil or, and the more evil or both of these, they kind of ramp up the action part.

[00:21:14] Donna: Right? The safari element. Uh, I did like Roland Timbo as far as his drive for, I’m not even out for myself. I’m not in this for anybody else. I wanna get one of these Dinos, he was just like, driven that hunter. You know, I’m, I have a prize in mind. This is what I want. 

[00:21:33] Rebekah: Again, it just felt like you were trying to do too much in the film.

[00:21:35] Rebekah: It’s like, who’s bad, who’s good, who’s motivated? What am I even rooting for? Well, who am I rooting against? You know? I think, yeah, it just was like kind of an add-on to like, we’re doing too much. 

[00:21:46] Tim: Yeah, I agree. Too much. 

[00:21:48] Rebekah: All right. So moving into plot changes. Inciting incident is totally different. So like the plot of the movie’s based around something that’s completely different than what we read in the book.

[00:21:58] Rebekah: Um, and also [00:22:00] this is kind of an interesting way, we’ll just, I’m just gonna tell you what it was. In each. So in the novel, there are rumors of dinosaur sightings. Now you’ll remember at the first part of Jurassic Park in the book, they actually mentioned a little girl getting attacked by little dinosaurs off on another island.

[00:22:17] Rebekah: They kind of like make it show that this is going on, this is continuing, this is not ended. Um, eventually Richard Levine, the scientist, uh, has disappeared onto Isla Sorna, uh, Ian Malcolm doubts the theories Levine has about what’s going on. But Mounts rescue mission when Levine officially goes missing, his goal is to save Levine and study the lost world ecology.

[00:22:43] Rebekah: Um, so film has a totally different premise. John Hammond, who we said is still alive in the films, obviously he died in the books. Uh, John Hammond dispatches a team, which includes Malcolm in various ways to document the dinosaurs in their natural habitat. [00:23:00] Now his goal is to garner some public support so that they can conserve the area, be a conservationist, uh, and protect the dinosaurs.

[00:23:06] Rebekah: So Malcolm only goes to the island as discussed because his girlfriend Sarah Harding is there. So it feels like they’re trying to make that like a more urgent trip. It’s like, oh, you gotta go to do this. And so the film introduces a competing engine team that’s now against Richard Hammond, uh, and the engine team is this kind of this extra plot added.

[00:23:28] Rebekah: The engine team is trying to capture dinosaurs for profit. And so Ludlow wants to capture these dinosaurs because he wants to open a Jurassic Park in San Diego for some reason. So it’s a very different conflict from the novel. In the novel there’s a like an egg theft thing going on. Um, and that is kind of what motivates Now help me remember that.

[00:23:53] Rebekah: I remember the egg theft thing. Is Levine a part of that at the beginning or just like, no. Yeah, I 

[00:23:59] Tim: didn’t, he doesn’t know anything [00:24:00] about the, the, 

[00:24:00] Rebekah: yeah. 

[00:24:01] Tim: Theft of the eggs. He’s just going 

[00:24:03] Rebekah: Okay. To 

[00:24:03] Tim: find them. He’s, he’s just 

[00:24:05] Rebekah: right. 

[00:24:06] Tim: He’s been discovering bits and pieces of their, there’s something going on where these creatures are unusual and he thinks maybe they’re dinosaurs or care or creatures that haven’t been found.

[00:24:20] Rebekah: That’s It’s when he leaves. Yeah. When he leaves, he doesn’t even realize exactly what he’s going for. And then the dodge side of things. Anyways, they’re trying to steal these specific eggs from the island, so, 

[00:24:31] Donna: but the weirdness of this is Ludlow being Hammond’s nephew of all the plans on the, in the universe, he could come up with after what happened at the First Island, why would he want to open something on mainland us?

[00:24:50] Donna: It’s, it’s craziness. I get that he, that the intention is that he’s just so greedy. He sees the cash grab from it, from it, [00:25:00] and he doesn’t, he’s not thinking using any logical, in no sense. But I just thought that was wild to shift it there. I loved your, you know, the look on your face when you said in San Diego.

[00:25:12] Tim: Yeah. Part of what seems to be a running theme through the whole, um, group of movies is the hubris of human beings to think they can control something that’s this unusual and this dangerous. Um, and so that’s, that’s a theme through the whole thing. Malcolm, I think is supposed to be the, uh, audience, POV.

[00:25:38] Tim: He, he sees everything they’re doing and everybody’s like, oh, well we’ve got all the plans. We’ve set up the security, everything works great. We’ve got two and three redundant systems, blah, blah, blah. And Malcolm for the audience says, yeah. 

[00:25:54] Rebekah: You 

[00:25:54] Tim: guys know this isn’t gonna work. Whatever. It’s, it’s not gonna work.

[00:25:57] Tim: Yep. You know that. 

[00:25:58] Rebekah: Totally. 

[00:25:59] Tim: Uh, it’s a little bit [00:26:00] like going to see, um, some kind of a, a horror, horror slasher movie or whatever, and you’re like, uh, no. Don’t go out by yourself. You may be angry, but you’re gonna be the first victim. No, no, 

[00:26:12] Donna: I don’t go upstairs. The killer’s up there. Oh. I need to go up and see.

[00:26:17] Donna: Yeah. 

[00:26:17] Tim: The audience already knows better. 

[00:26:18] Donna: Yeah. I keep, wait, I kept waiting for Malcolm to break the fourth wall and look at the camera and go, this isn’t going to work. What is wrong with you? Yeah. 

[00:26:28] Rebekah: It was just barely, not that kind of movie, but it totally could’ve worked. Especially because of being in the nineties or nineties, early two thousands.

[00:26:36] Rebekah: Yeah. In the nineties. 

[00:26:36] Donna: Nineties. Late nineties. 

[00:26:37] Tim: Late nineties. It was, uh, 93 was the first one, I think. Mm-hmm. Nice. And 

[00:26:43] Donna: we’ll 

[00:26:43] Tim: get there. The second one was supposed to be about four years later. 

[00:26:45] Donna: Yeah. 

[00:26:46] Tim: Well, the Lost World novel acknowledges Ian Malcolm’s near death in the first novel. But it’s Retcon that Malcolm survived despite being declared dead in Creighton’s Jurassic Park [00:27:00] epilogue.

[00:27:00] Rebekah: Yeah, that was like directly stated right in the epilogue. 

[00:27:03] Tim: Yes. Yeah. Yes. It wasn’t a question. It was, this is what happened to Malcolm. Well, the film didn’t need to con because Malcolm didn’t die in the 93 movie. Uh, both versions take place about four years after Jurassic Park incident. Uh, however, in the novel, uh, the continuity has Hammond dead and the park incident was shrouded in secrecy.

[00:27:29] Tim: Whereas in the film’s world, Hammond is still alive. Malcolm’s public attempts to expose the incident have left him discredited. It is a subplot that’s mentioned in the film. Well, it’s actually one of Hammond’s ways of trying to get him to do this is because if you do this. For me, I’ll make sure that the things that you’ve been saying, they are corroborated and you, you’ll be back in good with people with the community.

[00:27:59] Tim: Uh, the [00:28:00] difference in the backstory leads the novels characters to Isla Sorna more by curiosity or accident. While the film’s characters go with a clearer mandate from Hammond in the book, they’re going to find out what’s going on in the film. Hammond says, this is what’s going on. Go and find out, 

[00:28:22] Rebekah: which, again, 

[00:28:23] Tim: make it work 

[00:28:23] Rebekah: makes it sound like they were it, like it makes it sound like the film plot is more tight, like it’s more clearly motivated, but it actually did the opposite well.

[00:28:35] Rebekah: It’s not that the motivation isn’t clear, but it sort of did the opposite where it’s like, I feel like I don’t, it didn’t unwind for me in a good way at all. ’cause it was just like, okay, you gotta go to this island and this, and we all know what’s on the island. It’s dinosaurs obviously. So there’s like no, it doesn’t feel like you kind of learn what’s happening over time.

[00:28:52] Rebekah: It just feels like, it’s like almost just like exposition of here’s what’s happening, here’s the plot, and then moving on and trying to get me interested in like [00:29:00] three other mo like motivating side things. It just didn’t, 

[00:29:03] Tim: would it be surprising to find out that the novel was commissioned but before the novel was completed?

[00:29:13] Tim: They already had more than one screenplay written. So by the time the novel actually was published. They already had the screenplay and it was different. 

[00:29:26] Donna: So we move on to an antagonists agenda, which would be the eggs versus live capture. So in the novel Dodson’s, uh, bio send team arrives covertly on his RNA with this agenda of stealing fertilized dinosaur eggs so they can smuggle ’em off the island.

[00:29:47] Donna: This industrial espionage storyline involves subterfuge, uh, dodge and attempts murder. He pushes Sarah off a boat when they’re on their way [00:30:00] and there’s like this cat and mouse thing between the two groups, right? So in the film, the antagonist plot is like much more, I would say, way more overt. Ludlow engine task force openly rounds up live Donna Stars with trucks, cages, and a crew of mercenaries and.

[00:30:22] Donna: They’re gonna ship him to California because he’s greedy and sadly stupid. Don’t be greedy, baby listeners. Don’t be greedy. Don’t be greedy. It doesn’t work. 

[00:30:33] Rebekah: Good advice. 

[00:30:35] Donna: It never works. It won’t work on film. It, it doesn’t work on paper. It just doesn’t work. Okay. That’s your little, you know, social commentary lesson for the day.

[00:30:45] Donna: In the film’s middle act, they showcase this elaborate dinosaur hunting and capture sequence. There’s vehicles, there’s snare traps, has no equivalent in the novel. Does not appear there at all because the [00:31:00] novel focuses on the stealthy, you know, egg theft and the more scientific observation of the whole thing.

[00:31:09] Donna: You know, there, it’s, like I said, it’s safer. It, it’s smarter because then you’ve got the eggs and you can bring ’em with you and even raise them in the climate that you. Hatch them in for that matter. I mean, not 

[00:31:21] Tim: Did this seem awkward to, to you as you were watching it just suddenly they’re all out just capturing dinosaurs?

[00:31:31] Rebekah: It just was so, yeah, it just, the whole thing was so forced. 

[00:31:37] Donna: Were we trying to just outdo the first movie? 

[00:31:40] Tim: This plot felt almost like a different movie. Let’s do a movie where they go to an island that has dinosaurs and they’re going to capture them. And that could have been a whole movie by itself.

[00:31:54] Tim: There’s a, there’s plenty of plot that that could have involved in all. Um, but it just, it just [00:32:00] seemed awkward that, especially this particular scene where these mercenaries who should have been trained are the comic relief as the dinosaurs are. You know, stronger than they think and they’re flying through the air.

[00:32:16] Tim: And you know, 

[00:32:18] Rebekah: that honestly leads me to one of the other problems I had. It was sort of with that team, but in general I feel like the hu like the humor didn’t hit either. This is a serious action film. Jurassic Park is pretty scary, but there’s definitely some good like kind of tongue in cheek comments, a little bit of sarcasm that worked as humor and I felt like that it just didn’t work.

[00:32:40] Rebekah: In this version they, I think they tried to make it a little more slapstick and then go into the action again. Just one more reason. It didn’t feel like it really worked for me. So let’s talk about the Baby T-Rex. There is a baby T-Rex in both book and film, which, you know, one of the common denominators in the book, Eddie, who is uh, an [00:33:00] assistant, decides that he’s going to bring the dinosaur baby to camp.

[00:33:03] Rebekah: Malcolm says, that’s stupid. ’cause he knows it’s stupid and Eddie says, I’m doing it anyway. And so, um, the T-Rex has a broken leg and it’s brought to the camps and they nurse Act Health. This is like the, the plan that they have in the film. The hunters have the baby Roland Timbo decided we’re gonna use this thing as bait ’cause we want the two T rexes over here to be able, like, we wanna take them out.

[00:33:28] Rebekah: So in both book and film, what this causes is the, the T-Rex parents, mom and dad decide to attack their trailer and the trailer almost falls off the cliff. So, believe it or not, one of the most hokey scenes in the movie actually was from the book, Norma. Normally those are the things that they add for action that don’t tend to work.

[00:33:49] Rebekah: But it was actually a book scene. 

[00:33:51] Tim: It was Nick Van Owen in the film. That sees the baby T-Rex and brings him back and they’re all like, are you kidding? The [00:34:00] dinosaurs are already beginning to attack and you’ve brought it back. He said, but it’s hurt. We need to fix 

[00:34:03] Rebekah: it. It’s so funny ’cause it’s like we gotta rescue the baby T-Rex and I’m like, you literally don’t.

[00:34:08] Rebekah: You are making like only there is only making this worse. No logical person would look at that and be like, you know what’s the smart thing? Save the baby T-Rex. 

[00:34:16] Tim: Sure that the parent t Rexes will know exactly why you have stolen Their baby 

[00:34:21] Donna: kind of got at this point where they’re like in the trailer and they’ve got the T-Rex and they’re trying to fix its leg or whatever they’re doing and they know that the mama’s coming or whatever.

[00:34:34] Donna: At that point I was like, oh, they’re trying to use him as the third person, like Ian and Sam Neil and. In the first movie, they’re trying to create another trio. Again, back to something we’ve said a few times now, it, it was too much. 

[00:34:52] Tim: But a tiny little aside with the Baby T-Rex. For most of the reviews that I looked at, [00:35:00] that was one of the most convincing uses of animatronics that they’re carrying around this baby T-Rex and working with him.

[00:35:10] Tim: And you, you really believed it. One reviewer said he was watching, watching the movie with his wife, and she was going, oh, you’ve got to help that poor little baby T-Rex. He hurt, he’s hurting. And she, he looked at her and said, you realize that’s a robot, right? And apparently she didn’t because she felt like it seemed so real in lifelike.

[00:35:32] Rebekah: Uh, so there is a turning point that happens when the baby T-Rex injury occurs and all of that stuff. It’s different from book to film. So in the book, the trailer falling is what injures Malcolm really badly and you wonder for quite a long time, is he gonna survive? And that’s kind of a theme through the rest of the book, honestly.

[00:35:50] Rebekah: And then in the film, there are a few engine hunters left. There’s, you know, some people from Malcolm’s group left. They realize if we’re gonna get off this island, we have to do it [00:36:00] together. So they merge for survival and this is what leads them to eventually be able to get off the island for the rest of what all that happens.

[00:36:07] Rebekah: But I am getting ahead 

[00:36:08] Tim: of stuff, a few of them, 

[00:36:10] Rebekah: a few 

[00:36:11] Tim: of that. ’cause there are, there are some deaths and ComeUp that happen in many, many deaths And ComeUp 

[00:36:17] Rebekah: the 

[00:36:17] Tim: film, uh, the film uses, uh, quite inventive ways. Eddie Carr, who has, is the tech person who’s, who’s actually a composite character, um, in the film.

[00:36:27] Tim: He is graphically killed by the two adult t Rexes. They don’t realize that they’re trying to help the baby T-Rex in the novel. He survives that scene. Only later to be killed by the Velociraptors at the high hide site. The elevated observation site Primary. That was 

[00:36:47] Rebekah: so sad. By the way. I actually did like him.

[00:36:49] Tim: That was the one that I really, really hated to see happen because he has worked so hard and diligently to save the group in the [00:37:00] trailers, the double trailer that’s over the cliff. He’s worked really hard and he finally gets them up to where they will survive, and then he gets torn apart by the T rexes.

[00:37:11] Tim: Um, so it’s, you know, it’s, it’s tough. 

[00:37:14] Donna: It’s finna o dare. 

[00:37:15] Tim: Yeah. The primary villain. His demise differs as well from book to film, Dodgen in the book is finally caught and devoured by a T-Rex family. The adult tosses him to its nest of hatchlings. A deserved fate perhaps for his crimes. The film instead gives this gruesome into Peter Ludlow, uh, during the San Diego finale, which is, you know, film only the adult male T-Rex breaks Ludlow, he’s leg and allows its infant to maul him.

[00:37:49] Tim: In other words, the movie Transplanted Dodson’s novel death onto the new villain since Doon wasn’t around. 

[00:37:57] Rebekah: I mean, it was certainly fine with Ludlow dying. 

[00:37:59] Tim: Yeah, [00:38:00] he, like I said, I he was, he was a character. I just had No, no, like, for in the least. 

[00:38:06] Donna: And unfortunately, you know, Kelly wasn’t there running along with him.

[00:38:09] Donna: But, you know, 

[00:38:10] Tim: the other colleagues of Doon in the novel meet terrible ends, one by the T-Rex and one by Raptors. Um, people that kind of are their stand-ins, the Hunter, uh, deter Stark dies in different ways. Uh, he in particular dies from a Comy swarm attack. Um, in the, in the film, uh, 10 feet apparently from the group of hunters that was sitting there resting, couldn’t hear his screaming.

[00:38:40] Rebekah: Yeah. Again, takes me out of it when something like that happens. 

[00:38:44] Tim: I get they, they made a deal about the guy sitting about three or four feet closer was listening to earphones and he couldn’t hear, but the rest of the group was just a few more feet away. 

[00:38:55] Donna: Is this where we would note? Probably one of the greatest scenes [00:39:00] in the film where they’re all running through the high weeds to get a part and they pan back and you see these lines of raptors coming toward them.

[00:39:11] Donna: I mean, that was a significantly intense and horrifying scene 

[00:39:17] Tim: for people who like the horror part of this. In the reviews, I heard a lot of people say that was one of their favorite scenes because, you know, it was the horror kind of part that they were expecting. 

[00:39:29] Donna: And you could imagine you could put yourself in that place where you’re running from something that you cannot see and you can’t turn around to look, and they’re coming at you.

[00:39:38] Donna: And we are watching all that happen. So, I mean, I, I got it. They, that was effective. 

[00:39:42] Tim: And another odd part for me though, we talk about taking you out of suspension, of disbelief. We’re watching them gather around the whole group, all of the people, including Malcolm, and the ones that will eventually survive and [00:40:00] somehow they get through.

[00:40:03] Tim: There’s no particularly, you know, they don’t jump up a tree that they can’t get in. They just run through the same field and aren’t attacked by the raptors. 

[00:40:12] Donna: They’d all heard about Kelly’s amazing gymnast ability. 

[00:40:17] Tim: So the raptors, 

[00:40:18] Donna: and they were, the word had gotten around. So now we move forward to the ending location, which is, uh, completely different on different parts of the planet actually.

[00:40:31] Donna: So in the novel, everything stays on East Las Sorna. The survivors, uh, find a way off the island by a boat. There’s no excursion, no mainland, you don’t ever see it. Okay. The Costa Rica government is implied to quarantine the island, but the stories climax, essentially. It is essentially like the escape from the rapid attacks, the recovery of the data about the dinosaur disease.

[00:40:58] Donna: And, we’ll, we’ll get into [00:41:00] that in just a little bit. In the film, however, the story extends to an entire third act in San Diego where a lu loose team, 

[00:41:12] Rebekah: sorry, I had to express my feelings. Your 

[00:41:14] Donna: favorite. I almost did that same thing and held back this time. Uh, Loveless team brings the male T-Rex and its baby who’s now been rescued, you know, to California where the adult T-Rex, of course, hello, breaks loose.

[00:41:32] Donna: Why wouldn’t he? He’s a, an adult T-Rex. That’s what they do apparently. And he ran pages through the city streets. Um, this is like a King Kong inspired sequence where he’s stomping through suburban San Diego. It is unique to the film. There’s no basis for this in the novel, the novel was really focused on the Dino’s, like natural island ecosystem.

[00:41:58] Donna: Which to me, [00:42:00] I, I wasn’t, I was okay with this book. Like I enjoyed reading this book. It made more sense. It to me was more captivating and interesting. Uh, the film’s conclusion involves Malcolm and Sarah reuniting this, uh, tranquilized T-Rex with its baby, shipping them back to ease las soreness. So you get a little bow tied on their, their part in the film.

[00:42:24] Donna: But the novel conclusion is much quieter. The survivors sail away and they reflect on the dinosaur’s future. 

[00:42:33] Tim: The San Diego Park, especially the boat. ’cause the boat comes in with the T rexes on it and it’s not stopping, it’s not slowing down. And those in the port aren’t sure why it’s not slowing down. So it crashes into the port and you find that the T-Rex has been wreaking havoc and killed all of the crew.

[00:42:53] Tim: Interestingly enough, um, the person at the wheel is only a hand [00:43:00] because the T-Rex who’s too big for the door slipped through the door and took care of the person there and went back out and got trapped again in the bottom of the ship. I see 

[00:43:14] Rebekah: no logical 

[00:43:15] Tim: problems with that. There are a bunch of things.

[00:43:16] Tim: Yeah, there are lots of things about it that logically don’t make sense. It’s almost like, okay, the jump scare is that you see the hand and then you realize it’s a disembodied hand. Oh no, he’s been killing people. How could he have done that? There’s, you know, you didn’t take the roof off the little, you know, cabin where they have the wheel in it, the door, it’s just a single door.

[00:43:37] Tim: It hasn’t been smashed open. It’s just kind of weird. 

[00:43:39] Rebekah: Yeah. So the end of the book, and I think that this is probably because Michael Kreon had already said, Hey, I didn’t wanna write this anyway, so I’m gonna make sure that you know that this is not continuing. No more books. Uh, the book ends kind of on a real alarming or like creepy note.

[00:43:58] Rebekah: Engine [00:44:00] had secretly been feeding the dinosaurs sheep marrow that was contaminated with crayon causing a fatal disease that would basically prevent them from letting their population get out of control, take over the world, whatever. But I love, well, love slash hate. I love studying pion diseases. Every pion disease that can pass to humans is a hundred percent fatal.

[00:44:23] Rebekah: There are not like normal pion diseases that frequently pass through to humans, but there is a, there’s like a deer epidemic of a prion disease that at least at one point recently was like being watched because if it passes to humans, we, like, if we, the ones who get it, would die. It’s not like a, a chance, you know?

[00:44:42] Tim: That’s very interesting to me. I thought they made that word up. 

[00:44:46] Rebekah: No, it’s like a thing. 

[00:44:48] Tim: It sounds so. Like it doesn’t explain anything. ’cause most medical terms, things like that are Latin and it’s like, oh, this means this, this and this. It’s like, okay, pion is a really [00:45:00] small, uncomplicated word. It can’t be real.

[00:45:03] Tim: You just invented it. So no. Okay. 

[00:45:06] Rebekah: So that’s how the novel ends, which I find kind of interesting and basically makes it clear again, no more books. Uh, the film adds a little more, hopefully Hammond is trying to advocate to leave the island as a wildlife preserve and there is no dinosaur subplot, so they don’t go into any of that in the film.

[00:45:24] Rebekah: And you know, I, again, I like, I understand why he did it in the book, but I also think they were, they were not ready to end the film with this one. And thank goodness because obviously not just because of the, 

[00:45:36] Tim: it’s a cow. 

[00:45:37] Rebekah: Yes. Because it wasn’t just a first, like the first film was good, but we’ve seen now they’ve been able to make many other good films.

[00:45:45] Rebekah: So I’m glad they kept it going, but. After this one, I was not sure. 

[00:45:51] Tim: Well, of course the setting changes so useless soreness facilities. Uh, one deals with science and one’s [00:46:00] in ruins in the novel useless sorna. Site B still contains a functioning engine infrastructure. The characters even use the island’s networked cameras to monitor the dinosaurs and to see one another when they’re far away.

[00:46:15] Tim: Uh, they find information in the lab. The film portrays the engine compound, uh, on East Las Sorna as a mostly derelict ruins. Aside from one small scene where the protagonists enter an old communication center to radio for help, the movie doesn’t delve into any remaining science facilities. And that’s interesting to me because it’s only been four years.

[00:46:38] Rebekah: Yeah. How much disrepair can something be in? 

[00:46:40] Donna: Uh, we also have nanos and omitted creatures. Um, so both novel and film introduce new dinosaur species, but their choices are a little different. So, um, the novel features Carna Taurus depicted [00:47:00] with this like eerie chameleonic ability to blend into the environment.

[00:47:06] Tim: This one was the freakiest scariest one to me from, from the novel. It’s like, how would you combat them? 

[00:47:14] Donna: Yeah. Uh, it’s stalking the characters at night at the Worker Village. This tense camouflage sequence where Levine and Harding use flashlights to confuse. Its, its color changing skin, uh, has no analog in the film.

[00:47:31] Donna: It did not include the carni tars at all. Which I’m like, wow, why would you leave that one out? That would be such a cool thing. 

[00:47:39] Rebekah: You didn’t use one of the most interesting parts of the book in this adaptation. 

[00:47:43] Donna: Yes, 

[00:47:43] Tim: I bet it, I bet it was technological. 

[00:47:46] Donna: Oh, stop. ‘

[00:47:46] Tim: cause 1997. 

[00:47:48] Donna: Come on. 

[00:47:49] Tim: Well, remember, they still used a lot of practical effects.

[00:47:52] Tim: The, the dinosaurs were mostly practical. Um, so this would’ve had to have been completely CG [00:48:00] to change this thing. 

[00:48:01] Rebekah: Have they ever put a dinosaur like that, like in the films at all though now that they could? 

[00:48:07] Tim: No. They’ve used the Carna Tous, but he doesn’t have that ability. 

[00:48:11] Donna: And you’ve seen them where like they pan across like a, a foresty foliage or whatever and you see their eyes or something, but nothing that’s camouflages.

[00:48:22] Donna: It’s totally sad that they didn’t use it. Um, instead the film highlights this herd of Stegosaurus. In one of its early set pieces where like Sarah’s observing a baby Stegosaurus and she narrowly avoids getting attacked. Uh, this was a scene created for the movie. Stegosaurus are only briefly mentioned in Cris novel, so they also show the compus, which we mentioned, the coms swarming a human theater, which is a very memorable creepy kill scene.

[00:48:57] Donna: But in the novel, the coms are [00:49:00] more of like a nuisance. Their deadly attack on the character, on a specific character is only implied with Doon, who survives the comi bytes only to dil later. The differences reflect the film’s preference for showcasing dinosaurs. That would be like visually new or exciting on screen, sometimes pulling from unused scenes of the first novel because you remember, uh, there was a comi attack and a T-Rex waterfall scene.

[00:49:29] Donna: Both borrowed from the Jurassic Park book material. And this scene, this film also opens with the comps. The little girl encountering them and they’re small and, and they’re, they make them cute. I mean, they do look like something you would look at and think, oh, it’s a little sweet, sweet thing. 

[00:49:46] Tim: That first scene in the film is from the early part of the first novel.

[00:49:53] Rebekah: Yes. Yeah. 

[00:49:53] Tim: Um, 

[00:49:54] Rebekah: it’s So the opening scene of the first novel Yes. And it was really good. Yeah. 

[00:49:57] Tim: I stand corrected. [00:50:00] I said perhaps they didn’t use the Chameleonlike dinosaur because of technology. However, in the film Predator in 1987, a decade before they used, uh, that was part of what the Predator had as its, uh, ability.

[00:50:19] Tim: And maybe they didn’t use it because they said, oh, they’ll think that we borrowed it from, from the Predator movie. Who knows? 

[00:50:26] Rebekah: So in both novel and film. There are a couple of things like the high hide and other equipment that are similar and then they just add a little bit more, um, in the setting of the film.

[00:50:36] Rebekah: So there’s a high hide in both, which is like the tree platform where they observe dinosaurs and a lot of that stuff. That’s where Eddie dies in the film and the Malcolm’s daughter like goes up there at one point. Another equipment thing was that the survivors in the novel Escape. They find a boat on the island and like get in the boat.

[00:50:58] Rebekah: So in the [00:51:00] film escape is an airlift and that’s when the engine ship is there to transport the T-Rex. So the people escape the airlift. Um, and then they add the engine boat, obviously with the T rexes on it. And the baby, was it one T-Rex or two? It was just the one, right? 

[00:51:17] Tim: It was the parent and the baby, 

[00:51:19] Rebekah: yeah.

[00:51:19] Rebekah: ’cause one, the one of the T Rexes did die. I think on the island. 

[00:51:23] Tim: The novel makes a point of the fact that, uh. The group that’s trying, that’s coming to steal the eggs, they can’t, there is no port, there is no harbor on the island. So the novel makes a point of that, which there would’ve had to have been a, a port a harbor.

[00:51:42] Rebekah: So they add that to the, the film version of it. And so then, um, they add the cargo ship and the harbor setting on the island, obviously also in San Diego, but, 

[00:51:54] Tim: and so the San Diego City Rampage is there. We had to [00:52:00] adjust a lot of things to be able to get this strange part into the movie. It is one of the major setting differences, probably the biggest difference.

[00:52:10] Tim: It is a turning part of the movie in the city nightmare Scenario with a dinosaur loose in the human population center. It does not happen in the novel at all. Creighton’s story stays confined to the remote island. Uh, the novel’s tension comes from the island’s jungle and abandoned facilities. The film tries to up the ante by moving the final act to a populated city setting.

[00:52:32] Tim: You know, imagine the T-Rex crushing cars and roaming suburban streets. Spielberg reportedly added the San Diego, San Diego sequence. Late in production inspired by monster movie tradition, and even a misdirection from the 1925 lost world film poster, which showed a dinosaur in London. The result is the film’s geography changes, uh, from.

[00:52:58] Tim: From the tropical island [00:53:00] to the mainland metropolis, unlike the novel single locale on the island, 

[00:53:06] Rebekah: it is kind of interesting that there’s an old movie called Lost World Way before the books obviously that’s about a dinosaur, 

[00:53:13] Tim: and it, it, well, it is a, it is a book that was made into a film and it is about an island that is discovered where these creatures have survived.

[00:53:24] Tim: So that’s, wow. That’s what that is about. 

[00:53:27] Rebekah: So it’s 

[00:53:27] Tim: not like a discovery at 

[00:53:28] Rebekah: that point. Yeah. 

[00:53:29] Tim: Right. 

[00:53:30] Donna: So that really leads well into this, this next change where you’ve got lost world, like kind of, versus a safari park in the, in the tone of this whole thing. And now that you say that, I wonder if he had that in mind.

[00:53:47] Tim: He did. That was a stated purpose. 

[00:53:50] Donna: Yeah. Like East Las Sorna is truly this lost world in the novel. It’s. It’s the secret ecosystem. There’s [00:54:00] dinosaurs have been living and breeding independent of human intervention for several years. Um, maybe not exactly like the 1920s lost world where they had just survived through the centuries, but they’d been there for a long time, kinda living in their own places.

[00:54:17] Donna: And the characters of the novel, like quietly observe them and then put together this ecological mysteries, why carcasses vanishing or what, why, how does the ecosystem even sustain itself? But in the film, Issa Sorna serves as a lost world still, but it’s like more chaotic and it becomes kind of like the safari park once the engine hunters get there.

[00:54:44] Donna: And the movie emphasizes action sequences that have literally no equivalent in the book. Kinda like the vehicle vehicle roundup of dinosaurs on the game trail. And it shifts site B from [00:55:00] a hidden scientific wonder that you see in the novel to this battleground of human versus donno conflict in the middle portion of the film.

[00:55:10] Donna: I guess maybe Spielberg just felt like he had a pi, a different picture of what he wanted it to be. I, I can see that. And it is, these are two different people, two different creative minds doing two different things. So 

[00:55:23] Tim: yeah, Creighton was very concerned about the scientific things and his theme had to do with, you know, humanity messing things up, you know, and so that was a big theme for him.

[00:55:36] Tim: Spielberg did less of that, just, uh, mostly about the hubris of thinking we can control things, so, 

[00:55:42] Donna: yeah. Um, so one of the things we, we kind of hinted at this before talking about the, like the comi attack that we talked about with where that’s. From the beginning of the first novel, there’s some other notable elements that we’ll [00:56:00] just kind of go through and highlight where things from these two novels were captured in like subsequent films.

[00:56:09] Donna: And at this moment in time, there are currently seven films in the Jurassic Park or Jurassic World franchise. So, 

[00:56:17] Rebekah: okay, so first one, I thought this was really interesting, like we’ve talked about a lot, the novel has bios Sin whose engines rival corporation using dodge sin as one of, its like operatives.

[00:56:31] Rebekah: And he’s a villain in the books. Uh, he does not come back from the first film in the second film. However, Jurassic World Dominion, which is the sixth film, um, those both bring Biosyn and Dodgen back. That’s when Dodgen, who’s now the CEO of the company masterminds some genetic. Stuff that he wants to see happen.

[00:56:54] Rebekah: Um, and he’s the, the antagonist in the film as he was in the second [00:57:00] novel. Um, again, so it was really interesting that they bring him back. They did not use the same actor. 

[00:57:04] Tim: Well, Jurassic World Dominion also utilizes the black market, DNA espionage thread. Uh, so you’ve, you’ve got that added back in as well.

[00:57:15] Donna: I think that’s cool. I think it’s leaning on the human greed aspect. Another thing that Dominion uses, uh, it pays homage to the novels even 25 years later by giving dodge sin of death at the teeth of dinosaurs. So in Dominion dodged an attempts to flee but’s cornered by this pack of Diallo Osa. I never kept up with any of these names.

[00:57:42] Donna: And this 

[00:57:42] Tim: is the one with the fan? 

[00:57:44] Donna: Yeah, with the fan head or on his head piece or whatever, which ultimately kills him. And the scene is. Deliberately reminiscent of Dennis Ned’s death by the OSAs in the first film where he’s trying to escape with the [00:58:00] eggs or whatever, and I’m okay when they revisit things like this.

[00:58:03] Donna: That’s, that’s okay with the, uh, 

[00:58:05] Tim: Doon gets his comeuppance 25 years later at the teeth of the same type dinosaurs. 

[00:58:10] Donna: Yeah, and I agree with Rebecca. I have enjoyed the films in the franchise. Some are stronger than others, but for the pure entertainment part of it, I I have, I have enjoyed them for sure. So 

[00:58:23] Rebekah: I’m the prion disease, uh, fascinated one.

[00:58:27] Rebekah: I’m not gonna say lover. I was just gonna say lover. And I was like, I don’t love pion disease. I just like reading about them. Um, in Dominion again, there is also a manmade plague, um, to like, control the dinosaurs. So similar to how Creighton introduce this idea of feeding them with a pion disease, uh, contaminated.

[00:58:47] Rebekah: Feed to limit their lifespan. Uh, dominion like mirrors that a bit. There’s a storyline of biosense, genetically engineered locust swarm that can wreak havoc on crops and ecosystems. So it [00:59:00] seems like referencing maybe the harmful impacts of biotech and the unintended consequences it can cause they didn’t use the exact same one for one story, but it is kind of mentioned or ended up.

[00:59:13] Tim: And, uh, the Sanctuary Valley, the New Lost World in Dominion, Biosyn has created a secluded dinosaur sanctuary in the dolomite mountains where dozens of species live relatively undisturbed. The concept, the Hidden Valley full of dinosaurs, resonates with the original lost world idea from Creon itself. An homage to Arthur Arthur Conan Doyle’s book, the Lost World, the 1997 Lost World Film did end with Isla Sorna being legally declared a nature preserve, but we never saw an active sanctuary in that movie.

[00:59:54] Tim: The Dominion Movie finally visualizes the sanctuary like Lost World under [01:00:00] Corporate control, which in some ways fulfills the novel’s vision of an isolated dinosaur ecosystem. The inclusion of species like the Tyrannosaur family and Bio Valley, a pair of T Rexes that Dominion’s creators have confirmed are meant to be the surviving buck and dough from the Lost World film.

[01:00:20] Tim: So apparently they both survived further ties back to the 95 novels legacy and the idea of dinosaurs thriving in a remote habitat. Unaided by humanity. 

[01:00:32] Donna: That’s wild. Then we have the fun rafting trips that happen throughout the books and films. There is a raft, uh, a rafting trip in the Jurassic Park novel, the original later.

[01:00:46] Donna: It’s used in Jurassic Park, three and Jurassic World Rebirth, uh, films, but it’s kind of re reimagined or, or altered. In Jurassic part three, there’s a riverboat sequence grant and the [01:01:00] survivors travel by vote, vote down through East Las Sorna River, and they’re attacked by a spinosaurus. And then later Terra Dons come after them.

[01:01:11] Donna: Uh, in Jurassic World Rebirth. The scenes reimagined and you have this family. Uh, it’s Reuben Delgado’s, the dad. He’s got two daughters and a, a boyfriend on the trip with him. They. Accidentally meet up with the people who are looking into the dinosaur park. Okay. They attempt to escape a, uh, tyrannosaurus or T-Rex that’s coming after them while they’re going through the water.

[01:01:42] Donna: The scene page, tribute to Cretins original novel where a similar encounter happens with a swimming T-Rex. Uh, but the scene never made it to the final cut of the 1993 film due to technological limitations. But I [01:02:00] will say the third movie is I love the third movie. Probably after the first one. Uh, it’s different and it’s, a lot of people say they don’t like it because it’s less Donna, sorry, in a lot of ways.

[01:02:16] Donna: But I thought it was fun. I thought that what they did with it was fun. And so both of these river scenes I thought were, were pretty cool. They’re intense, adding the element of water and the possibility that you could get caught or drowned or, or there’s so many other things that could happen. I think they’re pretty cool.

[01:02:33] Donna: They add to the thriller part of the movie. So 

[01:02:36] Tim: that was an intense scene in the first book. Um, and I am glad they were able to bring it back in two different ways. So 

[01:02:45] Rebekah: I also will say that the river sequence in rebirth was actually one of my favorite scenes, and I was so glad that they added it.

[01:02:54] Rebekah: Secondarily, we are, uh, by the time of this recording’s released, we will have already [01:03:00] been. Um, but we are going to Universal Studio soon, and I’m so sad because the River Adventure ride is closing down. Like it might already be closed. I think they closed it in like October. They’re closing it down until this summer so that they can like, revamp it.

[01:03:16] Rebekah: I don’t think they’re doing like a full remodel, but I was kind of sad ’cause it is actually one of my favorite themed rides, um, at Universal. It’s been a long time since I’ve been on it, so I thought they did a good job with it. 

[01:03:25] Donna: So we’ll 

[01:03:25] Rebekah: just have to 

[01:03:26] Donna: go back. 

[01:03:27] Rebekah: I want to don’t must be a good time. So be, even though site B is not used in the lost world, uh, film as much, like in terms of the actual infrastructure was used.

[01:03:40] Rebekah: Jurassic Park, three Jurassic World and Jurassic World Dominion all actually use the detailed infrastructure from the novel, which I think is, is pretty cool. 

[01:03:48] Tim: The car, no Tous, I’ll get this eventually. The one that camouflages, um, the d this dinosaur from the Lost World with the camouflage ability is repurposed in Jurassic [01:04:00] World.

[01:04:00] Tim: Fallen Kingdom or the Endo Raptor and Indominus wrecks the actual carni. Tous appears, but lacks that chameleon trait. He’s at the Lockwood estate attack once they bring all those dinosaurs back and they’re auctioning them off. 

[01:04:15] Rebekah: Oh, right. Yeah, 

[01:04:17] Donna: yeah. Uh, there is an aviary and OSA attack in the original novel that they use in the third film as well.

[01:04:27] Donna: Um, I almost felt like the third film was looking to pull in some parts. Like, I almost wonder if fans were not like, why didn’t you do such a, you know, whatever. 

[01:04:38] Tim: I did read that the director of the third film went to Spielberg and said, I have a, I have an idea for a second film that I’d really, I’d really like to do if you would allow me.

[01:04:51] Tim: And, uh, Spielberg said, well, I already have a second film that I plan to do, but I will allow you, I, I’ll give it to you [01:05:00] for the third one. And so that’s why it. Moved all the way to the third one. 

[01:05:05] Rebekah: I love the third film. Like, I’m so glad. I think the Aviary thing, when it came up in the book, I was like, this is, I remember this, but it’s a different movie.

[01:05:14] Rebekah: I, I’ve watched the third film over and over and over. It’s probably my favorite or second favorite compared to the rest. So 

[01:05:20] Tim: same here. I I really do enjoy it. There are a couple things about it that are just ridiculous and stupid. You know, I mean, we are talking about dinosaurs in the year 2000, you know, so Dodson’s egg theft from the Lost World novel shows up in Jurassic World Dominion, um, as they’re trying to do the same kinds of things.

[01:05:39] Tim: So those, those themes keep popping up. I, I’ve often wondered, when you have a film series based on a novel or two, in this case, how much can you do? And we’re always talking about the fact that, you know, you’re taking a novel and squeezing it, you know, chopping things out of it to make it a two, two and a half hour movie.

[01:05:59] Tim: And a lot of [01:06:00] times you’ve got a lot of great things left. Some of the movies have used some of those little things, and I like that. That’s fun. 

[01:06:09] Donna: Now we move into how well this film and novel have done in its cash grabbing existence. The book released on September 20th, 1995, and as I think Tim had said earlier, they were already commissioning movie and film rights and trying to work all that out.

[01:06:27] Donna: They knew after the success of the first one. I mean they were gonna go with it. Right. The movie released, what is that, less than two years later? About a year and a half or so, later on May 19th, 1997. 

[01:06:39] Tim: That is a fast turnaround. ’cause you’re talking about a movie that is heavy on special effects, practical, special effects, which require building.

[01:06:49] Tim: So 

[01:06:49] Donna: it’s a fast turnaround. And also May 19th is kind of a weird time. I would think it would be a summer block Blockbuster. 

[01:06:58] Tim: Well. It allowed it to be [01:07:00] released on Memorial Day weekend throughout the us 

[01:07:03] Donna: Yeah. May 23rd, US theaters True. So it would be out over Memorial Day. The book rating on Good Reads was 3.88 out of five.

[01:07:12] Donna: The movie Rating Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 57, and the Rotten Tomato synopsis was a sentence. Four years after Jurassic Park mathematician Ian Malcolm Ventures onto a Second Island to save his girlfriend from becoming dinosaur baked. Flixter audience score was 52%. So the audience was just as slightly unimpressed as the critics were.

[01:07:38] Tim: I think today it might receive a higher audience score because at the time it was so different than the first one in all the ways you wanted to see another film. The audience was disappointed. 

[01:07:51] Donna: I don’t know. I, I mean, possibly as far as what they spent and what they made. They spent 73 million on the production.

[01:07:59] Donna: [01:08:00] Decent, I mean, for, for 97, decent. And thinking about some of the stuff that we’ve talked about that they possibly didn’t do or couldn’t do because of techy restraints, you know that that’s probably decent. That opening weekend, it brought in 72 million. And when the film premiered, this smashed the box office records at that point in time, and it instantly was the highest opening weekend gross movie in history, beating out Batman forever.

[01:08:32] Donna: It wasn’t a money loser. Let’s say that they, they didn’t lose money on this, uh, it just wasn’t as acclaimed as probably they hoped it would be. But then when you get down to it, it’s a cash grab, right? So if the critics weren’t as crazy about it, the audience was slightly not as crazy. But look, USA Canada gross was 229 million.

[01:08:55] Donna: So we’re talking about four times. Its production cost, international [01:09:00] gross, 389.5 million. So it even raked in more across the globe. And so it ends up bringing in 618.6 million. So come on. It was rated PG 13 felt like that was fair. I felt like they skirted close to some of the gore or some of the violent part.

[01:09:23] Donna: They got close to their, to R but, but they stayed under it. So it’s PG rated. Pg. 

[01:09:29] Rebekah: I’ll also say if it’s a cash grab and it makes that much money, then it was a success. Woo. You know, 

[01:09:35] Donna: and that for 

[01:09:35] Tim: sure. Yeah. There will be a third one. Yeah. 

[01:09:37] Rebekah: Yeah. It’s, it is definitely what allowed for that. So a couple of interesting trivia points.

[01:09:41] Rebekah: So Spielberg had promised that there would be more dinosaurs the second time around. There were 50% more. In fact, adding some of the com thete, OSAs herd, um, he wanted to increase the number of like. Dinosaurs and dinosaur breeds, for lack of a, a different term. [01:10:00] There. 

[01:10:00] Tim: Apparently, Spielberg has an interesting way to produce.

[01:10:05] Tim: There were no rehearsals allowed. Unlike most productions, Spielberg didn’t allow the actors to rehearse their lines. He believed the magic came from the spontaneity of first and second takes, which kept the performances raw and unpredictable. 

[01:10:20] Rebekah: I get that he’s talented and I get that like, you know, he’s done a lot of good things.

[01:10:26] Rebekah: It didn’t work. This movie sucked. Their performances seemed stilted and unpracticed on top of everything else. 

[01:10:32] Donna: Yeah. You can see why this isn’t Lucy walking out of the wardrobe and being surprised by Narnia. This is not the same thing. This is a whole film that he let go this way. So yeah, 

[01:10:43] Rebekah: he wasn’t the worst person in the world.

[01:10:46] Rebekah: Spielberg warned the cast not to allow themselves to get hit by one of the Jurassic Park T-Rex animatronics because each of them weighed nine tons and cost a million dollars [01:11:00] each. A million dollars. Doesn’t surprise me that weight is wild. 

[01:11:05] Tim: It is, and that was a problem in the first film. Because the rain scene with the T-Rex, they had problems.

[01:11:13] Tim: The animatronics couldn’t move him. Once the latex got soaked, uh, with the water, it was too heavy. It added so much weight. Another bit, the Stegosaurus was added by fan request. Fans were disappointed that the first Jurassic Park didn’t feature the famous Stego sous Berg listened, so he added to the sequel as a highlight, giving audiences that thrilling stego herd scene, which is well done.

[01:11:41] Tim: It’s beautiful. It even holds up. Those special effects are really good considering, you know, we are a long way past that time 

[01:11:51] Donna: without Sam Neil there doing his thing. Come on. Another surprise that Spielberg pulled off. Vanessa Lee Chester who played Kelly [01:12:00] Malcolm had literally no idea. That Jeff Goldblum would be playing her father until overhearing it on set.

[01:12:08] Donna: In fact, she wasn’t even given a full script because he wanted her reactions to be genuine. Okay. Steven, if you listen to this, I’ll tell you how this translated. They had no chemistry. 

[01:12:21] Rebekah: Yeah. 

[01:12:21] Donna: And I’m glad she was surprised to see that he was her dad. But what kind of agent did she have that didn’t tell her that her dad was gonna be Jeff Goldblum?

[01:12:31] Donna: None of that makes sense to me. And I know I don’t live in that world, so I’m not saying it’s wrong or a lie or made up, but it just, that whole thing, it didn’t, it did not get onto the screen as convincingly as he probably wanted it to be. Let’s say it that way. 

[01:12:48] Rebekah: I, uh, Kelly Malcolm, I don’t think it ended up coming back up.

[01:12:51] Rebekah: So I will say. The gymnastics scene was ridiculous. I don’t think I said that earlier in the episode. Her using gymnastics, what was a kick of [01:13:00] raptor in the face? None of the physics at all are even close to working, which is wild. ’cause they tried so hard to make it make sense in the first film that also was so disingenuous.

[01:13:11] Rebekah: Like it just didn’t, Ugh. 

[01:13:13] Tim: So 

[01:13:14] Rebekah: I, sorry. I know we’re not even talking about that anymore. But 

[01:13:16] Tim: yeah, so important that she was a gymnast and blah, blah, blah. And 

[01:13:20] Donna: I think when you watched it, you said you were gonna watch it this particular day or whatever. 

[01:13:25] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. 

[01:13:26] Donna: And we were like, oh, let us know when you get to this part.

[01:13:30] Donna: And you, you were like. What is happening right now? I wish I, I wish I’d kept that text exchange, uh, up where I could find it because it was, it was really funny. Anyway, we’ll go on. 

[01:13:41] Rebekah: Another fun little trivia that we found screenwriter David Kepp was a cameo in the film. He was a fling bystander credited in the credits as unlucky bee who gets eaten by the T-Rex while trying to get into the blockbuster store.

[01:13:57] Tim: Apparently, a wild [01:14:00] teaser trailer, the film’s teaser trailer was shown in 42 theaters with synchronized strobe lights installed to mimic lighting. This is the trailer for Lost Worlds shown in other films. Each setup costs $14,000 per theater, making it one of the most expensive trailers ever, with all the strobe lights and the music to mimic lightning during the trailer.

[01:14:24] Tim: So that’s, that’s interesting. 

[01:14:26] Donna: There were some interesting sound effects used to mimic dinosaur sounds. One was a baby camel provided the cries for the T-Rex baby dental floss un spooling became the radon screech. I need to listen to that again. How I, I how 

[01:14:45] Tim: sound Special effects. Effects are absolutely amazing.

[01:14:48] Tim: True, true original Star Wars, that famous clashing of the lightsabers comes from the wire that holds telephone poles, you know, uh, anchors them [01:15:00] to the ground that, uh, guy wires what we called it. Banging the guidewire. That’s what that came from. So sound special effects can be very interesting. 

[01:15:09] Donna: The last one to note is, you know, gonna be my favorite, of course.

[01:15:14] Donna: Cows mooing through tubes made up the Paris are aice call. And I wanna see the film where footage, where they got cows to move through tubes. 

[01:15:27] Tim: That would be interesting footage 

[01:15:30] Rebekah: that is, um, 

[01:15:31] Donna: I wanna see that one. 

[01:15:32] Rebekah: That better be some lost footage that we find. Uh, they also reused some of the animatronics from the first film.

[01:15:39] Rebekah: They had to replace all of their skin molds because the latex had deteriorated on the original ones. 

[01:15:45] Tim: Um, Julianne Moore, uh, said that the famous trailer dangling scene, uh, left her soaked and freezing. She later admitted the stunt harness and the fake rain made it one of the most uncomfortable shoots of her [01:16:00] career.

[01:16:00] Donna: Wow. And she was shot off a tower. Might’ve been after She said that was one of the most uncomfortable, but, uh, San Diego finale was not originally part of the plan. Spielberg wanted to save the idea of a dinosaur loose in a city for a third film, but he changed his mind just two months before shooting began.

[01:16:20] Donna: Sounds like a lot of stuff was like on the fly the farther we talk about this, 

[01:16:25] Tim: which may lead to this last piece of trivia. 

[01:16:28] Rebekah: So, Spielberg admitted, thank God that he wasn’t satisfied with the results of the sequel. Said he came in ready, overconfident and just felt like it was an act of hubris compared to the original, you know, at least he could admit it.

[01:16:43] Donna: Wow. We have final verdict of this thing all the way through for sure. 

[01:16:48] Tim: So, I have a question. You may, may not be able to answer it. If you could genetically engineer a creature, what would it be like? They, they put some of the things together. [01:17:00] Some of them were supposed to be specifically this type, but there were some that they genetically engineered to be a combination of different things.

[01:17:08] Tim: If you could do that, what creature would you create? 

[01:17:12] Rebekah: I would make a unicorn. That’s an easy question. 

[01:17:14] Tim: Somehow I knew that was going to happen. 

[01:17:16] Donna: You could pick my, I mean, you’d know mine too. 

[01:17:19] Tim: You’d want a cow the size of a dog so that you could keep it in the house, 

[01:17:23] Donna: but I wouldn’t mind if there was some llama attributes to it.

[01:17:27] Donna: Llama, owl, or, no? I like lau. I like lau better than comma. Nobody would get, comma, they would get loud. No, they wouldn’t get that either. 

[01:17:36] Tim: Kal Ladon. 

[01:17:37] Donna: Yeah, that’s it. Kal Ladon. Aw. So honey, what would you make? 

[01:17:42] Rebekah: Yes, dad, what’s yours? 

[01:17:43] Tim: I would, uh, create a dog that, that could let itself out and would not shed, 

[01:17:48] Rebekah: you know, all you have to do is a doggy door and just get a non shedding dog.

[01:17:52] Rebekah: Right. You don’t even have to engineer that. 

[01:17:54] Tim: This was a engineering question. 

[01:17:56] Rebekah: Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. A 

[01:17:57] Tim: genetical, but genetic [01:18:00] engineering, not physical. Yes. 

[01:18:01] Donna: It, it would be pretty cool to be able to train a dog to sit up over the commode and use the bathroom. 

[01:18:06] Tim: That’s true. Maybe that should have been it.

[01:18:08] Rebekah: So I don’t think any of you are confused about what our final verdicts are, but I will give one anyway. So the book for me, it was like a five outta 10. I had a hard time finishing it. The movie sucks. It’s a two outta 10. I, it’s like they added so much action and couldn’t keep me engaged at all. Like, none of it made any difference to me.

[01:18:28] Rebekah: I was just like. I don’t care about what happens. I even love Ian Malcolm and don’t care. Like, just all of that is like very messy for me. So not a great experience. The, it was a big letdown after the first as well, just ’cause the book and film are so good and to go from one to the next was like brutal.

[01:18:48] Rebekah: So definitely the book was better. But I would say especially you can, you can definitely tell that he didn’t wanna write this book and you could tell that that, um, Spielberg was not prepared to do this movie [01:19:00] justice. And so in my humble opinion, if you’re a Jurassic Park fan, you can absolutely skip it.

[01:19:05] Rebekah: Like read the first book. If you want to do that, you’ll enjoy it. Watch the first film. And honestly, the rest of the films, like, there’s probably one other one that I would say is like, really, really. Forgettable, but not as bad. It was not as egregious as this one. And so I’m glad we covered it. I’m glad we, ’cause I think it’s an interesting bit of information, um, and it gives us a lot to rage about.

[01:19:27] Rebekah: But yeah, that’s my opinion. 

[01:19:29] Donna: It’s very interesting to see what can happen from one thing that is massively successful to the next thing that is not, that doesn’t work. And, and we, we’ve established, like you said, he, he didn’t wanna do it. It was, it was an add-on. And I thought about other books, like other books that we didn’t cover.

[01:19:52] Donna: The subsequent stuff like Devil Wears Prada, where none of us were really, IM impressed with the novel. Like the [01:20:00] novel was such a letdown after we had all seen the movie, didn’t realize it was a novel. Went and read it and it was like, uh, but then when Rebecca looked at the subsequent novels after that.

[01:20:12] Donna: In that same group, I think what were there two or three? 

[01:20:15] Rebekah: I think there’s technically three total, but this, the third one was like way later. 

[01:20:20] Donna: Yeah. And when we looked at it, it was just like, what, what were you thinking? Almost like, oh, I don’t want this world to end, so I’m gonna, I agree with your thoughts about it.

[01:20:32] Donna: The, the movie, I don’t know if I’d say two, I might go, might go three or four. There were a few things interesting that got caught me, that, that were intriguing or whatever. Um, but so much of it was contrived and weird. And probably the biggest part for me, chemistry, there was not chemistry there to make this work.

[01:20:52] Donna: Especially after seeing Malcolm with Sam, Neil and I never can remember the actress’s name, [01:21:00] but seeing the first three of them in the first film, the, the original trio. Then seeing this, that, that bothered me too. So I’m gonna say one over the other. I’m gonna put the book over the movie. I did enjoy some parts of the book, some sections of it.

[01:21:17] Donna: There were a few places where I got a little lost in new characters and trying to sort them out. But in general I liked it better. I probably would give it a six. A six, or a little over a six. Um, not saying that I’m just gonna run and grab it again, but definitely look over film. 

[01:21:37] Tim: Alright, well it’s mine.

[01:21:39] Tim: Um, I would say I’d probably give the book a six, maybe a 6.5, and I would give the film either a four or five. Um, it was more enjoyable to watch this time than it was the first time. The reason I never watched the second time was because I just didn’t care for it. It [01:22:00] didn’t seem to fit. I didn’t like the way that things went.

[01:22:03] Tim: However. I’ve watched the third one multiple times. I really enjoy that, and I don’t think it’s just because Ian Malcolm is not in it because I like his character. I enjoy his character. But like we’ve said, a lot of it didn’t seem to hit, it seemed to be characters, didn’t have the right chemistry. This plot seemed to be unnecessary.

[01:22:29] Tim: This thing was awkward. Um, this was a movie that could have done with some tough editing, and I imagine that, to be honest, the book should have had some tougher editing as well. If it becomes fairly obvious that the writer didn’t want to continue to write these books, that that’s probably the wrong.

[01:22:59] Tim: Thing to [01:23:00] land on. Uh, you want to be able to say, you know, this is a wonderful way to conclude this book, but you don’t conclude it. Almost with malice. I’d give the movie, let’s, let’s say I’ll give the movie of five and I’d give the book a 6.5. Uh, I enjoyed it. I, I enjoyed a lot of, a lot of it. Um, I liked the book better than the movie, which works for the podcast, doesn’t it?

[01:23:29] Rebekah: Yeah, it really does. Well, thank you guys for being here with me in recording. We missed you, Josiah. Now if you get to this point and mention it, I will also give you a McDonald’s, uh, gift card. So just saying, just saying, I’m just saying, uh, anyway, if you would like to support the podcast, please leave us a five star rating or review.

[01:23:51] Rebekah: They are super, super helpful. Especially as we get into, uh, the hands or the ears, I guess, or the eyes maybe of more, [01:24:00] uh, people that enjoy reviews like this, uh, from the perspective that we offer. Uh, you can also support us on Patreon you can follow for free. It’s a great way to get email notifications when new episodes come out.

[01:24:10] Rebekah: If you sign up for a paid tier, you can also use that to join our Discord. Uh, and the, the link to that Patreon is in the episode description and you can find us on social media. At book is Better Pod. Uh, if you join Discord or connect with us on social, you can also ask us questions, interact with, uh, the crew and just, you know, request future episodes, whatever you want.

[01:24:33] Rebekah: And until next time, um, don’t take dinosaurs into the town of San Diego because it’s a really irresponsible choice. So 

[01:24:41] Tim: there are dinosaurs. Yes. Thank you. 

[01:24:44] Rebekah: I love it.[01:25:00] 

[01:25:02] Tim: Uh, the difference in the backstory leads the novels characters to Isla Sorna Sorna, Isla Sorna. 

[01:25:09] Donna: Isla Sorna 

[01:25:10] Tim: more by curiosity accident you say. 

[01:25:13] Rebekah: Did you say by curiosity? 

[01:25:14] Tim: I did.