Summary
There are many differences betweenThe Lost World: Jurassic Parkand the book that it is based on,The Lost World.Written byJurassic Parkauthor Michael Crichton,The Lost Worldprovided a sequel to 1990’sJurassic Parkon its publication in 1995. After the critical and commercial success of Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Crichton’s first novel, Spielberg’s team went after a sequel. It was this push that resulted in Crichton’s sequel, which formed the basis of the movie, alongside Spielberg’s own imaginings. To this day,The Lost World: Jurassic Parkis one of the bestJurassic Parkmovies.
The series started by Spielberg’sJurassic Parkis one ofthe highest-grossing movie franchisesin the world, signaling the importance and impact of Crichton’s books. AlthoughJurassic Parkwas a more faithful adaptation thanThe Lost World: Jurassic Park,the second movie in the series took a lot fromThe Lost World, even though Crichton hadn’t even finished the novel when Spielberg started planning the movie. The myriad differences between the book and the movie highlight Spielberg’s mastery in adapting a story for the big screen while leaving scope for a more faithful adaptation of the book to be made.
Every Deleted Scene From 1993’s Jurassic Park Explained
Jurassic Park is known for its heart-stopping suspense and impressive animatronics. However, not every scene from the classic made the final cut.
10John Hammond Only Featured In The Movie
Richard Attenborough’s Character Died In Book One
John Hammond appeared inThe Lost World: Jurassic Parkbut had died already in the book version of the story. As John Hammond inJurassic ParkandThe Lost World: Jurassic Park,Richard Attenborough introduced a generation of wildlife and history fans to dinosaurs, which was appropriate considering his famous brother David’s contribution to biology. Attenborough was the perfect choice to play Hammond, perfectly capturing the themes of Crichton’s brilliant books, with his family connection providing extra symbolism.
As the face of the BBC’s wildlife programming,DavidAttenborough presented wildlife documentariesthat never failed to highlight humanity’s devastating impact on nature. Playing profiteer Hammond, who exploited dinosaurs for profit to a disastrous end, Richard Attenborough demonstrated that nature could also have a devastating impact on humanity. This somehow served the endangered species of David Attenborough’s documentaries a kind of poetic justice.
9Peter Ludlow Was An Original Character
There Was No Peter Ludlow In The Book
The Lost World: Jurassic Parkinserted an original character, Peter Ludlow, as its villain. In the movie’s source material,The Lost World,villain duty was taken up by Lewis Dodgson, who was also the villain of the first novel. In the movie,Ludlow was John Hammond’s nephew, and intent on generating more capital from dinosaurs. Ludlow was trying to evade the bankruptcy of the company behind the dinosaur theme park, InGen.
This was not a major reflection of the importance of either Ludlow or Dodgon, but rather a reflection of the writing process of the movie. Spielberg was already developing a script forThe Lost World: Jurassic Parkwhile Crichton was writingThe Lost World,sothe final movie included many original elements, such as Ludlow. Ludlow was Machiavellian like Dodgson, grabbing power from Hammond, but wasn’t quite as ruthless.
8Lewis Dodgson Wasn’t In The Movie
Dodgson Was The Book’s Antagonist
Lewis Dodgson was played by Cameron Thor in 1993’s seminalJurassic Park, but did not feature in its sequel,The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Despite this,Dodgson was the main antagonist of Michael Crichton’s sequeltoJurassic Park,The Lost World. Dodgson didn’t appear until later intheJurassic ParktimelineinJurassic World Dominion, released in 2022, but was played by a different actor.
Campbell Scott portrayed Dodgson inJurassic World Dominion, building on the franchise’s depiction of Dodgson as a villain. Needless to say, without any source material to go on in this movie, Dodgson appeared quite different from the villain of the novels. However,Dodgson’s important role as antagonist inThe Lost Worldwas largely assumed by Peter Ludlow.
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Jurassic Park had plans to include more dinosaurs, and while some have since been explored on screen in new movies, some remain sadly unadapted.
7A New Attraction Was Being Planned In The Movie
There Was No Attraction Planned In The Book
The Lost World: Jurassic Parkredid the basic idea of the first movie in the franchise, in the sense of navigating the dangers of a dinosaur attraction. This element had been removed from Crichton’s second novel,The Lost World.Spielberg’s decision to keep running with the central tenet of movie one ended up making sensefor the franchise as a whole, as this tourist spectacle conceit went on to be repeated, with success, in four moreJurassic Parkpictures.
InThe Lost World,it was not managing through the huge commercial enterprise of a dinosaur tourist attraction that led protagonist Ian Malcolm to Isla Sorna. Malcolm was approached by Richard Levine in the novel about strange animal bodies showing up on shores, and was persuaded to finally visit Isla Sorna after Levine went missing.Site B was operative in the novel, as it was in the movie, but Malcolm’s focus was on finding Levine and getting home, instead of preventing an attraction opening.
6Kelly Malcolm Was Ian’s Daughter In The Movie
Kelly Was Unrelated To Ian In The Book
Jeff Goldblum’s iconic IanMalcolm had a daughter named Kelly inThe Lost World: Jurassic Park, but didn’t in the novel. In Crichton’sLost World,Malcolm ended up being joined on Isla Sorna by two children who stowed away on the boat - Kelly Curtis and R. B. “Arby” Benton. These kids were working as Levine’s research assistants in the book.
Goldblum’s Malcolm set the tone of theJurassic Parkmovies excellently, with his conscientious character provoking audience pathos. Spielberg built on Goldblum’s success here inThe Lost World: Jurassic Parkby making the novel’s Kelly his daughter.Malcolm’s daughter added extra emotional impactand kept the audience invested in the franchise’s hero.
5Arby Benton Was Cut From The Movie
The book’s Kelly Curtis stowed away on the boat to Isla Sorna with her friend, R. B. “Arby” Benton. Both of these children appealed to younger readers of Crichton’s work, although Crichton’sJurassic Parkbooks were largely targeted at adults. Arby was one of theJurassic Parkbook characters cut from the movie- Spielberg found him an unnecessary addition.Spielberg was trying to limit the castto increase focus on his key characters and deepen the audience’s bond with them.
Scarlett Johansson is set to star in the upcomingJurassic World 4movie.
Benton was Black, which was a trait that Spielberg gave to Kelly, the novel character he did keep in his movie. In this sense, theKelly inThe Lost World: Jurassic Parkwas an amalgamation of Crichton’s charactersKelly and Arby. Elements of Arby’s character were adapted into laterJurassic Parkreleases, likeJurassic World: Fallen Kingdom(Franklin Webb) andCamp Cretaceous(Darius Bowman).
4Sarah Was Ian’s Girlfriend In The Movie
Sarah Was Just A Friend In The Book
Along the same lines as giving Ian Malcolm a daughter was Steven Spielberg’s choice to give Malcolm a girlfriend inThe Lost World: Jurassic Park.Sarah Harding was also a character in Crichton’s novel, but she was just a friend, although a close one. Spielberg was building out Malcolm as a lovable protagonist, and upping the stakes of the danger on Isla Sorna.
Julianne Moore’s Sarah Harding was a memorable character inThe Lost World: Jurassic Park,providing a caring counterpoint to the greed of Ludlow and his team.The romance Moore brought made the movie more commercial than the novel, and her heroics were also a highlight in the movie, as she sedated the T-Rex in San Diego. Harding didn’t do this in the novel, as she never went to San Diego.
3Eddie Rescued The Baby T-Rex In The Book
Nick Helped T-Rex In The Movie
A central part of the plot of both Crichton’sLost Worldand Spielberg’sThe Lost World: Jurassic Parkwas the fatal error of rescuing a T-Rex baby when it had hurt its leg, but the movie and book differed in their portrayal of this.In the book, Malcolm found an injured T-Rex infant in its nest and asked Eddie to kill it, but Eddie disobediently brought it back to the trailer. When discovered, Malcolm and Harding reluctantly set a cast on the dinosaur’s leg.
In the movie, it was Nick who rescued a baby T-Rex, and this infant had been used as bait by Ludlow’s team to lure its parents into capture. In both the movie and book, of course, the T-Rex parents followed their stolen child and attacked the protagonists. Unfortunately for Eddie, he paid the price for Nick’s foolishness in the movie, whereas Nick survived the T-Rex attack.
2Velociraptors Killed Eddie In Crichton’s Novel
Eddie Died Differently In The Movie
Eddie was a character in the field of engineering in both Crichton’s novel and Spielberg’s movie, butEddie’s death in the movie differed from his death in the book. Eddie Carr was the assistant of an engineer named Jack “Doc” Thorne in the novel, and he met his end at the hands of velociraptors. The dinosaurs attacked Eddie in a high hide and killed him, although Malcolm and his family survived the night.
Eddie was an engineer in his own right inThe Lost World: Jurassic Parkand died in the jaws of T-Rex, instead of the velociraptor of the book. In the movie, Eddie was trying to rescue Ian, Sarah, and Nick, whose trailer had been pushed over a cliff by a T-Rex. Having winched the trailer to his SUV and started driving,Eddie’s heroics were cut short by two T-Rexthat pulled him from the vehicle and ripped him in half.
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My key learnings watching all Jurassic Park movies, from the 1993 original to the Jurassic World era, ranged from the scientific to the philosophical.
1T.Rex Was Loose In San Diego In The Movie
The Movie Invented The San Diego Scenes
The movie diverged from the source material, perhaps most significantly in its ending, whereby Spielberg put a distinctly Hollywood twist on Crichton’s story. T-Rex was key to the climax of both the book and the movie, confirming its position as one of the most dramaticdinosaurs of theJurassic Parkfranchise. However,T-Rex stayed on Isla Sorna in the book, whereas it traveled to San Diego in the movie.
Spielberg put a distinctly Hollywood twist on Crichton’s story.
In the movie, Ludlow shipped T-Rex from Isla Sorna to San Diego in an attempt to revive an incompleteJurassic Parkamphitheater attraction that was being worked on before Jurassic Park was chosen instead. Predictably, this went horribly wrong.Ludlow’s plan resulted in riotous scenes of T.rex terrorizing San Diego, likeningThe Lost World: Jurassic ParktoGodzillaorKing Kongmovies and making the dinosaur threat feel closer to home for the audience.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Cast
The Lost World: Jurassic Park, directed by Steven Spielberg, follows Ian Malcolm as he joins an expedition to document dinosaurs on a remote island where they’ve been secretly bred by John Hammond. Set four years after the events in Jurassic Park, this action thriller explores the challenges of observing these prehistoric creatures.
