Persephone's Pomegranate's Reviews > Jurassic Park

I can't decide between embracing my nerdy side or indulging in my love for pop culture. Jurassic Park is incredibly entertaining and impactful, although the scientific inaccuracies bothered me.

Dinosaurs hold a special place in my heart, just as they do for the majority of people around the globe. Steven Spielberg's film sparked the interest of many and motivated kids to pursue paleontology. While Jurassic Park isn't my top Spielberg pick (that honor goes to Jaws), I still enjoy it.

WARNING: SPOILERS

Even though some of the Jurassic Park movies suck, I still find myself enjoying them. I love the original, second installment, and fourth movie the most. Rexy, the female T-Rex featured in movies 1, 4, 5, and 6, is my favorite character in the franchise, closely followed by the velociraptor Blue. The fact that my preferred characters happen to be carnivorous dinosaurs speaks volumes about human characterization.

I love Raptor Red (the author of RR was mentioned in Jurassic Park), it's my all-time favorite dinosaur book. I've been avoiding reading Jurassic Park for years, but I finally gave in and decided to give it a try.

Dangerous apex predators confined in captivity for tourists to gawk at, leading to fatal consequences as people begin to die? A park making hybrids that don't exist in the wild?

That could NEVER happen in real life.



I'll never miss a chance to mention Seaworld and orcas, even if the book has nothing to do with them. Marine animals are 50% of my personality. I'm sorry.

I'm being a hypocrite because I'd be the first in line to visit a real-life Jurassic Park (and the first to die).

The real T-Rex possessed far greater strength and abilities compared to its fictionalized version, while the real velociraptors were significantly smaller than their fictional counterparts. Dino nerds sometimes playfully draw parallels between velociraptors and turkeys. However, it's important to remember that turkeys and geese should not be underestimated, especially if you've had a run-in with a goose in your childhood years. It's not a good time.

I was curious to see how the T-Rex in the book differs from the one in the movie. I have a soft spot for the Tyrant Lizard Queen (or Rexy, as she's affectionately called by fans). I stan a powerful female character, even if she has visual and olfactory impairments.

Grant whispered, “He's here.”

“She,” Malcolm said.

The most famous predator in the history of the world: the mighty tyrant lizard, known as Tyrannosaurus rex.”

The dinosaur must be somewhere among the trees, but for a moment Grant could see nothing at all. Then he realized he was looking too low: the animal's head stood twenty feet above the ground, half concealed among the upper branches of the palm trees.

Malcolm whispered, “Oh, my God.... She's as large as a bloody building....”

Grant stared at the enormous square head, five feet long, mottled reddish brown, with huge jaws and fangs. The tyrannosaur's jaws worked once, opening and closing. But the huge animal did not emerge from hiding.

Malcolm whispered: “How long will it wait?”

“Maybe three or four minutes. Maybe-”

The tyrannosaur sprang silently forward, fully revealing her enormous body. In four bounding steps she covered the distance to the goat, bent down, and bit it through the neck. The bleating stopped.
There was silence.

Poised over her kill, the tyrannosaur became suddenly hesitant.

Her massive head turned on the muscular neck, looking in all directions. She stared fixedly at the Land Cruiser, high above on the hill.

Regis said, on the intercom. “Let's see if she's going to eat here in front of us, or if she's going to drag the prey away.”

The tyrannosaur bent down, and sniffed the carcass of the goat.

A bird chirped: her head snapped up, alert, watchful. She looked back and forth, scanning in small jerking shifts.

The huge animal bent over the goat again. One great hind limb held the carcass in place as the jaws began to tear the flesh.

“She's going to stay,” Regis whispered. “Excellent.” The tyrannosaur lifted her head again, ragged chunks of bleeding flesh in her jaws. She stared at the Land Cruiser. She began to chew. They heard the sickening crunch of bones.

And then, as if caution had finally gotten the better of her, the tyrannosaur lifted the remains of the goat in her jaws and carried it silently back among the trees.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Tyrannosaurus rex, ” the tape said. The Land Cruisers started up, and moved silently off, through the foliage. Malcolm sat back in his seat. “Fantastic,” he said.

Gennaro wiped his forehead. He looked pale.


I need to talk about the one thing that really bothered me: T-Rex's vision was based on movement. 🤔 That is completely incorrect. I don't want to be too critical of Michael Crichton because the book came out in 1990, and he received that information from a shitty paleontologist who wrongly claimed that T-Rex had poor eyesight. Scientists have discovered that T-Rex had incredible vision comparable to, or even better than, that of a hawk.

Science is always advancing, and we have discovered that T-Rex possessed not just amazing vision, but also exceptional hearing and sense of smell.




Important characters:

Dr. Alan Grant, paleontologist: cool, silently judging everyone, the only man in the book who deserves human rights.

Dr. Ellie Sattler, paleobotanist: deserves a Nobel prize for putting up with the men in the book, likes a cold beer on a warm day, and is very very very passionate about plants.

John Hammond, founder of InGen and creator of Jurassic Park: egomaniacal grandpa.

Dr. Ian Malcolm, mathematician: an annoying arrogant chauvinist fixated on chaos theory who never stops talking. He kept yapping about nothing throughout the whole book. Much, much more likable in the movie.

Donald Gennaro, lawyer: what does it imply about the characterization when the most tolerable male character, aside from Dr. Grant, happens to be a lawyer? Very different from the film version.

Dr. Henry Wu, the chief geneticist of InGen: brought dinosaurs back from extinction. Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis The Wise Henry Wu?

Tim and Lex Murphy: Hammond's grandchildren. Is it wrong to call an eight-year-old girl a psychopath? She's more terrible than her grandpappy. Instead of being traumatized, she was mildly annoyed when she found a human ear. She bullied her older brother, insulted the dinosaurs, and complained about being hungry the entire time. LEX PEOPLE ARE DYING.

First gen Velociraptors: an unhinged carnivorous girl band.

T-Rex: she might have small arms but she'll steal your heart (and the rest of your organs). It's quite amusing how Rexy sometimes gazes out of her enclosure at the other animals, her little arms twitching in frustration, just like my cat Edward when he stares at the birds from the window, his tiny whiskers twitching in frustration.

⚠️ STOP READING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE ENDING. ⚠️

The book contains more graphic violence than the movie, and a higher number of characters meet their demise. Another distinction is that Grant likes kids, and he and Ellie are not romantically involved. Malcolm and Hammond are much more likable in the movie. I know I previously expressed my dislike for Hammond, but I feel compelled to reiterate it. It was quite satisfying to see him meet his end at the claws of dinosaurs. His greedy ass is not seeing the pearly gates.

I find the movie's ending much more appealing. In the book, the army arrives with helicopters and begins bombing the dinosaurs, which as an animal lover, I absolutely despised. I understand that dinosaurs became extinct millions of years ago and that this book is a work of fiction, but I just can't bear to read about the death of animals.

The last conversation gave me a glimmer of hope. It turns out that there's a possibility that some of the dinosaurs might have survived. I'll imagine they did. We know the T-Rex from the first Jurassic Park film is the same one in the sequel trilogy. Rexy might have perished in the book, but it's uncertain. I prefer the movie's ending, where she survives. If Rexy made it through in the movie universe, she can make it through in the book universe. Don't burst my bubble.



I enjoyed Jurassic Park, but I can only give it a three-star rating due to the dinosaur deaths, the sexism Ellie encountered, the overabundance of characters, and irrelevant details. I'm happy Hammond met his end in the book, he should have met the same fate in the movie too. From the start, I despised him when I discovered he hid the real cause of his workers' deaths. I couldn't stand him or his scientists.

P.S. Dr. Grant and Tim should be awarded a Nobel Prize for not throwing Lex to the T-Rex.

Grant was too tired to feel much of anything. He turned away, and looked back out the door. It was getting dark now, and in the fading light he could barely see the little rex, with bloody jaws, crouched over a hadrosaur by the edge of the lagoon and looking up at the helicopter and roaring as it passed by.

Somewhere behind them they heard explosions, and then ahead they saw another helicopter wheeling through the mist over the visitor center, and a moment later the building burst in a bright orange fireball, and Lex began to cry, and Ellie put her arm around her and tried to get her not to look.

Grant was staring down at the ground, and he had a last glimpse of the hypsilophodonts, leaping gracefully as gazelles, moments before another explosion flared bright beneath them. Their helicopter gained altitude, and then moved cast, out over the ocean. Grant sat back in his seat. He thought of the dinosaurs standing on the beach, and he wondered where they would migrate if they could, and he realized he would never know, and he felt sad and relieved in the same moment.