A Franchise, uh, Finds a Way... I Finally Read Jurassic Park

I don't recall the first time I watched Jurassic Park. It's been a part of my life so long that I couldn't tell you when I first saw it, or how it came to be one of my top ten movies, even if I was under oath. 

Where other beloved franchises (The Cornetto Trilogy, Doctor Who, Sherlock Holmes) have clear 'before and after' lines in my life, Jurassic Park's universe seems to have always been there, being awesome - or at least enjoyably awful. 

I certainly didn't see it when it came out. Even if my parents were the sort to take me to see blockbusters regularly (they weren't) I was still only five in 1993. Yet its claws still reached me... we did a dinosaur project at school for which I received a Jurassic Park notebook that has stayed in my memory far longer than whatever I actually won the prize for. My guess is that I eventually saw the movie on TV, on a night when not much else was on, and regular repeats cemented my love for it. 

I always vaguely meant to read the book, but was put off by someone I know (I don't recall who) telling me it was extremely technical and dull. I somehow still managed to acquire a digital copy (and no I don't remember doing that either). I don't even recall what led to me actually deciding to read it this month. 

Should I be concerned that I remember literally nothing when it comes to this series? Am I under a spell? What is happening?

I was braced to hate the book, if only because the Jurassic Park franchise lets me down at every turn: I am its willing victim. There has not been a genuinely good movie since the original, and the Jurassic World films are so bad that I wholeheartedly enjoy them as laugh-out-loud comedies. Chris Pratt body-rolling away from flowing lava still brings a hysterical tear to my eye. Things are better on the game front; Jurassic World Lego is so unexpectedly fantastic that I have sunk more hours into it than any grown woman ought. 

The book actually sits in a somewhat awkward spot between science fiction, capitalist dystopia and thriller. Each of those aspects have individual moments of brilliance, but spend most of the book getting in each other's way. The miraculous wonder of the scientific achievement is skewered by the rants about the inherent awfulness of the science used to make them, and every time the thriller aspect gains momentum it is stalled by yet another conversation about how the computer systems work, which is already frustrating to a reader living in 2024. I was left thinking that what the book needed was a ruthless editor - and in many ways the movie was that editor.  

The same goes for the characters, who are more-or-less present and correct. Only one major character is completely cut by the movie, and the rest feel like early, unrealised versions of themselves. Grant loves children (and as heroes go, is somewhat bland), Ellie is much more of a student than an equal (with no hint of romance, thankfully), and Hammond has none of the contradictory subtlety of Attenborough, but is just a man who gives speeches like a bond villain, about how helping the world never made anyone a profit. Wu (the scientist) has a larger role, as does Arnold (Samuel L Jackson); they are both victims of sunk-cost-fallacy who realise that too late to save themselves.    

The real issue is the children. Tim and Lex have their ages reversed, which has the unfortunate outcome of making Lex deeply irritating. The petted seven-year-old granddaughter of a billionaire is not who you want with you during any situation involving dinosaurs. I both admired the realism of it - any kid who isn't interested in dinosaurs, hasn't eaten in hours, and got knocked unconscious by a T-Rex is going to be whiny and annoying - but it's hard not to want to shake some sense into her when she's cross at being given a candy bar instead of ice-cream during a power-cut. The movie making Tim younger but genuinely interested, and Lex more 'teenage' but also more useful was a smart choice.  

What I did love was the brutality of the book, which doesn't look politely away from the reality of surrounding oneself with wild animals who are essentially alien species to us. The slow build up of raptors attacking - and killing - babies in the first few chapters is a hint of what's to come. Throughout the book the attacks on human are grisly, but so are the attacks on other animals. Their beastliness burst out of the page in a way the best CGI in the world can't. 

This is a book destined to live in the shadow of its own franchise - which is a shame because even the most churlish reader couldn't help but consider it a masterpiece of science-fiction. Much like the concept of Jurassic Park itself, capitalism has morphed the original concept of this serious book into something it can slap onto a lunchbox.

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