What would Michael Crichton have thought about Jurassic World?

This is a fairly tricky, open-ended question to posit because it requires us to imagine what the late Crichton would thought about a film in a franchise that had taken quite a few liberties with his extant books already, and was not as tonally mature. We know he worked on only the first film and was fine with the changes made to make the story work on screen, and he was mostly okay with the two sequels, or at least, didn't hold any ill will towards Spielberg and Johnston despite the reception of those two films not standing up to the first film. Its also interesting to note that the film as we know it resembles an earlier draft of Crichton's novel which focused on a little boy exploring the titular dinosaur theme park when the disaster strikes, but neither he nor his editors and colleagues liked the angle of this draft, and so he reformed it to be from a primarily adult perspective and became a much darker story as a result.

When people who hated/didn't like Jurassic World try to give their arguments more weight and throw shade on the opposite side of the argument, they use phrases like "this is an insult to Michael Crichton" or "Michael Crichton is turning in his grave" - (again, ComicbookGirl19 springs to mind).

But does a statement like that hold any water? Apart from not being able to come up with any ideas on how to continue the franchise after The Lost World, he wasn't exactly openly critical about either film. The last time a Crichton novel was adapted for the big screen was Richard Donner's Timeline and he was so pissed off by it that he forbade further adaptations of his books afterwards. That film was such an over-simplified and dumbed-down version of Crichton's more interesting book that it wasn't even dumb, campy popcorn fun like Frank Marshall's Congo. That film was panned by critics and most audiences (despite making a profit) but I've yet to read anything from him suggesting he cared to notice it.

I remember him saying on a special feature for The Lost World DVD that he expects directors and screenwriters to take liberties with any given source material, and that its basically their job to do so whilst still staying true to the spirit of the text. And we all know that the Lost World film is a very loose adaptation of the novel.

So, based on our collective knowledge of the franchise from books to movies, do any of you guys have any theories or ideas on how Crichton would have responded to Jurassic World?

I wouldn't go as far as Comic Book Girl 19, but I do say that as someone who's become a person who likes Jurassic World more then I should, I think he wouldn't be that interested in it. Not unless he had more of a say. The original script for JP3 would have been more at home, but given how that got thrown out, how JP3 was a trainwreck that crippled the franchise, and all the chaos that went to get JW made, I'm not sure if he would think it was worth it, not without his input.

I once said that I'd like a JW/JP movie where another company makes dinosaurs in the jungles of Africa where dinosaur sightings have taking place. That might be more to his liking.

Rhedosaurus wrote:

I wouldn't go as far as Comic Book Girl 19, but I do say that as someone who's become a person who likes Jurassic World more then I should, I think he wouldn't be that interested in it. Not unless he had more of a say. The original script for JP3 would have been more at home, but given how that got thrown out, how JP3 was a trainwreck that crippled the franchise, and all the chaos that went to get JW made, I'm not sure if he would think it was worth it, not without his input.

I once said that I'd like a JW/JP movie where another company makes dinosaurs in the jungles of Africa where dinosaur sightings have taking place. That might be more to his liking.

What was the story for the original jp3 script?

Considering he walked off the Jurassic Park 3 project about a week into pre-production because he couldn't come up with a story that made sense (and how he was basically pressured into writing The Lost World by both his fans and Spielberg so they had something to go off of for a sequel (TLW was the only sequel to any of his books he ever penned btw))...probably neutral.

Herrerasaurus wrote:

Rhedosaurus wrote:

I wouldn't go as far as Comic Book Girl 19, but I do say that as someone who's become a person who likes Jurassic World more then I should, I think he wouldn't be that interested in it. Not unless he had more of a say. The original script for JP3 would have been more at home, but given how that got thrown out, how JP3 was a trainwreck that crippled the franchise, and all the chaos that went to get JW made, I'm not sure if he would think it was worth it, not without his input.

I once said that I'd like a JW/JP movie where another company makes dinosaurs in the jungles of Africa where dinosaur sightings have taking place. That might be more to his liking.

What was the story for the original jp3 script?

It was supposed to be about a virus affecting the dinosaurs on Sorna.

IIRC he did not like that Spielberg had him write TLW and then Spielberg went an entirely different direction with the film feeling he couldn't use the plot. That started him on the path of disliking the adaptations to his novels. Yes he feels liberties should be taken but I am guessing he wants something that still resembles the plot. HUnters vs gatherers was like thinner than a piece of paper in resemblance.

Anyway, while he MAY have been apathetic, I don't think he'd have liked JW at all for one crucial reason: Open Park. His whole spiel by his avatar character in Malcolm was that this would never work, the problems would crop up and the park was doomed to fail before it began. Cascading systematic failures would make the park an impossibility to succeed, let alone open. So JW should have never gotten to like 10-15 years open. And then he would have hated the heck out of I rex because it defeated his idea to try to exhibit the animals as realistically as possible. And while all of them are frankenstein's monster it wasn't the intent of the park administration to purposely make that so; you just can't have a real dinosaur in the form of triceratops or t. rex without it being a corruption of the original animal. Nor were they splicing DNA together to make hybrid "dinosaurs". Kind of sullies the idea of a true blue dinosaur and his characters never had the desire or motivation to accomplish that apart from Wu who was shot down completely.

It is like making ET and using the angle that the ET species were a bunch of incorporeal, genocidal maniacs and they are invading Earth next week. Or the War of the Worlds aliens were tree-hugging pacifists that merely wanted to take humans to their home to begin unilateral peace & trade talks and those ensuing negotiations were the brunt of the film. Just the opposite of what was being attempted to convey.

I think he would have been a bit more positive than with 3 though.

Didn't he like the adaptation of CONGO? If he liked that then i would see no reason why he would not like Jurassic world.

Rhedosaurus wrote:

Herrerasaurus wrote:

Rhedosaurus wrote:

I wouldn't go as far as Comic Book Girl 19, but I do say that as someone who's become a person who likes Jurassic World more then I should, I think he wouldn't be that interested in it. Not unless he had more of a say. The original script for JP3 would have been more at home, but given how that got thrown out, how JP3 was a trainwreck that crippled the franchise, and all the chaos that went to get JW made, I'm not sure if he would think it was worth it, not without his input.

I once said that I'd like a JW/JP movie where another company makes dinosaurs in the jungles of Africa where dinosaur sightings have taking place. That might be more to his liking.

What was the story for the original jp3 script?

It was supposed to be about a virus affecting the dinosaurs on Sorna.

I don't see anything about a virus. Wow so it was Joe Johston's fault ellie and grant split!

Remember, he didn't even want to write The Lost World and was more or less strongarmed by Spielberg into writing it so he could base the sequel off of it, so he'd probably be neutral/apathetic towards it. He might have a little more interest in Fallen Kingdom, however.

The whole premise of JW is very much *Crichton*, I'm sure he would've approved.