I like it that you mentioned the book being effectively a higher rating - even thirty years' ago I thought what a missed opportunity to make the most scary monster movie ever - I mean an 18/R certificate movie - the 'raptors, after all, are a seriously cool monster. Deinonychus, that is - although showing them naked in the movie without any feathers and stuff is amusing.
But yes, if only a different director had done the movie. Spielberg always goes for the 'I have to sell it to kids' crap.
Other interesting change he made was in Jaws vs. the book - for what could be an obvious autobiographically psychological reason he leaves out the fact that the Dreyfuss character is having an affair with Brodie's wife, and ends up getting eaten in the shark cage... Hubris.
Plus, for some reason, there aren't any 'evil Germans' in Jurassic Park, which is somewhat atypical for Spielberg. Unlike, of course, the classic land that time forgot. or is it the people ttf? Oh how we miss Doug McClure...
Michael Crichton introduced me to the concept of Gell-Mann amnesia:
“You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
My favorite Crichton memory was when he wrote the editor of The Atlantic, Michael Crowley, who was critical of his climate skepticism, into one of his books as a pedophile with a small penis who was, like Crowley a media reporter and a Yale Graduate. The resemblance was so close (the book character was named 'Mick Crowley), editor Crowley sued. What a troll.
Went to high school with Michael Crichton's nephew. For whatever that connection is worth, which ain't much.
Always enjoyed his writing; the man had a gift for pulling new technologies out of the news, and then considering the implications. Jurassic Park was basically his take on what bringing species back could mean in terms of how we'd deal with them. What's ironic is that as we speak, there are people working on bringing back things like the woolly mammoth, and then releasing them into the taiga in order to recreate the ancient Pleistocene biome there. Good idea? Bad idea? No idea, myself.
Crichton had a rare gift for being able to communicate the implications of new things. I really have to wonder what he'd be writing, today...
I like it that you mentioned the book being effectively a higher rating - even thirty years' ago I thought what a missed opportunity to make the most scary monster movie ever - I mean an 18/R certificate movie - the 'raptors, after all, are a seriously cool monster. Deinonychus, that is - although showing them naked in the movie without any feathers and stuff is amusing.
But yes, if only a different director had done the movie. Spielberg always goes for the 'I have to sell it to kids' crap.
Other interesting change he made was in Jaws vs. the book - for what could be an obvious autobiographically psychological reason he leaves out the fact that the Dreyfuss character is having an affair with Brodie's wife, and ends up getting eaten in the shark cage... Hubris.
Plus, for some reason, there aren't any 'evil Germans' in Jurassic Park, which is somewhat atypical for Spielberg. Unlike, of course, the classic land that time forgot. or is it the people ttf? Oh how we miss Doug McClure...
Michael Crichton introduced me to the concept of Gell-Mann amnesia:
“You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
My favorite Crichton memory was when he wrote the editor of The Atlantic, Michael Crowley, who was critical of his climate skepticism, into one of his books as a pedophile with a small penis who was, like Crowley a media reporter and a Yale Graduate. The resemblance was so close (the book character was named 'Mick Crowley), editor Crowley sued. What a troll.
Likewise.
I'm glad you mentioned the GM-amnesia effect - means I don't have to waffle on about it.
Suffice to say it's the reason stupid people keep voting for politicians.
And doing what they tell them to do or thinking whatever they tell them to think whenever there's a manufactured crisis.
Went to high school with Michael Crichton's nephew. For whatever that connection is worth, which ain't much.
Always enjoyed his writing; the man had a gift for pulling new technologies out of the news, and then considering the implications. Jurassic Park was basically his take on what bringing species back could mean in terms of how we'd deal with them. What's ironic is that as we speak, there are people working on bringing back things like the woolly mammoth, and then releasing them into the taiga in order to recreate the ancient Pleistocene biome there. Good idea? Bad idea? No idea, myself.
Crichton had a rare gift for being able to communicate the implications of new things. I really have to wonder what he'd be writing, today...
Every time I hear "We can bring back dinosaurs!" my first thought is "I've read this book and seen these movies. Why?
Because it'd be cool...
Which, along with "But... They did so *well* on all the tests..." is gonna be the epitaph for our civilization...