10 Biggest Differences Between The Lost World: Jurassic Park Book & The Movie

Summary

The Lost World: Jurassic Park
deviates significantly from Michael Crichton’s book, with Spielberg’s own additions.
Spielberg’s film introduces new characters like Peter Ludlow not in the original book, shifting the narrative.
Key changes like Eddie’s death, the T-Rex in San Diego, and Sarah’s role make the movie a Hollywood twist on the novel.

There are many differences between The Lost World: Jurassic Park and the book that it is based on, The Lost World. Written by Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton, The Lost World provided a sequel to 1990’s Jurassic Park on 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 Park is one of the best Jurassic Park movies.

The series started by Spielberg’s Jurassic Park is one of the highest-grossing movie franchises in the world, signaling the importance and impact of Crichton’s books. Although Jurassic Park was a more faithful adaptation than The Lost World: Jurassic Park , the second movie in the series took a lot from The 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.

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10 John Hammond Only Featured In The Movie

Richard Attenborough’s Character Died In Book One

John Hammond appeared in The Lost World: Jurassic Park but had died already in the book version of the story. As John Hammond in Jurassic Park and The 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, David Attenborough presented wildlife documentaries that 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.

9 Peter Ludlow Was An Original Character

There Was No Peter Ludlow In The Book

The Lost World: Jurassic Park inserted 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 for The Lost World: Jurassic Park while Crichton was writing The Lost World, so the final movie included many original elements, such as Ludlow. Ludlow was Machiavellian like Dodgson, grabbing power from Hammond, but wasn’t quite as ruthless.

8 Lewis Dodgson Wasn’t In The Movie

Dodgson Was The Book’s Antagonist

Lewis Dodgson was played by Cameron Thor in 1993’s seminal Jurassic Park, but did not feature in its sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Despite this, Dodgson was the main antagonist of Michael Crichton’s sequel to Jurassic Park, The Lost World. Dodgson didn’t appear until later in the Jurassic Park timeline in Jurassic World Dominion, released in 2022, but was played by a different actor.

Campbell Scott portrayed Dodgson in Jurassic 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 in The Lost World was largely assumed by Peter Ludlow.

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7 A New Attraction Was Being Planned In The Movie

There Was No Attraction Planned In The Book

The Lost World: Jurassic Park redid 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 sense for the franchise as a whole, as this tourist spectacle conceit went on to be repeated, with success, in four more Jurassic Park pictures.

In The 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.

6 Kelly Malcolm Was Ian’s Daughter In The Movie

Kelly Was Unrelated To Ian In The Book

Jeff Goldblum’s iconic Ian Malcolm had a daughter named Kelly in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, but didn’t in the novel. In Crichton’s Lost 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 the Jurassic Park movies excellently, with his conscientious character provoking audience pathos. Spielberg built on Goldblum’s success here in The Lost World: Jurassic Park by making the novel’s Kelly his daughter. Malcolm’s daughter added extra emotional impact and kept the audience invested in the franchise’s hero.

5 Arby Benton Was Cut From The Movie

Kelly Had A Friend In The Book

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’s Jurassic Park books were largely targeted at adults. Arby was one of the Jurassic Park book characters cut from the movie – Spielberg found him an unnecessary addition. Spielberg was trying to limit the cast to increase focus on his key characters and deepen the audience’s bond with them.

Scarlett Johansson is set to star in the upcoming
Jurassic World 4
movie.

Benton was Black, which was a trait that Spielberg gave to Kelly, the novel character he did keep in his movie. In this sense, the Kelly in The Lost World: Jurassic Park was an amalgamation of Crichton’s characters Kelly and Arby. Elements of Arby’s character were adapted into later Jurassic Park releases, like Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Franklin Webb) and Camp Cretaceous (Darius Bowman).

4 Sarah 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 in The 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 in The 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.

3 Eddie Rescued The Baby T-Rex In The Book

Nick Helped T-Rex In The Movie

A central part of the plot of both Crichton’s Lost World and Spielberg’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park was 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.

2 Velociraptors 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, but Eddie’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 in The Lost World: Jurassic Park and 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-Rex that pulled him from the vehicle and ripped him in half.

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1 T.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 dramatic dinosaurs of the Jurassic Park franchise. 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 incomplete Jurassic Park amphitheater 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, likening The Lost World: Jurassic Park to Godzilla or King Kong movies and making the dinosaur threat feel closer to home for the audience.

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Following up on the Steven Spielberg classic adapted from the works of Michael Crichton, The Lost World: Jurassic Park is an action-adventure film that changes perspective and focuses on Jeff Goldblum’s Dr. Ian Malcolm as he is sent to investigate Isla Sorna as InGen attempts to resolve its financial woes by selling dinosaurs off to create a new theme park. However, as Malcolm warns the executives of the danger of this, terror is brought stateside when the previously contained threats run loose.

Cast Jeff Goldblum , Julianne Moore , Pete Postlethwaite Director Steven Speilberg Release Date May 19, 1997 Studio(s) Universal Pictures Distributor(s) Universal Pictures Writers Steven Speilberg Runtime 134minutes Expand