|
The Lost World by Michael Crichton
Amazon.com Written in the wake of Jurassic Park's phenomenal box-office success, The Lost World seems as much a guidebook for Hollywood types hard at work on the franchise's followup as it is a legitimate sci-fi thriller. Which begs the inevitable questions: Is the plot a rehash of the first book? Sure it is, with the action unfolding on yet another secluded island, the mysterious "Site B." Is the cast of characters basically the same? Absolutely, from a freshly minted pair of cute, compu-savvy kids right down to the neatly exhumed chaos theorist Ian Malcolm (who was presumed dead at the close of JP). But is it fun to read? You betcha. Hollywood (and Michael Crichton) keeps telling us the same old stories for a very good reason: we like them. And the pulp SF formula Crichton has mastered with Jurassic Park and The Lost World is no exception. --Paul Hughes Reader Reviews It stinks!, September 4, 2003 Reviewer: dbooster Let's reflect, shall we? The first book ended with Grant trapped in Costa Rica. The government refused to permit him to leave. He reflected on the fact that they refused to allow them to bury Hammond and Malcolm too. We are led to believe this is all because raptors are on the loose in Costa Rica, moving in bizarre migration patterns, eating lysine-rich foods (they were all made lysine dependent when they were cloned), and that the government is going to eventually want Grant to find and kill them. How do we go from that to the abomination that is this book? Can anyone draw me a logical line here? I don't know the story behind the scenes, but I do remember Spielberg promised a sequel to the first movie long before this book appeared. It would seem hollywood threw money at Crichton to do the screenplay and he decided to publish it as a novel first. So the anwser is clear: This is a sequal to the first movie, not the first book. This would easily explain everything, including why Malcolm is back from the dead (he didn't die in the movie). What a shame.. expecially since the first book left it so wide open for a sequal - The continuing adventure of our beloved Dr. Grant, fighting the raptors - and this one completely ignores all that. Maybe someday we will get a true sequal - Jurassic Park 2 - but don't hold your breath.
|
