Jurrasic Park & Aliens

[Andrew Campbell]

A post appeared yesterday which discussed the striking similarities between
'Aliens' (yeah, I mean the second movie) and the novel and upcoming movie
'Jurassic Park'. I was quite surprised myself about just how similar they
seem to be- although I have to add that dinosaurs are *real* creatures.
'Jurassic' isn't really a new idea at all, though. Crichton's 'novels (they
read more like screenplays) have a consistent theme of 'technologuy runs amock'
and I seriously doubt that he consciously ripped off 'Aliens' in writing
'Jurassic', only because he's actually ripping off himself. Crichton, who
has made regualr forays into Hollywood (it's no *mistake* that his novels read
like movies), directed an early 1970's film called 'Westworld,' which featured
Yul Brenner, Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner, about a futuristic amusement park
where the andorids went haywire. (there was also a 1976 sequel called
'Futureworld' with the same performers, but I'm not sure if Crichton directed
it.) So we see that it's mainly Crichton's fault- it's up to Spielberg to make
it interesting, plus Phil Tippet, Stan Winston, Cennis Muren and ILM.
Crichton's novels are great vacation reading, certainly entertaining. But
he's just a hack.

APC'93 'Life IS pain, highness! Anyone who says differently
in...@u.washington.edu is selling something.'
-'The Princess Bride'

[Bruce W. OŐKeefe]

In article <1s6c66...@news.u.washington.edu>,

"Westworld" (1973) was directed by Crichton and starred Richard Benjamin,
James Brolin & Yul Brynner. "Futureworld" (1976) was directed by Richard
T. Heffron and starred Blythe Danner, Peter Fonda, and Arthur Hill with a
cameo by Yul Brynner. Heffron also directed "V: The Final Battle" for TV.

Bruce

[Bruce F. Webster]

In article <1s6c66...@news.u.washington.edu> in...@hardy.u.washington.edu

(Andrew Campbell) writes:
> Crichton's novels are great vacation reading, certainly entertaining. But
> he's just a hack.
>

Yes, but a very rich, very popular, highly-paid hack. Would that I were as
"bad" a writer as Michael Crichton. :-) ..bruce..

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[Jayson Gary Hawley]

bweb...@pages.com (Bruce F. Webster) writes:

>In article <1s6c66...@news.u.washington.edu> in...@hardy.u.washington.edu
>(Andrew Campbell) writes:
>> Crichton's novels are great vacation reading, certainly entertaining. But
>> he's just a hack.
>>

>Yes, but a very rich, very popular, highly-paid hack. Would that I were as
>"bad" a writer as Michael Crichton. :-) ..bruce..

I read the book last year and thought, hmmmf, make a good film that,
especially as the velociraptors reminded me of aliens.

Jayson