possum-reads

[possum-reads]

✨My Books✨

Past Reads:

Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton (Feb 25)

Currently Reading:

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store - James McBride (Mar 25)

[possum-reads]

Jurassic Park Notes

-Closing Thoughts-

Absolutely loved it. I've been a big fan of the movies since I was a kid and I had always wanted to read the books. However, I was definitely not expecting what I got. While I adore the movie and always will, the book is thought provoking and has a much bigger emphasis on the fact that those dummies were way in over their heads and the park was doomed from the start.

As a biologist, I really appreciated the dedication to exploring the biological and genetical discussions and methodology, even if it was flawed in execution by Hammond and his team. There were so many good moments, usually thanks to Malcolm, where the total scope of what was going on at the park and the implications behind it were explored that really set up a lot of thought provoking questions, and allowed the reader to think deeply about the park, the dinosaurs, and the people involved.

I really enjoyed the peek into each character's perspectives and seeing all the different reactions to everything. Getting to see the perspective from people with vastly different backgrounds, experiences, and reactions helped to highlight everything that was at stake and gave a good look into the nuances of the situation. The perspectives ranged from scientists, to rich old dudes, to children, and being able to see all of these different viewpoints made the story that much more interesting.

The story itself was very solid, and the build up in the first few chapters was incredible, one of the best I've read in a while. I would say it's comparable only to "Dracula" by Bram Stoker, which is another book I wish I didn't know what the big scary was before reading. The build up in both was done super well and I know the first readers were shook to the core at the reveals to both. It added a sense of mystery to the beginning of the book which set the story up nicely. It felt like at first we were getting almost a folklore story of a mysterious creature, then a peek inside to people who knew exactly what it was, and then thrown into the chaos that is Jurassic Park.

The ending was crazy. I'm very conflicted on if I agree with them bombing the island or not. While no, I don't agree that the dinosaurs should have been created and I don't agree with the park, the fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter anymore. The dinosaurs were created, and they are living, breathing creatures. On the other hand, they are not fit to live on that island and they're not suited for their environment. As an animal lover, I don't want them to die. I want well educated and equipped people to take care of them until they die because it's what they deserve. As a scientist, I think they should all be put down (humanely). They won't survive, eventually they will all slowly kill each other to death and/or starve. They're already under a lot of stress, and we saw with a lot of them that they aren't free to express their natural behaviors (ex: the velociraptors want to migrate but can't) and their quality of life will slowly but surely deteriorate. It's a tough dilemma at the end, and I'm excited to read the next book and see what happens. (I've seen all the movies but don't remember much)

I give the book 8/10, but that's purely due to my own preferences and because it didn't pass the Bechdel test at all even a little bit lmao.

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My non-critical thoughts:

Hammond got exactly what he deserved. I was popping bottles when that stupid head fell down that hill and then got his ass beat by those dinosaurs.

RIP Malcolm except he's not actually dead, long live the king!

Justice for Ellie Saddler!!! I don't know why they needed to add that weird romance subplot in the movie, she is my strong independent queen.

I thought it was hilarious that Grant was wearing a Hawaiian shirt the whole time.

Lex, I understand that you are a child but I need you to get a grip for five seconds and realize that there is no goddamn ice cream.

Justice for Gennaro!!! They did my man sooo dirty in the movies! In the book you can tell he did Not want to be there after the dinosaurs started acting up but he bucked up and stepped up when they needed him, even though he had a wife and child waiting for him! He was truly one of the bravest of them, even if he did make mistakes, they were from a place of good intentions and he was genuinely trying to help the whole time.

The parts where they were being pursued by the dinosaurs were so good, and I think the fear and distress during those moments were done very well, the movie definitely upped the ante on the action but I appreciate a good suspense/thriller movie so I'm not complaining.

Lex throwing the baby velociraptor at the adults because she thought they would be nice to it and then them immediately eating it was insane, and I don't want to say it was funny because it was meant to highlight the nature of the animals...but it was kind of funny lmao

Justice for the dinosaurs, long live the king, can't wait to read the next one!

[possum-reads]

Jurassic Park Notes

-Destroying the World-

I would also like to issue a formal apology to Ian Malcolm for disparaging his name at first sighting, he gave a bad first impression but he is my favorite character.

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I absolutely love this whole section. Ian "King of Monologues" Malcolm delivers a very powerful reflection of the earth and life. I think it is very important to realize that the Earth is changing, and it's changing in a way that we consider negative because of how it's affecting life on earth, but to quote Malcolm: "Life finds a way."

Life has existed and flourished for billions and billions of years, surviving all the extreme conditions and changes the planet has gone through (shoutout tardigrades) and yet we're ("we" being all living things) still here. To think that man has the power to destroy billions and billions of years worth of resistance is foolish and self aggrandizing. Humans are not helping the earth, by any means, and we are certainly having negative effects to the environment, but even if we wipe ourselves (humans) off the face of the Earth, life will remain. The planet will remain. We are not the center of the universe and we are not the center of Earth. The world turned just fine before us and it will continue to do so when we're all gone.

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Jurassic Park Notes

-Lodge-

Hammond: "Who could have imagined it would turn out this way."

BE SO FUCKING FOR REAL RIGHT NOW. I'm about to slap the shit out of this man.

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Jurassic Park Notes

-Control 9-

Malcolm: "You create many of them in a very short time, you never learn anything about them, yet you expect them to do your bidding, because you made them and you therefore think you own them; you forget they are alive..."

Later, Malcolm: "...that is why you think that to build a place like this is simple."

Hammond: "It was simple."

Malcolm: "Then why did it go wrong"

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I love the whole spiel from Malcolm about scientists inheriting knowledge and power instead of having to be disciplined in gaining it. The analogy to karate is also very good and, I think, perfectly describes what he means by scientists never having to learn the boundary of "just because I can do something, doesn't mean I should."

That's Hammond's whole problem summed up and wrapped in a bow. He doesn't have the knowledge, discipline, or understanding needed to run a project of this magnitude; all he has is wealth and power. Malcolm also mentioned how once they were able to successfully create the dinosaurs, they went full send and made a bunch of them before they had an understanding of them. Prime example: the aviary. They made big plans and had the whole thing built before even seeing if it would be a viable environment for them - which it was not.

Malcolm is trying to explain all of this and it's just not getting through Hammond's dumb head. Through all of this, everything that has gone wrong, the people who were killed, Grant and the kids missing - it's all been treated like an inconvenience rather than a sign that the park should be shut down immediately and they should evacuate.

[possum-reads]

Jurassic Park Notes

-Tim-

It's always something lmao. Of course the emergency radios weren't charging, they didn't think there's ever be an emergency *biggest eye roll* Such a lack of preparedness for emergency situations and the fact that there's only one emergency vehicle (that Nedry took, btw) is actually insane.

"Spared no expense" by ass.

[possum-reads]

Jurassic Park Notes

-Bungalow-

John Hammond is the real villain. His whole spiel about not using bioengineering to help humanity because it won't make you a profit is Disney villain level crazy. His whole argument is centered on it being a hassle and having to deal with the government and then not even getting a big payout for it. It is becoming very clear that this man does not give a flying flip about anything except turning a profit.

Hubris, greed, willful ignorance.

I think the crazies thing actually might be that he doesn't even try to hide it.

[possum-reads]

Jurassic Park Notes

-Breeding Sights-

These absolute geniuses didn't think it would be a good idea to have the animals monitored 24/7.

Truly amazed they made it this far.

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Jurassic Park Notes

-Control 5-

"You done fucked up, A-aron."

Yet again hubris has led to a drastic error being overlooked: there are more dinosaurs in the park than there should be. Hammond and the others couldn't fathom the possibility of the animals multiplying so they didn't think to check. In theory, that is a no-brainer, but once you get to the biological side of it, it was a very serious oversight.

Yes, they only released females into the park, that doesn't take into consideration asexual reproduction - which we don't know if the dinosaurs are capable of - or protogyny - which, again, we don't know if that was a part of their natural biology or not.

This is what happens when you only have geneticists and engineers running a zoo. So far, there hasn't been a biologist in sight. They have a veterinarian, but he doesn't seem to be a part of the creation logistics. Even if they had consulted Grant and Sattler, or any other paleontologist, there's only so much they would have been able to tell them before they reached the brick wall separating educated guessing and reality.

Science Corner

Protogyny is when an organism is born female but can become male. This is seen in many fish species. The opposite of this is protandry, in which an organism is born male but can become female. This is a reproductive strategy used in organisms who form harems. This is different from being a hermaphrodite, which is an organism posses both male and female organs.

Example: clownfish live in small groups of males with one female per group. The female is the largest of the group, and the males are all smaller with one being the dominant male. When the female dies, the dominant male becomes female so the group can keep reproducing.

Asexual reproduction is when an organism can reproduce without sperm or egg cells. The results lead to a genetic copy of the parent since it is using one set of DNA for the offspring. While this is mainly only seen in invertebrates through a few different processes, it also happens in some reptiles, insects, and fish through parthenogenesis.

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Jurassic Park Notes

-Control 4-

The amount of hubris and self congratulations is crazy. Wu and Hammond are soooo confident that the park is flawless that they won't can't even begin to imagine something could go wrong. Arnold and Muldoon are the only ones with sense, it's actually insane.

Hammond: "Hell, we're just making a zoo here. World's full of 'em, and they all work fine."

Literally the most reductive way of describing the park and is also majorly downplaying the scope and force of the park. Even if they were using animals that still exist today, the sheer magnitude, size, and machinery/technology being used is at a massive scale compared to other zoos, and they only have 20 people running the park. I work at an aquarium and we have more than that to run an exhibit space that is almost insignificant in size compared to the park.

~

Malcolm makes some really good points about the dinosaurs being dropped in the modern world and the consequences of doing so. (Page 112-113)

[possum-reads]

Jurassic Park Notes

-Version 4.4-

Hammond hired Wu right out of grad school - not to hate on grad students but a project of this magnitude would require someone seasoned in the field. There's knowledge and then there's experience, and experience far outweighs knowledge.

~

Wu talking about selecting for more docile/tamer dinosaurs - literally the exact opposite of what happens in Jurassic World lmao

From a biologist/animal trainer standpoint this is actually the ideal for trying to make zoo-viable dinosaurs. That's how we got domesticated dogs and cats, and there was a study done where after only a few generations they were able to breed domesticated foxes.

[possum-reads]

Jurassic Park Notes

-Control 3-

On Hammond and his response to the park's problems: he doesn't seem to be able to come to terms with the facts tat they can't control the animals and no matter what they do they won't be able to. He, nor anyone else there - except Muldoon - have experience with animal handling (that we know of. And even then, Muldoon was a big game hunter/tour guide, which is very different from husbandry). Everyone is either a geneticist or an engineer, neither of which have anything to do with animal behavior/biology and animal husbandry. As someone working in animal husbandry, there is a lot more that goes into it than just feeding them. Each species of animal has their own set of specific needs that must be met and you can't really control the animals in the way Hammond is trying to. All you can really do is train them to do what you want and train them to trust you. The dinosaurs are wild animals that don't have millions of years worth of getting used to human presence. The dinos were plucked from a different time and place and dropped into an amusement park thinly veiled as a zoo that is physically incapable of being prepared to take care of them and Hammond is either choosing to ignore this or is so sure of himself that he won't even entertain the idea that the park is a disaster waiting to happen.

~

I've come to the conclusion that John Hammond is just an idiot. Dr. Wu seems very competent and he's got logical explanations and practices for their procedures. Every single aspect from the moment they extract the DNA to the moment the animal dies is mapped out with contingency plans in place. On paper, it's airtight, but like chaos theory says: there are too many factors for accurate outcome predictions.

~

Malcolm, talking about animals hunting man: "Well, these dinosaurs must be even more reluctant that lions and tigers...After all, they come from a time before human beings...So I wonder: have they learned, somewhere along the line, that humans are easy to kill?"

Finally someone is using critical thinking. Malcolm, I take back all the bad stuff I said about you. I still think I would find you insufferable in real life, but you're one of the only ones with a head on your shoulders and a brain behind your eyes.

If a wild bear kills a human in a predatory attack, that bear is then killed because it now knows that humans are very easy to kill and would be a quick and easy meal (evolution screwed us over on defense lol). We, the audience, know that a dinosaur has killed at least on person, which means they know we would be a quick and easy target for further predatory attacks. Hammond and Wu do not seem like that would even a little bit consider this due to the how much effort they put in to make the dinosaurs and how few they have compared to the scale of their efforts. It also doesn't seem like that's something they would consider even being a logical option, since their response to any mishaps with the dinosaurs just seems to be to tighten the chain, so to speak. If anyone were to suggest killing the dinosaurs that have killed people before, I think the idea would get shut down before it was even fully considered.

[possum-reads]

Jurassic Park Notes

-The Tour 2-

The dinosaurs in the park have many diseases and other problems that they're trying to work through - just like the pale trout.

They're writing it off as a fungus or allergy when the simple truth may be that you can't take an organism that existed on the planet hundreds of millions of years ago and plop it into the modern environment - which is extremely, vastly, biologically, systemically, and environmentally different that it was when they were alive - and expect everything to be okay. We have new diseases, new bacteria, new fungus, different air, different carbon concentrations, different temperatures, even DNA itself has evolved. Not only are there going to be deep consequences on the animal itself but that can also turn around and affect the humans that interact with them as well. Just like we have no idea what our environment will do to them, we have no idea what their biology can do to us. Prime example: the dilophosaurus. They had no idea that they were venomous until they made one, because venom glands don't fossilize so there would be no way to know.

I've been on this soap box a lot so I will stop for now.

[possum-reads]

Jurassic Park Notes

-Jurassic Park-

Poisonous ferns easily accessible by the pool - clear indicator that the look and feel of the park overshadowed safety concerns and practicality of the park and visitor areas - OR - they didn't have the right people there to identify these concerns (more likely). This is a big oversight that gets noticed almost immediately upon entering the resort area which I feel is a big indicator of what's to be expected.

More oversight on initial plans: it was clear that adjustments and renovations had to be made on the resort. The windows, perimeters, doors, and walls had to be reinforced. I'm assuming it was because they realized that there wasn't enough security in the event of an animal escape.

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Jurassic Park Notes

-Welcome-

Right off the bat, first dinosaur they see and already it looks and is behaving differently than what they considered was a known fact. I won't get back into it because I already went on a tangent about it but there is genuinely no real, concrete, fool-proof way to make accurate claims about dinosaurs except bone structure (kind of) and where they died.

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The weather on the island seems volatile and unpredictable (I'm looking at you, chaos theory), which I think paints the perfect backdrop for the events that are going to unfold.

Jurassic Park Notes

-Isla Nublar-

"He was looking at a dinosaur." YAWN.

First time seeing a dinosaur was just as boring and unsatisfying as the dinosaur reveal.

[possum-reads]

Jurassic Park Notes

-Isla Nublar-

"He was looking at a dinosaur." YAWN.

First time seeing a dinosaur was just as boring and unsatisfying as the dinosaur reveal.