The Jurassic Park movie adaptation changed a lot of details about John Hammond and, in doing so, fundamentally altered the character’s motivations and ideals. In director Stephen Spielberg’s 1993 adaptation of Jurassic Park, John Hammond is depicted as an avuncular grandfather with big dreams, a lot of ambition, and a cheeky smile. This depiction diverges wildly from the original Michael Crichton novel of the same name, wherein Hammond is arguably as much the villain of Jurassic Park as the dinosaurs that he genetically engineered.
The changes Jurassic Park made to Hammond turned his lawyer, Donald Gennaro, from a voice of reason into a sleazy, uncaring profiteer to make the park's founder seem kind-hearted by comparison. Throughout the movie version of Jurassic Park, the essentially good-natured Hammond is beset by untrustworthy employees like Dennis Nedry and duplicitous lackeys like Gennaro, but the character himself is comparatively blameless in the disastrous failure of the theme park. This is essentially an inversion of the role that Hammond plays in Crichton’s original novel Jurassic Park.
John Hammond Is A Much Darker Character In The Book
In Crichton’s novel, Hammond is less fascinated by science and the wonder of dinosaurs and more driven by profits. The scene in Jurassic Park that sees Hammond talk about the wonder on children’s faces when they see dinosaurs is replaced in the novel by an exchange where Hammond tells his employee that the children who can afford this privilege deserve it. Jurassic Park’s John Hammond changes don’t end there, however, as Dennis Nedry’s character also has a much more understandable motivation for his vendetta against his employer in the novel.
In Jurassic Park’s movie adaptation, Nedry is hoping to rip off Hammond by selling his secrets to InGen because he feels under-appreciated. However, Jurassic Park the novel gives a little more background to why he feels so hard done by. Nedry is hired by Hammond and constantly left in the dark about an ambitious project that grows in scope and becomes more challenging over time. When Nedry informs Hammond that he can’t work under these conditions, Hammond threatens to sue him and send his other clients letters claiming that Nedry can’t be trusted. With no other option, Jurassic Park's Dennis Nedry is forced by Hammond to finish the project for no further pay.
John Hammond Is Killed By Dinosaurs In The Book
If the novel’s version of Hammond sounds like a monster compared to his saintly movie incarnation, this might for the disparity between the fates of the two characters. In Jurassic Park’s movie adaptation, Hammond sees the error of his ways, gives a speech about tinkering with God’s plan, and then escapes the island on a private helicopter with his life and massive fortune still intact. In contrast, the original novel Jurassic Park has another fate in store for Hammond that is more in line with his conduct in the book.
There, Hammond is fooled by his grandchildren playing a recorded dinosaur roar that leads him to think he is being chased by a T-rex. He runs and stumbles, setting the scene for a gruesome death that none of the The Lost World. This horrific fate is well-earned by the Jurassic Park villain, who could not be less like his kindly movie counterpart.
