strange and random happenstance

Congo by Michael Crichton
Published by: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: 1980
Format: Paperback, 316 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Earth Resources Technology Services Inc. has a contract in the Congo to find a source of blue diamonds that can be used as a power source. They are fighting against a consortium of Japanese, Dutch, and German corporations so time is of the essence. When the first team is attacked and killed, possibly by gorillas, Karen Ross, despite her youth, begs to lead the follow-up expedition to not only find the diamonds but find out what really killed the first team. She wins over her boss's objections and also gets him to agree to something a little unconventional. ERTS funds Project Amy, which is a research endeavor by Doctor Peter Elliot to teach a Gorilla, Amy, ASL. She has always been an amazing student until recently when she has started to have nightmares. Nightmares of a place that just happens to be where the ERTS expedition met their fate. Ross has a feeling that Amy is the key to figuring out what happened in the Congo and to beating the consortium. But the location might be the biggest mystery of all. What really happened in the lost city of Zinj all those years ago and what will happen when they reach it?

When my Crichton obsession began in earnest Congo was the elusive Crichton book that I wanted to read more than any other. The only problem was I couldn't find a copy! In the back of one of my other Crichton books I had read a description and seen a grainy image of the cover and I knew deep in my bones that this would be the best book he'd ever written. I JUST KNEW IT! I looked everywhere to find a copy. I trolled the few bookstores in town, all to no avail. Every new town I went to I looked for it in any store that sold books, including drugstores and grocery stores, growing more and more frustrated. Why did my go-to bookstore in Door County have every Crichton book BUT Congo? Then one day, I saw it. Hilldale is a small shopping mall near my house that we went to mainly for groceries and shoes. They had a Walgreen's half way between the two stores. I was wandering the magazine aisle waiting for my mom to finish whatever it was she had come to do and there, on the bottom rack, was Congo. I couldn't believe that after all my searching I had found it in our local drugstore! I spent some time admiring the cover, imagining the story that the inside would tell, and then I dove in, and it was everything I had hoped for.

Of all the books I've picked up to re-read for my Crichton Celebration, this was the one I was most looking forward to. But I knew it had to be at just the right time. Firstly, and most importantly, I had to have a stretch of time where I could read uninterrupted. Once this book was started I knew I wouldn't be able to set it down again. Secondly the atmosphere had to be just right. It wouldn't feel right driving into this book when the view outside my window showed barren trees and a winter bleak landscape. Spring has finally come to Wisconsin and with it green has returned to the world. If I angled myself just right in my reading chair all I could see was verdant green and I could imagine being trapped under the humid canopy of the Congo. The weather played along with my reading plans bringing high humid and torrential rains and as night fell the colors outside my window mimicked the cover of my book and I felt chills. All these years later the mystery was still waiting between the covers for me. I devoured this book at a rapacious speed and sat back fully satisfied with a Crichton book for the first time in a long time.

Even as an over eager teenager Africa held me in it's spell. Growing up my parents ran an art galley and the artist we represented spent many years in Africa and his tales recounted by my father would enrapture me, as long as they weren't about mummies trying to kill me, a perennial favorite of my father's. When I went off to college I took a vast assortment of classes for no other reason then because they looked interesting. One class I was enrolled in was an African History class. While I would eventually drop this class due to an unconscientious TA who looked like Eric Stoltz and lazy teaching, I read a fascinating book on the Congo called King Leopold's Ghost. Sign number one I really didn't belong in that class is I was the only one who enjoyed the book because of it's insights. This book combined with my recent reading of Nelson Mandela's "Autobiography" gave me further insight on this reading of Congo. These two books led to a deeper understanding of the political strife in the book. The fact that the Chinese are a large presence in the book might shock some and was originally overlooked by me, but it's important because they viewed Africa as a place where revolts could lead to emerging countries using Communist ideals in setting up their governments. They helped Mandela's cause strongly, something I don't think many people are aware of.

But it wasn't just a greater sense of the current political strife in 1979 but the precedence of previous conflicts that I was made aware of. Congo is very much an adventure story the likes of which H. Rider Haggard would have written. When Haggard was writing the African continent was just being opened up and explored, and therefore being fought over and divided up by the various European Empires. No one at that time thought of Africa as anything but a big piece of land to be divvied up like a game of Risk. Flash forward a hundred years and it is still happening, but with different players and a faster timeline. The Japanese, the Dutch, and the Germans are trying to outpace the Americans for diamonds. The parallels are uncanny but Crichton doesn't beat us over the head with a stick. When I read this in high school I saw what I wanted to and read a rollicking good adventure. While the adventure is still there, to the older and hopefully wiser person I now am I see that Congo is showing a rape of a continent, mimicking what has been happening for centuries, but at a startlingly rapid rate.

To take this discussion even further, do we think that Africa would be in this state of political upheaval with wars and disease if not for what other countries have been doing for hundreds of years? The number one thing I learned from Mandela's book is that Afrikaners have historically been jackasses. These are people who are descended from Dutch settlers and Apartheid, that was all them. Outsiders destroying Africa. Raping and pillaging, taking diamonds and gold and slaves. Also, encouraging insurrection, handing out guns to every rebel who asks for one. I'm sure if we tried we could fuck up this country even more, but seriously, hasn't the rest of the world done enough? Deforestation, destruction of species, millions dead. I think that's enough. Crichton is able to show how truly horrible our actions are with what Ross does with one small explosion. She is so intent on finding the diamonds she was sent to Africa to find that she inadvertently starts a volcanic eruption that destroys a lost city that has survived for hundreds and hundreds of years right next to that volcano. But more then that she destroys the deadly, but new species of Gorillas! With one move she takes their cultural past, their resources, their wildlife, and their ecosystem. Seriously, how are we to survive with idiots like this in the world, and yes, Ross seriously reminded me of someone I know.

Re-reading so many Crichton books back to back you really start to see the similarities, especially between Jurassic Park and Congo, which both involve intelligent animals that are underestimated and people die because of this. But Congo succeeds on so many more levels then Jurassic Park, even if the Grey Gorillas of Zinj are basically Velociraptor prototypes. The reason Congo works is that it does a better job of keeping the suspense and drawing it right out until the last minute. At the beginning you get a hint of the danger in the Congo to come but it's not till the book is 2/3rds done that they actually make it to the camp site where their co-workers died. Yes, there are plenty of other, more mundane dangers, but they are just place holders for the real dangers, the Gorillas. But the Gorillas are more successful as villains because we have another ape to compare them to in Amy. Damn, I love Amy. Not just her personality, but the form of science she represents with being taught ASL and the deep connection this forms between her and Peter. In the end, nothing mattered except Amy getting a happily ever after, everything else was just extra.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Africa, Amy, Ape, ASL, Congo, Crichton Celebration, Diamond, Eric Stoltz, Gorilla, H. Rider Haggard, Jurassic Park, King Leopold's Ghost, Long Walk to Freedom, Michael Crichton, Nelson Mandela, South Africa, Zinj

The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton
Based on the book by Michael Crichton
Starring: George Segal, Joan Hackett, Richard Dysart, Donald Moffat, Michael C. Gwynne, William Hansen, Matt Clark, Jim Antonio, and Jill Clayburgh
Release Date: June 19th, 1974
Rating: ★
To Buy

Harry Benson is having an experimental surgery to stop his epileptic seizures that cause violent blackouts after he was in a car accident. Harry's entire life changed, from a loving family man he has become a violent criminal. The hope is that he can gain some semblance of his old life back. His psychiatrist, Doctor Janet Ross, thinks that implanting electrodes in his brain isn't the wisest idea, which is proven correct when his brain starts to trigger more and more mini seizures to get the euphoric jolt from the electrodes. The problem is, once the jolts become continuous, he will have a major blackout and will be the most dangerous he's ever been. This wouldn't be that big a problem except that Harry has escaped his police guard and left the hospital. He could be anyway and anything could happen. The first tipping point will be some minutes after three in the morning, and that's when Harry first kills. As his electric jolts become more and more constant he will have more major blackouts and more people could die, even the doctors who are trying to help him, because he knows where they all live.

If you want a pompous pretentious movie that is so full of itself that you will be laughing till you are crying, then I heartily recommend you watch The Terminal Man! This adaptation might be the most amusing of all the Crichton adaptations I have ever seen. Either the adaptation is true to the book and with Crichton's involvement we get to watch a solid movie, or the adaptation is all levels of tacky throwing in bad robotic apes with sign language gloves that disappoint while the viewer is able to still find some humor in their situation. But The Terminal Man leaves all others in the dust when it comes to overreaching. Cinema in the late sixties and early seventies was revitalized by more artistic movies that weren't meant to be mainstream. From Bonnie and Clyde to The Graduate, 2001 to A Clockwork Orange, movies were breaking with conventions and what would have previously been art house fare was now de rigueur. The Terminal Man obviously had dreams of being the next big thing with it's limited dialogue and score set in a very colorless world but instead the movie comes off as trying too hard. It wants to be chic so badly that it oversteps and we are left with a laughable mess.

The biggest hint that they are trying to make a medical thriller into an artsy film is in the sets and costumes. The sets have no color. No color at all. And literally everyone is only ever seen in white, black, or grey. There are no other colors in this world, except that hint of red. Both blood and flowers are allowed red, but nothing else. It's obviously aiming for the impact of the girl with the red coat in Schindler's List and instead it's just weird. The appearance of the red when Harry starts to kill isn't jarring, like a horrific murder should be, it was just laughable. I'm not sure if this colorless world was supposed to be a commentary on the antiseptic lifestyle that surrounds a hospital or some weird futuristic concept where colors are tacky in the future, because they did noticeably remove any reference to the year the movie was set in. The height of the fashion faux pas is the nurses uniforms, which are so impractical and their headdresses are half medieval peasant half nun that one wonders what the hell world this movie was really thinking it lived in. You can actually feel the filmmakers striving for greatness, you can hear the gears in their head moving and thinking, yes, this will be a classic for the ages like Kubrick. If Kubrick did Lifetime TV movies, then maybe the analogy would be right.

The Terminal Man just wanted to be profound, it wanted to be something more. The sparseness is also seen in the paring down of the story. There is almost no dialogue and what plot existed in the book has been almost completely gutted. Instead the film is populated with long silences and static images that in the hands of someone talented, aka Kubrick, it could have worked, but here it draws out the movie so that a film that is under two hours feels about six. The problem that arises from parring down everything is the story is lost in translation. You don't realize that Harry Benson is supposed to be a genius with a fear of machines that indicates his psychosis, instead we have a violent man who has a surgery that goes wrong and kills some people. Where is the motivation? Where is the reasoning? In the book there is a connection between Benson and Doctor Ross where they have a true friendship, where their conversations delve into deep concepts. Here their doctor patient relationship is almost nonexistent and Doctor Ross is relegated to sexist jokes and wailing while trying to futilely save her patient.

The major divergence from the book, wherein they make Harry a Roman Catholic, exemplifies how the filmmakers were striving for some inner meaning. Something lofty and enigmatic and shocking. Instead of just sticking to the solid story that existed, here Harry isn't contemplating machines taking over the world, but instead trying to come to terms with being a violent man. What? I mean, he doesn't remember these attacks and often puts himself purposefully in these situations, ie, going to bars and strip clubs, yet somehow he has remorse? Since when? His going to church to confess made me role my eyes. The film seriously thought that by adding this layer of spiritualism that they would somehow redeem it? Make it something worthy of discussion? Instead the killing of the priest with his rosary during Harry's confession comes off as laughable and oh so predictable. It isn't helped by the fact that George Segal, while a good actor in his own way, was unable to carry this production. His "seizures" are worthy of a Razzie.

But the saddest fact of this whole film is that it wants to have been a Stanley Kubrick film. With the minimal score, only Bach's Goldberg Variation No. 25 played by Glenn Gould is ever heard, the colorless sets, the framing of each scene, the doctors in evening wear, the weird eye through the door watching over us, all of it cries out as a poor Kubrick imitation. Personally, I have never been the biggest Kubrick fan, but watching someone trying to emulate him so hard it is painful to watch you realize how great Kubrick is. This, this was like the bad Lifetime tv movie that was made as a Kubrick film. Much like the true stories of Saved by the Bell and Full House, The Terminal Man comes off as cut rate, cliched, badly cast, lacking vision, and unable to grasp even the basics of what they are trying to do. By the end of the film when George Segal is having a seizure in a cemetery plot, well, you're just praying for that bullet to end it all. It was amusing to watch the film once because of how bad it is, but a second viewing would be masochistic. Go watch something by Kubrick instead, it's the real deal, not a pale over ambitious imitation.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Adaptation, Bonnie and Clyde, Catholic, Crichton Celebration, George Segal, Lifetime, Michael Crichton, Schindler's List, Stanley Kubrick, The Graduate, The Terminal Man, TV Movie

The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton
Published by: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: April 12th, 1972
Format: Paperback, 266 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Harry Benson blacks out. When he loses time he commits violent acts. This has been happening ever since he was in a car accident where he retained brain damage. The Neuro-Psychiatric Service of the University Hospital has been looking for a "stage three" candidate to try a new procedure on. They believe that actual psychical brain injuries can be cured with the implantation of electrodes in the brain. The electrodes would fire a positive charge into the patient's brain whenever an "attack" was imminent. This would be perfect for Harry. Whenever an attack started, instead of blacking out, he would get a happy little pleasurable charge and everything would be fine. He'd no longer be beating up exotic dancers and gas station attendants. The only thing the NPS didn't count on when choosing Harry as a candidate is that he is actually psychotic. Doctor Janet Ross warned them that this was the case, but the surgeons in their zeal to do what has never been done brushed aside her concerns about Harry's fear of machines and went ahead with the surgery. The day after the surgery it appears that Doctor Ross's fears have materialized as Harry is triggering seizures to get pleasurable responses. He then escapes the hospital and it is only a matter of time until he reaches his breaking point. If he was dangerous before he is even more dangerous now.

Despite deciding on a whim that I would read the books for my Crichton Celebration in reverse order I have to say it's a decision that I don't regret in the least. As I read this, my last book for my celebration, and the second book Crichton published under his own name, it's fascinating to see the genesis of what he'll later explore in future books. The Terminal Man is by no means a polished book, it's very rough around the edges, and I almost like it more for this. Crichton hasn't established any pattern to his narrative structure and this gives the book a freshness. But we get hints as to his future greatness and his future themes, from man competing with technology to apes to genetic modification. Crichton had a very interesting range of subjects he was compelled to write about and seeing them in a protoformat makes the book nerd in me smile. Of course he does fall prey to some cliche ridden techniques that he would thankfully remove from his repertoire later on, the most egregious error being the abrupt ending that he would use again in Eaters of the Dead in some attempt to be edgy, but it's just lame.  

What I find interesting to mull over is the idea of the medical drama or medical thriller. While there have been innumerable shows and books and movies, so much so that we know the language and the argot, Crichton would be at the forefront of this movement. He refined and for many defined what a medical procedural should be with ER. Twenty years after writing The Terminal Man he was still interested enough in medicine to bring it to television. He was always working and playing with ideas for years and years until he found the perfect outlet, be it book or film or television. He was able to explore themes in a way that was almost always fresh and most definitely an expansion of his previous thoughts. What I wouldn't give to have him still in the world and examining how things have changed and how much he predicted and how some things were tried and abandoned. He must have been an interesting person to talk to and how I wish I had had that chance.  

Though with this prevalence of medical shows over time I think I have become desensitized to blood and guts. I can sit and watch Hannibal eating Eddie Izzard's leg and think nothing of it aside from the wonderful ability of Eddie to deliver a wry line. Adaptations of some of the bloodiest murder scenes, such as those of Jack the Ripper, nary an eyelash is batted. Yet reading about the brain surgery of Harry Benson I had this odd visceral reaction. Perhaps it's because I'm used to visual stimulus and this was written and therefore my mind's eye was left to imagine the worse, but the impact this simple surgery had on me was remarkable. It had such force my gorge was actually rising as I thought of the brain being cut into. Also, the fact that the brain has no nerve endings and that you can hack away without the patient feeling any pain, ugh, no. I don't know what it was about this but it struck a literal nerve in me and made me connect to Benson on a level I never thought I would.

Another medical aspect that struck me was the doctor patient confidentiality between Harry Benson and all his doctors, in particular Doctor Janet Ross. In other words, they didn't seem to care about it or even mention it once. Yes, once Harry goes on his little rampage every sane doctor would give the police everything they needed to catch him, but shouldn't there be at least a nod of acknowledgement that Harry is a danger and that is why the confidentiality is being breached? When Captain Anders comes to Doctor Ross's apartment after Harry tried to kill her she calmly sits down and tells him everything about Harry not leaving out a single detail. Would this fly in court? Can she really tell him everything? It not only seems like a breech of trust, but as if she's being vindictive against her patient. She keeps saying that she wants to help him, yet she's laying all his secrets bare and that seems like a negative response to almost being killed more then a helping hand.

But maybe in the early seventies people didn't dwell on potential litigation. Ethics and standards have changed drastically in the past forty some years. And, as the book is written to point out, technology is changing rapidly too. One of the aspects of the book that I found disturbing was the fact that research on monkeys wasn't in the least bit controversial. Ellis mentioned hundreds, yes, HUNDREDS of monkeys he'd worked on to prepare for this one procedure in a human. Also, the monkeys apparently cost $80! Not only the cruelty to the animals but that such a low sum could be placed on their lives disgusted me. Which if extrapolated outwards, you can relate to Harry's predicament and how the surgery being preformed on him both disgusts and horrifies him. Morals, standards, ethics, all is in flux constantly within ourselves and within society. There is a palpable fear of technology that is logical. But there is also a fear of what we have been and what we could be capable of. It's not even the technological advances and the fact that a computer knows what a cat is that's the real danger, it's the human element that is unpredictable and terrifying.

And isn't that always the way? The human element is where things break down. This idea that we can control humans, that we can program them, drug them, retrain them, it is always in playing god in this sense that things go awry. Yes the technology is terrifying, but the fact that humans then try to use it, try to play god, that's what really scares me. Despite the fact that Harry is quite literally insane, I truly felt sorry for him reading this at this time in my life. These doctors that were there to help him were really, despite them objecting that the press was sensationalizing it, preforming mind control. Because changing someone's behavior, be it as simple as them biting their nails, is mind control at a basic level. Look to all the drugs prescribed for anxiety and stress; I'm on a few myself. These drugs don't magically solve anything, they are their to rewrite your behavior and get you to stop anxiety in it's tracks. If I get over emotional I feel the drugs kicking in and it feels like a band around my head which won't go away unless I calm down. This pressure has taught me to calm down. I have been reprogrammed in the simplest way, with negative reinforcement. Now imagine having wires in your brain doing that? I shudder to think. Having them in the mind of someone actually psychotic? That is why The Terminal Man is both terrifying and a cautionary tale.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brain, Crichton Celebration, Doctors, Drugs, Eaters of the Dead, Eddie Izzard, ER, Ethics, Hannibal Lecter, Harry Benson, Jack the Ripper, Michael Crichton, Psycho, Surgery, The Terminal Man

The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton
Published by: Dell
Publication Date: May, 1975
Format: Paperback, 266 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Edward Pierce plans to steal the Crimean Gold shipment. This won't be an easy heist. Firstly, he plans to steal the gold from a moving train. Secondly the gold is in two Chubb safes requiring two keys each, for a total of four keys needed. Thirdly, he doesn't know where the four keys are located. Finally, he is willing to take his time to get it right, meaning it's more then a year till he will see the gold and there is a lot of outlay of cash in the meantime to get the right people for the job and to keep them in silent ignorance. With his screwsman Agar ready to copy the keys they set about finding their marks. Two of the keys are held in the railway office, which will be a problem in itself, and the other two are held by men who work for the bank and these are their marks. Even if they succeed in getting all the keys copied and getting them all to work, a year is a long time and changes might happen to the accepted routine of the gold shipment. There could be simple changes to the timetable, or there could be massive changes, like the safes being overhauled. And even if they get away with it, whose to say they won't be eventually caught? This is an audacious scheme that could go down in history, one way or another.

If, prior to reading this book again, you were to ask me what are my top Crichton books I would have replied without hesitation, Congo, Sphere, and The Great Train Robbery. These I have gone back to again and again over the years. The Great Train Robbery easily solidified my obsession with Victorian England and set me on the path to a historical fiction addiction that has never let up. I remember it as an action packed thrill ride with just the right amount of historical context. This is not a phrase I would use anymore. The book hasn't changed in these intervening years, but I have. My reading tastes have expanded and been refined and what was once a thrilling read came across as disjointed and almost laborious. The best example I have by way of comparison is when I re-read all of Jane Austen's books. I had a very distinct hierarchy that was blown to bits when I picked them up again. Northanger Abbey surged from last place to be near the top, whereas Mansfield Park declined. But there was no more precipitous a decline then Emma. Ranking in the top three Emma became my most hated of all Austen, her behavior, while amusing and laudable to a teenager, annoyed the heck out me the more "grown up" me. The Great Train Robbery is the Emma of Crichton; oh how far it has fallen.

When I was younger I was very gullible when it came to books, which is very odd when you realize what a skeptic I am in regard to everything else. But if a book said it was "true" I believed it. Therefore when William Goldman said that his book, The Princess Bride, was an abridgement of the book of the same title by S. Morgenstern I believed it. In fact I spent probably a good few years annoying people in my belief and my desire to get a hold of the "real" book as I saw it. Yes, this might be naive, but what can I say, I was a teenager without the vast resources of the Internet. Therefore it was a logical conclusion that I assumed The Great Train Robbery with Crichton's desire to always make his books "real" actually happened. I was totally flummoxed that the only "Great Train Robbery" happened in 1963. I was convinced this couldn't be right. Thankfully I have been redeemed a bit in this belief by finding out that there was the "Great Gold Robbery" that Crichton based his book on, so I was partially right. Why I felt the need to have this truth I don't know, but it made the book something more to me.

The facts and figures that are sprinkled throughout the book lend veracity to it. When I first read The Great Train Robbery it was my first book that presented history in an approachable manner. I learned more truths then most textbooks print, and that might be why I so wanted the heist to be real; the glamor of a story provides a more interesting world any day. But re-reading it all these facts and figures actually don't lend themselves to the narrative. They might have educated me at one time by now all they do is interrupt the narrative flow. As for the narrative itself? Well, there isn't that much story, which the facts and figures do a good job of disguising. Also, what I found very aggravating this time around was that so much of the "history" and the "commentary" went beyond the timeline of the heist, aka 1854-1857. The book references events, periodicals, and statistics so far in the future, some more then a hundred years in the future, that it lacks the feeling of "now" and makes it more academic. Crichton has always had a problem balancing narrative with an overabundance of facts. In the middle of his career he seemed to find a happy medium, but at the beginning and again at the end of his career he let the research overpower the narrative and us readers are left feeling bored waiting for the story to resume.

What I found most annoying though was Crichton's desire to use the argot of the time. But instead of lending character and flavor to the book he seems to be using it to purposefully obfuscate the story. The language at times gets so bad that characters don't understand each other and what they say has to be translated. Say what? If your own characters don't understand each other then how does the story work exactly? How am I to understand what they are saying? Everything needs to be explained and this makes the narrative, what there is in between the plethora of facts, even more clunky. The only reason I can think for Crichton to do this was that the historian in him took over. He had all this vast research of facts and figures that he kept throwing into the heist narrative he obviously must have had reams of research as to the argot of the criminals living in The Holy Land. So instead of dumbing the book down to make it palatable, ie legible, he made the language 100% realistic and decided that either he would explain it or just leave his readers muddled. As someone who reads a lot of books with slang and argot, I have to say he really let the ball drop on this one. It doesn't work, and hence The Great Train Robbery's swift decline in my definitive ranking of his books.

But there's also a part of me that wonders, was the book Crichton's end goal for this story? He was already doing films at this time. In 1973, two years before this book came out, he wrote and directed Westworld. The rights to The Great Train Robbery were bought right when the book came out. Within three years the movie was already in pre-production with Sean Connery attached. Crichton would eventually direct it and it would be released in 1979. If you look at the book not as a book but as a treatment for a film it makes far more sense. The narrative, minus all the extraneous historical details, is a quick, fast, and fun heist. But in order to translate it from page to screen you would need to know all these extraneous historical details in order to capture the time period just right. Yes, the details lend reality to the book, but as they are presented in the book they don't work. If Crichton had wanted to write the best book he could there would have been more integration, more cohesion. BUT if he was looking towards another medium as the end goal? Why bother? Just lay the facts out, have the narrative interspersed, and wait for the time for the film to be made. This theory makes sense of the book in my mind. It also makes me very excited to watch the movie again to see if this theory of mine holds up...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Argot, Congo, Crichton Celebration, Emma, Heist, Historical Fiction, Jane Austen, Michael Crichton, Movie, Sean Connery, Sphere, The Great Train Robbery, The Princess Bride, Victorian, Westworld, William Goldman

Congo
Based on the book by Michael Crichton
Starring: Laura Linney, Dylan Walsh, Ernie Hudson, Tim Curry, Grant Heslov, Joe Don Baker, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Bruce Campbell, Taylor Nichols, Joe Pantoliano, Delroy Lindo, Stuart Pankin, Peter Jason, James Karen, Shayna Fox, and Frank Welker
Release Date: June 9th, 1995
Rating: ★
To Buy

Charlie Travers is leading an expedition in the Congo to find diamonds to power high tech communications devices, in other words, lasers, for TraviCom, a company run by his father. Charlie misses his second check in with his father back in Huston and when they get the video feed back online they see death and destruction everywhere and a mysterious ape like creature rushing past the camera. Charlie's father, R.B. Travis, begs his employee Doctor Karen Ross to go to the Congo. Karen agrees if the expedition is really to save Charlie, her former fiance, and not to get the diamonds. In California, Doctor Peter Elliott runs Project Amy, which has been teaching Amy the gorilla sign language. Amy is amazing, she has a glove that allows her to actually speak when signing and she's learned to paint. Of course the paintings are actually a form of therapy to help with her nightmares. Peter wishes to return Amy to her home in the Congo but the University doesn't want to lose Amy and the cost would be prohibitive. Enter Herkermer Homolka, a philanthropist who claims his interest is to see Amy happy, when really he suspects Amy is the key to finding the lost city of Zinj and King Solomon's Diamond Mines. Do to necessity Karen Ross attaches herself to Amy's party and they have only a few political hiccups in entering the Congo. With their forces combined will they find the diamonds, Charlie, or Amy's home? Or will they find nothing but death and destruction?

In 1995 Congo was tied with Sphere, well, maybe a little ahead of Sphere, as my favorite Crichton book; and it was going to be a movie! Not only that, it was going to be a movie with Tim Curry, my most favorite of all actors! Rocky Horror and Clue forever! The movie just happened to be opening right after my junior year of high school ended. I was counting down the days to summer break and then the last few weeks of my junior year descended into hell. I got the sickest I had ever been in years, I can still remember the pain as if it was yesterday. I had such a severe ear infection that I kept thinking if only I could get that metal spike from The X-Files and jam it in my ear everything would be better. I didn't sleep for days, making me test the theory that if you stay awake for three days straight you're insane. I quite possibly was, but aren't we all mad here?

I was so disoriented I picked up a soldering iron in art metal from the wrong end. Yes, that's right, I thought why not pick it up by the searing hot metal end that likes to burn flesh. Luckily for some unknown reason I picked it up with my non-dominate left hand, so I could at least still write and take all my finals the coming week, oh happy day. I spent all my spare time trying to finish my stained glass project with my one good hand, and then I had a week's worth of finals and on Saturday morning, before getting to see Congo, I had the ACTs. Because what better then to take the ACTs with a fever of 104! I still say getting a 26 when I was giggling to myself at the absurdity of my situation and randomly selecting answers was pretty darn good. It was good enough for the school I was applying to so that's all that mattered. And then, after all this suffering, my reward was Congo. It wasn't much of a reward. 

Of all the adaptations of Crichton's films Congo is begging for a remake. If not just for the advancement in technology, could the new version try to maintain any aspect of the book, oh, and can Andy Serkis play Amy? Bring back those ominous hand paddles and crush some skulls! Seriously, I have a new cast in mind and it would be awesome. Just saying, Jennifer Lawrence, Lee Pace, and Toby Stephens. Back to this version... the biggest and most detrimental change from page to screen in my mind is the changes wrought with the character of Doctor Karen Ross. Putting aside my hatred of Laura Linney, because I have a strong feeling that it was this movie that started this hate, this adaptation once again shows that for Hollywood woman can't be strong and ruthless, yes they can be strong, yes they can make tough decisions, but it all comes down to gooey romantic feelings. Ah, ick. Karen Ross didn't want to go to the Congo to prove she could do it, to succeed and get the diamonds at all costs, as in the book, oh no, she went to rescue her ex-fiance and her boss's son! Yes, it's all about saving someone she loved!

I wonder if Michael Crichton when watching all these various films of his books ever cringed. He doesn't write weak females and yet time and again they are made weaker. By making Doctor Ross all about her heart they are taking a book about ruthless business practices and making it into a doomed love story. By doing this they are shifting the burden for their journey into the Congo onto Amy. Amy's return to the wild becomes foremost. Instead of Amy being an addition to the expedition, Doctor Ross is an addition to Amy's release. And this change doesn't work because this throws the whole plot into turmoil and forces the movie to add in unnecessary characters that are literally cannon fodder in an attempt to keep the diamond subplot. And yes, that is a laser powered by diamonds. Yes, seriously, lasers! Lasers that could punch a hole in the moon. Say what? I know a psychic vegan who can do this and yes, it is still more believable the this freakin' laser.

By taking Doctor Ross out of the driver's seat the movie now needs someone to get Amy, she is now the star after all, to Africa AND have the interest in the diamonds. Hence, as much as it pains me to say he's an unnecessary character, Tim Curry is brought in as the ludicrous Herkermer Homolka. Firstly, who thought of that name? Secondly, why are we having this weird H. Rider Haggard throw back? The whole point of Congo was to have a modern interpretation of the adventure novels of Haggard, not do this weird clash of modern and old fashioned. Mesh the two don't set them off against each other. Also, Curry is basically the great white hunter, but so is Ernie Hudson, why do we need two characters that could, in a better written story serve the same purpose? For my money, despite my adoration of Curry, I'd stick with Hudson, he was the only one who was perfect in this plane wreck of a movie.

But, oh dear. Despite ranting about all the changes I haven't even gotten to the worst of it. I'm talking about Amy. Firstly lets talk animatronics. All the apes were done by Stan Winston who, if we were to judge him by this movie, has never seen an ape in his life. Seriously. What they hell. By the end of the movie we're in this weird guns blazing human engineered ape cave with everything going to shit in epic The Island of Doctor Moreau fashion, what the fuck. And I mean the crappy film version. Which came out a year after this film and was also done by Stan Winston. Sigh. So firstly, we have apes that don't even look like apes, then add Amy's "Power Glove." Though, to reference the Nintendo Power Glove is a disservice to Nintendo. So apparently having Peter translate Amy's sign language or even just having subtitles wasn't "cool" enough and instead we get this weird childish talking ape. And yes, if you ask me at a party, I will do my impersonation. Yes, it's so bad it deserves one. Easily. Also, interesting fact, if you had a friend named Amy in high school, this might just be their most hated film because of the "Power Glove."

The first and only time I watched this film I was so distracted by plot changes and talking apes I missed the weirdest part of this movie, and that's the jungle itself. Now, I'm not talking about the built sets that looked like they were rejects from Legends of the Hidden Temple or Xena: Warrior Princess, a conclusion that is easy to reach because of Bruce Campbell being in the movie. I mean seriously, look at that river, doesn't it look a little chocolaty to you? Is that ape throwing eyeballs at Bruce really Augustus Gloop? That is a whole different level of cheesiness. No, what I'm talking about is that the jungle is SO OBVIOUSLY NOT Africa, something my fevered brain missed the first time around. Yes, it's probably hard to get permission to film there, but still... why not just build the whole freakin' jungle, you badly built enough of it already. For the majority of the film I thought perhaps I was mistaken in the film's stupidity of not even filming in Africa, but the credits confirmed it. Costa Rica it is! In fact, isn't this the rain forest where some dinos fled to after leaving Jurassic Park? But then again, the people behind this film obviously thought the viewing public was made of idiots having the lost city of Zinj's architecture based on Cambodian temples... you know, that Asian country half a world away... or maybe they were just so stupid they didn't know or care. Because if you walk away from this film with one impression it's that it was made by idiots.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adaptation, Africa, Bruce Campbell, Clue, Congo, Costa Rica, Crichton Celebration, Gorilla, High School, Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton, Sphere, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Tim Curry, Willy Wonka, Xena

Congo by Michael Crichton
Published by: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: 1980
Format: Paperback, 316 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Earth Resources Technology Services Inc. has a contract in the Congo to find a source of blue diamonds that can be used as a power source. They are fighting against a consortium of Japanese, Dutch, and German corporations so time is of the essence. When the first team is attacked and killed, possibly by gorillas, Karen Ross, despite her youth, begs to lead the follow-up expedition to not only find the diamonds but find out what really killed the first team. She wins over her boss's objections and also gets him to agree to something a little unconventional. ERTS funds Project Amy, which is a research endeavor by Doctor Peter Elliot to teach a Gorilla, Amy, ASL. She has always been an amazing student until recently when she has started to have nightmares. Nightmares of a place that just happens to be where the ERTS expedition met their fate. Ross has a feeling that Amy is the key to figuring out what happened in the Congo and to beating the consortium. But the location might be the biggest mystery of all. What really happened in the lost city of Zinj all those years ago and what will happen when they reach it?

When my Crichton obsession began in earnest Congo was the elusive Crichton book that I wanted to read more than any other. The only problem was I couldn't find a copy! In the back of one of my other Crichton books I had read a description and seen a grainy image of the cover and I knew deep in my bones that this would be the best book he'd ever written. I JUST KNEW IT! I looked everywhere to find a copy. I trolled the few bookstores in town, all to no avail. Every new town I went to I looked for it in any store that sold books, including drugstores and grocery stores, growing more and more frustrated. Why did my go-to bookstore in Door County have every Crichton book BUT Congo? Then one day, I saw it. Hilldale is a small shopping mall near my house that we went to mainly for groceries and shoes. They had a Walgreen's half way between the two stores. I was wandering the magazine aisle waiting for my mom to finish whatever it was she had come to do and there, on the bottom rack, was Congo. I couldn't believe that after all my searching I had found it in our local drugstore! I spent some time admiring the cover, imagining the story that the inside would tell, and then I dove in, and it was everything I had hoped for.

Of all the books I've picked up to re-read for my Crichton Celebration, this was the one I was most looking forward to. But I knew it had to be at just the right time. Firstly, and most importantly, I had to have a stretch of time where I could read uninterrupted. Once this book was started I knew I wouldn't be able to set it down again. Secondly the atmosphere had to be just right. It wouldn't feel right driving into this book when the view outside my window showed barren trees and a winter bleak landscape. Spring has finally come to Wisconsin and with it green has returned to the world. If I angled myself just right in my reading chair all I could see was verdant green and I could imagine being trapped under the humid canopy of the Congo. The weather played along with my reading plans bringing high humid and torrential rains and as night fell the colors outside my window mimicked the cover of my book and I felt chills. All these years later the mystery was still waiting between the covers for me. I devoured this book at a rapacious speed and sat back fully satisfied with a Crichton book for the first time in a long time.

Even as an over eager teenager Africa held me in it's spell. Growing up my parents ran an art galley and the artist we represented spent many years in Africa and his tales recounted by my father would enrapture me, as long as they weren't about mummies trying to kill me, a perennial favorite of my father's. When I went off to college I took a vast assortment of classes for no other reason then because they looked interesting. One class I was enrolled in was an African History class. While I would eventually drop this class due to an unconscientious TA who looked like Eric Stoltz and lazy teaching, I read a fascinating book on the Congo called King Leopold's Ghost. Sign number one I really didn't belong in that class is I was the only one who enjoyed the book because of it's insights. This book combined with my recent reading of Nelson Mandela's "Autobiography" gave me further insight on this reading of Congo. These two books led to a deeper understanding of the political strife in the book. The fact that the Chinese are a large presence in the book might shock some and was originally overlooked by me, but it's important because they viewed Africa as a place where revolts could lead to emerging countries using Communist ideals in setting up their governments. They helped Mandela's cause strongly, something I don't think many people are aware of.

But it wasn't just a greater sense of the current political strife in 1979 but the precedence of previous conflicts that I was made aware of. Congo is very much an adventure story the likes of which H. Rider Haggard would have written. When Haggard was writing the African continent was just being opened up and explored, and therefore being fought over and divided up by the various European Empires. No one at that time thought of Africa as anything but a big piece of land to be divvied up like a game of Risk. Flash forward a hundred years and it is still happening, but with different players and a faster timeline. The Japanese, the Dutch, and the Germans are trying to outpace the Americans for diamonds. The parallels are uncanny but Crichton doesn't beat us over the head with a stick. When I read this in high school I saw what I wanted to and read a rollicking good adventure. While the adventure is still there, to the older and hopefully wiser person I now am I see that Congo is showing a rape of a continent, mimicking what has been happening for centuries, but at a startlingly rapid rate.

To take this discussion even further, do we think that Africa would be in this state of political upheaval with wars and disease if not for what other countries have been doing for hundreds of years? The number one thing I learned from Mandela's book is that Afrikaners have historically been jackasses. These are people who are descended from Dutch settlers and Apartheid, that was all them. Outsiders destroying Africa. Raping and pillaging, taking diamonds and gold and slaves. Also, encouraging insurrection, handing out guns to every rebel who asks for one. I'm sure if we tried we could fuck up this country even more, but seriously, hasn't the rest of the world done enough? Deforestation, destruction of species, millions dead. I think that's enough. Crichton is able to show how truly horrible our actions are with what Ross does with one small explosion. She is so intent on finding the diamonds she was sent to Africa to find that she inadvertently starts a volcanic eruption that destroys a lost city that has survived for hundreds and hundreds of years right next to that volcano. But more then that she destroys the deadly, but new species of Gorillas! With one move she takes their cultural past, their resources, their wildlife, and their ecosystem. Seriously, how are we to survive with idiots like this in the world, and yes, Ross seriously reminded me of someone I know.

Re-reading so many Crichton books back to back you really start to see the similarities, especially between Jurassic Park and Congo, which both involve intelligent animals that are underestimated and people die because of this. But Congo succeeds on so many more levels then Jurassic Park, even if the Grey Gorillas of Zinj are basically Velociraptor prototypes. The reason Congo works is that it does a better job of keeping the suspense and drawing it right out until the last minute. At the beginning you get a hint of the danger in the Congo to come but it's not till the book is 2/3rds done that they actually make it to the camp site where their co-workers died. Yes, there are plenty of other, more mundane dangers, but they are just place holders for the real dangers, the Gorillas. But the Gorillas are more successful as villains because we have another ape to compare them to in Amy. Damn, I love Amy. Not just her personality, but the form of science she represents with being taught ASL and the deep connection this forms between her and Peter. In the end, nothing mattered except Amy getting a happily ever after, everything else was just extra.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Africa, Amy, Ape, ASL, Congo, Crichton Celebration, Diamond, Eric Stoltz, Gorilla, H. Rider Haggard, Jurassic Park, King Leopold's Ghost, Long Walk to Freedom, Michael Crichton, Nelson Mandela, South Africa, Zinj

Jurassic Park
Based on the book by Michael Crichton
Starring: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Ariana Richards, Joseph Mazzello, Bob Peck, Martin Ferrero, Wayne Knight, Samuel L. Jackson, Cameron Thor, Miguel Sandoval, Gerald R. Molen, BD Wong, Richard Kiley, and Greg Burson
Release Date: June 11th, 1993
Rating: ★★
To Buy

After the death of a worker on his theme resort on an island off the coast of Costa Rica, John Hammond has to agree to an inspection that his investors are demanding through their lawyer Gennaro. Gennaro is bringing in the mathematician Ian Malcolm as his auditor, seeing as Malcolm did projections for the project and predicted it's failure. Hammond brings in paleontologist Doctor Grant and paleobotanist Doctor Sattler, as people with a vested interest in his idea as well as being dependant on his grant money to fund their dig. The truth of Jurassic Park is that they have brought dinosaurs back from extinction to serve as the attractions in an amusement park. Hammond has also brought his grandchildren so that his "guests" can see that the park is designed with children in mind. Of course no one listens to Malcolm's dire warnings and everyone is enraptured by the novelty and majesty on display, never thinking about the risks; and for some, only the monetary rewards. But it is one person thinking about his own monetary gain that puts everyone's lives in danger and the future of the park in jeopardy.

Prior to this past weekend I had only seen Jurassic Park the once. At the one dollar budget cinema. With my mom. After I read the book for my high school biology class. What can I say? There weren't Muppets in it, teenage me wrote it off. Of course I'd catch bits and pieces over the years on TV, those "famous" and "memorable" scenes that everyone remembers, but never did I sit down and watch it in it's entirety. Unlike the book which relied a little on that adolescent knowledge of dinosaurs that still resides in us all, there is no doubt in my mind that Spielberg made this movie for eleven year old boys; as evidenced by the fact that my brother has seen this film innumerable times in the theater and I'm sure if pushed could have recited the movie word for word. Re-watching it with him I was alerted to not only when the "big scenes" were coming up, but also when the funniest ones where, ie, when Tim gets electrocuted. Overall though I was left with this impression of mystification. This was the highest grossing film until Titanic came out? Seriously!?!

I really wish I could read the script that Crichton wrote, before the exposition and violence was removed; in other words, before talking DNA cartoons took over the exposition. It was like having that stupid talking paperclip in Word pop up to annoy you, offer no good advice, and then stick around long after he'd worn out his welcome. There is no way around the fact that Jurassic Park is schlocky! Yes, I know, I was shocked by schlock! That little talking DNA cartoon is symbolic of everything that went wrong with the new script from a man most known for the unwatchable Death Becomes Her. The plot was streamlined almost into irrelevance, the characters became more stereotypical, look at Doctor Sattler mooning over children and sighing wistfully over her ticking biological clock, Hammond isn't a bad guy, he's just an old showman, not that Spielberg would be that obvious to show his hand and his simulacrum, oh yes, he would. And how can we hook those eleven-year-old boys? Add bathroom humor. Literally. Gennaro, who in the book has depth as a family man and as a lawyer really steps it up to be a hero dies ignominiously on a toilet. What The Hell Spielberg! Plus dino snot! Oh, and, heaven forbid carnivore and herbivore are too complicated, let's call them meat-o-saurus and veggie-o-saurus.

If it wasn't for the dumbing down of themes and concepts, then time itself would have destroyed this film. Yes folks, it's time to talk about CGI. Old school CGI, which is exactly what Jurassic Park is, is laughable. I've heard it said that if I were to watch it on Blu-ray it would have been worse... but it was bad enough already. The majestic scenes of the dinos grazing across the fields looks like a bad children's book illustration, but really, it's the fake lake that made me laugh out loud. The truth is technology is changing so rapidly unless it's a physical effect whatever technology was used to make it is already obsolete by the time the movie comes out and as time goes on it looks worse and worse. Thankfully, and surprisingly, there aren't that many dinosaurs in the movie and quite a fair amount of them were made as animatronic. The animatronics hold up far better then any of the CGI, but there's still a schlockiness to them. There's a jitter to the dinosaurs that made me repeatedly think of Gremlins and other low budget horror films. Not to mention the baby raptor looks like the chestburster from Alien... a franchise Stan Winston and his team worked on, so, not that unfair a comparison. Unless you have some special connection to this film you will only be able to see all that is wrong and nothing that is right.

The main aspect of the film that as a designer drove me up the wall is that while in the book they are more then a year away from the launch of the Park and haven't yet moved onto branding and merchandise, here the park is fully branded thanks to Chip Kidd's iconic logo and get your t-shirts while they're hot! It should be noted the in the movie the park isn't opening for over a year as well. I want to know if this was a subtle way to make the "Park" seem real, more like Disneyland, or if it was just to sell merchandise. I want to think it was the former, but the cynic in me knows it was the later. Re-watching Jurassic Park I realized that the entire movie was made to sell merchandise to those rapt eleven-year-olds. As certain scenes came on my brother would be saying things like, oh, you could buy that raptor enclosure as a playset, or the whole visitor's center was another playset. In fact, he pointed out that Jurassic Park was the last big movie to bother with elaborate playsets. But not to fear, it didn't just have playsets and action figures! There were video games and t-shirts and stuffed animals. You name it, Jurassic Park had it. The biggest irony being the ride at Universal Studios! Seriously?!? Do you not get the irony here?

There are two redeeming factors to the film. The first is that Doctor Grant is insufferably rude to those annoyingly precocious children and it gave me some ersatz joy to see the snark seeing as for the entirety of the book I wanted those brats dead. Secondly, and most importantly, the genius that is Jeff Goldblum. It doesn't surprise me in the least that when a sequel was thought of they wanted it to be all about Ian Malcolm. Of course it had problems canonically because Crichton killed off Malcolm at the end of the first book, but that was easily solved with some retconning and a joke from The Princess Bride. Someone on this film had the genius idea to basically let Jeff Goldblum wander around set being Jeff Goldblum. He has a natural insouciance that is needed in the film, not to mention his wardrobe. The film distinctly gets progressively worse the less screen time he has. In fact, this film might have been the start of my Goldblum obsession, and yes, I do love Transylvania 6-5000, proving that I can love and embrace schlock; just the right kind, and Jurassic Park ain't it.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alien, Animatronics, Bathroom Humor, CGI, Chip Kidd, Crichton Celebration, Gremlin, Ian Malcolm, Jeff Goldblum, Jurassic Park, Merchandise, Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg, Titanic, Toys, Transylvania 6-5000

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
Published by: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: January, 1990
Format: Paperback, 399 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Paleontologist Alan Grant is working in the Badlands of South Dakota on his dig site with his student Ellie Sattler. Alan's been working the site for many years thanks recently to a grant from billionaire John Hammond. For awhile he was funded by Hammond's company InGen, but the hassle of dealing with their apparently irrelevant questions about dinosaurs made him sever ties with them. Those ties are going to be tested in the next few days. An apparent dinosaur has been found on the coast of Costa Rica, inland from Hammond's private island. Hammond has asked Grant and Sattler to come to this island for an "inspection." It turns out that Hammond has been building a theme park and his investors are getting jumpy. By bringing a group capable of assessing the safety of the island together Hammond hopes to quell the dissent. Though the shocking truth of the park rattles Grant. Hammond has been able to genetically recreate dinosaurs and has made these newly resurrected creatures the theme of his resort. Another one of the assessment group, mathematician Ian Malcolm, is predicting doom and gloom, saying that his projections show that Jurassic Park is inherently dangerous. To prove Malcolm wrong Hammond has invited his two young grandchildren along to show the parks safety. The park isn't safe. Malcolm was right. They will be lucky to escape with their lives.

Jurassic Park was the beginning. The problem I've always had with school is that I only want to take what I'm interested in. College, aside from those pesky prerequisites, was ideal for me in that my entire schedule could be tailor made to be art, art, and more art. Whereas high school, high school was not. I would attempt to delay the inevitable as long as possible. One way I did that was to not take science freshman year. Sure, this meant that I was then taking science with the grade lower then me, but it meant that I had a year with no science, so it was totally worth it. And it's not that I hate science, well, I have issues, let's put it like that. But aside from physics, my brain isn't programed that way. It's a subject I would rather avoid if I can. Luckily I had a biology teacher who understood that for some students cutting apart a fetal pig wasn't the highlight of their week. And don't get me started on microscopes, they make me all cross eyed, I just can't stand looking through them! So my teacher had other projects that could be done to boost our scores, and while aligning myself with the Australian foreign exchange student who loved to cut things helped out some, I was needing to do some of these other projects badly. One project I did was I got to build a cross section of a plant cell out of clay and then paint and label the whole thing. I loved building it and my teacher loved it so much he asked to keep it. Another project option was to write a book report on Jurassic Park. The movie had just come out over the summer break and was still dominating theaters. I devoured the book and was desperate to have my own slice of real amber. Thus began an addiction that would take in everything Crichton has ever written.

Coming back to the book over twenty years later was a surreal experience. While I have read the sequel a fair few times I haven't picked up Jurassic Park since that book report when I was a sophomore. More then any of Crichton's other books Jurassic Park has become part of our culture. It is THE book that people associate with Crichton. It has spawned a franchise that is part of our collective unconscious so much so that even Weird Al has parodied it with his album artwork for "Alapalooza." When the movie came out it tapped into the zeitgeist and hasn't left. The problem this creates in reading the book is that the visuals from the movie are burned into our brains. The book and the movie have become so intertwined that you can't just read the book without having the key visual images come to mind. The T-Rex doesn't just attack the tour, the glass of water must first ripple to draw out the tension. The T-Rex must roar and the banner must fall. And you know what? These scenes aren't in the book! But you expect them to be, you picture them anyway. While I love movies, there's a part of me that wishes there was some way to keep the book and the movie separate and have no cross contamination.

As time has passed the movie has replaced the book in my brain, but it's time that's the real villain in re-reading Jurassic Park. The truth is I've grown up. I'm no longer a teenager, not that I'd want to be, but there are certain things unique to being a teenager, in particular a teenager with a little brother. And that is I've lost my knowledge of dinosaurs. When you're a kid there's something mystical that makes dinosaurs an all consuming passion, especially for boys. Most of my childhood was taken up with dinosaurs. My brother's bedroom was papered with every kind of poster of a dinosaur you could imagine. I remember when the Milwaukee Public Museum had their grand opening for their dinosaur exhibit and we were there. Since that day I have had nightmares about the Tyrannosaurus ripping out the guts of that Triceratops that is on gruesome display, forever trapped in that horrific moment. Back then if someone where to say a dinosaur name I'd instantly know the visual. Now, not so much. I have three dinosaurs in my brain now that I can instantly recognize, Tyrannosaurus, Brontosaurus, and Triceratops. There are seventeen varieties of dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. I have no idea what they look like and this is a big problem when trying to visualize the story. I muddle their names and I don't know one from the other. The confusion that results saps the fear from the book for me.

To have a thriller that no longer has any fear kind of defeats the purpose of the book. Because the fear of the dinosaurs is the only thing driving this book forward. Therefore I had no drive to keep reading it and instead of devouring this book I kind of leisurely strolled to the end. The characters, especially Lex and her grandfather, are so annoying that you are rooting for the dinosaurs to kill them; preferably in a long and agonizing manner. There are so many plot problems with the book that I felt like thumping my head against a wall. Why does this have to be the most popular of Crichton's books? There are so many better ones! The secondary plot though drove me to distraction. So, while they're out in the park they see some raptors jump on board the ship to the mainland and then they have 18 hours or whatever to get ahold of the ship to tell them to turn around. Grant mentions this every few hours to remind us of this totally unnecessary plot contrivance. Why is it unnecessary? Because we have pretty much stated the fact that dinosaurs have already made it to the mainland so what's three more raptors? Also, if it's to add more urgency to their trek through the park, I thought just surviving would be enough?

But I quibble. I pick. This was an ok read, far more enjoyable then the book I'm reading at the moment. Crichton has a similarity to his books but also a breadth to his subjects that feels like home and it's fun diving back in after all these years. I wouldn't be the critic I am today with my love of reading if Crichton didn't spark it. And the more I re-read Crichton the more I see how eerily accurate he was in predicting human behavior and trends. His books are just as relevant, if not more so, then the day they were written. I know the scientific community never liked Crichton being so outspoken and were always criticizing his views, perhaps because his hits were too close to the mark. I wonder what he'd have to say about companies like Monsanto and what they've been up to. I mean, sure, in Jurassic Park we are given a worst case scenario of scientific advancement being made just because they could without thinking of the long term consequences of releasing dinosaurs back into the world; but look to the smaller scale, to the GMO crisis that abounds now! Think about a company like Monsanto spraying a field of corn with a pesticide they're not quite sure what it will do and they end up with rat stomachs exploding. Hammond is the epitome of the problem, nearsighted people looking for their own glory; go hang the world. More and more the world is being made up of these people. Malcolm is right, it's not about the earth surviving us, it's about us surviving us.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brontosaurus, Costa Rica, Crichton Celebration, Dinosaur, Dinosaurs, DNA, GMO, High School, Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton, Milwaukee, Monsanto, Paleontologist, Science, Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus, Weird Al

Rising Sun
Based on the book by Michael Crichton
Starring: Sean Connery, Wesley Snipes, Harvey Keitel, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Kevin Anderson, Mako, Ray Wise, Stan Egi, Stan Shaw, Tia Carrere, Steve Buscemi, Tatjana Patitz, and Michele Ruiz
Release Date: July 30th, 1993
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Lieutenant Web Smith is home with his daughter and mother when he gets a call to come to the Nakamoto Corporate Headquarters in downtown Los Angeles because there is a need for a liaison. Web receives a second call on his way to the crime scene to bring along the retired Captain John Connor who is an expert Japanese liaison. Connor explains to Web that they aren't so much going to a crime scene as the scene of a negotiation. Everything Web knows about police procedure will be thrown out the window while dealing with the Japanese. The Japanese want the case resolved swiftly and they see to it that the conclusion they want reached is easily found. A little too easily. Despite the case being swiftly closed Smith and Connor keep digging, thinking that perhaps the truth of the death of Cheryl Lynn Austin is more important then a quickly solved case. The Japanese do not see their continued investigation as beneficial to their interests and will do anything to stop it, even smear Smith and Connor's names in order to silence them. But with more deaths, threats, and the Yakuza, the cops are quickly learning the hard way that business is war.

Rising Sun is easily one of the better Crichton adaptations out there, and this isn't surprising because Crichton was more actively involved, being one of the co-writers of the script. In fact I would say that the only adaptations of his books worth a damn are the ones he sought to have some control on. Unlike other authors, because of his experience in film, Crichton understands the need to make a good movie instead of slavishly sticking to the book and in the process maintains the spirit of the book as well as creates an enjoyable movie. Having not watched Rising Sun in years I spent a good twenty minutes just in awe of the sheer 90s ness of it all until I became fully sucked into the story. I was also a little shocked that my parents let me watch it when it came out on VHS. Despite having lived through the 90s there's a time capsule quality that this movie represents for me. Those shoulder pads in men's suits! Oh, and those overly pleated pants! Seriously, Sean Connery's pants are flowing in the breeze on that golf course! Is Cheryl Lynn wearing a jumpsuit? Yes she is. But the key sign you're watching an early 90s movie? As my brother says, no movie of this era would be complete without a chase scene through a construction site!

While the film does maintain a fair bit of the hardboiled feel of the book, by not being a period piece it loses the timeless vibe of the source material and decides instead to go for something more bankable, aka, a buddy cop movie. You might not realize at first that you are watching a buddy cop movie, but pay close attention to the dialogue and you can be in no doubt, "sempai, apple pie!" They have taken Lieutenant Smith, who in the book is a questioning but indulgent narrator there to learn from Connor's knowledge and turned him into "Web" Smith, the smart-mouthed sidekick to Sean Connery. While this might seem like a ploy to turn the movie into the next Beverly Hills Cop or Lethal Weapon, instead it is just taking the antagonism that is racing through Smith's inner monologue and putting it on the screen in a format movie audiences would recognize versus falling into the trope of using a narrator and then making it cheesier then the theatrical release of Bladerunner. But there is no doubt in this duo that despite the buddy cop trope of the newbie getting the girl that it's really Sean Connery who will have his bed being warmed at the end of the film.

But the change of Smith isn't just about creating a buddy cop dynamic, there's a subtly and cunning in this change. When the book was released the major sticking point for readers was the overtly racist tone of the book. Rising Sun read as an anti-Japanese tract disguised as a thriller. Thankfully it's obvious in this day and age that this would be unacceptable to movie-going audiences. So how do you take source material that is racist and maintain some aspect of this without alienating your audience? You deflect and transform it. Sad as it is to say, but for us Americans we are more familiar with racism when it falls along a strict black and white line. While this is not acceptable, it is more relatable; especially within the buddy cop genre where the dynamic is often to have this pairing of black and white. The black character is more outspoken and not willing to put up with this shit and occasionally uses "massa" ironically or angrily. By having Snipes say such "empowering" things as "No, you get the senator's car! Wrong guy, wrong fucking century!" the movie is putting the "accepted" racism on view for all while casually deflecting the anti-Japanese sentiment of the book.

The biggest example though of making sure this movie wasn't anti-Japanese, besides the fact that they wisely cast Japanese actors, is in the end when the killer is revealed. It comes as no surprise when reading the book that the killer is the representative for the Nakamoto Corporation whom Connor and Smith dealt with the most. But despite keeping this character complicit in the crimes, despite a totally unwarranted name change for the film, he isn't the killer. Instead the killer is a privileged white yuppie. Bob Richmond is the perfect villain. He has aligned himself against his own country and is disgustingly obsequious and rich. Everyone watching the movie can be pleased that this entitled jackass gets what he deserves all while not unnecessarily persecuting the Japanese in a hateful rant like the book. Of course the murderer's actual guilt might be more ambiguous then in the book, but we are still given an ending that won't ruffle any feathers and gives us a satisfying sense of closure.

Though there was one aspect of the book that was lost in translation. While the movie toned down the anti-Japanese sentiment it virtually eliminated the corruption of political officials. In the book Senator Morton is a Kennedy-esque playboy caught up in the murder. He sleeps around, he drinks too much, his vices bring him down. Here though they justify his affair with Cheryl Lynn because he has an invalid wife, and as for the drinking? It's gone. To me the elimination of governmental corruption wasn't done to streamline the movie or to keep our focus. It felt too much like a purposeful omission and it got me to thinking, while it's not wise to harbor anti-Japanese sentiments, it's the politicians that are the true untouchables. Think about it? Right now even the most corrupt of politicians are being considered as viable candidates for the Presidential election next year! While we can "learn" to become accustomed to certain types of racism that they are allowed into our films as the lesser of two evils, say something against a politician and that's the end of you. The double standards of life are here on full display, and once again, if we look for it, we realize that which isn't shown might be the most important.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 90s, Beverly Hills Cop, Bladerunner, Crichton Celebration, Japanese, Lethal Weapon, Michael Crichton, Politicians, Racism, Ray Wise, Rising Sun, Sean Connery, Steve Buscemi, VHS, Wesley Snipes

Rising Sun by Michael Crichton
Published by: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: January 27th, 1992
Format: Paperback, 339 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Lieutenant Peter J. Smith left homicide for the more stable hours and better pay of being a Special Services Officer. He's called in when a diplomat gets drunk or there's a translator needed at the scene of a crime. When he gets the call to come to the scene of a murder that occurred during the Nakamoto Corporation's grand opening of their new Los Angeles headquarters Smith's world gets turned upside down. The first thing that happens in this unusual case is that he is requested to bring Captain John Connor with him, who, while in semi retirement, is fluent in Japanese and has a divisive relationship with them. Up on the 46th floor the victim, Cheryl Lynn Austin, seems to be nothing more then an inconvenience. But as the two cops dig deeper Cheryl had strong ties to the Japanese community and quite probably was a pawn in their business. The one clear thing is that the Japanese will do anything to delay and obfuscate the investigation so that the police reach the decision that is most convenient to them. This is business and to them business is war; casualties are to be expected and they are willing to exert pressure where it is needed, even on the police.  

Rising Sun has the unique distinction of being the first Michael Crichton book I read under my own steam. This wasn't homework. No matter how great Jurassic Park is it still was for school not for me. Therefore reading Rising Sun was something to luxuriate in, so obviously I took it on vacation with me. Though me and reading on vacation oddly don't go together very well. I have several books that have taken long journeys with me but were never picked up once on that trip. Pride and Prejudice went to D.C. and New York, Soul Music went to Ontario, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy went to San Francisco, Thyme in a Flask went to Arkansas, and I never read a page of any of them while on vacation. There's just too much else to do. But there's something about the driving force of the narrative in Rising Sun that made it different then all these other books.

Despite being set during a chilly February in Los Angeles, I will always associate Rising Sun with the heat and humidity of a Wisconsin summer in Door County. We had a three bedroom suite at the Pheasant Park Resort in Sister Bay. I had the dubious honor of having the room with the whirlpool tub. Which was right next to the bed. In a room that didn't have air conditioning. And yes, everyone insisted on using the tub. Let it be known this is a mistake I never repeated. Even if the room hadn't conspired against me to keep me awake all night the book would have anyway. I lay up all night sweating through what little sleepwear I had on being just absorbed by the story. While yes, I had read quite a fair amount of The Cat Who... mysteries by Lillian Jackson Braun at this time in my young life, there's nothing like the first time you read a well plotted mystery, and that is exactly what Rising Sun is. Re-reading it all these years later I again devoured it in only two days. But it's amazing how much more insight I have over twenty years later.    

What sets Rising Sun apart from almost every other book Crichton wrote under his own name is that it doesn't hinge on his two most used tropes, advanced technology going awry or medicine. This book can in no way be classified as science fiction and this makes it unique in his canon. In fact it almost feels as if Crichton felt the need to show that he could write a solid mystery without any gimmicks. He wrote a straight up first person narrative that has this noir vibe that I didn't pick up on back in high school. In fact, having recently read Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest you can see the similarities and how Rising Sun would fit perfectly in this hardboiled genre. There's organized forces working against the protagonists, there's the cynical attitude of both Connor and Smith to the Japanese, by the Japanese running a slander campaign against Smith you question his reliability, turning him into an anti-hero. Plus, hardboiled fiction is known for it's unlikable characters, even the murder victim is unsympathetic in this case. Crichton excels at this genre and it's no wonder that Hard Case Crime jumped at the chance to publish his John Lange back catalog. I should probably get to reading those.

Though despite all the good there is about this book with it's mystery and driving narrative there is some severe xenophobia going on here. The xenophobia I think is oddly why the book correlates well with hardboiled fiction because writing of that era wasn't culturally sensitive. So yes, while this book entertains me, an older, wiser me is sitting back and going, damn, that's a little racist don't you think Michael? How about we tone it down a bit, make it less of a one sided argument? And saying the Japanese are more racist then Americans doesn't really help your cause, it just makes it seem even more vindictive. With the rants against the Japanese, as well as a few aimed at the Germans, I felt like I was having a dinner conversation with an embittered elderly relative who survived WWII and was going to take their hatred to the grave. Side note, my great aunt did take her hatred to the grave. So, all in all, I can see why this book got mixed reviews. It's a good story, just maybe a little too polarizing and vindictive.

But there is an ironic truth nestled in the vitriol against the Japanese. Their "Saturday Meetings" in the book where they are deciding what to do about America, well, if the meetings were real or just the imaginings of Crichton, they have turned out to be oddly prescient. Basically Crichton states that the Japanese could see us going to hell in a hand basket, and really, look at the world around us? Unemployment, unrest, looting, riots, protests, murders! I mean, what if there was a time that we could have changed the course of our country and turned a blind eye instead? What if there was something we could have done to not get where we are? As usual, after reading some Crichton you are left with more to think about then when you started and also wondering if perhaps he was some kind of precog...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Cat Who, Crichton Celebration, Dashiell Hammett, Hardboiled, Japan, Japanese, John Lange, Jurassic Park, Lilian Jackson Braun, Michael Crichton, Mystery, Noir, Precognition, Racism, Red Harvest, Rising Sun, WWII

Timeline by Michael Crichton
Published by: Alfred A. Knopf
Publication Date: November 16th, 1999
Format: Hardcover, 444 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Robert Doniger and his company ITC make components for MRI machines. Or at least that's what everyone thinks. ITC though has a vast portfolio of different investments, one of them is an archaeological site in the south of France on the Dordogne River. The site is lead by Professor Edward Johnston and his team; André Marek, a man who wishes he lived in the period he studies, Chris Hughes, who is like a son to Johnston and specializes in studying mills, Kate Erickson, an architect student who has transferred to the study of history, and David Stern, their resident geek. The site is thrown into uproar when a representative from ITC comes to do the yearly inspection of the site and makes references to things that the researchers themselves don't even know about. Johnston demands an audience with Doniger and returns with the representative to New Mexico.

Days go by and Professor Johnston isn't in communication with his team when in the ruins of the monastery they find a note from him saying that he is in 1357 and needs help. Everyone thinks it's a joke until all the tests prove that it is legit. Marek contacts ITC to question them about this development and he is told to pack his bags and pick three other team members, they are to be on a plane to New Mexico in the next hour. With Chris, Kate, and David all onboard, they are let into the big secret that ITC has been carefully guarding. ITC has developed time travel, of a sort. Really it's traveling to different times in parallel dimensions, but that is how they knew so much about the site in southern France, they'd been there when the castles weren't ruins; and due to a little accident, Professor Johnston is there now and has no way back. ITC thought it prudent to send back the only people who know the site and know what the Professor would be doing, aka his team. ITC convinces them to go on this rescue mission, but they cleverly omit the dangers and risks that the team will face and the fact that not everyone might come back alive or at all.

By 1999 I was a true Michael Crichton junky. I had powered through his whole back catalog and aside from a few blips here and there I adored every single volume. Sadly, having read all his books I could do nothing but re-read my favorites while waiting for the next book to come out. And when Timeline came out in November of 1999 I didn't see it for what it was; the beginning of the end. While two of his future books would come to be my most hated of all Crichton's books, Timeline was the one that started the slide in quality. By all accounts I should have loved this book. It's time travel, it's knights, it's amazing new technology, it's a snooze. I remember struggling through this book. Over a month after I had bought it as I unwrapped my Christmas presents I asked my parents to be excused from going to the relatives for our traditional holiday festivities. I was damned if I would waste more time on this book so I resolved to power through it all Christmas day so that at the end of it I could revel in my new books and move on. I curled up on my couch and before my parents even got home I had finally finished Timeline. And in 2004 before the movie came out I struggled through it again. And now, despite my history with this book, I braved it's pages once more and can say that yes, it doesn't improve. Even a decade didn't improve it one little bit, aside from reaffirming my desire to never be transported via beams or lasers. In fact, I think I found Timeline even more annoying this time around.

The overall problem with this book is that it hinges on a faulty premise. There is NO REASON for the grad students to rescue their professor. What's in it for them? Up until his disappearance into the past he's had a total of about two lines and we're supposed to believe that these four students are willing to sacrifice their lives for him? Why? Is he really that awesome? Chris, who views him as a father figure might have some reason, and he's the most hesitant! But other then that there is NO REASON. Stern made the right choice. Stay behind, survive. But the lack of character development isn't just in Professor Johnston, though he is the most obvious. None of the characters are developed in any tangible way. They are astonishingly ignorant and two dimensional, so much so that I have no idea how they even got into grad school. Here's the evil English warlord, here's the female grad student who can be independent, but when a man rescues her she'll swoon and think about marriage and happily ever afters. There is no depth, no development, no reason to root for these characters and hope they make it back to their own time.

The two dimensionality extends into the worldbuilding, as in, here's a cookie cutter Medieval World, go play in it. For all the trash talk of Disney and immersive experiences, I gotta say, I think Disney would do a better job then Doniger and ITC. Disney would at least have a PROPER MAP! I mean, I thought that I had misremembered and that my compass disorientation was because I wasn't paying attention to the included map, but I was wrong! It's the book, not me! At one point the Green Chapel is in the woods to the east about two miles, later it's only a quarter mile to the north? Geographic orientation be damned! Plus how are they getting so easily across the river when there aren't that many boats? Plus all the knights and lords are so basic you can't tell one apart from the other. Plus which castle is which? Their names are bandied about and switched so much that not only is this novel really really flat, but also confusing as hell. It's just adding problems one on top of the other for readers, plus, plus, plus. Plus for the first hundred or so pages, it just made my head hurt.

Re-reading this book after so long I realized it's like a really bad episode of Doctor Who without The Doctor; but not cool like "Blink" but lame like "Love and Monsters." Oh, and give him the worst companions ever, lets say Mickey, Adric, and Peri. So, it's Mickey, Adric, and Peri wandering around and killing people left and right and getting no closer to saving The Doctor because their combined stupidity is so staggering you are blown away. But even if The Doctor wasn't present look at the name of the show, Doctor Who! He is the driving force, much like Professor Johnston should be but isn't. Yes, this book came out in 1999, but the thing is time travel and science fiction already had set expectations for a narrative that had nothing to do with re-launching Doctor Who. The readers of this genre are smart and savvy. We expect the best out of a book we're expending our time on. The thing that struck me most is that this is really time travel for dummies. It's like The Da Vinci Code, written with the masses in mind, not bothering with those readers who might actually have an intellect.

Which brings me to the fact that I am capable of independent thought and therefore I will now poke holes in Crichton's theory of time travel. Can we really call it time travel? He even says it's more like space travel, because you are not going back along your own timeline, but you're crossing over into a parallel dimension that is almost but not quite the same. Which means we get into a paradox of parallel universes. How do they know that they can effect their timeline? If they aren't in their universe how can they A) be sure it's historically accurate and B) get the note from the professor. To tackle A, let's look at the mill. Chris is surprised to see the mill has four not three wheels as he thought. What if the difference between our universe and the one they go to is just that there's one more water wheel? Chris, hard as it may be to believe, might be right. As for B, how exactly did the professor know they were going to find his note for help? He's in another freakin' universe! The fact is small differences in dimensions would really add up which in turn makes the book not add up. Yes, I am probably over thinking this, but I just want it to be better, to be so much more, not Medieval Dan Brown! But I think I have proven beyond a doubt that re-reading Timeline can't magically change what's written.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Archeology, Castles, Christmas, Crichton Celebration, Dan Brown, Disney, Doctor Who, France, Knights, Medieval, Michael Crichton, Paradox, The Da Vinci Code, The Doctor, Time Travel, Timeline, Worldbuilding

Shocking as it may seem that an Anglophile and bibliophile became this way because of one of the most popular bestselling authors of thrillers and science fiction it is still true. Michael Crichton made me who I am. My formative years were all television shows and movies, with the occasional novelization of said television show or movie as my reading for the year. I'd sometimes daringly branch out to such books as Timothy Zahn's continuation of the Star Wars saga; but reading for fun was something I rarely did. Thanks to a biology teacher who knew some kids weren't cut out for science I found a love of one author and a love of reading that would change my life.

It was my sophomore year in high school and I was finally taking biology. The previous year I was able to convince my parents that if they made me take science my first year I'd be more likely to skip school... seeing as how much I already skipped it's surprising that this ploy worked. But I really lucked out in my biology teacher. I got to build a model of a plant cell, which my teacher liked so much that he asked to keep it. In later years in high school I would use my artistic talents in as many classes as I could to my benefit, even doing a painting for my history class of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, but this was the first time I realized that I could use my skill set outside of art classes. One of these optional assignments in biology was reading Jurassic Park.

Jurassic Park was the very first Michael Crichton book that I read and over the next few years I would devour everything he had ever written. Because I still had such a love of movies whenever a Crichton book was adapted for the screen this became a big deal. The mid nineties was the perfect time to be a Crichton fanatic in this regard. Jurassic Park, Rising Sun, Disclosure, Congo, The Lost World, Sphere, and The 13th Warrior were all made into films! I remember the sheer excitement of getting to go to an advance screening of The Lost World at Point Cinema with my friends. Yes, the movie was awful, but I can still remember that anticipation. That anticipatory excitement is once again running through me, I mean have you seen the trailer for Jurassic World yet? This got me to thinking of all the Crichton books that I haven't read in years and all the movies I only saw in the theaters and I thought, it's time to revisit my roots. And thus my Crichton Celebration was born. I hope you'll join me the next two months counting down to Jurassic World with a look back at Crichton's and my shared past.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Biology, Congo, Crichton Celebration, Disclosure, High School, Jurassic Park, Jurassic World, Michael Crichton, Movies, Rising Sun, Sphere, Star Wars, The 13th Warrior, The Lost World, Timothy Zhan