Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park Summary | Plot Summary

Jurassic Park opens in South America with several unusual and dangerous interactions between people and an unknown animal. Through miscommunication and cover-up, no one is able to determine exactly what is going on in Costa Rica. Meanwhile, in the Badlands, paleontologist Dr. Grant and paleobotanist Dr. Sattler are unearthing dinosaur bones. They get a call from their benefactor, the wealthy and eccentric entrepreneur John Hammond, who asks that they join him for a weekend consultation.

The two scientists, along with a mathematician and a lawyer, fly with Hammond to a private island off the coast of Costa Rica. Here, they discover that Hammond's genetic engineering company has created a zoo of real dinosaurs, cloned from DNA trapped in fossilized tree sap. The group, along with Hammond's grandchildren, takes the very first tour of the island. While some people are there for neutral scientific observation, the mathematician, Ian Malcolm, continues to assert his prediction that the island park is doomed to fail because life cannot be constrained by boundaries, in spite of the safeguards built into the genetic structure of the dinosaurs.

While on the tour, all the power goes out. They are trapped, waiting for it to come back on. A man named Dennis Nedry, a Computer Engineer who is bribed by one of Hammond's competitors to steal dinosaur embryos, caused the system failure. Because of the system failure, the dinosaurs get loose, proving Malcolm's prediction.

While the control room struggles to regain control of the computer system, the Tyrannosaurus rex attacks the group on tour. Dr. Grant and the two children barely escape. A dinosaur kills Nedry, one of the only people who can repair the computer system.

Dr. Grant and Hammond's grandchildren fight for their lives, as they struggle to get back to the tourist compound in order to alert the authorities that raptors have escaped the island and are on a ship bound for the mainland.

Search parties are unable to locate the paleontologist or the children, but they do find Malcolm, who is alive but wounded.

Dr. Grant and the children, Tim and Alexis, make their way back to the compound in a series of increasingly dangerous situations. They encounter a variety of dinosaurs, especially the dangerous Tyrannosaurus rex, who relentlessly pursues them.

In the control room, Hammond and his team of engineers and scientists continue to try to regain control of the park. They realize that their only hope to regain control is in a maintenance shed nearby, but to get there they have to face the raptors. A team of them arms themselves and fights their way toward the shed, but are unsuccessful. The other people who know how to get the system back online are killed.

Dr. Grant and the two children narrowly evade the Tyrannosaurus rex one last time, because of a delayed tranquilizer drug finally taking action in the dinosaur's body. They make it back to the tourist compound, only to find that it is in shambles, and everyone else is trapped in the lodge by the raptors.

Dr. Grant gets to the shed and restarts the generator. The children trap one raptor; make their way to the control room; and begin regaining control of the computer system. They are cornered by three raptors that Dr. Grant is able to kill. Two remaining raptors are about to enter the lodge and kill the people who are taking refuge there. However, Dr. Grant and the children, who get the computer system back online, stop them at the last minute.

Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler head back into the park to look for a nest of raptors, in order to destroy it. They do not get a chance to destroy it, though, because the raptors run away in a confusing behavior pattern. The scientists give chase and discover that the raptors are preparing to migrate. The Costa Rican military arrives just in time to take them away. The island is destroyed.