Someone is posting the first draft of the Jurassic Park script on Facebook!

A guy named Derrick Davis has gotten hold of Michael Crichton’s “revised first draft” of the Jurassic Park script, dated 01/19/91. There have been various versions of rewrites of the script floating around before now, but to my knowledge, this is the first ever Crichton draft found, which makes it very notable.

There are eight pages up currently with a few more promised each day. It’s really exciting to see how it follows the book a little more closely, and just exciting period as a dinosaur-obsessed person who’s first movie in a theater was probably Jurassic Park.

Check it out!

EDIT: I’m going to be rehosting these on Imgur as I get them from Facebook. Figure it’s a good idea to save them for posterity anyway. Feel free to kick me if I fall behind on updates.
(Kiss my ass, Zuckerberg)

Curse you for foiling my clever Rick Roll.

It was a Rick Roll? I clicked the link. It said: “Sorry, this content isn’t available right now”. There was no Rick to roll me.

That’s pretty cool. Thanks for the share!

Dek Rollins said:

It was a Rick Roll? I clicked the link. It said: “Sorry, this content isn’t available right now”. There was no Rick to roll me.

Ugh, I was afraid of that.

Actually, let me just upload them to Imgur.

Pages 9, 10, 11, and 12 up!

12-15 are up. Changed the page formatting so that the cover is separate from the page numbers which is more accurate in terms of how I’m getting them so I’m not losing my mind wondering where pages went.

They’re coming up to the island!

16-19.

Ed Regis is here!

20-23

A different dinosaur reveal and facility tour.

Very interesting find. I find it to be quite inferior to the final script. Too many unimportant characters, too quickly paced, clunky exposition.

Interesting they reused that beginning for the sequel in any case.

Yeah, that’s straight out of the novel, in fact, this script follows the novel fairly closely. The book actually starts up quite slow with the nurse in Costa Rica and the Tina incident. You don’t actually meet any of the main characters (with the possible exception of Ed Regis) until a few chapters in.

24-27 up. The gang tours the genetic factory, meets Dr. Wu, and we see our first dinosaur.

Right out of the book! It’s good. Doing the dinosaur reveal this way is so much less impactful than the film, though, one change I really approve of. They kinda blow through the whole cloning process here, but less so in the film. You can chalk it up to the smoke and mirrors of where Crichton eventually goes with The Lost World (I wonder if he was laying groundwork?).

I like the raptor tease. I honestly like Regis as a character and wish he’d made it into the film, because him being there allows for Gennaro and Muldoon to do their thing, which I love in the book.

Tyrphanax said:

Yeah, that’s straight out of the novel, in fact, this script follows the novel fairly closely. The book actually starts up quite slow with the nurse in Costa Rica and the Tina incident. You don’t actually meet any of the main characters (with the possible exception of Ed Regis) until a few chapters in.

Yeah I read the book shortly after seeing the film way back when but I don’t rememeber the particularities of the story.

I think this type of story telling works well in books because you can have your plot simmer and slowly come to a boil whereas in films, you need to use your time wisely.

Comparing this script with the final film shows the filmmakers understood this and changed things around to make it flow better.

Mavimao said:

Tyrphanax said:

Yeah, that’s straight out of the novel, in fact, this script follows the novel fairly closely. The book actually starts up quite slow with the nurse in Costa Rica and the Tina incident. You don’t actually meet any of the main characters (with the possible exception of Ed Regis) until a few chapters in.

Yeah I read the book shortly after seeing the film way back when but I don’t rememeber the particularities of the story.

I think this type of story telling works well in books because you can have your plot simmer and slowly come to a boil whereas in films, you need to use your time wisely.

Comparing this script with the final film shows the filmmakers understood this and changed things around to make it flow better.

Yeah, I re-read the book about once a year so it’s all pretty well wired into my brain at this point.

DuracellEnergizer said:

Tobar said:

TV’s Frink said:

Tyrphanax said:

I like the raptor tease.

Is that the part where it shows a bit of leg?

Meh. Not enough scales.

Not enough feathers.

28-31! The facility tour ends and we’ve met most of our main players as the dinosaur tour begins. No Muldoon yet. Very interesting!

No Richard Kiley, nothing about “sparing no expense” yet, either, which was a big callback in the book. I’m enjoying it because it follows the book much more closely, but it’s weird because it’s more streamlined in odd ways.

Also: Please let me know if you find images out of order. It’s gotten big enough that it’s harder to manage.

32-35

The big dinosaur reveal. It’s good. I still like the movie’s version better.

Also talk about the raptor issue, and we’ll see them tomorrow. Still no Muldoon. Interesting.

36-39

We meet more dinosaurs! Definitely following the book more. Dilophosaurus is the right size and on the tour, Triceratops is big and dumb. I kinda liked the no-show dinosaurs in the film, but I also would have liked to see more dinosaurs in the film. More banter about the park, things that weren’t in the book or film. We also meet the raptors and they attack the fence, which plays out similarly to the book, but with different people. It’s intriguing to see the draft keeping them secret from the main characters, and also to see that they’re planning on retiring them already!

Almost forty pages in and no Muldoon, though! I’m gutted! I hope he makes an appearance later.

I don’t have time to read the script right now, but I appreciate you saving the pics and posting updates!