Jurassic Park Changed One Piece of Lore That Saved the Franchise

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While most movie adaptations aim to stay true to the original book, sometimes changes can actually improve the film. Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film is a great example of this. It made significant changes to Michael Crichton’s 1990 novel – reducing the violence, altering character outcomes, and even changing personalities – and still became a huge success.

A surprisingly small change to the original Jurassic Park actually played a huge role in the franchise’s long-term success. Removing a brief scene from the ending had a lasting impact, though most viewers didn’t notice it at the time – its importance wasn’t fully realized for over twenty years.

Jurassic Park Altered the Original Story’s Ending

Both the movie and the book ended with the main characters escaping Isla Nublar, the island overrun with dinosaurs, by helicopter. However, the stories differed in their final moments. The film concluded peacefully, while the book ended dramatically. After the events at the park, the Costa Rican military decided the dinosaurs were too dangerous to remain and destroyed Isla Nublar with bombs.

In the chapter “Approaching Dark,” Dr. Alan Grant watched as the rescue helicopter departed, leaving behind a series of bright, quickly fading explosions that made the entire island seem to glow. These explosions, as later confirmed in The Lost World, completely destroyed all evidence of InGen’s research on Isla Nublar.

The chapter titled “Interior” reveals that the park and all of its dinosaurs were completely destroyed. As a result of Isla Nublar’s destruction, the next movie took place on the nearby Isla Sorna, where InGen had originally bred the dinosaurs before sending them to Jurassic Park.

As a fan, I always understood Isla Nublar wasn’t completely destroyed after the original incident, just abandoned. For a while, that detail didn’t really matter because the second and third movies stayed pretty close to Michael Crichton’s books. But everything shifted with Jurassic World in 2015 – that’s when the story really started to explore what happened to the abandoned island.

Isla Nublar Became a Recurring Location in the Jurassic World Franchise

Jurassic World revisits Isla Nublar, showing that the Masrani Corporation had constructed a modern theme park on the site of the original. The film features several references to the first Jurassic Park, like the Mitchell brothers’ discovery of the original visitor center. Characters and elements from the very first film also appear in Jurassic World.

Rexy was a central character in the story and a major threat to the heroes. Had Isla Nublar been destroyed by bombing, as it was in the original book, Jurassic World and the animated series Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous – both of which took place on the island – would have had to be very different.

Michael Crichton wrote only two stories set in the world of Jurassic Park, meaning he didn’t worry about limiting future possibilities for the setting. However, Steven Spielberg’s movie launched a huge franchise, and the filmmakers had the advantage of being able to revisit the original island whenever they wanted.

As a huge fan, it was pretty shocking to see Isla Nublar destroyed by that volcano in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. But honestly, it felt like the island had run its course creatively, and the filmmakers needed a way to move the story forward. Bringing the dinosaurs off the island and letting them potentially spread across the world was a bold move! It makes me wonder, though – if Spielberg hadn’t changed things from the book and kept the island safe, where would the series be now? It’s crazy to think how different things could be!

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Jurassic Park’s Hidden Twist: How One Change Built a Dino Empire
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2026-02-05 00:16