20 Movie Characters Completely Different From Their Source Material

Jurassic Park is one of those rare films where almost every change that was made from the source material turned out for the better. This is true of smaller changes like omitting Ed Regis entirely, or swapping the ages of Tim and Lex round, to larger wholesale changes like the tone of the whole thing.

Then there is John Hammond. Played so wonderfully by Richard Attenborough as something akin to everyone's favourite grandad, the character wasn't nearly so wholesome in Michael Crichton's novel. He felt more like a villain than in the film.

That's not to say he's not a villain on the big screen, because he is. He is the one that brought dinosaurs back to life and directly influenced every single Jurassic story because of that. However, his attitude was like night and day compared to his counterpart from the novel.

While Attenborough's Hammond made his park for the children, obviously with seeing the magic in the faces of kids like Lex and Tim in mind, he was far more concerned with the bottom line in the novel. If people enjoyed the park, great, but he really couldn't care less so long as he was making money. That, and the fact that he did not survive the weekend at Isla Nublar are what largely set the two characters apart, and that near innocence created something of a deeper, more likeable and relatable character.