Showscan is a cinematic process developed by Douglas Trumbull that uses 70mm film photographed and projected at 60 frames per second, 2.5 times the standard speed of movie film.
114-508: Trumbull first came to the public's attention for his work on the groundbreaking special effects in movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Andromeda Strain . He also directed 1972's Silent Running . Trumbull developed the Showscan film process in the late 1970s and early 1980s when he became interested in increasing the fidelity or definition of movies. Similar to the quality issues addressed later by high-definition television ,
228-569: A graphic adventure based on Congo . Because Crichton had sold all adaptation rights to the novel, he set the game, named Amazon , in South America, and Amy the gorilla became Paco the parrot. That year Crichton also wrote and directed Runaway (1984), a police thriller set in the near future which was a box office disappointment. Crichton had begun writing Sphere in 1967 as a companion piece to The Andromeda Strain . His initial storyline began with American scientists discovering
342-571: A graphical adventure game created by Crichton and produced by John Wells. Trillium released it in the United States in 1984 initially for the Apple II , Atari 8-bit computers , and Commodore 64 . Amazon sold more than 100,000 copies, making it a significant commercial success at the time. It has plot elements similar to those previously used in Congo . Crichton started a company selling
456-586: A military satellite that has returned to Earth, but contact is lost abruptly. Aerial surveillance reveals that everyone in Piedmont, Arizona, the town closest to where the satellite landed, is dead. The duty officer of the base tasked with retrieving the satellite suspects it returned with an extraterrestrial contaminant and recommends activating "Wildfire", a protocol for a government-sponsored team of scientists intended to contain threats of this nature. The Wildfire team, led by Dr. Jeremy Stone, believes that
570-488: A similarly named character Crichton had libeled him. Several novels that were in various states of completion upon Crichton's death have since been published. The first, Pirate Latitudes , was found as a manuscript on one of his computers after his death. It centers on a fictional privateer who attempts to raid a Spanish galleon. It was published in November 2009 by HarperCollins . Additionally, Crichton had completed
684-489: A 300-year-old spaceship underwater with stenciled markings in English. However, Crichton later realized that he "didn't know where to go with it" and put off completing the book until a later date. The novel was published in 1987. It relates the story of psychologist Norman Johnson, who is required by the U.S. Navy to join a team of scientists assembled by the U.S. Government to examine an enormous alien spacecraft discovered on
798-598: A Henry Russell Shaw Traveling Fellowship from 1964 to 1965, which allowed him to serve as a visiting lecturer in anthropology at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Crichton later enrolled at Harvard Medical School . Crichton later said "about two weeks into medical school I realized I hated it. This isn't unusual since everyone hates medical school – even happy, practicing physicians." In 1965, while at Harvard Medical School , Crichton wrote
912-400: A Hudson Institute report of the results of test series wherein different people were to make command decisions in nuclear and biological wars and chemical crises. Hall is briefed on the hypothesis after his arrival at Wildfire. In the book, his copy of the briefing materials has the hypothesis pages removed; in the film, he is criticized for failure to read the material beforehand. Dr. Hall
1026-431: A U.S. House committee: "The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor... if your doctor tells you you need to intervene here, you don't say 'Well, I read a science fiction novel that tells me it's not a problem. ' " Several commentators have interpreted this as a reference to State of Fear . Crichton's novels, including Jurassic Park , have been described by The Guardian as "harking back to
1140-585: A bestselling author. The novel documented the efforts of a team of scientists investigating a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism that fatally clots human blood, causing death within two minutes. Crichton was inspired to write it after reading The IPCRESS File by Len Deighton while studying in England. Crichton says he was "terrifically impressed" by the book – "a lot of Andromeda is traceable to Ipcress in terms of trying to create an imaginary world using recognizable techniques and real people." He wrote
1254-475: A collaboration with CrichtonSun LLC. and author Daniel H. Wilson . It was released on November 12, 2019. In 2020, it was announced that his unpublished works will be adapted into TV series and films in collaboration with CrichtonSun and Range Media Partners. On December 15, 2022, it was announced that James Patterson would coauthor a novel about a mega-eruption of Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano, based on an unfinished manuscript by Crichton. The novel, Eruption ,
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#17327930378811368-579: A computer program he had originally written to help him create budgets for his movies. He often sought to utilize computing in films, such as Westworld , which was the first film to employ computer-generated special effects. He also pushed Spielberg to include them in the Jurassic Park films. For his pioneering use of computer programs in film production he was awarded the Academy Award for Technical Achievement in 1995. In November 2006, at
1482-588: A computer virus in a movie. Crichton believed, however, that his view of technology had been misunderstood as being out there, doing bad things to us people, like we're inside the circle of covered wagons and technology is out there firing arrows at us. We're making the technology and it is a manifestation of how we think. To the extent that we think egotistically and irrationally and paranoically and foolishly, then we have technology that will give us nuclear winters or cars that won't brake. But that's because people didn't design them right. The use of author surrogate
1596-568: A crewed spacecraft, Andros V , was incinerated during atmospheric re-entry, presumably because Andromeda had eaten its tungsten/plastic laminate heat shield and caused it to burn up. Crichton was inspired to write the novel after reading, The IPCRESS File by Len Deighton while studying in the UK. Crichton says he was "terrifically impressed" by the book—"a lot of Andromeda is traceable to Ipcress in terms of trying to create an imaginary world using recogniseable techniques and real people." He wrote
1710-444: A delirious wreck; Peter Luchesi, a young man who severs his hand in an accident; Sylvia Thompson, an airline passenger who suffers chest pains; and Edith Murphy, a mother of three who is diagnosed with a life-threatening disease. In Five Patients , Crichton examines a brief history of medicine up to 1969 to help place hospital culture and practice into context, and addresses the costs and politics of American healthcare. In 1974, he wrote
1824-413: A door open behind the screen and a silhouette of a man walked towards the screen and began apologizing and asked if there were people out there. He pushed his face into the screen where you could clearly see the contours of his face distorting the screen. After a second, you realized that there was no man behind the screen, there were no screen lights shining down on the screen and that this entire sequence
1938-810: A dozen have been adapted into films. His literary works heavily feature technology and are usually within the science fiction , techno-thriller , and medical fiction genres. Crichton's novels often explore human technological advancement and attempted dominance over nature, both with frequently catastrophic results; many of his works are cautionary tales , especially regarding themes of biotechnology . Several of his stories center on themes of genetic modification , hybridization , paleontology and/or zoology . Many feature medical or scientific underpinnings, reflective of his own medical training and scientific background. Crichton received an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1969 but did not practice medicine, choosing to focus on his writing instead. Initially writing under
2052-527: A half, and be more satisfactorily amused than watching Doris Day . I write them fast and the reader reads them fast and I get things off my back." Crichton's fourth novel was A Case of Need (1968), a medical thriller. The novel had a different tone from the Lange books; accordingly, Crichton used the pen name "Jeffery Hudson", based on Sir Jeffrey Hudson , a 17th-century dwarf in the court of queen consort Henrietta Maria of England. The novel would prove
2166-415: A male protagonist who is being sexually harassed by a female executive. As a result, the book has been criticized harshly by some feminist commentators and accused of being anti-feminist. Crichton, anticipating this response, offered a rebuttal at the close of the novel which states that a "role-reversal" story uncovers aspects of the subject that would not be seen as easily with a female protagonist. The novel
2280-494: A mark of "B−". He later said, "Now Orwell was a wonderful writer, and if a B-minus was all he could get, I thought I'd better drop English as my major." His differences with the English department led Crichton to switch his undergraduate concentration. He earned his Bachelor's degree in biological anthropology summa cum laude in 1964, and was initiated into the Phi Beta Kappa Society . Crichton received
2394-481: A movie in 1972 . Around this time Crichton also wrote and sold an original film script, Morton's Run . He also wrote the screenplay Lucifer Harkness in Darkness . Aside from fiction, Crichton wrote several other books based on medical or scientific themes, often based upon his own observations in his field of expertise. In 1970, he published Five Patients , which recounts his experiences of hospital practices in
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#17327930378812508-479: A new company, Showscan Entertainment. Trumbull produced a few short films to demonstrate this process, including “Night of the Dreams” and “New Magic.” The 1983 feature film Brainstorm was intended to be the first Showscan feature, with the “normal” scenes in 35mm, and the virtual reality scenes in Showscan, but this plan proved too cumbersome. Instead, the virtual reality scenes ended up being shot in 70mm but at
2622-629: A novel concerning eco-terrorists who attempt mass murder to support their views. The novel's central premise is that climate scientists exaggerate global warming . A review in Nature found the novel "likely to mislead the unwary". The novel had an initial print run of 1.5 million copies and reached the No. 1 bestseller position at Amazon.com and No. 2 on The New York Times Best Seller list for one week in January 2005. The last novel published while he
2736-526: A novel, Odds On . "I wrote for furniture and groceries", he said later. Odds On is a 215-page paperback novel which describes an attempted robbery at an isolated hotel on the Costa Brava in Spain. The robbery is planned scientifically with the help of a critical path analysis computer program, but unforeseen events get in the way. Crichton submitted it to Doubleday, where a reader liked it but felt it
2850-491: A pilot script for a medical series, " 24 Hours ", based on his book Five Patients , however, networks were not enthusiastic. As a personal friend of the artist Jasper Johns , Crichton compiled many of Johns' works in a coffee table book , published as Jasper Johns . It was originally published in 1970 by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. in association with the Whitney Museum of American Art and again in January 1977, with
2964-923: A post-doctoral fellowship study at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California , from 1969 to 1970. He never obtained a license to practice medicine , devoting himself to his writing career instead. Reflecting on his career in medicine years later, Crichton concluded that patients too often shunned responsibility for their own health, relying on doctors as miracle workers rather than advisors. He experimented with astral projection , aura viewing, and clairvoyance , coming to believe that these included real phenomena that scientists had too eagerly dismissed as paranormal . Three more Crichton books under pseudonyms were published in 1970. Two were Lange novels, Drug of Choice and Grave Descend . Grave Descend earned him an Edgar Award nomination
3078-415: A precious artifact. The Venom Business (1969) relates the story of a smuggler who uses his exceptional skill as a snake handler to his advantage by importing snakes to be used by drug companies and universities for medical research. The first novel that was published under Crichton's name was The Andromeda Strain (1969), which proved to be the most important novel of his career and established him as
3192-549: A pseudonym, he eventually wrote 26 novels, including: The Andromeda Strain (1969), The Terminal Man (1972), The Great Train Robbery (1975), Congo (1980), Sphere (1987), Jurassic Park (1990), Rising Sun (1992), Disclosure (1994), The Lost World (1995), Airframe (1996), Timeline (1999), Prey (2002), State of Fear (2004), and Next (2006). Several novels, in various states of completion, were published after his death in 2008. Crichton
3306-489: A respected novelist and science-fiction writer. The Andromeda Strain is one of the books credited with creating the Techno-thriller genre. The Pittsburgh Press said it was "Relentlessly suspenseful... A hair-raising experience." Detroit Free Press called it "Hideously plausible suspense... will glue you to your chair." Library Journal said The Andromeda Strain was "One of the most important novels of
3420-504: A second revised edition published in 1994. The psychiatrist Janet Ross owned a copy of the painting Numbers by Jasper Johns in Crichton's later novel The Terminal Man . The technophobic antagonist of the story found it odd that a person would paint numbers as they were inorganic. In 1972, Crichton published his last novel as John Lange: Binary , relates the story of a villainous middle-class businessman, who attempts to assassinate
3534-482: A secret government project, which the scientists are part of, and includes text-based computer imagery illustrating the results of various tests on the organism. The Andromeda Strain appeared in the New York Times Best Seller list , establishing Michael Crichton as a genre writer, and as an early example of the techno-thriller genre. A team from an Air Force base is deployed to recover
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3648-445: A sequel novel as well as a film adaptation, stating that he had an idea for the novel's story. In 1996, Crichton published Airframe , an aero-techno-thriller. The book continued Crichton's overall theme of the failure of humans in human-machine interaction, given that the plane worked perfectly and the accident would not have occurred had the pilot reacted properly. He also wrote Twister (1996) with Anne-Marie Martin , his wife at
3762-482: A series of tests with 35 mm stock filmed and projected at various speeds, shown to audiences who were instrumented to biometrically test their responses. By measuring their EEG , he found that as the frame rate increased, so did the viewer's emotional reaction. The test subjects' brainwave activity peaked around 60 fps, and they decided to go with that as the norm. Trumbull theorized that although viewers see smooth motion from film displayed at 24 frames per second,
3876-418: A strongly critical review of State of Fear , focusing on Crichton's stance on global warming. In the same year, Crichton published the novel Next , which contains a minor character named "Mick Crowley", who is a Yale graduate and a Washington, D.C.–based political columnist. The character was portrayed as a child molester with a small penis . The real Crowley, also a Yale graduate, alleged that by including
3990-636: A thriller originally conceived as a sequel to Jagged Edge . In 1988, Crichton was a visiting writer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . A book of autobiographical writings, Travels , was also published in 1988. In 1990, Crichton published the novel Jurassic Park . Crichton utilized the presentation of " fiction as fact ", used in his previous novels, Eaters of the Dead and The Andromeda Strain . In addition, chaos theory and its philosophical implications are used to explain
4104-531: A turning point in Crichton's future novels, in which technology is important in the subject matter, although this novel was as much about medical practice. The novel earned him an Edgar Award in 1969. He intended to use the "Jeffery Hudson" pseudonym for other medical novels but ended up using it only once. The book was later adapted into the film The Carey Treatment (1972). Crichton says after he finished his third year of medical school: "I stopped believing that one day I'd love it and realized that what I loved
4218-472: A working substation on an upper level. He barely disarms the bomb before all the air is evacuated from the deepest level of the Wildfire complex, which contains the remainder of the team and their assistants. Andromeda is suspected to have eventually mutated into a benign form and migrated to the upper atmosphere, where the oxygen content is lower, better suiting its growth . The novel's epilogue reveals that
4332-417: A writer and began his studies at Harvard College in 1960. During his undergraduate study in literature, he conducted an experiment to expose a professor whom he believed was giving him abnormally low marks and criticizing his literary style. Informing another professor of his suspicions, Crichton submitted an essay by George Orwell under his own name. The paper was returned by his unwitting professor with
4446-521: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . The Andromeda Strain The Andromeda Strain is a 1969 novel by American writer Michael Crichton , his first novel under his own name and his sixth novel overall. It documents the outbreak of a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism in Arizona and the team of scientists investigating it. The book is framed as a report from
4560-520: Is a historical novel set during the Bone Wars , and includes the real life characters of Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope . The novel was released in May 2017. In addition, some of his published works are being continued by other authors. On February 26, 2019, Crichton's website and HarperCollins announced the publication of The Andromeda Evolution , the sequel to The Andromeda Strain ,
4674-548: Is a recreation of the Great Gold Robbery of 1855 , a massive gold heist, which takes place on a train traveling through Victorian era England. A considerable portion of the book was set in London. Crichton had become aware of the story when lecturing at the University of Cambridge . He later read the transcripts of the court trial and started researching the historical period. In 1976, Crichton published Eaters of
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4788-415: Is assumed to have the highest "command decision effectiveness index" among the Wildfire team; this is the reason why he is given a control key to the self-destruct mechanism. Hall initially derides this idea, saying that he has no intention of committing suicide before he is told that it is his job to disarm the weapon, rather than to arm it: Stone then admits that the odd-man hypothesis, while accurate (in
4902-457: Is difficult to talk about." Crichton was a workaholic . When drafting a novel, which would typically take him six or seven weeks, Crichton withdrew completely to follow what he called "a structured approach" of ritualistic self-denial. As he neared writing the end of each book, he would rise increasingly early each day, meaning that he would sleep for less than four hours by going to bed at 10 p.m. and waking at 2 am. In 1992, Crichton
5016-451: Is investigated and electrodes are implanted in his brain. The book continued the preoccupation in Crichton's novels with machine-human interaction and technology. The novel was adapted into a 1974 film directed by Mike Hodges and starring George Segal . Crichton was hired to adapt his novel The Terminal Man into a script by Warner Bros. The studio felt he had departed from the source material too much and had another writer adapt it for
5130-539: Is mistaken for an assassin and finds his life in jeopardy. Crichton wrote the book while traveling through Europe on a travel fellowship. He visited the Cannes Film Festival and Monaco Grand Prix , and then decided, "any idiot should be able to write a potboiler set in Cannes and Monaco", and wrote it in eleven days. He later described the book as "no good". His third John Lange novel, Easy Go (1968),
5244-467: Is no longer pathogenic . The mutated Andromeda attacks the plastic door and hatch seals within the Wildfire facility, rapidly migrating toward the upper levels and the surface. The self-destruct nuclear weapon is automatically armed when it detects the containment breach, triggering its detonation countdown to prevent the spread of the infection. As the bomb arms, the scientists realize that given Andromeda's ability to generate matter directly from energy,
5358-414: Is the story of Harold Barnaby, a brilliant Egyptologist who discovers a concealed message while translating hieroglyphics informing him of an unnamed pharaoh whose tomb is yet to be discovered. Crichton said the book earned him $ 1,500 (equivalent to $ 13,143 in 2023). Crichton later said: "My feeling about the Lange books is that my competition is in-flight movies. One can read the books in an hour and
5472-681: The Jurassic Park franchise . John Michael Crichton was born on October 23, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois, to John Henderson Crichton, a journalist, and Zula Miller Crichton, a homemaker. He was raised on Long Island , in Roslyn, New York , and he showed a keen interest in writing from a young age; at 16, he had an article about a trip he took to Sunset Crater published in The New York Times . Crichton later recalled, "Roslyn
5586-522: The Middle Ages . In 1999, Crichton founded Timeline Computer Entertainment with David Smith . Although he signed a multi-title publishing deal with Eidos Interactive , only one game, Timeline , was ever published. Released by Eidos Interactive on November 10, 2000, for PCs, the game received negative reviews. A 2003 film based on the book was directed by Richard Donner and starring Paul Walker , Gerard Butler and Frances O'Connor . Eaters of
5700-702: The National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Crichton joked that he considered himself an expert in intellectual property law. He had been involved in several lawsuits with others claiming credit for his work. In 1985, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard Berkic v. Crichton , 761 F.2d 1289 (1985). Plaintiff Ted Berkic wrote a screenplay called Reincarnation Inc. , which he claims Crichton plagiarized for
5814-445: The science behind global warming . He testified on the subject before Congress in 2005. His views would be contested by a number of scientists and commentators. An example is meteorologist Jeffrey Masters 's review of Crichton's 2004 novel State of Fear : Flawed or misleading presentations of global warming science exist in the book, including those on Arctic sea ice thinning, correction of land-based temperature measurements for
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#17327930378815928-400: The urban heat island effect, and satellite vs. ground-based measurements of Earth's warming. I will spare the reader additional details. On the positive side, Crichton does emphasize the little-appreciated fact that while most of the world has been warming the past few decades, most of Antarctica has seen a cooling trend. The Antarctic ice sheet is actually expected to increase in mass over
6042-419: The 1970s and 1980s, he consulted psychics and enlightenment gurus to make him feel more socially acceptable and to improve his positive karma . As a result of these experiences, Crichton practiced meditation throughout much of his life. While he is often regarded as a deist , he never publicly confirmed this. When asked in an online Q&A if he were a spiritual person, Crichton responded with: "Yes, but it
6156-411: The 1974 film . ABC TV wanted to buy the film rights to Crichton's novel Binary . The author agreed on the provision that he could direct the film. ABC agreed provided someone other than Crichton write the script. The result, Pursuit (1972) was a ratings success. Crichton then wrote and directed the 1973 low-budget science fiction western-thriller film Westworld about robots that run amok, which
6270-497: The Dead is a "recreation" of the Old English epic Beowulf presented as a scholarly translation of Ahmad ibn Fadlan 's 10th century manuscript. The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park incorporate fictionalized scientific documents in the form of diagrams, computer output, DNA sequences , footnotes, and bibliography. The Terminal Man and State of Fear include authentic published scientific works that illustrate
6384-459: The Dead , a novel about a 10th-century Muslim who travels with a group of Vikings to their settlement. Eaters of the Dead is narrated as a scientific commentary on an old manuscript and was inspired by two sources. The first three chapters retell Ahmad ibn Fadlan 's personal account of his journey north and his experiences in encountering the Rus' , a Varangian tribe, whilst the remainder is based upon
6498-560: The Dead was adapted into the 1999 film The 13th Warrior directed by John McTiernan , who was later removed, with Crichton himself taking over direction of reshoots. In 2002, Crichton published Prey , about developments in science and technology, specifically nanotechnology . The novel explores relatively recent phenomena engendered by the work of the scientific community, such as: artificial life , emergence (and by extension, complexity ), genetic algorithms , and agent -based computing. In 2004, Crichton published State of Fear ,
6612-469: The Horseshoe Hotel) at a movie theatre on the lower level, which normally showed endless screenings of MGM classics. Theater owners were ushered into the theatre where a large white cyclorama had been set up at the front of the room. The presentation began with what looked like a scratchy 16mm image centered in the screen. After a few minutes, the "film broke", the screen lights came up. You saw
6726-472: The President of the United States by stealing an army shipment of the two precursor chemicals that form a deadly nerve agent. The Terminal Man (1972), is about a psychomotor epileptic sufferer, Harry Benson, who regularly suffers seizures followed by blackouts, and conducts himself inappropriately during seizures, waking up hours later with no knowledge of what he has done. Believed to be psychotic, he
6840-486: The Saturday-afternoon movie serials that Mr. Crichton watched as a boy and to the adventure novels of Arthur Conan Doyle (from whom Mr. Crichton borrowed the title The Lost World and whose example showed that a novel could never have too many dinosaurs). These books thrive on yarn spinning, but they also take immense delight in the inner workings of things (as opposed to people, women especially), and they make
6954-528: The bed of the Pacific Ocean, and believed to have been there for over 300 years. The novel begins as a science fiction story, but rapidly changes into a psychological thriller, ultimately exploring the nature of the human imagination. The novel was adapted into the 1998 film directed by Barry Levinson and starring Dustin Hoffman . Crichton worked—-as a director only—on Physical Evidence (1989),
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#17327930378817068-440: The book then selling it. He eventually managed to finish the book, titled Congo , which became a best seller. Crichton did the screenplay for Congo after he wrote and directed Looker (1981). Looker was a financial disappointment. Crichton came close to directing a film of Congo with Sean Connery , but the film did not happen. Eventually, a film version was made in 1995 by Frank Marshall . In 1984, Telarium released
7182-445: The book was published, Crichton demanded a non-negotiable fee of $ 1.5 million as well as a substantial percentage of the gross. Warner Bros. and Tim Burton , Sony Pictures Entertainment and Richard Donner , and 20th Century Fox and Joe Dante bid for the rights, but Universal eventually acquired the rights in May 1990 for Spielberg. Universal paid Crichton a further $ 500,000 to adapt his own novel, which he had completed by
7296-418: The book, Crichton predicts a number of events in the history of computer development, that computer networks would increase in importance as a matter of convenience, including the sharing of information and pictures that we see online today, which the telephone never could. He also makes predictions for computer games, dismissing them as "the hula hoops of the 80s," and saying "already there are indications that
7410-523: The case of Kessler v. Crichton that actually went all the way to a jury trial, unlike the other cases. Plaintiff Stephen Kessler claimed the movie Twister (1996) was based on his work Catch the Wind . It took the jury about 45 minutes to reach a verdict in favor of Crichton. After the verdict, Crichton refused to shake Kessler's hand. Crichton later summarized his intellectual property legal cases: "I always win." Crichton became well known for attacking
7524-630: The clockwork mechanics of his experiments—the DNA replication in Jurassic Park , the time travel in Timeline , the submarine technology in Sphere . The novels have embedded in them little lectures or mini-seminars on, say, the Bernoulli principle, voice-recognition software or medieval jousting etiquette ... The best of the Crichton novels have about them a boys' adventure quality. They owe something to
7638-437: The collapse of an amusement park in a "biological preserve" on Isla Nublar, a fictional island to the west of Costa Rica. The novel had begun as a screenplay Crichton had written in 1983, about a graduate student who recreates a dinosaur. Reasoning that genetic research is expensive and that "there is no pressing need to create a dinosaur", Crichton concluded that it would emerge from a "desire to entertain", which led him to set
7752-438: The confines of the book), was essentially a false document used to justify handing over a nuclear weapon to private individuals and out of government control. In 1971, The Andromeda Strain was the basis for the film of the same name directed by Robert Wise , and featuring Arthur Hill as Stone, James Olson as Hall, Kate Reid as Leavitt (changed to a female character, Ruth Leavitt), and David Wayne as Dutton (Burton in
7866-436: The constantly bawling infant Jamie Ritter—are biological opposites who somehow survived the organism. Jackson, Ritter, and the satellite are taken to the secret underground Wildfire laboratory, a secure facility equipped with every known capacity for protection against microorganisms escaping into the environment. Wildfire is hidden in a remote area near Flatrock, Nevada , sixty miles (100 km) from Las Vegas , concealed in
7980-412: The current form of Andromeda grows only in a narrow pH range; in a too-acidic or too alkaline growth medium, the organism will not divide. Andromeda's ideal pH range is 7.39–7.43, within the range found in normal human blood. Jackson and Ritter survived because both had abnormal blood pH (Jackson acidotic from consumption of Sterno and aspirin , Ritter alkalotic from hyperventilation ). However, by
8094-400: The fantasy adventure fiction of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle , Jules Verne , Edgar Rice Burroughs , and Edgar Wallace , but with a contemporary spin, assisted by cutting-edge technology references made accessible for the general reader." According to The Guardian , "Michael Crichton wasn't really interested in characters, but his innate talent for storytelling enabled him to breathe new life into
8208-446: The first time. It defined basic computer jargon and assured readers that they could master the machine when it inevitably arrived. In his words, being able to program a computer is liberation: "In my experience, you assert control over a computer—show it who's the boss—by making it do something unique. That means programming it... If you devote a couple of hours to programming a new machine, you'll feel better about it ever afterward." In
8322-518: The following year. There was also Dealing: or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues written with his younger brother Douglas Crichton. Dealing was written under the pen name "Michael Douglas", using their first names. Michael Crichton wrote it "completely from beginning to end". Then his brother rewrote it from beginning to end, and then Crichton rewrote it again. This novel was made into
8436-410: The inevitable breakdown of "perfect" systems and the failure of " fail-safe measures" can be seen strongly in the poster for Westworld , whose slogan was, "Where nothing can possibly go worng" [ sic ], and in the discussion of chaos theory in Jurassic Park . His 1973 movie Westworld contains one of the earliest references to a computer virus and is the first mention of the concept of
8550-490: The late 1960s at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The book follows each of five patients through their hospital experience and the context of their treatment, revealing inadequacies in the hospital institution at the time. The book relates the experiences of Ralph Orlando, a construction worker seriously injured in a scaffold collapse; John O'Connor, a middle-aged dispatcher suffering from fever that has reduced him to
8664-400: The mania for twitch games may be fading." In a section of the book called "Microprocessors, or how I flunked biostatistics at Harvard," Crichton again seeks his revenge on the teacher who had given him abnormally low grades in college. Within the book, Crichton included many self-written demonstrative Applesoft (for Apple II ) and BASICA (for IBM PC compatibles ) programs. Amazon is
8778-498: The movie Coma . The court ruled in Crichton's favor, stating the works were not substantially similar. In the 1996 case, Williams v. Crichton , 84 F.3d 581 (2d Cir. 1996), Geoffrey Williams claimed that Jurassic Park violated his copyright covering his dinosaur-themed children's stories published in the late 1980s. The court granted summary judgment in favor of Crichton. In 1998, A United States District Court in Missouri heard
8892-567: The next 100 years due to increased precipitation, according to the IPCC . Peter Doran , author of the paper in the January 2002 issue of Nature , which reported the finding referred to above, stating that some areas of Antarctica had cooled between 1986 and 2000, wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times of July 27, 2006, in which he stated "Our results have been misused as 'evidence' against global warming by Michael Crichton in his novel State of Fear. " Al Gore said on March 21, 2007, before
9006-463: The novel in a wildlife park of extinct animals. The story had originally been told from the point of view of a child, but Crichton changed it because everyone who read the draft felt it would be better if told by an adult. Steven Spielberg learned of the novel in October 1989 while he and Crichton were discussing a screenplay that would later be developed into the television series ER . Before
9120-402: The novel over three years. The "odd-man hypothesis" is a fictional hypothesis that states that unmarried men are better able to execute the best, most dispassionate decisions in crises—in this case, to disarm the nuclear weapon intended to prevent the escape of organisms from the laboratory in the event the auto-destruct sequence is initiated. In the novel, the odd-man explanation is a page in
9234-519: The novel over three years. The novel became an instant hit, and film rights were sold for $ 250,000. It was adapted into a 1971 film by director Robert Wise . During his clinical rotations at the Boston City Hospital , Crichton grew disenchanted with the culture there, which appeared to emphasize the interests and reputations of doctors over the interests of patients. He graduated from Harvard, obtaining an MD in 1969, and undertook
9348-475: The novel). In 2008, The Andromeda Strain was the basis for an eponymous miniseries executive-produced by Ridley and Tony Scott and Frank Darabont , and featuring Benjamin Bratt as Stone. Other characters' names and personalities were radically changed from the novel. Reviews for The Andromeda Strain were overwhelmingly positive, and the novel was an American bestseller, establishing Michael Crichton as
9462-510: The organism would be able to consume the released energy and ultimately benefit from a nuclear explosion, mutating in thousands of ways, potentially "each killing in a different way". To halt the detonation, Hall must insert a special key he carries into an emergency substation, one of which should be accessible from any location in Wildfire. Unfortunately, he is trapped in a section that, due to an oversight, has no substation. He must navigate Wildfire's obstacle course of automatic defenses to reach
9576-449: The outline for and was roughly a third of the way through a novel titled Micro , a novel which centers on technology that shrinks humans to microscopic sizes. Micro was completed by Richard Preston using Crichton's notes and files, and was published in November 2011. On July 28, 2016, Crichton's website and HarperCollins announced the publication of a third posthumous novel, titled Dragon Teeth , which he had written in 1974. It
9690-758: The premise point. Crichton often employs the premise of diverse experts or specialists assembled to tackle a unique problem requiring their individual talents and knowledge. The premise was used for The Andromeda Strain , Sphere , Jurassic Park , and, to a lesser extent, Timeline . Sometimes the individual characters in this dynamic work in the private sector and are suddenly called upon by the government to form an immediate response team once some incident or discovery triggers their mobilization. This premise or plot device has been imitated and used by other authors and screenwriters in several books, movies and television shows since. As an adolescent, Crichton felt isolated because of his height (6 ft 9 in, or 206 cm). During
9804-506: The satellite, knocking it from orbit. The microbe contains chemical elements required for terrestrial life ( CHNOPS ) and appears to have a crystalline structure , but lacks the DNA , RNA , proteins , and amino acids present in terrestrial life, and directly transforms energy to matter with no discernible byproducts. The microbe, code-named "Andromeda", mutates with each growth cycle, changing its biological properties. The scientists learn that
9918-422: The satellite—intentionally designed to capture upper-atmosphere microorganisms for bio-weapon exploitation—returned with a deadly microorganism that kills through nearly instantaneous blood clotting . Upon investigating Piedmont, the team discovers the townspeople either died in mid-stride or went "quietly nuts" and committed bizarre suicides. Two survivors—the sick, Sterno -addicted, geriatric Peter Jackson and
10032-430: The science fiction thriller." Like The Guardian , The New York Times has also noted the boys adventure quality to his novels interfused with modern technology and science. According to The New York Times , All the Crichton books depend to a certain extent on a little frisson of fear and suspense: that's what kept you turning the pages. But a deeper source of their appeal was the author's extravagant care in working out
10146-652: The standard 24 frames per second. Since then, Showscan has been used mostly for short ride films in conjunction with powered motion simulator seats, such as Tour of the Universe - the worlds first flight-simulator ride, which was also produced by Trumbull. The Academy Film Archive houses the Showscan Collection, consisting of negatives and soundtrack elements for numerous short films created for World's Fair expositions, special venue attractions, and motion-based simulator rides. This filmmaking article
10260-579: The standard for decades, they are subconsciously aware of the flicker, which reduces the film's emotional impact. Increasing the projection speed decreases the flicker. There was a demonstration of Showscan in 1986 at Showest, an annual convention for theater owners in Las Vegas, since replaced by Cinemacon. The demonstration was held in the MGM Grand hotel (later known as the Bally Grand and today
10374-489: The story of Beowulf , culminating in battles with the 'mist-monsters', or 'wendol', a relict group of Neanderthals . Crichton wrote and directed the suspense film Coma (1978), adapted from the 1977 novel of the same name by Robin Cook , a friend of his. There are other similarities in terms of genre and the fact that both Cook and Crichton had medical degrees, were of similar age, and wrote about similar subjects. The film
10488-422: The sub-basements of a legitimate Department of Agriculture research station. Dr. Mark Hall is the only scientist authorized to disarm the automatic self-destruct mechanism; he is an unmarried, childless male and thus presumed to make the most dispassionate decisions during a crisis. Further investigation determined that the deaths were caused by an extraterrestrial microbe transported by a meteor that crashed into
10602-482: The time Spielberg was filming Hook . Crichton noted that, because the book was "fairly long", his script only had about 10% to 20% of the novel's content. The film , directed by Spielberg, was released in 1993. In 1992, Crichton published the novel Rising Sun , an internationally bestselling crime thriller about a murder in the Los Angeles headquarters of Nakamoto, a fictional Japanese corporation. The book
10716-401: The time the scientists realize this, Andromeda has mutated into a form that degrades the lab's plastic seals and escapes containment . Trapped in a contaminated lab, Dr. Charles Burton demands that Stone inject him with a "universal antibiotic "; Stone refuses, arguing that it would render Burton too vulnerable to infection by other harmful bacteria. Burton survives because the mutated Andromeda
10830-416: The time. In 1999, Crichton published Timeline , a science-fiction novel in which experts time travel back to the medieval period. The novel, which continued Crichton's long history of combining technical details and action in his books, explores quantum physics and time travel directly; it was also warmly received by medieval scholars, who praised his depiction of the challenges involved in researching
10944-447: The visual fidelity of movies was limited by the medium. When projected onto a large screen, the grain of 35 mm film stock is often quite visible, reducing the quality of the displayed image. The problem is further exacerbated by the larger grain in fast film stock often used to capture high-speed action. Trumbull chose 70 mm film for his new process, to provide higher resolution. He also did research into frame rate , running
11058-638: The world—or the made-up world, anyway—seem boundlessly interesting. Readers come away entertained and also with the belief, not entirely illusory, that they have actually learned something" Crichton's works were frequently cautionary , his plots often portrayed scientific advancements going awry, commonly resulting in worst-case scenarios. A notable recurring theme in Crichton's plots is the pathological failure of complex systems and their safeguards, whether biological ( Jurassic Park ), militaristic/organizational ( The Andromeda Strain ), technological ( Airframe ), or cybernetic ( Westworld ). This theme of
11172-439: The year". The New York Times ' s Christopher Lehmann-Haupt said "Tired out by a long day in the country, I was awake way past bedtime. My arms were numb from propping up my head. By turning from side to side, I had driven the cats from their place at the foot of the bed, and they were disgruntled. I was very likely disturbing my wife's sleep. But I was well into Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain . And he had me convinced it
11286-431: Was a feature of Crichton's writings from the beginning of his career. In A Case of Need , one of his pseudonymous whodunit stories, Crichton used first-person narrative to portray the hero, a Bostonian pathologist, who is running against the clock to clear a friend's name from medical malpractice in a girl's death from a hack-job abortion. Crichton has used the literary technique known as the false document . Eaters of
11400-557: Was a popular success. Crichton then wrote and directed an adaptation of his own book, The Great Train Robbery (1978), starring Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland . The film would go on to be nominated for Best Cinematography Award by the British Society of Cinematographers , also garnering an Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Motion Picture by the Mystery Writers Association of America. In 1979, it
11514-485: Was adapted into the 1993 film directed by Philip Kaufman and starring Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes ; it was released the same year as the adaptation of Jurassic Park . The theme of his next novel, Disclosure , published in 1994, was sexual harassment—a theme previously explored in his 1972 novel, Binary . Unlike that novel however, Disclosure centers on sexual politics in the workplace, emphasizing an array of paradoxes in traditional gender roles by featuring
11628-486: Was all really happening." A sequel titled The Andromeda Evolution written by Daniel H. Wilson was published on November 12, 2019. Crichton's name still appears on the cover in large print, despite the book being written after his death. Michael Crichton John Michael Crichton ( / ˈ k r aɪ t ən / ; October 23, 1942 – November 4, 2008) was an American author, screenwriter and filmmaker. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and over
11742-402: Was also involved in the film and television industry. In 1973, he wrote and directed Westworld , the first film to use 2D computer-generated imagery . He also directed Coma (1978), The First Great Train Robbery (1978), Looker (1981), and Runaway (1984). He was the creator of the television series ER (1994–2009), and several of his novels were adapted into films, most notably
11856-469: Was also through Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment that John Wells was attached as the show's executive producer. In 1995, Crichton published The Lost World as a sequel to Jurassic Park . The title was a reference to Arthur Conan Doyle 's The Lost World (1912). It was made into the 1997 film two years later, again directed by Spielberg. In March 1994, Crichton said there would probably be
11970-439: Was announced that Crichton would direct a movie version of his novel Eaters of the Dead for the newly formed Orion Pictures . This did not occur. Crichton pitched the idea of a modern day King Solomon's Mines to 20th Century Fox who paid him $ 1.5 million for the film rights to the novel, a screenplay and directorial fee for the movie, before a word had been written. He had never worked that way before, usually writing
12084-519: Was another world. Looking back, it's remarkable what wasn't going on. There was no terror. No fear of children being abused. No fear of random murder. No drug use we knew about. I walked to school. I rode my bike for miles and miles, to the movie on Main Street and piano lessons and the like. Kids had freedom. It wasn't such a dangerous world... We studied our butts off, and we got a tremendously good education there." Crichton had always planned on becoming
12198-477: Was being projected onto a blank screen. The level of the illusion was stunning. In 1992, Trumbull, Geoffrey Williamson, Robert Auguste and Edmund DiGiulio received a Scientific and Engineering Academy Award for the design of the CP-65 Showscan camera system. Showscan Film Corporation, which produced and marketed the equipment, underwent Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2002. The process was then acquired by
12312-410: Was his feature film directorial debut. It was the first feature film using 2D computer-generated imagery (CGI). The producer of Westworld hired Crichton to write an original script, which became the erotic thriller Extreme Close-Up (1973). Directed by Jeannot Szwarc , the movie disappointed Crichton. In 1975, Crichton wrote The Great Train Robbery , which would become a bestseller. The novel
12426-420: Was made into a film the same year, directed by Barry Levinson and starring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore . Crichton was the creator and an executive producer of the television drama ER , based on his 1974 pilot script 24 Hours . Spielberg helped develop the show, serving as an executive producer for season one and offering advice (he insisted on Julianna Margulies becoming a regular, for example). It
12540-418: Was not for the company. Doubleday passed it on to New American Library, which published it in 1966. Crichton used the pen name John Lange because he planned to become a doctor and did not want his patients to worry that he would use them for his plots. The name came from cultural anthropologist Andrew Lang . Crichton added an "e" to the surname and substituted his own real first name, John, for Andrew. The novel
12654-418: Was released on June 3, 2024. In 1983, Crichton wrote Electronic Life , a book that introduces BASIC programming to its readers. The book, written like a glossary, with entries such as: "Afraid of Computers (everybody is)," "Buying a Computer" and "Computer Crime," was intended to introduce the idea of personal computers to a reader who might be faced with the hardship of using them at work or at home for
12768-456: Was still living was Next in 2006. The novel follows many characters, including transgenic animals, in a quest to survive in a world dominated by genetic research, corporate greed, and legal interventions, wherein government and private investors spend billions of dollars every year on genetic research. In 2006, Crichton clashed with journalist Michael Crowley , a senior editor of the magazine The New Republic . In March 2006, Crowley wrote
12882-402: Was successful enough to lead to a series of John Lange novels. Film rights were sold in 1969, but no movie resulted. The second Lange novel, Scratch One (1967), relates the story of Roger Carr, a handsome, charming, privileged man who practices law, more as a means to support his playboy lifestyle than a career. Carr is sent to Nice , France, where he has notable political connections, but
12996-409: Was writing." He began publishing book reviews under his name. In 1969, Crichton wrote a review for The New Republic (as J. Michael Crichton), critiquing Kurt Vonnegut 's recently published Slaughterhouse-Five . He also continued to write Lange novels: Zero Cool (1969), dealt with an American radiologist on vacation in Spain who is caught in a murderous crossfire between rival gangs seeking
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