Hello dino fans and welcome to the final discussion of The Lost World, where we will compare it to The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), directed by Steven Spielberg! I think it is fair to say that this adaptation diverges a lot more from the source material than Jurassic Park did, and even threw in a few things from the Jurassic Park book that didn’t make it into the first movie, so I’m interested to see what everybody thought of it.

There aren’t any more books in the series to discuss, but other people here may not have seen the subsequent movies so if you discuss anything from them in the comments please use spoiler tags.

Here is the movie trailer for anyone who hasn’t seen it, or who hasn’t seen it since 1997.

Movie summary

The movie opens on Isla Sorna, an island 87 miles southwest of Island Nublar. A posh British family has anchored their yacht off the coast and their servants are setting up a meal for them on the beach. When I saw this as a child, I don’t think it occurred to me how mega rich this family must be. The little girl, Cathy, goes for a walk along the beach even though lunch is nearly ready. Her mum frets about it not being safe, but her dad/Ethan Rayne from Buffy the Vampire Slayer says there are no snakes on the beach. Cathy encounters a compsognathus and gives it some of her roast beef, while wondering aloud if it’s a bird or something. Suddenly she is surrounded by compys and panics, then it switches perspective to her parents who hear her screaming in the distance. Both parents and the staff run towards her, and we don’t see what has happened to Cathy but her mother screams in horror.

We jump cut to Ian Malcolm yawning in front of a poster of some palm trees at a subway station before boarding a train. He is harassed by another man, who recognises him as being the guy who has spoken about a dinosaur island on TV, and the man tells him “I believe you!” although it is clear that he is mocking him.

Malcolm arrives at a fancy house, and Elaine’s boss Mr Pitt from Seinfeld answers the door. Lex and Tim from the first movie make a cameo appearance and greet Malcolm enthusiastically, although they mention that something bad has happened. A man called Peter Ludlow appears and argues with Malcolm, who says InGen covered up the deaths of three people and tried to bury what actually happened, while Ludlow reminds him that he signed a non-disclosure agreement before travelling to Isla Nublar and was given a generous compensatory offer for his injuries.

Malcolm finally sees John Hammond, who invited him there – the house is his. He tells Malcolm that Isla Nublar was just a showroom and that there is another island called Isla Sorna, known as ‘Site B’, where life has “found a way” and the dinosaurs are thriving despite their attempted safeguards such as lysine deficiency. He has tried to keep the island isolated and safe for four years, but now he needs to get public opinion on his side so he’s putting together an expedition to go to the island and document the dinosaurs in their natural habitat, and he wants Malcolm to join it. He explains that a young girl was injured on the island a few weeks ago, and thankfully survived, however his nephew Peted Ludlow used the incident to get control of InGen from him. Malcolm is impressed that Hammond has gone from capitalist to naturalist in just four years, but declines joining the expedition, and wants to contact the other members to prevent them from going too. However, Hammond reveals that one of the members is Malcolm’s girlfriend, the palaeontological behaviourist Sarah Harding, and she is already on the island by herself. Malcolm reluctantly agrees to go to the island, but remarks that it is now a recue mission. As he leaves, we get the first swell of the iconic Jurassic Park music.

Malcolm meets Eddie Carr, who appears to be a combination of Eddie Carr and Jack Thorne from the book, and a completely new character called Nick Van Owen who is some sort of photographer/activist but since he’s played by Vince Vaughn he’s also got a gross attitude to women. Kelly, who is Malcolm’s daughter in the movie, turns up and is disappointed to learn that her dad is cancelling their plans so he can go on an expedition and won’t bring her with him. He wants her to stay with someone called Carrie, who “doesn’t even have Sega, she’s such a troglodyte”. Malcolm tries to cheer her up by talking about gymnastics, and she angrily tells him she was cut from the team. Eddie is testing the high hide, and Kelly decides to sneak away in the trailer – just like the book I guess – and sees a map with the islands on it.

On a boat to the island, the fisherman who is bringing them there says he won’t stay near the island as there are too many rumours about it. He tells them the locals call these islands ‘The Five Deaths’. On land, they use their old-ass GPS to look for Sarah and find a pretty wrecked looking backpack. A herd of stegosauruses walk past – apparently Steven Spielberg received thousands of letters asking why there was no stegosaurus in the first film, so they decided early that they would feature in this one. They find Sarah, who talks excitedly about what she has observed so far on the island regarding family groups and lysine deficiency, but Malcolm is only interested to know whether she has been attacked. She explains that her backpack is her lucky pack and always looks like it has been attacked by dinosaurs.

She sees the baby stegosaurus nearby and wants a closer look, so she approaches and touches its face (that seems like something you’re not supposed to do, and that she should know better?) before taking some photos. It gets scared, I think by the sound of her film rewinding, and honks. The adults come thundering towards her and try to kill her with their thagomizers; Malcolm wants to intervene, but Eddie says they’re just protecting their baby. Sarah manages to hide in a hollow log and isn’t killed.

There are some really massive trees here which remind me of Endor from Return of the Jedi, and apparently they were both filmed in the redwood forests in California.

Eddie sees a fire near their trailer and they rush to put it out, then discover that Kelly has stowed away. Malcolm tries to call the fisherman to come back so he can get Kelly off the island, but he can’t get a signal. Sarah tells the others that their presence has to be antiseptic on the island – no scents, no food wrappers, no bending a blade of grass. Which is a bit rich from someone who was just squeezing a baby stegosaurus snout mere minutes ago, but ok (she’s still better than Richard Levine tbh). Sarah and Ian argue in the trailer about whether she will leave or not, but they are interrupted by the sound of InGen helicopters approaching.

We see Ludlow in a jeep with a hunter called Roland Tembo, who tells Ludlow he’s an idiot for wanting to set up camp on a game trail where carnivores hunt, and helpfully infodumps about how he wants to hunt a male T-rex as his fee for being there. A palaeontologist called Robert Burke is also with the expedition and identifies several dinosaurs, but Roland refers to them by names like Friar Tuck and Elvis. They capture several dinosaurs, such as a parasaurolophus and a pachycephalosaurus.

Roland finds a track, which Burke confirms is a tyrannosaurus footprint. Roland and his friend Ajay go off to collect his fee. At the nest, they see a young tyrannosaurus eating a carcass – they estimate it is only a few weeks old and has never left the nest. They are in a poor position though and want to get the adult where they want him, so they kidnap the baby and put him in a trap to lure the parent while they wait in a nearby tree.

As they watch the InGen camp, Nick tells them that Hammond thought something like this might happen and had instructed him to sabotage it. While Ludlow wangs on over Zoom to his investors, showing off the captured dinosaurs and saying they plan to set up a park in San Diego, Nick and Sarah unlock the cages. As Ludlow says the San Diego park could be ready in less than a month, a triceratops crashes through the wall. The dinosaurs wreck the InGen camp, and it’s notable that they are all herbivores so nobody gets eaten. A really well-aimed truck that is already on fire flies towards Roland and Ajay’s tree, but they escape just in time.

Nick rescues the infant T-rex from the trap and brings it back to the trailer despite Sarah’s protests, passing Eddie as he sets up the high hide. Predictably, Malcolm is not on board with having the infant in their trailer, but Sarah starts operating on the broken leg. Kelly is scared as she realises other animals will hear the wailing infant, and asks to leave the trailer. Malcolm takes her to the high hide with Eddie. From there, they hear a tyrannosaurus roar in the distance, and try to call the trailer but Nick and Sarah don’t answer the phone as they are working on the leg. Ian resolves to run back to the trailer through the rain to warn them.

From the high hide, Kelly and Eddie see the trees shake as a tyrannosaurus moves through the forest towards the trailer. Malcolm arrives just before a car goes flying through the air, and two adult tyrannosaurs approach each side of the trailer. Is their vision still based on movement in the films? Who knows. Sarah says this is not hunting behaviour, and they are searching for their infant. She brings the baby outside for them, removing the muzzle. There is a brief reprieve when they think the adults have left them alone, but they reappear and start pushing the trailers over the cliff. Malcolm and Nick try to open the door but it is jammed. As the first trailer tips over the cliff, they all grab onto something, but the door Sarah grabbed opens and she falls onto the window below. The glass starts cracking as she tries to move off it, then a phone falls, breaking it completely. Luckily, both she and Ian had grabbed her lucky pack before the window broke, and she dangles over the rocks below.

Eddie arrives in the clearing in a car; the dinosaurs are gone, and one trailer is hanging over the cliff. He throws a rope to the others and they start climbing, and he also tries pulling the trailer back using his car. Unluckily for him, the T-rexes come back and eat him, but like a champ he keeps his foot on the accelerator for as long as possible before they break into the car and rip him in half. As Sarah reaches the top of the cliff, a hand reaches out and helps her up. The InGen people have arrived, and the two groups team up despite their differences, although Ludlow is fuming that they destroyed his equipment (were the helicopters destroyed too, or were they just dropped off?)

Sarah says the tyrannosaurus territory has probably changed due to the baby incident, and Burke agrees. She mentions that they have the second largest olfactory bulb in the animal kingdom and will be able to follow their scent. Ludlow suggests going to the worker village where there is some communications equipment, but also mentions that they need to worry about velociraptors as it is in their territory.

The group walks through the jungle, and Roland notices that Sarah is leaving a trail of blood on the ferns she brushes against. He asks if she is injured, and she says it is just blood from the baby T-rex that isn’t drying because of the humidity. Bearing in mind what she said in the last scene about the tyrannosaurus sense of smell, this seems unwise – maybe rinse it in the river or something?

During a break Dieter Stark, one of the InGen people who we saw earlier shocking a compy for the lols, tells his colleague Carter that he is going into the woods to relieve himself. Unfortunately, Carter does not hear this as he is listening to mariachi music on his Walkman and eating nachos. Dieter is taken out by a pack of compys, in a scene reminiscent of John Hammond’s death in the first book. Apparently he swears in Swedish during the attack, saying “Helvetes jävlar” which translates to “damn bastards”. Carter does not notice Dieter’s bag when the group finishes the break and leaves. Later, when they realise Dieter is missing, Roland goes looking for him; he tells Malcolm and Ajay that he only found the parts the dinosaurs didn’t like.

That night, everyone except Malcolm is asleep while he is on watch. A tyrannosaurus approaches the camp and sticks its head into a tent where Sarah and Kelly are sleeping; the bloodstained shirt is hanging up and the tyrannosaurus sniffs at it. Kelly wakes up at this point, and this really would be a horrible way to wake up. Carter wakes up and starts yelling, which wakes up the rest of the group; they all start running, despite Malcolm telling everyone to stay down and not move. The tyrannosaurus stands up with the tent on its face, which is throws away – I’m not clear how Sarah and Kelly got out of it – and starts chasing the group. Nick has somehow retrieved Sarah and Kelly and is running with them. The second adult tyrannosaurus appears and Roland tries to shoot it, but someone has taken his bullets. The groups runs with a tyrannosaurus in pursuit, and Carter falls over; the dinosaur steps on him and his body is carried for several steps before falling into another puddle. Roland manages to reload his gun and shoots a tyrannosaurus with a tranquiliser.

Burke, Nick, Sarah and Kelly shelter behind a waterfall, but the tyrannosaurus sticks its head in and licks them, in another scene taken from the Jurassic Park book. A snake crawls down the back of Burke’s shirt (apparently a milk snake, which is not venomous to humans, but I think it is understandable that he panicked), so he runs outside, where he is immediately eaten by the tyrannosaurus. The crunching noise at this point is horribly realistic. The others think the tyrannosaurus is coming back but it’s just Malcolm joining them behind the waterfall.

The rest of the InGen group had kept running, despite yelled warning from Ajay that they shouldn’t go into the long grass. Most of the group is taken out by velociraptors. As Malcolm and co arrive at the long grass, they find Ajay’s bag and hear screams and velociraptor noises in the distance. They make it through to the worker village and Nick goes off to find the comms equipment; he manages to get through to someone and give their coordinates.

Meanwhile, Malcolm, Sarah and Kelly approach what looks like a gas station and are ambushed by raptors; the first one lands on Sarah’s back but is fooled by her lucky pack and she is able to get away. Malcolm tries to distract it to give Sarah and Kelly time to get away, but more raptors appear. While Malcolm is trapped in a car, Sarah and Kelly are trapped in a building. They try to dig their way out under a door, but another raptor appears there, so they have to climb up high. Kelly takes one out using her gymnastics skills, impaling it on a spike, which makes me wonder how good the other people on the team must have been. Finally, they get away from the raptors and are picked up by a helicopter.

The male tyrannosaurus is in a cage, and I’m not clear how they got it in there after Roland tranquilised it. Ludlow congratulates Roland, saying he has saved InGen. Roland is upset however that Ajay is dead, and Ludlow is like lol why, we have a literal dinosaur here, that’s way better than a friend! Roland rejects Ludlow’s job offer and walks away. I’m confused by this though as I thought he wanted it as a trophy? From the helicopter, Malcolm and the others see the adult in the cage.

Back in San Diego, Ludlow has called some sort of press conference at the harbour and wangs on again about how exciting it will be to open Jurassic Park in the city. Ian and Sarah push their way into the event. A ship is approaching, and the harbourmaster is confused as it isn’t slowing down, and ploughs at full speed into the port (Is it just me, or did everyone react really slowly to this ship crashing into them?) A man is being pulled out from under a car while Ludlow and some others board the ship, finding that they crew have been ripped apart. Malcolm tries to stop a man from opening the cargo hold, and the tyrannosaurus gets out. It chases a few people into the sea, then crashes past immigration and roars at the San Diego skyline.

Sarah says the tyrannosaurus is probably dehydrated from the tranquilisers so it will look for water first, then probably food. They quiz Ludlow about the infant – it was transported separately by plane, and is being held at a warehouse. Malcolm and Sarah decide to go and get the infant to try luring the adult back to the ship.

The tyrannosaurus drinks from a swimming pool, then eats a dog. A child in the house wakes up his parents to say there is a dinosaur in their backyard.

Ian and Sarah find the baby, but it is drugged and unconscious. They load it into their car, and follow the screams to find the adult.

The tyrannosaurus is on a full-blown rampage now, attacking traffic lights and a bus. The bus crashes into a video store, which has a poster for King Lear starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, which I think we can all agree is a movie that we all need to see. The tyrannosaurus eats a man next to the video store – this is David Koepp, one of the film’s writers, and he is listed in the credits as “Unlucky Bastard”. Ian and Sarah pull into a gas station, and the adult smells the infant I guess and starts following them. They cut through some warehouses and run to the ship with the infant, drawing the adult after them.

Ludlow sees them and instructs his staff to shoot the adult but he wants the baby alive. He boards the ship in time to see Ian and Sarah jumping into the sea. He enters the cargo hold to get the infant, but the adult gets in there too without him noticing. He dies a bit like Dodgson in the book – the adult just injures him and gives him to the baby. Sarah shoots the adult tyrannosaurus with a tranquiliser and Malcolm seals the cargo hold with the adult, infant and Ludlow’s body inside it.

CNN is broadcasting live coverage of the ship being escorted back to Isla Sorna by the US navy, so I guess everybody knows about it this time. Malcolm and Sarah sleep while Kelly watches the coverage and eats popcorn. John Hammond speaks to CNN about why the island should be left intact without human interference, and that they’ll work with the Costa Rican government to keep the island isolated, noting that the dinosaurs require our absence to survive.

The final scene is of several dinosaurs roaming free on the island – the adult tyrannosaurs with their baby, a herd of stegosauruses, and some Pteranodons (although of course these are flying reptiles, not dinosaurs).

Movie trivia

The film was nominated for Best Visual Effects at the 1998 Oscars, but lost out to Titanic. The other nominee in the category was Starship Troopers.

There were some dinosaur puppets and animatronics created by Stan Winston during filming that were later omitted, including several velociraptors. Scenes such as pteranodons attacking the helicopter and a rex attack on the high hide were developed, but never filmed.

Julianne Moore agreed to do this movie for two reasons: to pay off the exorbitant divorce settlement that had been awarded to her ex-husband, and to work with Steven Spielberg. She said that she “enjoyed herself tremendously” making the film.

The vocalizations for the juvenile tyrannosaurus were of a baby camel crying for its mother, while the sounds made by the baby stegosaurus were taken from a rhinoceros. The vocalizations of parasaurolophus were created from cows calling through tubes. The screech the pteranodon makes at the end was made by slowing down the sound of taking out dental floss from a box.

The S.S. Venture, which transports the Tyrannosaurus to San Diego, is a reference to King Kong (1933), who was transported to New York City on a ship called the S.S. Venture. This is the franchise’s second reference to the classic movie; the gate in the first movie was modelled on the Skull Island gate.

Mobility was essential for the scene in which the T-rexes attack the trailer. Working on a stage set at Universal, the Winston crew gleefully rammed the T-rex rigs into the vehicle over and over again. “I think out of everything on this movie,” said Shane Mahan, “we had the most fun smashing up the RV with the two T-rexes. At first, we were hesitant, thinking that we had to be careful with the rigs. But it got to the point where we were just, ‘Ah, to hell with it,’ and we just demolished that trailer with the T-rex rigs. That scene wasn’t faked. Those T-rexes were really slamming into that thing, breaking glass and shaking it. I think the scene really works because we went for it like that. You can tell that something truly violent is happening.”

Originally, Dr. Ian Malcolm’s team included a fifth member, a paleontologist named Dr. Juttson. He was inspired by the character Richard Levine from the novel. Dr. Juttson was dropped due to an already overcrowded cast, and most of his lines were given to Dr. Sarah Harding.

An alternate opening was for a Japanese fishing boat to pull up a parasaurolophus carcass in its net, then the net breaks from the weight of the carcass and disappears into the water below. Paul Mejias supervised the construction of the sculpture and even though this alternate opening scene never made the final cut, the carcass was still used in the film in the scenes taking place in the tyrannosaurus nest and the boneyard.

Director Steven Spielberg and composer John Williams felt that the score of this movie needed to be slightly different to that heard in Jurassic Park. Because it was a remote island chain, they added drums and bongos. Williams modified the original Jurassic Park themes to include homages to Max Steiner’s score from King Kong (1933).

The character of Robert Burke is inspired, in both name and appearance, by real-life paleontologist Robert Bakker. Bakker supports the theory that the Tyrannosaurus Rex was an active hunter, unlike his colleague Jack Horner (who was a scientific consultant for The Lost World), who advocates that the T-Rex was primarily a scavenger. After watching the film, in which Burke is eaten by the T-Rex, Bakker actually called Horner and jokingly said: “See? I told you the T-Rex was a hunter!”

While he eats nachos, Carter listens to “Tres Dias“ performed by Mariachi los Camperos de Nati Cano

Other interesting links:

• As a thank you to Steven Spielberg, Industrial Light & Magic created an animation that features a pack of compys tap dancing wearing bow ties, top hats, and holding canes
• Two deleted scenes from The Lost World: one where Ludlow uses the attack on Cathy Bowman (the little girl at the beginning of the movie) to get control of InGen, and a scene in Kenya where Ajay convinces Roland to come to Costa Rica for a job, and Roland confronts a man sexually harassing a waitress
• The Lost World Featurette
• The Lost World Jurassic Park: Behind The Scenes
• Return to Jurassic Park: Something Survived
• VFX Evolved - Lost World Before And After the VFX
• Premiere Opening Night Highlights
• Burger King commercial - Jurassic Park Lost World Watches
• The Lost World Toy Commercial - Mobile Command Center and Thrasher T-Rex
• The Lost World Toy Commercial - Ground Tracker and Stegosaurus
• The Lost World Jurassic Park Electric Race Set Commercial
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park Battling Raptors Toy Commercial

The discussion questions are in the comments below.

Thank you to everybody who read along with Jurassic Park and The Lost World, and for your amazing comments and discussions! I hope you all enjoyed reading these as much as I did.