Airframe By Michael Crichton Essay, Research Paper

Airframe

56 passengers are injured. Three are dead. People are shocked, terrified, confused. What happened on TPA flight 545? Why did it happen? Could it have been prevented? A very popular late night news show has the power to totally destroy an innocent airplane manufacturer. A race between a high executive working for Norton, and a news reporter from Newsline to outwit one another has begun.

[this is where you would insert your own review here if needed. mine was on if this book should be made into a move or not.]

This could be a great book for a movie. It has good characters, a dramatic plot, and it is fast paced. However, good books are often known to be awful movies. But I think that if it was done right it would be good. It has a dramatic, gripping scene at the beginning of the book that ?hooks? you. It is when the aircraft starts diving and climbing at incredibly steep angles. People and luggage are flying everywhere for quite a long period of time. The movie would have a great opening that would get the audience ?hooked? and concerned about what caused the fatal oscillations.

And about a third of the way through the book, before you are done worrying about what went wrong with the flight, the main character Casey Singleton has her life threatened. At this point you know this character well, and you like who they are. You begin to worry about the character and read to see what happens to her. There are also a few good chase scenes that keep you reading, and I think would work well if this book was made into a movie. One is in the airplane hangar. She climbs up some scaffolding and comes to a dead end so she plays Tarzan and swings down on a power cable. There is another good part that still stands out in my mind. It was when she was in the airplane, in total darkness, and she is being followed. The unknown stalker pushes her out of the airplane, only for her to land in the safety netting. I think this scene would also work out well if acted out in a movie.

Not only could a movie be made easily from this book just because of its fast moving plot, action sequences, and concern for the characters, it is a very informational piece of literature. That information could be incorporated into the movie. Michael Chrichton had to have done extensive research to make this book so realistic. It helped me understand how much stress airplane manufacturers are put under just to make sure their planes are safe. Also it was informing on how airplanes worked and how precise these flying pieces of metal were. It also showed how the media can influence such a vast amount of people in one news broadcast. And the broadcast doesn?t even have to be informational or based on hard facts, all it had to do was scare the public, which was not hard to do.

This book also is one that makes you think. If made into a movie it would be like a mystery show. You have to help the main character figure it out. It is not one of those books where you are frustrated because you know what the character should do, in this case you are frustrated because you don?t know what they should do next. The book will lift your hopes up and then slam you onto the floor. You think Casey has it figured out but she doesn?t. There are so many details and fine print. You have to read between the lines, pay attention to detail and think ahead. Even though, you still may not figure it out until the very end.

This book has the qualities to be made into a movie. A movie that could be watched more than once. The book has suspense, thrill, a fast moving plot, it is very informational. This book has it all. Even a happy ending. If there is a good movie to be made out there, it is Michael Chrichton?s Airframe. I personally know of two other books of his that were successfully made into films. Jurassic Park and Sphere are two that come to mind. This book has potential as well.