Hot Zone Essay, Research Paper

Summary: Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park is divided into seven sections, each with a quote from

Ian Malcolm. He was a mathematician who specialized in the field called

chaos theory, which based itself mainly on nonlinear equations. The first

section follows the paths of several scenes, where in each one, there is

evidence pointing to the appearance of dinosaurs. One of these scenes

included in the very beginning, where a man was flown in to a doctor with

mortal wounds surrounding his body. One of his last words was “raptor”,

which meant “bird of prey.” Another was when a young girl was bit by a so

called lizard, but the lizard fit closely to the description of a dinosaur.

The second section ties in with the first one, but now the reader is

presented with scientific evidence of living dinosaurs. Here the reader is

given a little insight of the background to the situation, as Bob Morris,

part of the EPA, reveals information that InGen had three Cray XMP’s

shipped to Costa Rica, which were very powerful supercomputers, and 24

Hoods, which were automated gene sequencers. Later on, the carcass of a

dinosaur, which was found near the sight where the young girl was bit, was

sent to a lab to be examined, and it was identified as a Procompsognathus,

thought to be extinct for millions of years. The scientists who witnessed

the evidence, Ellie Sattler and Alan Grant, both foremost in the fields of

paleontology, were soon requested to fly down to a private island off of

Costa Rica by John Hammond, founder of InGen. A little later on in the

second section, the story unfolds somewhat, when the scene shifts to a

meeting of the Biosyn Corporation of Cupertino, where they explain that

InGen was cloning dinosaurs. The Biosyn company then hires Lewis Dodgson,

an scientists who worked at InGen, to help them steal dinosaur embryo’s for

them. He starts off toward Costa Rica as Ellie and Grant arrive in Jurassic

Park, and get their first glimpses of the dinosaurs.

The third section begins with Ellie and Grant about to tour the park.

They are joined by two children, the grandchildren of Hammond, Tim and Lex

Murphy. Tim was only eleven but he knew a lot about dinosaurs because he

was very interested in them. The small group is first taken on a tour

through the main building of the park by Mr. Regis, head of Public

Relations. Here is when Regis explains the process in which the dinosaurs

where able to be cloned. He explained that to obtain full strands of

dinosaur DNA, they extracted the blood from ancient insects, hoping to find

biting insects which still had dinosaur DNA within them. Regis then takes

them to a room where the Cray super computers are busily working, repairing

broken DNA segments. Then they arrive in the fertilization room, and then

the hatchery. Later, they are taken to the control room, where almost all

the park functions could be maintained. The main computer sustained

accurate numbers and locations of all the dinosaurs in the park, motion

detectors where set up throughout the park, and video cameras. So it was

virtually a foolproof system. After leaving the control room, the visitors

climb aboard Toyota Land Cruisers, which acted as the mode of

transportation throughout the park. They move along the park, looking at

Dilophosaurus, Triceratops, and the ferocious Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Everything was going all as planned, but as Ian Malcolm had predicted,

things started to go wrong. First, back at control, they did scans around

the park and found out that the dinosaurs were breeding, something they

were genetically not able to do. Next, Alan, and the kids saw that a group

of raptors, fierce predators, were about to board a ship headed toward the

mainland. But at that exact time it began to rain and Dennis Nedry, hired

by Lewis Dodgson to steal the embryo’s, shut down the main power to the

main computer. This started a chain reaction that escalated to the

destruction of the entire park.

And so begins the fourth section of the novel. When Nedry had shut off

the main computer, all the electricity in the park went down as well. This

was bad timing, because Alan, and the kids were trapped in the Land

Cruisers right next to the T-Rex pin. And because the electricity was out,

the fences all around the park were not electric, which allowed the animals

to get free. And this meant bad news for Alan and the group since they knew

that the Tyrannasaurus could get out at any time. Soon enough, it got out

of the pin and knocked over both of the Land Cruisers, injuring everyone

but luckily it didn’t kill anyone. Back at control, Dr. Wu, head of

genetics, was trying to start the main computer back up again, but was

unable to crack the code that Nedry had put in. In the forest, Alan was

fortunate to find Lex and Tim, and they discovered a small feed building

where they decided to stay until morning. Dr. Wu finally cracked the code

and had the computer back on-line again. But then things went wrong again.

They had reset the main computer to access the phone lines but in doing so,

they failed to realize that after that, it began to run the park off of

auxiliary power. Back in the forest, Alan and the kids had found a raft,

and began to float down a river toward control.

Now the fifth section begins as Alan is floating down the river,

trying to escape from the T-Rex, who was still trying to get at them.

Luckily the escaped it two times. They had floated down to a waterfall and

had escaped behind it when the T-Rex found them. It had a hold of Tim in

his tongue when it dropped into unconsciousness because of a tranquilizer

dart fired at it more than a hour ago. Now back at control, they had just

began to realize that they park was run off of auxiliary power. What they

needed to do to raise the main power back on-line was to go into the back

building where the switch was. Unfortunately, the raptors had gotten loose,

and were wrecking havoc all around. Already two people were killed when the

sixth section starts.

Alan and the kids arrive in the lobby of the control station where

they found out that the raptors had trapped them in the building, and were

biting through the steel bars, able to get them in less than 15 minutes.

But Alan had a plan, and was able to get to the main power switch and turn

it back on. Meanwhile, Ellie and Wu were trying to provide distraction for

Allan, when one of the raptors killed Wu. Ellie escaped barely and Lex and

Tim had a adventure of there own while they waited for Allan to get back.

They were waiting in the kitchen when Tim saw a raptor in the darkness

through his night goggles. He fortunately was calm, and he devised a plan

that trapped the raptor in the freezer. Lex and Tim ran upstairs toward

control only to find it abandoned. They arrived right after Allan was able

to turn the main power back on. Now Tim had the great task of figuring out

how to get the security back on-line. Suddenly, the raptors jumped up into

the control room. Alan arrived with the kids though, and killed off three

of them by using deadly toxins stored in the labs. They arrived back in

control just in time to turn on the security and redirect the boat going

mainland back.

The final section dealt with the destruction and final outcome of the

island. Ellie and Allan went off to search for the breeding grounds of the

dinosaurs. They had arrived at the breeding place of the raptors and

discovered that they wanted to migrate, when they were taken away by

helicopter and the island was destroyed behind them. And so ends the novel,

with an optimistic view of some dinosaurs in the jungles.

Jurassic Park starts off with a brief history ofbiotechnology, and

first introduces the International GeneticTechnologies, Inc., known in the

story as InGen. Here, itexplains what happened to InGen and their genetic

crisis, andthen using a flashback method, it presents the rest of the

story.The boo