Michael Crichton died unexpectedly of cancer yesterday at the age of 66. In his honor, I thought about posting a montage of clips from movies he wrote and/or directed and/or which were adapted from his novels. But the one I found, despite making some of the lesser adaptations (Congo; Timeline) seem better than they actually are, wasn’t quite as long or in depth as I’d hoped. And I couldn’t merely include a scene or trailer for a single film, because it’s impossible to choose one work that best exemplifies his career. No, not even Jurassic Park is worthy.
So, I’m going a little indirect and showcasing this recut trailer for Twister, a movie Crichton scripted with his then wife, Anne-Marie Martin. Not only do I think Twister is underrated, but I think this is one of the better recut trailers around, mainly because the voiceover sounds more legit than most amateur efforts. The fact that Crichton had penned the screenplay to Twister was immediately a surprise to anyone watching the movie, which hardly even seemed to have a foundation of story or dialogue prior to being shot. It had seemed that director Jan De Bont went into a wide expanse of Midwest farmland with a loose synopsis to His Girl Friday and a lot of ideas for spectacular CG tornado effects to be added in during post.
It doesn’t matter if Crichton had simply written the movie for an easy paycheck, though. If you’ve ever read any of his science fiction novels, you know he’s an intelligent guy with impeccable storytelling skills. Sometimes his narratives are so fluid that it seems he’s writing with the expectation of the book being later made into a movie. Actually, for The Lost World, that’s clearly what he’s doing. But then there are books like Congo, which when adapted reveal some basic truths for why certain stories are better suited to literature and aren’t so easily translated to film language.
I had a love and hate relationship with Crichton’s work throughout my life, having been first introduced to him through my father’s favorite film, The Andromeda Strain, as a little kid. I’ve been afraid of science ever since, though it didn’t stop me from becoming obsessed with Jurassic Park as a teenager. I later experienced my first real disappointment with a film adaptation when Spielberg’s movie arrived (”where was the river ride? and the pterosaurs?” I cried), yet I ultimately realized how great that movie actually is after reading and then watching Congo. And then another year later, I was flabbergasted with how simple Twister is. And like a number of others, the disappointment with the script initially disrupted the enjoyment of how entertaining the movie is, as a simple disaster pic.
Anyway, Crichton also gave us great films like Westworld, Coma, The Great Train Robbery, and in some ways, we can kind of thank him for George Clooney’s stardom. via TV’s ER. He will be missed.
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