Michael Crichton dead at 66

[Anakin Flair 0]

I can't beleive this-

 

from Yahoo.com

 

Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park Author, Dead at 66

 

The gone-haywire theme parks of Jurassic Park and Westworld. The breakneck medical decisions of ER. The storm chasers of Twister.

 

All these and more came from the mind of Michael Crichton, the megaselling novelist and Hollywood titan, who died Tuesday of what was invariably described as a private battle against cancer. He was 66.

 

Crichton's 1990 novel Jurassic Park inspired the blockbuster Steven Spielberg franchise. The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Sphere and the Jurassic Park sequel, The Lost World, were among other Crichton books that made the leap from the page to the big screen.

 

In a statement today, Spielberg remembered being a young TV director assigned to show the young Crichton around the Universal Pictures studio lot.

 

A friendship was born. As was an abiding admiration.

 

"Michael's talent out-scaled even his own dinosaurs of Jurassic Park," Spielberg said. "There is no one in the wings that will ever take his place."

 

On television, Crichton was the creator and an executive producer of ER, the long-running NBC hit, from Spielberg's Amblin Television, that launched George Clooney's star, and which is now in its 15th and final season. He shared in the show's 1996 Emmy win for Outstanding Drama Series.

 

Standing at just a touch under 7 feet, Crichton was as tall as his tales—tales that turned on science and technology and put his Harvard Medical School degree to use.

 

His breakthrough novel was The Andromeda Strain, published in 1969. Snapped up by Hollywood, the sci-fi plague thriller became the basis for the 1971 Robert Wise movie of the same name. Earlier this year, it was remade as an A&E miniseries.

 

In 1973, Crichton wrote and directed Westworld, which pitted hapless humans against theme-park robots gone bad. A hit, it spawned the 1976 sequel, Futureworld. A planned movie remake from writer Billy Ray (Flightplan) is currently in the works.

 

Crichton revisited the Westworld theme on his own with Jurassic Park, which pitted hapless humans against theme-park dinosaurs gone wild.

 

"I'm not an everyday writer," Crichton told Time in 1995, "and I never have been."

 

But he was a dedicated writer, producing more than two dozen novels and nonfiction books. He was also a publishing phenomenon and a fixture on Forbes' wealthiest-people lists.

 

(Originally published Nov. 5, 2008, at 10:27 a.m. PT.)

 

I didn't even know he was sick. He was hands down one of my favorite authors; I remember reading 'The Lost World' on a youth group camping trip. Man, this sucks.

[the max 0]

I love the "if you don't know who this is, where have you been?!" The guy only died yesterday. And I'm pretty sure that everyone has heard of him. ER, Jurassic Park, etc.

 

I'll never forgive him for Twister though. I hope he stays in purgatory for that hunk of shit.

[Nighthawk 0]

They were just talking about him on the episode of Mission Hill they were showing last night...

[Anakin Flair 0]

Yeah, I'm dead tired and couldn't think of anything clever for the subheading. Somebody change it.

[BX 0]

omg room spinning

[strummer 0]

I'll never forgive him for Twister though. I hope he stays in purgatory for that hunk of shit.

 

The closest I've ever come to walking out of a movie was Twister. The only reason I didn't was that my younger brother was with me and he was into disaster movies at the time (he was 13 or so).

 

Definite top 5 of the worst "mainstream" movies I've ever seen.

[Jingus 0]

In the movie version, he lives

I must admit I lol'd. Which is nice, since I'm a bit of a fan of his and felt down today because of it.

 

Weird that his last book, the ironically titled Next, was kind of like a Greatest Hits compilation of various material he's used in other books before.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

I never knew that he directed Westworld. I never knew that he actually directed anything.

 

Me live in cave.

[Anakin Flair 0]

That's better.

 

I actually just picked up Next at a book fair that was in our local mall. All the books you could fit into a bag for a buck. As soon as I get done with the back log of books I already have, I'm going to get started on it.

[RepoMan 0]

I'll never forgive him for Twister though. I hope he stays in purgatory for that hunk of shit.

 

The closest I've ever come to walking out of a movie was Twister. The only reason I didn't was that my younger brother was with me and he was into disaster movies at the time (he was 13 or so).

 

Definite top 5 of the worst "mainstream" movies I've ever seen.

 

Was the book as bad as the movie?

 

I have to admit I was 13 when I saw in the theaters and loved it. I still think it's very watchable for the FX and the fast paced storyline. I love that it has other stormchasers as the villians who are "just in it for the money, man!"

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

Twister isn't that bad. At least it is more fun than some of the other lousy disaster films from the late 90s like Armageddon and Volcano. Plus it has Philip Seymour Hoffman.

[Jingus 0]

There was no book of Twister, just the movie. And yeah, it was just your average disaster flick, although with an above-average cast. Although I think we can all agree that Cary Elwes really needs to never play an American villain ever again. Honest show of hands, how many people first noticed Phillip Seymour Hoffman in that movie? It was memorable that any actor could somehow take that laughable dialogue about "the Suck Zone" and make it, well, not suck.

 

And mellow, Crichton actually directed half a dozen movies way back when, most notably a fun version of his book The Great Train Robbery with Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland. Plus also that goofy Tom Selleck Fights Robots flick Runaway.