| Movies | Novels | Games | Comics |
Dr. Ian Malcolm is a mathematician who specializes in a branch of mathematics known as "Chaos Theory". Malcolm is one of the main characters of the Jurassic Park franchise as well as the main protagonist in the The Lost World. Malcolm appears in both novels by Michael Crichton. Malcolm serves as the mouthpiece of Crichton, who called Malcolm the "ironic commentator" on the action.[1]
Novels[]
Jurassic Park[]
Along with Dr. Alan Grant and Dr. Ellie Sattler, Ian Malcolm was one of the consultants who was hired by John Hammond to provide information to aid in building Jurassic Park. Along with Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler, Malcolm was invited by Hammond to visit his theme park on Isla Nublar and give his opinion on it. Malcolm was the most pessimistic of the consultants and was confident from the beginning that the park would fail.
Malcolm went along with the others on a tour of the park. When disgruntled computer programmer, Dennis Nedry, shut down the power in the park to gain access to frozen dinosaur embryos, he inadvertently caused the electrified fences to shut down, allowing the dinosaurs to escape from their enclosures. When the T. rex escaped and attacked one of the cars near its paddock, Malcolm, who was in the other car, panicked and ran outside. The T. rex then chased him and picked him up in its jaws, then shook him and threw him down. Malcolm broke his leg in the fall.
Muldoon and Gennaro later found Malcolm and took him to the Safari Lodge, where he was taken care of by Gerry Harding. He was administered morphine and spent the rest of the novel giving emotional rants about science and philosophy while attempting to help the others survive. His condition continued to deteriorate, and by the time the Costa Rican Air Force finally arrived at the end of the novel, he was assumed to have died.
The Lost World[]
The novel begins with Ian Malcolm giving a lecture on alternative Extinction theories while interrupted by Richard Levine. Though he was declared dead at the end of the first novel, he explains that the declaration was premature although he has an injured leg. After the lecture, while he and Sarah Harding were having lunch, they were approached by again by Levine who wanted Dr. Malcolm to help him find a "lost world", where extinct creatures may have actually survived from antiquity. Ian denied his involvement in Isla Nublar incident and refuses to go several times, but his curiosity eventually gets the better of him, and he and Richard set out to find Site B. He injures his leg once again during a T. rex attack but, nevertheless, survived and escaped. During this expedition, he called John Hammond a hustler, and that his only true talent was raising money.[2] Malcolm was injured during a Tyrannosaurus rex attack on a trailer, but survived and with Kelly Curtis' help, escaped the island.[3]
References[]
- ↑ Crichton M. (Date unknown) The Lost World. Retrieved from http://www.michaelcrichton.com/the-lost-world/
- ↑ The Lost World: "Interior"
- ↑ The Lost World: "Departure II"
[]
| Jurassic Park novel Characters |
|---|
| Alan Grant • Ellie Sattler • Ian Malcolm • John Hammond • Lewis Dodgson • John Arnold • Robert Muldoon • Dennis Nedry • Henry Wu • Ed Regis • Donald Gennaro • Lex Murphy • Tim Murphy • Gerry Harding • Martin Gutierrez • Clarence • Ralph • Rexy |
| The Lost World Characters |
|---|
| Ian Malcolm • Sarah Harding • Richard Levine • Jack Thorne • Eddie Carr • Arby Benton • Kelly Curtis • Lewis Dodgson • George Baselton • Howard King |