9 Michael Crichton Sci-Fi Movies That Don’t Involve Dinosaurs or Wild West Robots

Crichton , who died in 2008 , did plenty of non - genre work , of course — he created medical dramatic play ER , which ran for a astonishing 15 season on NBC . He also , for instance , write and directed the Sean Connery - Donald Sutherland period crime dramatic event The Great Train Robbery , and develop The thirteenth Warrior , a Norse - mythology - meets - Antonio - Banderas ( cast as an Arab humanity , which was patently an OK affair to do in 1999 … ) adventure based on Crichton ’s historic fancy Eaters of the Dead . Just to name a few .

But beyond his resurrected dinosaurs ( still raking in billions as theJurassic Worldtrilogy keep on ) and killer humanoid robot ( both in1973’sWestworldandthe current HBO series ) , here are nine other sci - fi movies with Crichton ’s DNA in them . You ’ll notice many of them share the writer ’s signature theme , like engineering that range amok and science that gets way weirder than anyone intended .

9. Twister

Doesthe ever - entertaining Twister , released 23 years ago , still matter as sci - fi ? At the charge per unit we ’re go , hard outbreaks of massive twister will be the mood change - spawned average , rather than some incredible phenomenon that sends rival team of weather condition nerds racing with gloat and terror through rural Oklahoma . Crichton and his wife , Anne - Marie Martin , co - write the screenplay ; their relationship no doubt helped inform the separated - but - still - apparently - in - dear couple play by Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt . Crichton also co - produced the film , which was made by Stephen Spielberg ’s output company , Amblin — and you ca n’t help but hear Jurassic Park ’s dinosaurs every time one of Twister ’s funnel shape swarm starts incredibly , but uproariously , growling and howling at the puny humans in its path .

8. Runaway

Crichton wrote and guide this 1984 thriller , which stars Tom Selleck at the height of his Magnum , P.I. celebrity as a mistily futuristic fuzz on the “ malfunctioning robots ” beat . One day , his business shifts from glorified repairman to something way more severe when a domesticated automaton ’s cooking , cleanup , and doorway - resolve skill set suddenly expands to include cold - blooded murder . applied science out of ascendence ? Where have we find out that before ? In this instance , at least , there ’s a villainous human hand flat controlling all of the machine havoc . Runaway is not a particularly great movie ; it does things like heavily foreshadow its dangling - off - a - skyscraper coming by reminding us over and over again how much Selleck ’s role detest top . But its vintage special outcome ( those deadly li’lrobot spiders ! ) , synth score , and shape — especially a glowering Gene Simmons as the picture show ’s evil - inventor resister , though Kirstie Alley and Cynthia Rhodes ( pre - Cheers and pre - muddied Dancing , respectively ) also tot up mid-1980s interest — make it a fun - in - retrospect slice of classic Crichton .

7. Looker

Crichton write and guide this 1981 thriller about a Los Angeles plastic operating surgeon ( Albert Finney ) who ’s puzzled when a stream of gorgeous models protrude appearing at his office , asking for microscopic alteration that will make them “ perfect . ” Since they ’re already as close to perfect as most human being can get , he hesitate at first — but finally goes through with it , even sparking romantically with one of them ( fiddle by Susan Dey ) . course , something sinister involve engineering is afoot . The “ perfected ” women — who are all working for the same delegacy , the ominously - list “ Digital Matrix , ” which has been creating computer - mother 3-D copies of its clients to use in commercial — start die off , and the genuine role of those copy ( it involve hypnosis and mind control ) is soon discover . Looker has , shall we say , some plot holes , and the early-‘80s modeling milieu allows a sealed amount of sleaze to seep in . But its warning about subliminal advertising — several years beforeThey Livedelivered the definitive take on the estimation — are still challenging , as is its geographic expedition of verrrry early ( pre - Tron ! ) “ CG . ”

6. Coma

Crichton directed and conform the screenplay from Robin Cook ’s ripe - seller for this 1978 aesculapian thriller . It has some things in common with Looker — it ’s also about a MD ( here , play by Geneviève Bujold ) who becomes shady when patient undergo seemingly mundane procedures at her hospital get falling into deep comatoseness and being declared brain - dead . Much like Twister , it ’s a bit of a stretch to call Coma sci - fi , although some creepy technology demand remote control - controlled toxicant gas does go into the illicit coma - inducement . When the Dr. eventually realise the lucrative black - grocery store organ patronage is to find fault , Coma leaps from paranoid freak - out into gruesome body - repugnance territory . The cast overall is striking , with Michael Douglas , Rip Torn , and Richard Widmark playing hospital fellow expert and evil ; succeeding Runaway adept Tom Selleck as a dupe ; and a young Ed Harris make his big - CRT screen debut as a helpful diagnostician , several decades before his chilling turn on HBO ’s Westworld .

5. Sphere

Barry Levinson ’s 1998 undersea sci - fi thriller is base on Crichton ’s 1987 novel , and it has maybe the most telling cast of any moving picture on this list : Dustin Hoffman , Sharon Stone , Liev Schreiber , Peter Coyote , Queen Latifah , and Samuel L. Jackson ( whose calling had pluck up speedily after his turn in Jurassic Park , mostly thanks to 1994 ’s Pulp Fiction ) . And , well , the cast is about the well thing Sphere has pass for it . After what is likely a 300 - class - old alien space vehicle is hear deeply beneath the sea , the U.S. military corral four experts to investigate and maybe even make contact . But what starts off as a pretty uncanny mission gets even stranger . As a dangerous typhoon close in topside , the group realize that it ’s not an exotic ship , but an American craftiness that apparently journey way back in time through a black gob — though it is carry a prominent floating sphere that looks like contain by a vaguely malicious intelligence , but soon reveals itself to be much flakey than that . Too uncollectible it ’s not enough to elevate Sphere into in truth suspenseful , scarey , or even original territory ; the film ’s main distinguishing characteristic , other than all those A - inclination actors , is how talky it is . And somehow , even with all the explaining and discussion , the story still does n’t quite make sense in the death .

4. The Terminal Man

Mike Hodges ( Get Carter , Flash Gordon ) target and adapted this 1974 picture show ground on Crichton ’s 1972 novel . It ’s about a whiz computer scientist ( played by George Segal ) who digest from seizures that cause him to unknowingly put acts of violence . Desperate to cure his out - of - restraint homicidal urges , he agrees to a radical new procedure that will set up electrodes on his brain and zap him whenever a capture starts to excise — despite his shrewish ( and , as it turns out , prophetic ) apprehensiveness about letting a computer take control of his thinker . Though The Terminal Man shinny to connect with audiences , it did have some eminent - visibility devotee , notably directorsTerrence Malick and Stanley Kubrick .

3. Timeline

Crichton ’s 1999 novel take form the basis of Richard Donner ’s 2003 adventure about a group of archeology educatee who must teleport through a wormhole to deliver their professor ( Billy Connelly ) , who ’s trapped in 14th century France . Of course , thing get just a piddling complicated once they find themselves back in 1357 . A swab - topped Paul Walker , as the professor ’s Kyd , gets top billing;Gerard Butler(a few years pre-300 , with his Scottish emphasis turned on full blast ) is third - bill but really end up with the most important role , playing a seedy historian who falls in love with a rebellious stately ( Anna Friel)—and then stays behind to ensure meter - travel shenanigans have n’t smash the succeeding everyone else is trying to repay to . Timeline is laughable enough , but it conduct itself just a touch too earnestly — and its cast has so many characters it ’s arduous to get invested in anyone ’s circumstances . But perhaps uncollectible of all , its conflict plot threads of “ eggheads with clashing order of business in the present day madly trying to repair their wayback machine ” and “ egghead in the past tense trying to outmanoeuvre a medieval army ” make for some awfully jarring transitions .

2. Congo

Crichton wrote Congo in 1980 , and though he hoped to shepherd it to the bad screen himself , it did n’t get adapt ( by John Patrick Shanley ) into a movie ( aim by Frank Marshall ) until 1995 . patently some of that was due to Jurassic Park fever ( the OG JP came out in 1993 ) , but also because of the particular effects necessary to visualize Congo ’s tale , which prominently have a talking , martini - drinking Gorilla gorilla named Amy ( played by an actor in a furred wooing that was surely cutting - edge 24 years ago ) . Congo was n’t entirely well - get at the time of its sacking ( it was shower with Golden Raspberry nomination , though it had the good luck to be release the same class as Showgirls ) , but if you near it knowing that it ’s sincerely a throwback B - movie masquerading as a big - budget adventure , you ’ll be surprised at how doltishly fun it is .

When a Congo military expedition fund by a communications company ( and led by Bruce Campbell ! ) gets butcher while searching for a rarified grim diamond , which they postulate for laser - related purposes , a rescue party of one ( Laura Linney , who adds some gravitas ) follows their trail , looking for answers . Along the elbow room , she meets an solemn primatologist ( Dylan Walsh ) , a swaggering guide ( Ernie Hudson ) , a warlord ( Delroy Lindo ) , and a treasure hunting watch ( Tim Curry doing a hilariously theatrical Romanian accent ) , as well as the previously - mentioned Amy ( who really does talk , and trash - talk , using a in high spirits - tech electronic voice ) , and a plurality of highly badass hobo camp creature who can only be described as “ insurgent gorilla . ” Oh , also , there ’s a greedy corporate boss ( Joe Don Baker ) , cameo by Joe Pantoliano and James Karen , a questionable “ tribal ritual ” scene , chute , a sing - along , a hippo rampage , laser throttle , and a monumental volcanic eruption . With all that , who needs robots or dinosaurs ?

1. The Andromeda Strain

Jurassic Park and HBO ’s Westworld apart , perhaps the most - praise Crichton adjustment is this tense 1971 thriller , organise by Robert Wise ( The Day the Earth Stood Still , Star Trek : The Motion Picture , The Haunting , The Sound of Music ) with a script by Nelson Gidding . ( Crichton ’s 1969 novel also pep up a 2008 A&E miniseries co - produced by Ridley Scott , which extend an update take on the original write up . ) consider to be one of the former standouts of the “ killer virus ” genre , The Andromeda Strain start out as a satellite carry some form of deadly - to - humankind “ space germ ” crashes down in New Mexico . An elite squad of military scientist ( one of whom is played by Arthur Hill , who later co - starred in 1976 Westworld sequel Futureworld ; my favorite , though , is the snarky doctor played by Kate Reid ) frantically works to take the malevolent organism late within Wildfire , a bastioned lab that ’s pose to ego - destruct using atomic substance if there ’s a containment breach . Only one key exists to both start out and end the self - destruct sequence , and it ’s foist upon the lonesome single humanity on the squad … setting up the film ’s climactic backwash against time to break a worldwide biological catastrophe .

The Andromeda Strain intercept into veneration that the distance plan ( which was then at the height of its moonlight - landing place era ) might accidentally bring something exotic and dangerous back to Earth , while also raven on Cold War - epoch paranoia about nukes give out wild . But the most riveting thing about the movie might just be its yield design , particularly when the level shifts almost entirely into the lab — a slick , shiny , high - tech ( for 1971 ) underground bunker that makes use of both all - white interiors and bright black and white room , and is so isolated the man that live it might as well be in tabu space .

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