Alan Grant
Dr. Alan Grant was a renowned paleontologist. He was an expert on Velociraptors. He oversaw numerous digs in North America. He wrote the book Dinosaur Detectives with Michael Backes which contained theories that were at odds with fellow paleontologist Bob Bakker. or the longest time, he severely disliked children; he once terrified an obnoxious boy with a fossil raptor claw and a detailed description of how the dinosaurs killed their prey.
It was while on a dig in Snakewater, Montana in 1993 that he was approached by John Hammond of InGen to act as a consultant for Jurassic Park. Hammond was concerned that following the death of a worker, InGen's investors wanted experts to sign off on the park to ensure it was safe. Unaware that the park featured live dinosaurs, and still in the middle of excavating a complete raptor skeleton, Grant refused - until Hammond offered to fund the Snakewater dig, and Grant's work in general, for a further three years.
Grant agreed and along with his colleague and lover Ellie Sattler accompanied Hammond, mathematician Ian Malcolm and lawyer Donald Gennaro to Isla Nublar by helicopter, where he was delighted to discover that the island was populated by living dinosaurs created through InGen's paleo-cloning process. Seeing the dinosaurs confirmed many of his own theories, but his excitement and wonder soon began to turn towards discomfort and eventually outright concern, particularly after Hammond allowed the visitors to actually see the raptors.
Witnessing the predators devour a cow that was fed to them, and hearing game warden Robert Muldoon talk about dangerous and intelligent they were, made Grant feel that Hammond and his scientists were being too cavalier about reintroducing extinct species into the modern age, sentiments shared by Ellie and Malcolm.
Hammond was annoyed and disappointed at their opinions, but insisted that the four of them go on a guided tour of the park itself before making up their minds. The four of them were joined by Hammond's grandchildren Tim and Lex Murphy, much to Grant's annoyance due to his dislike of children. Tim in particular annoyed him. He rode in Explorer 05 along with Ellie and Malcolm.
The tour didn't get off to a promising start. The Dilophosaurs and Tyrannosaurus rex didn't show up, and the only dinosaur the group did see was a sick Triceratops, being tended to by park vet Gerry Harding. Grant was nonetheless delighted to see the creature, as it had been his favorite dinosaur when he was a child. A coming storm cut the tour short and the visitors returned to the Explorers at Gennaro's insistence, although Ellie remained with Harding to continue tending to the sick Triceratops, with Harding's reassurance that he'd take her back to the Visitor's Center in his Jeep later.
On the way back during the storm, the power went out, causing the two Explorers to stop dead right in front of the T-rex paddock. As Grant and Malcolm made small talk, they suddenly witnessed Gennaro get out of Explorer 04 in front of them and run away, hiding in a restroom nearby. Neither of them understood why he'd done this until the fence came down and the T-rex stepped out of the paddock.
A wary Grant advised Malcolm not to move, since the T-rex's vision was based on movement. In Explorer 04, the children were unaware of this, a flashlight turned on by Lex attracted the dinosaur's attention. She turned the vehicle over and began crushing it with her foot. Despite his dislike of children, Grant, unwilling to let the two die, turned on a flare and left the safety of the Explorer, and began waving it around to get the rampaging dinosaur's attention. He stood still but otherwise waved the flare, before discarding it.
Attracted to the light and movement, the Tyrannosaurus stomped over towards it, just as Malcolm got out of the car waving his own flare, attempting to help. Grant yelled at him to freeze, but a panicked Malcolm instead yelled for him to rescue the children and ran away with the T-rex chasing him. Grant followed his instructions to the letter and was thus unaware of his fate after this until much later.
Grant pulled Lex free of the overturned and partially crumpled Explorer and was turning to assist Tim when Lex screamed. The Tyrannosaurus was back. He clamped a hand over her mouth and repeated the same warning he'd given to Malcolm: not to move. But the two were forced into action when the T-rex nudged Explorer 04 with her nose and eventually pushed it over a cliff with Tim still inside. To escape, Grant had Lex cling to his back as he climbed down the cliff on a loose cable. Fortunately for Tim, Explorer 04 landed in the branches of a tree. After making Lex hide in a drain pipe and assuring her he wouldn't abandon her as Gennaro had, Grant climbed the tree and retrieved Tim from the Explorer. They narrowly avoided being crushed as the vehicle fell from the tree while they were climbing down.
Collecting Lex from the pipe, the three made their way through the forest, intending to return to the Visitor's Center. They spent the night in a tree, during which time Grant bonded with the two children, eventually discarding the raptor claw he'd terrified the little boy with earlier. The following morning, the three climbed down and discovered some newly hatched dinosaur eggs. Tim and Lex were confused because their grandfather had told them all the dinosaurs were female and thus couldn't breed. Remembering the tour video they'd seen about how InGen's scientists had to splice in bits of DNA from frogs, Grant realized they must've used DNA from a certain species of West African frog that could change its gender in a single gender environment and that this was what was happening with Jurassic Park's dinosaurs.
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