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The Dinosaurs Aren't the Real Bad Guys: The Worst Human Villains in the Jurassic Movies
With several Jurassic Park and Jurassic World films on Peacock, here are the franchise's worst human villains.
If you're watching the Jurassic Park or Jurassic World trilogies right, then you're obviously rooting for the dinosaurs. Period. Starting with Michael Crichton's original books and going through all six cinematic installments, it's made very clear in narrative and in action that humans are very much the problem. From fusing dino DNA to frog DNA in Jurassic Park to continuing to genetically tinker with nature at InGen and then BioSyn, where the result is swarms of locusts, it's clear that humans are the makers of our dinosaur perils.
With the first four Jurassic films now streaming on Peacock — Jurassic Park (1993), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), Jurassic Park III (2001) and Jurassic World (2015) — SYFY WIRE decided to go back and assess true villains of the cinematic universe and rank them according to how much they created the problems that everyone else had to fix. We also factored in their individual levels of selfishness, cruelty and narcissism. And it's quite the batch of humanity that deserves to get chucked right in the bin. We present to you the 10 worst humans in both Jurassic trilogies. Let the blaming begin!
The Worst Humans in the Jurassic Franchise
10. Mr. Eversoll (Toby Jones), Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
As the auctioneer at Lockwood Manor, Eversoll is the slimy capitalist who puts the Isla Nublar dinosaurs on the auction block. With no compassion or interest in their dignity, Eversoll treats the mighty lizards as commodities without any compunction in regards to where they end up. He attempts to sell the prototype Indoraptor to a Russian arms dealer, but that's interrupted when the messy and lazy humans around him don't take the dinos seriously enough. An escaped Stygimoloch creates massive chaos and basically a buffet for the dinos. Eversoll learns his folly when he meets the pointy end of that Indoraptor inside an elevator. Oh, well!
9. Dieter Stark (Peter Stormare), The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Dieter Stark is Roland Tembo's second-in-command during the InGen mission to Isla Sorna. He's kind of the dumb, lunkhead of the expedition, lacking the respect that his boss has for the predators and dinosaurs they are seeking. With his callous attitude and less-than-smart approach to everything, seeing Stark get surrounded by a pack of a Compsognathus and not make it out alive was a highlight moment in The Lost World: Jurassic Park movie.
8. Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite), The Lost World: Jurassic Park
In Jurassic Park: The Lost World, Roland Tembo is a big game hunter brought in by InGen to bag a male Tyrannosaurus. Initially motivated by his hubris in bringing down the ultimate predator, Tembo gets a tiny bit of a pass only because even he's eventually sickened by the events that kill his best mate, Ajay Sidhu, and open the door for a mainland attraction in San Diego. He sees the light eventually, but it's too little, too late.
7. Vic Hoskins (Vincent D'Onofrio), Jurassic World
Vic Hoskins is introduced as the head of InGen's security operations at Jurassic World. Of course, he looks at the Velociraptors as potential weapons of controlled mass destruction. But he quickly learns exactly how tough it is to get a raptor to do anything you want it to. He also underestimates the massive power of the hybrid Indominus rex which he wanted to breed into miniature version called the Indoraptor. Clearly, the Velociraptors were a great judge of character, hating Hoskins from the start, and Delta eventually is the one to get him in the end.
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6. Ken Wheatley (Ted Levine), Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Ken Wheatley is basically Roland Tembo on steroids with no heart or empathy. He's a hunter and animal trafficker in charge of capturing the apex species on Isla Nublar so they can eventually be auctioned off to the highest bidders at the Lockwood Estate. The guy is so noxious, he keeps a tooth from every dino kill with intention of making a necklace. Crafted by the writers to be a repugnant example of humanity, Wheatley gets his comeuppance when the Indoraptor plays possum and surprises the hunter by having his arm as a snack, before having the rest of him for a full meal.
5. Dr. Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott), Jurassic World Dominion
Technically, Biosyn founder Dr. Lewis Dodgson made a cameo appearance in Jurassic Park when he bought the shaving cream can of dinosaur embryos from Nedry. But he really has a story arc in Jurassic World Dominion as the more nefarious version of a tech billionaire without a moral compass. Happy to use that long-ago purchased dinosaur DNA to genetically tinker with all kinds of species for commercial gain, Dodgson is the reason there's a genetically modified swarm of locusts that could wipe out all of humanity in the latest movie. Like Hammond, he puts on the kind face of someone using science to make the world a better place, but when you live in the echelons of wealth and power that he does, altruism goes out the window. You keep your soft cardigan and hip glasses in check, buddy. And when he finally gets a Nedry-like ending, history repeating itself feels really good.
4. Eli Mills (Rafe Spall) – Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Eli Mills is the opportunistic aide to Benjamin Lockwood. Without his boss's knowledge, Mills reactivates the Lockwood Estate laboratory facilities for genetic research. He diverts the surviving Isla Nublar dinosaurs to the Estate to be auctioned off to the highest bidders and fund even more nefarious genetic research. He even kills Lockwood to keep his secret plans going. Mills represents the intersection of capitalism and unfettered science. He's happy to do unethical things to make more money and more opportunity. Gratefully, the Tyrannosaurus-rex gives the man a finite lesson in how nature conquers all.
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3. Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong)
Dr. Henry Wu makes some bad decisions in four of the films: Jurassic Park, Jurassic World, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and Jurassic World Dominion. A biotechnologist and the chief geneticist at Jurassic Park, Wu was the initial brains behind making Hammond's dino theme park dreams come true. His biggest sin was his outsized god complex in regards to making the science work, instead of questioning should it even be done. And Wu proved to be pretty bad at learning his lesson. It's only in Jurassic World Dominion that he comes to his senses, seeing the damage humanity has wrought on the dinosaurs who never had a choice about being resurrected out of time. Even with his redemptive arc, Wu made it possible for "life to find a way" in very destructive ways, and then took it a step further creating hybrids like Indominus rex.
2. Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight), Jurassic Park
In Jurassic Park, oily and obnoxious Dennis Nedry is the perfect example of the every man dreaming of getting revenge on his dumb, rich overlords. Seeing himself as the overworked, underappreciated, and underpaid IT guy who really made Jurassic Park function, Nedry was always going to be ripe for exploiting. Chasing the almighty dollar and only worried about his own rewards, he opens the door for Hammond's experiment to go hopelessly out of control by agreeing to smuggle 15 dinosaur species embryos outside of the park to Biosyn founder, Lewis Dodgson, for $1.5 million dollars. Considering how much the original park must have cost to make, Nedry sold his soul (and as it turns out, his life) for cheap. He meets his karmic end via some Dilophosaurus spit in a rain storm, and it remains one of the most satisfying dino takedowns in all of the films.
1. Dr. John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), Jurassic Park
We know this ranking will be controversial, but don't let that grandfatherly look fool you. Dr. John Hammond is the original poster boy for billionaires with money to burn on pet projects. As the founder of InGen, Hammond's money, enthusiasm and lack of moral compass is why the entire Jurassic universe exists. He had the means, the motivation and no one telling him, "No!" until it was too late. Sure, he was doing it for "science" and his grandkids, but he also let those same grandkids get electrocuted and almost get eaten inside his broken theme park. In the original book, he's much more explicitly a villain (and even dies at the end), so all credit goes to Sir Richard Attenborough, who certainly did a brilliant job making us feel bad for being mad at Hammond in the movie. But when you play God with nature and then don't expect the worst, that's on you, sir! And when you can clearly see the throughline of blame from when the dinosaurs were brought back to life on a remote island to the latest film where dinosaurs are walking the Earth amongst us again, the guy in the straw hat wins the crown.
Catch Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park III, and Jurassic World all streaming now on Peacock!
