The Jurassic Park franchise is the most popular dinosaur series of all time, but it has occasionally gone too far in killing off characters. Jurassic Park first began with Michael Crichton’s 1990 novel, with Steven Spielberg directing the 1993 film adaptation and Crichton co-writing it with David Koepp. Jurassic Park would become the biggest movie of all time up to that point, spawning both numerous sequels and an entire multimedia franchise in animation, video games, toys, and other areas. With the more recent success of Jurassic World: Dominion and Netflix’s Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, the Jurassic Park franchise’s popularity remains as strong as ever.
As a franchise in which dinosaurs are brought into the modern world through lab experiments and cloning, the deaths of human characters are only to be expected in the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies. However, despite their innate sense of wonder and adventure, the Jurassic Park franchise has sometimes killed off characters in ways that seem either unnecessary or excessively cruel. Here are the seven deaths in the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies that went overboard to such a degree.
The Dog – The Lost World: Jurassic Park
In The Lost World: Jurassic Park, the T-Rex wanders into a residential area, with one family getting a horrible surprise when they see the T-Rex outside devouring their dog. This is possible the most egregious Jurassic Park death, since the intent seems to be for little more than shock value. Violence against man’s best friend is always hard to see, and despite the other great qualities of The Lost World, the dog’s death just comes across as an unnecessarily mean-spirited joke. Worse still, the family themselves come off as ill-suited pet owners for having their dog chained up to the dog house in the backyard in the first place.
Udeski – Jurassic Park III
When Paul (William H. Macy) and Amanda Kirby (Tea Leoni) organize a rescue mission for their son Eric (Trevor Morgan) after he is marooned on Isla Sorna, they find themselves stranded on the island and fleeing dinosaurs from every turn, including some pursuing Velociraptors. Unfortunately, one of the team members they’ve hired, Udeski (Michael Jeter), is unable to outrun a pack of somewhat different Velociraptors introduced in Jurassic Park III. Udeski’s death is arguably the most vicious in Jurassic Park III, as it does not happen swiftly, with the Raptors wounding Udeski first to use him as bait to lure the other humans into a trap.
After their ploy fails, the Raptors regroup with one of them snapping Udeski’s neck in its jaws. From the perspective of the Raptors, they are trying to retrieve the eggs Billy Brennan (Alessandro Nivola) stole from their nest, though no one but Billy knows that until later in the movie. Udeski’s death is even more tragic with that in mind, as he became a target of the Raptors simply by running with the wrong group of humans. While Billy redeems himself (and opens a Jurassic Park III plot hole) by rescuing Eric later in the movie, Udeski’s demise is still a harsh one.
Simon Masrani – Jurassic World
Jurassic World’s founder Simon Masrani arrives at the beginning of Jurassic World to oversee the status of the park and the development of Indominus Rex. Masrani takes a very hands-on approach in trying to get the situation under control after the Indominus Rex escapes, but he is killed when the Pteranodons escaping from the park’s aviary cause his helicopter to crash. The Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies have long been parables about corporate greed and tampering with the laws of nature, but Masrani was not exactly an evil tycoon.
Masrani was also outraged at the secret experimentation on the Indominus Rex in Jurassic World’s laboratory that had gone on with his approval, and shut it down upon his discovery. Masrani did everything in his power to contain the dinosaur outbreak in Jurassic World, and his death feels like the movie intending to give poetic justice to a Mr. Burns analogue despite Masransi not fitting that mold at all.
Zara Young – Jurassic World
In Jurassic World, Zara Young (Katie McGrath), the assistant of Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), is tasked with looking after her nephews Zach (Nick Robinson) and Gray Mitchell (Ty Simpkins). In the movie’s Pteranodon attack, Zara meets her end after being snatched up by a Pteranodon before being consumed by a Mososaurus in the park’s lagoon. Jurassic World portrays Zara is an indifferent and somewhat oblivious park employee rolling her eyes at being tasked with the babysitting gig.
While her death seems to be intended as a comeuppance of sorts, Zara, at worst, had the same problem Sam Neill’s Dr. Alan Grant had in Jurassic Park of not caring for children. Giving Zara a close brush with death to make her more caring would have been one thing, but killing her outright for being slightly obnoxious is just going overboard.
Minor Character Deaths
In addition to significant characters, the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies have killed off a number of minor characters in either unceremonious or excessively brutal ways. As the darkest movie in the franchise, The Lost World indulged in such borderline R-rated deaths as a T-Rex stepping on InGen worker Carter (Thomas Rosales Jr.), with Carter’s body remaining stuck to its foot for several more steps.
Later, after the T-Rex kills the ship crew and escapes into San Diego, it snatches a fleeing man (played by screenwriter David Koepp) as he tries to run into a store. While The Lost World is clearly striving to outdo the intensity of Jurassic Park, both deaths feel like the movie flexing its gore muscles too much, particularly in the latter’s case when the man’s terrified screams turn to a puking sound when the T-Rex chomps down on him.
Jurassic World: Dominion also overplays the death of a man on a scooter during the movie’s Malta chase sequence. As Owen Gray (Chris Pratts) flees the pursuing Atrociraptors by motorcycle, a man on a scooter is distracted long enough for an Allosaurus to eat him. His death seems intended to add stakes to the chase, but that itself was unnecessary, with Dominion‘s Atrociraptors being fearsome new dinosaurs and the Malta chase being among the best action scenes of the entire Jurassic Park franchise. In the end, the scooter man’s demise does not add to Dominion and joins the collection of Jurassic Park deaths that went over the line.
#Top #Unjustified #Deaths #Jurassic #Park #Franchise