Jurassic Park humans ranked by their dangerously dumb decisions

Jurassic World Rebirth is now on the big screen, serving as the seventh film of this monstrous franchise. It also serves as the second major reboot since Steven Spielberg first wowed audiences with his seminal 1993 original.

While it’s fair to say that no subsequent movie in the Jurassic Park franchise – even Spielberg’s own direct sequel – has managed to approach the majesty of the first film, this latest attempt has all the ingredients to take a good crack at it.

Aside from a beastly $180 million budget, its cast is led by a genuine superstar in Scarlett Johansson. Have any of the previous films had that level of star wattage front and centre?

Then there’s the director they picked to helm Jurassic World Rebirth. Gareth Edwards is no Spielberg acolyte, but rather the British director of Monsters, Godzilla, and Rogue One. He knows how to wrangle unwieldy monsters – not to mention franchises.

If it weren’t for the CGI dinosaurs stomping around causing all the chaos, the Jurassic Park franchise could probably be called ‘humans doing dumb things’. Each movie is packed full of people making inexplicably (and sometimes explicably) stupid decisions, which often get them or others killed.

Here’s our round-up of some of the most memorably ill-advised moves in the franchise. Given that the first film is still quite clearly the best and most iconic of the lot, we’ve given most of the entries over to Spielberg’s joint.

Don’t worry, though – there’s plenty of stupidity to go around.

8. Ian Malcolm (Jurassic Park)

The only reason this one doesn’t rank higher is that Jeff Goldblum’s suave mathematician lived to fight another day. But seriously, Mr Malcolm, what were you thinking? Surely we all knew by an hour into the first film that Sam Neill’s Alan Grant was the quick-thinking hero of the this particular story. So why in the name of Chaos Theory did you decide to get out of your stranded car and wave that flare around, just when Grant had successfully distracted the t-rex with his own? You beautiful idiot, you.

7. Robert Muldoon (Jurassic Park)

“Clever girl”, said Bob Peck’s hitherto canny game warden, just moments before being mauled by a pack of velociraptors. If only they could have said the same about you, Bobby my boy. It’s not like you didn’t spend the entire film witnessing and indeed warning about the advanced cognitive capabilities of the park’s most wily hunters, is it? In allowing yourself to be isolated, distracted, and flanked by these devious creatures, you really only have yourself to blame. Maybe John Hammond too. But we’ll get to him.

6. Billy Brennan (Jurassic Park III)

You have to think that, as Alan Grant’s assistant, Billy Brennan would have been made aware of his mentor’s traumatic experiences on the original island, not to mention his dim view of the whole ‘dinosaurs in the modern world’ concept. He would certainly have been the beneficiary of Grant’s intimate knowledge of the intelligence and ruthlessness of raptors. And yet here he is, early in the third movie, stealing raptor eggs like a farmyard thief. That this cretin didn’t snuff it on Isla Sorna is the least of the film’s faults, but still.

5. Dennis Nedry (Jurassic Park)

The original film’s traitorous programmer, Dennis Nedry, deserves a lofty position on this list. His dirty deal to sell dino-embryos to a rival firm, and in particular his determination to get paid even with an unforeseen weather event rendering the whole operation even more deadly, is what kicked everything into motion. We’re glad he ploughed on from a pure entertainment perspective, but the decision not to call it quits when things started to go awry was undeniably dumb. Also, don’t taunt the dinosaurs, Dennis. They don’t like.

4. Donald Gennaro (Jurassic Park)

In a film – no, a series – filled with iconic deaths, I’d argue that none can top that of Donald Gennaro. You’re drawing a blank, aren’t you? How about if I say, ‘the dude who got chomped on the toilet’? There it is. The slimy lawyer arguably got more than he deserved when a rampaging t-rex munched him down to the waist. But then, his decision to abandon a pair of scared schoolkids, leave the relative safety of a ruggedised vehicle, and take refuge in a rickety outhouse was a unique cocktail of cowardice and stupidity.

3. Dr. Henry Wu (Jurassic World & Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom)

You could argue that Wu’s decision to get involved in the whole Jurassic Park project was a dumb move, but his actions at the outset of the Jurassic World reboot are almost unfathomably stupid. Having endured (or at least been intimately aware of) three movies-worth of lessons in the pitfalls of reckless scientific pursuit, corporate greed, and meddling with the natural order of things, our seemingly brilliant scientist decided it was wise to start splicing together the genes of the two most fearsome specimens in the program. Then, in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, he did it all again.

2. Peter Ludlow (The Lost World)

Deciding to bring dinosaurs to mainland America was idiotic enough on your part, Peter Ludlow, resulting in a Tyrannosaurus rex stomping through San Diego, causing an untold level of death and carnage that could be traced directly back to the reckless actions of you and your company. But with the creature miraculously lured back into a form of containment, and placated with its injured baby, you then choose to venture down after said juvenile, hoping for... what, exactly? You’re clearly finished. Oh wait, no. You’re clearly dead.

1. John Hammond (Jurassic Park)

Really, the ultimate dumb decision in the whole series was that of the founder of Jurassic Park itself. It’s a tough thing to admit, given how genial the old man is (thanks in no small part to Dicky Attenborough’s twinkly performance), but it’s John Hammond’s hubris in first conceiving of and then funding the resurrection of dinosaurs as a money-spinning enterprise that directly led to the countless deaths across all seven movies. If Hammond hadn’t died off-screen in between the second and third films, he’d have been tried for gross negligence, and more besides.

• This is the only Jurassic World Rebirth review round-up you need to know about