The Lost World: Jurassic Park – Who Is the Real Bad Guy? [Film Deep Dive]

In Steven Spielberg’s sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park—who truly is the bad guy? I will give you a hint. It’s not the new CEO of InGen, Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard)—he is actually one of the main victims in the film. I will explain. 

Outside of what we will talk about, The Lost World isn’t that great, especially not as a Jurassic Park movie. It has a few cool scenes, like the camper on the cliff, but overall, I found it to be a cynical movie—that strays from the original’s theme. The book is very similar in this style, too, surprisingly. But since I’m not here to exactly review the film, nor the book, let’s get going. 

Hammond
To cut it short, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) is the bad guy. He might have come off as a lovable old man who in the end regretted the park due to the deaths it caused. However, in The Lost World he has become an incredibly bitter man. It starts with him getting removed from leadership, as the board of InGen decides his failure was unforgivable from a business perspective (understandable). Peter Ludlow is appointed as the new legitimate CEO for InGen, and I should add that Ludlow is also Hammond’s nephew. 

The framing in the movie is that Ludlow is an asshole corporate guy that ousted the kind old man Hammond from his dear company. But that is far from the truth, it almost feels like a deliberate subversion by Spielberg. Now, Ludlow is certainly an asshole, but an asshole deserving death? 

He was appointed CEO, in one last Hail Mary to save the company and its millions of investment in research. This by capturing dinosaurs for the zoo in San Diego, which Hammond cannot allow because that was HIS dream.

Hammond’s team
In Hammond’s infinite wisdom he decides to send an unauthorized team to Isla Sorna, and while two of the team members can be argued to be passive observers—specifically Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore), wildlife observer and photographer, and Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff), engineer—the third one is harder to write off. Let me present Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn), eco-terrorist. Now, why would he be on Hammond’s payroll? He comes off as somewhat quirky in the movie, but he is a dangerous man—willing to kill if the job (or ideological pull) calls for it.

The InGen team
Once again, the framing seems off. When the InGen team is presented, it’s in the form of an evil mercenary company—but if you truly watch what is going on, they do their job incredibly well, and “humane”, aka capturing large and dangerous animals. They might be mercenaries, but are highly capable, and their team also has doctors and specialists, like the paleontologist Dr. Robert Burke (Thomas F. Duffy). The only questionable thing has to do with the baby T-rex, which Ludlow steps on accidentally, breaking one of its legs. Instead of trying to fix it, Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite), master wildlife hunter, decides to leave it as bait for his promised T-rex kill, but also as moving it would be too hazardous.

Sarah and Nick decide to be more humane than InGen by “saving” the baby, but what Tembo warned about naturally happens: The T-rex parents follow the scent of their young, which leads to the death of one of their own, namely Eddie Carr, who gets literally torn in two in extreme pain.

Sabotage begins
It’s here observation ends and action starts—regrettably unjustified action that leads to countless deaths among the InGen team. Nick Van Owen goes into action under cover of darkness to sabotage their camp by damaging the cages of the animals InGen has captured—including big ones like a freaking Triceratops! There is no excuse here, if you let out a huge dinosaur like that, you are prepared to kill for your cause.

What is interesting here is the dialogue in Hammond’s group when they observe the InGen camp, as Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) says “This is why Hammond was in such a hurry to get you here“—with Nick straight up saying he is the backup plan, while opening up a bag filled with useful tools for sabotage. There is no denying it, as everything is set black and white for the viewer, with the framing that this is the rightful action to take—but the movie never goes any further than Hammond’s bitterness and “the poor animals“.

It’s only mercs
As to not get bogged down in detail of what animal crushes who and stuff like that, let’s just say the framing continues as is, as the sabotage continues. The InGen team even captures Nick at one point, but treats him fairly, and the thanks they get is having Nick remove Tembo’s ammo from his elephant rifle when it’s needed the most. That’s essentially setting up Tembo for death and other poor mercenaries when the angry T-rex ravages their fleeing group. 

Now, you can argue, it’s just mercenaries, it’s just corporate stooges etc., and I’m all for that, if the morals of the movie weren’t so warped—unless (as mentioned) this was a deliberate subversion by the filmmakers. I strongly doubt that, though. Either way, it makes the film interesting, but one of these takes is seriously morally dubious with its theme and I think you know which one. 

The aftermath
So, in the end we have a promising corporation destroyed (there is no way back for InGen now), countless dead, including civilians in San Diego and specialists on the InGen team. Roland Tembo’s best friend is eaten, and he swears to never work as a hunter again—someone that will surely be missed in his field since he is a good guy and a professional. Remember Peter Ludlow, do you remember how he died? Left to die in the belly of the ship with the baby and the mother T-rex—slowly being devoured by the baby, while having his back broken. The worst part beyond his brutal undeserved death is that this scene ruins Ian Malcolm as a character, painting him as a psychopath, letting a fellow human die by the beasts he hates with a passion. 

All this so Hammond’s precious animals can live free and undisturbed on the island? Yeah, I don’t buy that at all. This was out of sheer spite and additionally, these dinosaurs should be exterminated, not to risk the delicate ecologies on Earth. Imagine what one small group of raptors would do to the savanna—you would have to say goodbye to the lions. That’s for sure.

Light in the morally dark tunnel
Thankfully, Jurassic Park 3 returns to its roots as an adventure film about survival and escaping vicious animals—minus, possibly the ethical stuff of unregulated research. Sadly, this movie got a lot of flak when it came out, while Lost World is considered the better of the two. But in my opinion, Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park 3 are the real dinosaur movies! 

Thanks for reading.

– Thomas