Jurassic Park: Why Nedry’s Plan Never Made Sense

In Jurassic Park, Dennis Nedry’s(Wayne Knight) failed plan to steal dinosaur embryos makes him one in a long line of smart characters in science fiction who do stupid things. Although Nedry proved smart enough to code security for the whole park, his plan to betray his employers was quickly overcome by bad weather, an unfriendly dilophosaurus, and a little bit of chaos. While his attempt to escape Isla Nublar during a tropical storm with embryos results in his death, it did not need to succeed to cause havoc for everyone else on the island.

With Jurassic World: Dominion set to bring back beloved characters from the 1993 Jurassic Park, it will prove rewarding to look back at one character who won’t return. Decades before audiences were rolling their eyes at the ill-fated scientists of Prometheus removing their helmets on an alien world or scoffing at Bryce Dallas Howard’s high heel run in Jurassic World, they were laughing at Nedry’s unsuccessful attempt to steal embryos in Jurassic Park‘s now iconic Barbasol can. Recognized by television audiences as Jerry’s neighbor and nemesis, Newman, on Seinfeld, Wayne Knight is more comedic than villainous as Dennis Nedry.

Nedry’s plan never made sense because it did not need to succeed in order to benefit InGen’s competitors, the Biosyn Corporation. Although the can of Barbasol containing the embryos is lost, his sabotage of the park’s systems results in a catastrophic tour which set InGen’s plans for Jurassic Park back significantly. Although Nedry has his own financial motivations, he was clearly a pawn being used by Biosyn, as he effectively disrupted the park’s operations, even though he failed to fulfill the plan’s original goal. Although Jurassic Park‘s entire plot proceeds from Dennis Nedry’s actions, his plan seemed poorly thought out.

Nedry’s comedic portrayal by Wayne Knight is key to understanding why his plan quickly fell apart. The villains of Jurassic Park were nowhere near as mean-spirited or cartoonish as Alien’s Weyland-Yutani Corporation or Avatar’s RDA. For example, Richard Attenborough’s John Hammond was portrayed as a kindly grandfather rather than a mad scientist, even though his actions and their consequences showed him to be closer to the latter. Similarly, Nedry presented as more of a bumbling nerd (switch two letters and his name becomes “Nerdy”) than a blackhat hacker. When nerdy Nedry excused himself to the soda machine as a cover for his escape, he appeared visibly nervous – not calm and calculating.

From the outset, Nedry proved himself unfit for the world of corporate espionage. In a now iconic scene, Nedry received a bribe from the Biosyn Corporation’s Dodgson at an outdoor restaurant. While Dodgson attempted to be covert and subtle, Nedry only acted gleeful and greedy at the prospect of smuggling dinosaur embryos off the island in a Barbasol can. It makes sense that a movie with dinosaur adversaries created using cutting edge special effects would put less emphasis on its human villains, and this scene setting up Nedry’s plan proves that. While Nedry only acted out of self-interest and not necessarily malice, his plan had greater consequences for the guests of the park.

Upon closer inspection, the specifics of Nedry’s plan do not hold up. Nedry took a Jurassic Park-branded jeep and wore a bright Goonies-inspired yellow rain jacket, both of which would have easily identified him had he been caught. When he collided with a sign pointing him to the dock, his entire plan was disrupted due to lack of directions. For the millions of dollars at stake, Nedry did very little to plan ahead or memorize his escape route. Despite Nedry’s role as a computer programmer at a park containing live dinosaurs, he neglected to bring any means of self defense against any predators, like the dilophosaurus which ultimately ended his life. Far from a villain, this lack of planning made Nedry appear more like comic relief.

Above all, Nedry’s failed plan in Jurassic Park illustrated Dr. Ian Malcolm’s chaos theory at work. For all of Nedry’s skill with computers, his plan fell apart nearly instantly, and for all the scientific progress that the park and its dinosaurs represented, it was all undone by one unsatisfied, underpaid InGen employee. Rather than present audiences with some suave hacker who could intentionally unleash mayhem on Jurassic Park, Stephen Spielberg chose to present the character as comedic and mundane. Far from a plothole, Nedry’s failed plan perfectly suits the themes of chaos and unpredictability that Jurassic Park sought to portray.