Jurassic Park Fans Agree This Is the Saddest Character Death in the Franchise

Many human characters have met terrible deaths throughout the Jurassic Park franchise, but one such death continues to haunt fans of the franchise as being especially tragic. The Jurassic Park movies famously bring dinosaurs into the world of modern man through cloning, and that inevitably leads to humans running for their lives from their pre-historic predators in every Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movie. Not every human in the franchise makes it, though, and the demise of Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff) in 1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park is often seen as the saddest such Jurassic Park death.

The somber circumstances of Eddie’s death were recently discussed by Reddit user Lord_Sam_ on the official Jurassic Park Reddit. As Lord_Sam_ points out, virtually every aspect of Eddie’s death make his heroic demise a terribly sad death indeed. With The Lost World being arguably the most underrated Jurassic Park movie, a revisiting of the movie highlights exactly why Jurassic Park fans continue to mourn the death of Eddie Carr as an especially sad one.

Eddie Carr’s Death Is A Heroic (But Involuntary) Sacrifice

The tragedy of Eddie’s death at the claws of the adult T-Rexes is, first and foremost, really highlighted in the fact that, within the context of the Jurassic Park movies, Eddie was one of only a handful of human beings to have met his demise by being devoured by formerly extinct dinosaurs, an absolutely terrifying set of circumstances that very few people could possibly relate to. Additionally, as Lord_Sam- points out, “his last thought was probably how he let down his friends and was unable to save them.” With the two research trailers dangling over the cliffside after being pushed over by the two T-Rexes, Eddie’s efforts to tow them back up result in failure after his killing by the T-Rexes, and it is indeed a remarkable stroke of luck that they fell in a straight line around Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), Dr. Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore), and Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn) without striking any of them, a fact Eddie was unable to bear witness to.

At the same time, Eddie’s death is also a noble sacrifice of a man facing a pair of prehistoric predators and refusing to go down without a fight, or to allow them to stop his rescue attempt without killing him. This is later illuminated in The Lost World when Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite) comments that “Rex just fed” to assure the survivors that the adult T-Rexes likely won’t continue pursuing them for food (a prediction, it is worth noting, that Roland ends up being dead wrong about.) Dr. Malcolm immediately takes offense at such a blunt description of events, snapping back at Roland “Just fed? I assume you’re talking about Eddie? You might show a little respect! The man saved our lives by giving his!” Considering how much Ian and Eddie butt heads over the latter’s tech for their mission on Site B, particularly Eddie’s satellite phone, Ian nonetheless still recognizes Eddie’s death as both a terrible tragedy and a heroic sacrifice, but there’s also one side of the story that makes Eddie’s demise even sadder.

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Eddie Was Completely Removed From The Infant T-Rex Situation

The circumstances of Eddie Carr’s death all stem from events that he was entirely uninvolved with, beginning with Roland’s abduction of the infant T-Rex in order to lure out its parents and slay the male T-Rex, which Roland sees as the ultimate hunter’s quarry. Nick and Sarah later free the infant T-Rex and bring it back to the trailers to mend its broken leg and return it home as covertly as possible, but of course, from the perspective of the adult T-Rexes, they have no context for this sequence of events and only see the trio Ian, Sarah, and Nick as their child’s kidnappers. All of this adds to the tragedy of Eddie’s death because he was completely unconnected to and unaware of any of it.

While the infant T-Rex was first abducted by Roland and his hunting partner Ajay Sidhu (Harvey Jason) and then brought back to the trailers by Nick and Sarah, Eddie was off testing the dino hiding cage dubbed the “High Hide”. When Nick and Sarah speed past him with the infant T-Rex wailing in pain in their car, Eddie had no clue what was going on. Eddie received no further answers from Ian when he arrived to hide his daughter Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester) in the High Hide, simply being told by Ian “You’re much happier not knowing.” In turn, Eddie had no information about why the adult T-Rexes attacked the trailers, and could only do everything in his power to try to save Ian, Sarah, and Nick while keeping Kelly out of harm’s way in the High Hide. By the time Eddie is eaten by the two T-Rexes, he was likely as overcome with confusion as he was terror, having no idea why they had attacked the team’s encampment.

Why Eddie’s Death Is The Saddest Of The Jurassic Park Franchise

Eddie’s death is one of the sort that can’t help but seem like a horrifically unfair tragedy. Despite Eddie being in the dark on what was going on to lead to the T-Rexes hunting his friends, the audience knows that he was the party least connected to the infant T-Rex’s abduction, and yet was the only one to die as a direct result of it. Sure, the T-Rexes continue hunting both Eddie’s friends and the InGen team, resulting in multiple other characters being killed by the T-Rexes, but Eddie’s death still comes off as the most tragic for the fact that – aside from Ian, who desperately wanted to get Kelly and Sarah off the island – Eddie was virtually the only character of either group minding his own business on the dinosaur-filled island. Even worse, Eddie’s death also comes mere hours after the wonder and awe he experiences upon seeing living, breathing dinosaurs after his arrival on Isla Sorna.

After seeing a Stegosaurus family, Eddie returns to the team’s base camp with a look of child-like awe on his face as he repeatedly exclaims “Wow!” From Eddie’s perspective, the next few days on Isla Sorna were bound to be the adventure of a lifetime, a big twist for him since, as Eddie himself admits to Ian early on, “I don’t like the field very much, but in this case, I can’t resist.” Eddie’s dream ends up turning into a nightmare when two T-Rexes attack and kill him for a series of events that unfairly led to his doom. In the end, Eddie Carr dies a hero in a way that few Jurassic Park characters ever have, but that also doesn’t change the fact that Eddie’s death also has an aura of sadness unmatched by any other Jurassic Park character death.

The Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies are available to stream on Starz.