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Edward James was a major antagonist in the Jurassic Cinematic Saga.
He appeared as a flashback character in Jurassic Park. Edge of Chaos and the secondary main antagonist of Jurassic World: Dominion.
He also acted as a major antagonist in Jurassic Park: The Survivors, Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous and Jurassic World: Dino Crisis.
He was one of Lewis Dodgson's most trusted agents, acting as a spy and private investigator during numerous missions ordered by Dodgson, even acting as his personal assassin and mercenary whenever the situation called for it.
Biography[]
Partnership with Dodgson[]
During his time as Head of Research at BioSyn, Lewis Dodgson recruited Ed James to act as one of his spies and on occasion, personal assassin throught the years.
In 1984, Ed James was very much present in Chile when Dodgson conducted his rabies vaccine experiment which resulted in the deaths of 18 people (12 adults and 6 children). After the incident, some of the survivors attempted to sue Dodgson and BioSyn for this, however they "mysteriously" disappeared.
Together they eventually found out about InGen's machinations on Isla Sorna and Isla Nublar. James helped locate disgruntled employee, Dennis Nedry and arranged meetings between Dodgson and Nedry, leading to the 1989 Jurassic Park Incident.
BioSyn Incident of 2026[]
Searching for Levine[]
During early 2026, infamous paleontologist and Isla Sorna survivor Richard Levine came incredibly close to hacking into BioSyn's systems in an attempt to expose the company's crimes within Prehistoric Sanctuary. However, his attempt failed and earned the attention of Dodgson who sent James to find Levine and kill him.
James travelled to the United States and moved into San Diego, searching for Levine. After locating Levine, he began to stalk the man for weeks, just to give him the creeps. One day, he grew tired of stalking the man and decided to break into his hotel room with the intention of finally killing him. He knocked out the man, then tied him to a chair, waiting for him to wake up. After Levine woke up, James began to torture him while trying to gain information about who else is Levine working with. Levine refused to talk, which only lead to James torturing him further, while Levine's mouth was taped in which prevented him from screaming for help. James after getting a bit hungry, went inside Levine's kitchen to eat something, Levine using the opportunity decided to make himself fall to the ground causing noise. The noise alerted a cleaning lady from the nearby hallway, who had a key into the room herself. James came back into the room and began to chase after the cleaning lady to make sure there are no witnesses.
While walking back to the room, he noticed a stressed and panicking Levine escaping to his car and driving off. James decided to go into his car and chase after Levine. After 3 days of chasing him, Levine managed to trick James by making the BioSyn agent think that he went to Arizona. Eventually, James found out about this and went back.
Encountering Owen Grady and kidnapping Maisie[]
After arriving into Yosemite Valley, he stopped in he met a man by the name of Peter Dwyer (who was actually Owen Grady with a made up alias) who helped him find a place to take vacation in Yosemite Valley, with James making up a story how his original home was completely wrecked by an angry herd of Styracosaurus. After the converstation with Dwyer, James found him suspicious, thinking that the man he just talked with is actually Owen Grady. James began to search for Dwyer and taking him to hunting trips, during which they encountered the infamous female Velociraptor by the name of Blue. James trying to provoke a reaction out of Dwyer, began to shoot at Blue, to which Grady pushed the gun into another direction to protect Blue. This gave James all the evidence he needed that he, in fact had found Owen Grady. Dwyer berated James for trying to kill the dinosaur, but James feigning ignorance, acted baffled as to how could Dwyer be so sensitive over a "soulless reptilian freak of nature."
After the event, James called Dodgson telling him that while he failed to kill Levine, he found Owen Grady and proposes his plan to find Claire Dearing and Maisie Lockwood, thinking that they are nearby as well. Dodgson while furious in James' failure to kill Levine, gives permission to find and kidnap Maisie Lockwood as well.
James begins to investigate and stalk Grady, but has no sight of Maisie. Later that same week, when Maisie helps a group of police officers handle an agitated juvenile Brontosaurus, James sees her on accident while drinking coffee in a nearby resturant. James calls Dodgson about finding Maisie, and Dodgson gives him the order to kidnap her and the connections to help him take her to Malta.
On the 24th of July, while Owen and Claire help the authorities capture Blue and her offspring Beta, James breaks into their home and kidnaps Maisie. He then takes her to a private airport where they board a plane and travel to Malta.
To be continued...[]
Personality[]
Edward James was without a shadow of a doubt, a psychopath. He was a ruthless spy and assassin, who enjoyed his work of stalking, hunting, torturing and even killing people for profit, but primarily out of pleasure. He was incredbily ruthless, going to any lengths just to achieve his goals, even if it meant hurting innocent children, which was a line he gladly crossed. He showed a complete lack of empathy torwards everyone, even showing utter disdain for most of his fellow human beings as well. He also had an unexplained hatred torwards animals and dinosaurs as well, often shooting anf killing them for fun, even calling them "soulless freaks of nature." These traits made him the perfect enforcer and partner-in-crime for Lewis Dodgson, who was not only just as bad as he was, but possibly even worse. One can argue that James was more vile, due to his sheer motivation revolving around sadistic pleasure, while Dodgson's sadism was more of a secondary trait.
Despite being effective and a professional in his job, his sadism proved to be his primary weakness. Despite being ordered to kill Richard Levine and the others as quickly as possible, James took way too much time in torturing them either in a psychological manner or in a physical manner. The two key examples of this is when he tortured Levine, which lead to Levine living long enough to alert the attention of the cleaning lady leading to his escape and the other occasion during his final confrontation with Owen Grady, wanting make him suffer by killing his family in front of his eyes, which gave just enough time for Alan Grant to sneak up to Blue's cage and set the dinosaur free, leading to James' brutal but very well-deserved demise.
What makes Ed James heinous?[]
Background[]
- In 1984, he participated and helped Dodgson in his crimes in Chile which resulted in the deaths of 18 people.
- After some of the survivors tried to sue Dodgson for the crime, he personally met them which ended the "mysterious" disappearance of them.
- He helped Dodgson track down Dennis Nedry and arrange a meeting between the two, which lead to the events of Jurassic Park.
- It was heavily implied that he is a hitman and an assassin which means that he already killed dozens of people in the past.
Jurassic Park: The Survivors[]
- He intentionally sabotaged the InGen Expedition of Isla Nublar in 1993, which lead to the deaths of around 27 people on the island.
- After some of the InGen employees discovered that he is in fact workinf or BioSyn, he personally shot 3 of them down, killing them. The last one tried to run away, but James shot him the leg which caused the man to bleed. Before James could deliver the killing shot, he noticed a Metriacanthosaurus appraoching and decided to abandon the man behind leaving him to be eaten by the dinosaur.
Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous[]
- After arriving on Isla Nublar, right after the Fall of Jurassic World, he ordered his team of BioSyn mercenaries to kill any human they might encounter on the island. This lead to the campers getting nearly killed by the mercenaries numerous times and Ben being critically injured by James himself, which forced the others to amputate his leg, crippling Ben for his life, for which James is ultimately responsible for.
- He shot and killed off dinosaurs on the island out of fun.
- He threw a flare at the kids' direction so that the Scorpius Rex could kill them and not him.
- When the Tyrannosaurus Rex attacked his team, he left them to die, even intentionally killing one of his own men just so he could escape.
Jurassic World: Dino Crisis[]
- He threatened to kill Franklin Bowman if Bowman didn't kill his own nephew, Darius.
- He intentionally released the Deinonychus clones into the African village of Dagoretti, while smiling sadistically, not just to punish Franklin but also out of fun, claiming that listening to people's screams are music to his ears.
- He killed American journalists Lisa Mitchells and David Mitchells for simply knowing too much and according to himself: "Their humanitarian preachings were too annoying."
- While driving across the savanna, he pulled out his silencer and began to shoot at modern day animals and dinosaurs out fun.
- He shot and killed Franklin Bowman's dog.
- After Bowman decided to save his nephew, Darius and his friends, James kidnapped him and began to torture him to find out where the kids went. When Franklin told him that he didn't know, James continued to torture him further, not because he thought that Franklin was lying, but because he enjoyed it.
Jurassic World: Dominion[]
- After locating Richard Levine in San Diego, he begins to stalk him for weeks just to creep out the man.
- After breaking into Levine's home and tying him to a chair, James begins to torture him, telling him that whether he speaks or not makes no difference to him because James is enjoying the torture either way.
- After the cleaning lady accidentally opens into the room and runs off, James chases after her and kills her.
- He chases after Levine with his own car with the intention of killing him.
- He tries to shoot down and kill Blue in the Sierra Nevada mountains to provoke Owen into accidentally revealing himself. James is only upset about how a person can be so defensive over a "soulless reptilian freak of nature."
- After locating Owen Grady in Yosemite Valley, he calls Dodgson to share his plan about locating Maisie and taking him to BioSyn, which Dodgson approves.
- He sends a group of poachers after Blue and her infant, Beta as a distraction for Owen Grady, Claire Dearing and the police, while he breaks into their home and kidnaps Maisie. After she tries to fight back, James without a second thought, knocks her out, causing slight bleeding.
- When he encounters two police officers on his road torwards the private airport, he wastes no time and kills them both.
- In Malta, before Soyona Santos could spill out any more information about her connections with BioSyn, he shoots her down, killing her. Then he pulls out a machine gun, shooting and killing numerous CIA agents and even innocent civilians in the process.
- While escaping from Owen Grady, Claire Dearing, Jack Thorne, Richard Levine and Barry Sembéne, he unleashes an Allosaurus, a Suchomimus, a Carnotaurus and even Santos' Utahraptor Squad into the city, causing many deaths, casualties and property damages. He even smiles at the sight of the chaos, however his fun is cut short because he has to return to BioSyn.
- Under Dodgson's orders, he leads a death squad of BioSyn agents into the valley of Prehistoric Sanctuary, with the intention of killing Owen Grady, Barry Sembéne, Richard Levine, Claire Dearing, Jack Thorne and Kayla Watts. Even saying "with pleasure" with a malicious smile on his face after recieving the order.
- Even though he might seem loyal to Dodgson, he only seems to follow him out of fear (considering how intimidating and ruthless Dodgson is), money and fun as he admits that enjoys the assassination and torture missions on which Dodgson sends him on.
- He uses an electric staff to torture Blue, not only to lure Owen into his trap, but primarily out of sadism.
- After beating up Owen Grady, he plans to shoot down and kill Claire and the already injured Maisie (injured by Dodgson) in front of his eyes out of spite, even mocking the death of the then-late Barry and saying that he will enjoy torturing Blue for the rest of her life.
- He tries to shoot down and kill Blue after being attacked by the Velociraptor, however he is killed by the other raptors to protect her.
- Although he might not be as powerful or influential as his boss Lewis Dodgson, James is still lacks any redeeming qualities whatsoever. His motivations might make him more repulsive than Dodgson as James is just a psychopath who enjoys killing and hurting not just humans, but also dinosaurs, while Dodgson is mainly craving money and power, and his sadism is a secondary trait rather than a reason d'etre. However, it must be noted that most of James' crimes are somewhat under Dodgson's orders, even though he enjoys himself and often finds sadistic ways to do things even beyond Dodgson's orders.
- While as evil as Dodgson, James could be argued as scarier due to his brutal nature and the heinous deeds he committed even with far less resources.
Trivia[]
- The picture of his portraying actor, Billy Bob Thornton was taken from his role as Lorne Malvo from the 2014 crime thriller Fargo.
- In the original novel canon of The Lost World, Ed James was just a mere private investigator and spy working for Lewis Dodgson and nowhere near as evil and heinous like this version of James.
- He is one of the only two Jurassic Park human villains who fall under the Chaotic Evil aligment, the other one is the IDW version of Lewis Dodgson. It also must be noted that both of them are among the most diabolical individuals in the franchise.
- It can be argued that the character is a bit too dark to be an actual JP character considering the fact that he might've killed more humans than the dinosaurs themselves in Jurassic World: Dominion, however this kind of plays into one of the central theme of the story that sometimes the worst of monsters are actually human beings.
- He is the only the character in this universe who first appeared in a fan-created TV show and had his last appearance in a main installment.