Bill: Jonas Miller, he's a night crawler. We all started out in the same lab then Jonas went and got himself some corporate sponsors. He's in it for the money not the science. He's got a lot of high tech gadgets, but he's got no instincts. And he doesn't have Dorothy.
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~ Bill Harding describing Jonas.
“
So let me enlighten you people. This baby has satellite comlink, we got an onboard pulse Doppler, we got Nexrad Real Time. Today we're gonna make history, so stick around.... your days of sniffing the dirt are over.
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~ Jonas Miller
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LOOK OUT!!!
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~ Jonas Miller's last words before getting sucked into the tornado and eventually getting killed.
Dr. Jonas Miller (also known as just Dr. Miller) is the main antagonist in the 1996 film Twister. He is a rival storm chaser and arch-nemesis of Bill "The Extreme" and Jo Harding.
Starting out in the same lab as Jo and Bill Harding, Jonas started gaining sponsorships from big corporations, leading to him to assembling his own team of storm chasers, complete with plenty of funding.
After gaining information about Bill's design for a new weather system, which was capable of measuring a tornadoes vortex, he decided to copy and take the concept with a sleek design and with more advanced tech, basically stealing Bill's design for Dorothy.
Throughout the film, Jonas and his team frequently appear trying to follow Bill to a tornado, because Bill's instincts usually led his team to a storm. Jonas will keep this up until midway through the movie, where he and his team go quiet.
Later on Jonas and his driver Eddie reappear trying to intercept the massive F5 tornado, the rest of his team settled by a small farm. Jo attempts to tell Jonas that in order for either of their machines to work, they have to be anchored to something in order for the sensors to work, to which he calls it valuable information but refuses to oblige to it.
Bill tries to warn Jonas that if the tornado shifts its damage path, it will come at both Jonas and Eddie and kill them both. Eddie considers taking Bill's advice to move away from the tornado, but Jonas refuses by turning off the radio and ordering an uneasy Eddie to move on, still wanting to take credit for Bill and Jo's work. The tornado takes down an antenna, which one of the pieces gets thrown into the car and impales Eddie to death. Jonas' car is then sucked into the tornado, landing on the ground and exploding, killing Jonas.
Witnessing this, Jo mourns for Eddie while Bill angrily calls Jonas a stupid idiot for not listening to him in the first place.
Personality
Jonas' main trait is his sheer arrogance as he believes that he is untouchable and anything he does is good. To that end, he was willing to steal Bill and design of Dorothy, claiming that it was an 'unrealized idea' after being confronted by an angry Bill and Jo.
He is also very smart, able to not only understand Bill's design, but to also enhance it with his own tech funding. He is also has a PhD in Meteorology, hence why he is called Dr. Miller a lot of the time.
However, his arrogance proved to be his downfall as his refusal to listen to Bill and Jo's warnings due to his desire to take credit for their work is what got him killed by a tornado in the first place.
Trivia
Jonas' storm chasing team works for Oklahoma Polytech University, which may explain his funding and tech.
Jonas was mentioned in a Collider article, which said: "Had he decided to just work with Jo and her team instead of constantly roadblocking them, the movie would’ve been 15 minutes long and nobody would’ve died."
Christopher McDonald, Peter Greene, Hugh Laurie and Alec Baldwin were all considered for the role of Dr. Jonas Miller before Cary Elwes was cast.
