My Jurassic Park sense is tingling.
FADE IN: SCENE 1
EXT. DAY— THE SOUTH AFRICAN BUSH
SARAH:
Guys, this fence?! Totally Jurassic Park.
It’s electrified. It’s chain-linked. It’s enclosing wild animals. It’s Jurassic Park. No question.
An Obligatory Retraction:
I’m fully aware that this electrified, chain-linked fence is not the electrified, chain-linked fence from Jurassic Park. It is not the same fence that nearly electrocutes Doctor Alan Grant and Lex (but does manage to give a healthy zap to little brother Tim). I know that I will not have any run-ins with any Brachiosauri while I hole up for the night in the crook of a tree that looks like a New Orleans Live Oak on roids. And there will be no eccentric chaos theorists asking if our all-terrain vehicle can go just a wee bit faster because there just happens to be a Tyrannosaurus Rex running behind us…or do they waddle? Waddle quickly? I don’t know they go fast though.
But, regardless, my Jurassic Park sense tingles.
I’m transported back to long rides in the Behemoth[1] scratching at my training bra, rides with the fam from our Ohio home to our New York state cabin. I go back to the age of chorusing along with Dr. Ian Malcom when he tells off the mastermind behind this extinction-defying park, billionaire John Hammond:
MALCOM:
Yeah, but, John, if The Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don’t eat the tourists.
CUE laughter. Then when paunchy Nedry encounters the venom-spitting Dilophosaurus…CUE exalted cries of justice.
And when those blatantly malicious Velociraptors[2] stalk Lex and Tim through the stainless steel covered kitchen aisles…
CUE mouths dropping in horror.
We were the best audience Jurassic Park has ever known on those perfectly synchronized 127 minute[3] jaunts to New York.
Now, please don’t misunderstand me— I’m quite aware that connecting an amusement park on an island 120 miles off of Costa Rica to the South African bush isn’t as easy as connecting tweedle-dee with tweedle-dum. But, I promise the connection holds nonetheless.
Prepare Thyself for a News Flash of Tyrannous (get it?) Proportions:
The South African bush…
Is.
Not.
Wild.
(I tried to warn you.)
People manufacture everything about the bush. The lionesses are on the pill. So are the elephants. The cheetahs have GPS-tracking collars. The rhinos eat special rhino-hay. The warthogs mow the lawn. There’s even a department that controls and maintains the so-called “wild” animals, Game Management. Nothing here is wild. Not one thing.
In the age of game reserves, it is the humans, not Mother Nature, that reign supreme. As I look out at the passing scenery at crooked, knobby trees, sure, it looks wild. But, it’s just another farm. And, yeah, there might be the occasional impala or wildebeest scattered about, but this is not the wild. It’s just another cattle farm. Just another plot of land raped, pillaged, and overrun with non-native cattle. South Africa has only a measly 16-17% of its land rationed off for wildlife.
The ultimate lesson, the final moral Jurassic Park left me with is that the wild can never be tamed, that the wild is wild. Uncontrollable. Unpredictable. Un-game-managementeable. And, yes, there are instances where this is true, where nature kicks our butts, royally. But, that Jurassic Park moral stuck and I think humanity’s going to be in for a real tough time. We need to allow Mother Nature to once again take back her role as head game manager of the game reserve we call the Earth. And let me tell you— Mother Nature is angry. Really angry. And she’s not afraid to let us know it. Largest hurricane in recorded history, anyone? Highest rainfall ever? Global-fucking-warming? Environmentalism is not saving Mother Nature. Mother Nature has never needed our help. Environmentalism is saving our own asses, before big boss lady gets too fed up with us. Before she bids us a final ado. Before she finally says (in the words of Dr. Alan Grant):
GRANT:
Hammond, after some consideration, I’ve decided, not to endorse your park.
– Sarah Doody
[1] The black, three-seat sedan that smelled of rotting ice cream from the cone my dearest broha, Alex, decided to flip over in the backseat cup-holder three years earlier. The etymology behind the Behemoth is highly disputed, but seems to have originated from my witty mother quipping about the exorbitant size of our smelly, black, three-seat sedan.
[2]Seriously, why did they ever exist?! They’re worse than mosquitoes. At least I can squash those. (I grant that most of my Velociraptor behavioral knowledge comes from a trilogy of movies perhaps not known for their academic integrity, but still— would you want to go scampering through a field with fast, little T-rexes that are far overdo for a mani pedi? I thought not.)
[3] Exactly the length of the first Jurassic Park movie. Like I said, perfectly synchronized.