Last Friday night I dutifully trooped off to Midland Ace Cinemas to watch the latest Jurassic Park offering – Jurassic World Dominion, with my youngest son (12) and his mate. And whilst I was fully anticipating the jump scares, eye-to-eye dinosaur close ups, mud grovelling and jeeps-teetering-on-cliff scenes, I was pleasantly surprised by the commentary on food security – clearly now mainstream content!
The sixth and rumoured-to-be-final film in the series imagines a world in which dinosaurs mingle freely with humans on a daily basis (as a result of escapees from earlier films re-populating in various forms all over the world). Corrupt mega-organisation Biosyn Genetics has collected as many species of the dinosaurs as possible, sequestering them in an isolated part of the world, where they and their genetics are controlled and monitored – and you just know it’s all going to get a bit sinister because the building is super shiny and high-tech.
As we are re-introduced to scientists Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) from the original 1993 Jurassic Park – who have thankfully aged appropriately in the 20-year gap – it transpires that Ellie (a paleobotanist) has just written a paper on Regenerative Agriculture and soil health – cool stuff! It’s just a warm-up for the discourse on food security, which in the film is actioned by a giant locust threat to crops and food production.
The locusts (which of course have been created by the Biosyn Genetics company using paleo-DNA) only eat ‘non-Biosyn’ crops, bringing doom to small ‘independent’ producers who use non-Biosyn (non-genetically modified) seed. The threat to future food security is acknowledged by Biosyn workers themselves, “They’re not just eating our food – they’re eating our food’s food!” they shout.
It’s a thinly veiled reference to real-world American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology giant Monsanto (now Bayer), who pioneered genetically modified crops as well as developing the glyphosate-based herbicide, Roundup (now banned in 32 countries after a landmark case deemed it cancer-causing), and a brave move for a blockbuster.
In the film, Chaos theorist Dr. Ian Malcolm, (played by Jeff Goldblum – who appears as an almost exact replica of his 1990 self – perhaps he’s dabbled in some GM himself?) also returns. He is now a Biosyn employee turned whistle-blower, leading his old crew to uncover Bio-syn’s sins. In short, ensuing chaos, nail-biting moments and the aforementioned jeep-hanging scenes follow, further embellished with dramatic plane crashes, raging duals between T-rex and the even more scary Giganotosaurus until the fiery end. We collectively rejoice as the evil founder gets his comeuppance in a typically gory and satisfying round with a velociraptor and the Biosyn headquarters burn to the ground.
Thankfully, Dr. Henry Wu –the lead geneticist behind the dinosaur cloning programs and locust outbreak – comes good, conveniently fixing the locust disaster with even more gene-meddling. However, there’s no more thought given to the independent farmers and their failed crops and whether or not their agricultural pursuits were doomed forever (or if in fact they switched to GM crops as a precautionary measure). It is of course, just entertainment.
There are many other sub plots to the film, and hopefully I haven’t completely spoiled the film for fellow parental escorts. (I have to say I’m loving the current film sequels using original actors –and yes, Top Gun: Maverick is awesome, even though I was disappointed at the absence of Kelly McGillis). I certainly enjoyed the film as much as every other Jurassic Park, perhaps even more since it elevates the food security discussion!
It has certainly sown the seeds of suspicion that conglomerate-controlled genetic modifications could threaten our future food security. And that’s gigantic.
