A Review of “Strange World”
In a beautiful cosmic coincidence, a new Disney release coincides with the death of scientist James Lovelock
In July of 2022, James Lovelock passed at age 103. His obituaries, which appeared in most major news outlets, brought his greatest scientific contribution to the forefront of our minds: Gaia Theory.
Despite early fits and starts, the concept of Gaia is by now absorbed into our common psyche to a degree. We might not all realize that Earth would be like neighboring, lifeless Mars today instead of a “great blue marble” if life had not appeared during a critical window of opportunity. Because oxygen, you see, and other vital gases don’t just hang around on a planet; life is what captured them and continues to recycle them, keeping them here on Earth so we can stay alive, rather than letting them drift off to space or become inaccessibly buried, deep in Earth’s mantle — to give just one example of Gaia at work. But even if we don’t know the details, most of us accept the basic fact that our own wellbeing as an animal species depends on the health of our water, land, atmosphere, and the planet’s other living creatures — flora plus fauna — all as an integrated system. Gaia has been compared to a cell, insofar as a cell has discrete functioning parts, which, when they all work simultaneously, has the capacity to maintain the larger whole.
The details of Gaia Theory were somewhat fresh in my mind when I recently took my child to see the new Disney film “Strange World.” We saw this only because it was the PG-rated movie playing, not because I knew what it was about. The film opens with the discovery of a brussel-sprout-shaped energy source — pando. Fast forward about two decades and pando has transformed Strange World society completely. It is unimaginable that they could or would ever choose to go on without it.
Searcher and Ethan had been fighting on the wrong side and realize it in the nick of time.
When, at the climax, the protagonists, Searcher and his teenage son, Ethan, discover that the world they live in is itself an organism, with a heart, lungs, immune system and all, I felt a euphoria that I imagine James Lovelock himself felt when it dawned on him that the Earth-system is a living organism that deserves a name: Gaia. In the film, understanding that their world is alive changes everything; they discover that pando, their staple crop, which they had gone on the expedition to save, is invasive and killing their world — the larger organism on which their survival absolutely depends. The strange beings attacking pando are in fact part of their world’s immune system. Searcher and Ethan had been fighting on the wrong side and realize it in the nick of time.
Kudos to screenwriter Qui Nguyen, who so cleverly invented pando, the vital crop with unnerving similarity to our Big Ag monoculture farming plus fossil fuel dependence wrapped into one giant problem that needs an alternative if humanity is to survive. “Strange World” was released only months after James Lovelock passed, a beautiful cosmic coincidence that brings Gaia Theory to a generation still too young to read his books. I left the theater hopeful, imagining that some kids who see “Strange World” will connect the dots and help turn back Earth’s Doomsday Clock.
Later, I read the reviews, hoping to commune over the beauty of the story and the timely importance of the message. But that is not what I found there. The reviewers mostly seemed oblivious to Gaia Theory. The exception was Beatrice Loayza in the New York Times, who wrote, “The takeaway is the difficulty of collaboration in the face of entrenched beliefs and ways of navigating the world that, ultimately, must be questioned — if not entirely dismantled — if any one of us expects to stick around.” Yes, yes!
But the Wall Street Journal complained that the director and screenwriter “put all of their effort into gaudy backgrounds, wacky gadgets and strange ancillary monsters instead of into dramatic urgency or conflict.” I recalled that feeling that the wild organisms Searcher and Ethan encountered were a bit over the top — but as soon as I realized they were traversing digestive and respiratory systems, it all felt necessary. But these strange beings would seem “ancillary” if you can’t connect the dots. Siddhant Adlakha, reviewer on IGN.com, confesses that he can’t. He wrote, “It’s also very late into the movie’s 102-minute runtime that its themes of environmentalism and the connectedness of living beings suddenly emerge, manifesting as if from hasty, last-minute rewrites meant to imbue the overall story with some kind of hefty meaning.” Yup, some kind of hefty meaning.
Just for kicks, I tried The Catholic Review. John Mulderig wrote, “The screenplay’s basic theme is that of clan unity triumphing over intergenerational tensions… But this fundamental message gets tangled up with misguided contemporary values, most glaringly in the subplot that sees Ethan falling for a male friend, Diazo.” Hopelessly distracted by a gay character, Mulderig included only one bewildering line about environmentalism: “As for the screenplay’s treatment of the need for ecological responsibility, it’s rammed home with awkward insistence.”
Understanding that our world is alive changes everything.
The consensus among the professional reviewers was around two stars. But the fact that so many reviewers missed the point doesn’t mean kids will. They come to the theater unencumbered by outdated characterizations of what life might be. When I was in school, a thing wasn’t defined as “living” if it couldn’t reproduce. Gaia doesn’t meet yesteryear’s rigid definition but, just like in “Strange World,” understanding that our world is alive changes everything. So here is the only five-star, two-thumbs-up review of “Strange World.” Go see it with your kids, and maybe your child will be the among those with the insight that rescues our own strange world — just in the nick of time.
For further reading, start with one of Lovelock’s most important books, “The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth,” as well as an exceptional Lovelock biography by renown science writers John and Mary Gribbin, “James Lovelock: In Search of Gaia.”
