Deep Blue Sea perfectly encapsulates this. Scientists with the noble goal of curing Alzheimer’s with the brain proteins from Mako sharks (which can regenerate neurons—actual true science!) realize that they can’t harvest enough of the necessary protein without killing the sharks, so they genetically alter the sharks to become bigger, and enlarge their brains in the process. No surprise to those of us who signed up for this movie, there are some major ramifications to increasing the size of the sharks’ brains: they get smarter.

The movie starts off with one of the genetically modified sharks breaking out of the supposedly secure facility and attacking an innocent boat. Thankfully, shark wrangler Carter arrives just in time to shoot the shark with a tranquilizer gun before anyone gets eaten. That beginning gives us an idea of what the sharks actually want, and that Carter is the only character in the underwater laboratory who thinks something is amiss with their behavior. About a third of the way into the movie, as our cast of characters has continued to shrink and everyone left alive acknowledges that the flooding of the underwater facility isn’t just a series of random accidents, a question surfaces: “What does an 8,000-pound Mako shark with a brain the size of a flat head V8 engine and no natural predators think about?” There’s a moment of silence as everyone reckons with the fact that the sharks are thinking and do have a goal in mind. But the moment quickly passes as the shark attacks re-commence.

Eventually, the remaining three characters (and one remaining shark) make it out of the lab and to the surface. Thus far, the humans had thought that, though they were scared and desperate, they were nevertheless in control—devising plans to escape and neutralize the sharks, while fending off attacks and cleverly adapting to setbacks and obstacles along the way. But now comes the answer to the question of what that remaining shark thinks about—the deep blue sea—as Carter realizes that they’ve been herded to the surface, where the above-water fences are ordinary steel and much easier to destroy than the titanium cages below. The sharks weren’t thinking about revenge, or wanton destruction. They, too, were thinking about freedom—about escape. And, to use a line from Jurassic Park, “life finds a way.”

The idea that we can control the wild feels like a fatal flaw in being human. In many of these movies there’s usually a point where the main character outsmarts nature. They might walk away with more respect for the wild, but they’ve still “won.” At least this time around. But how realistic is that? And is that also part of the appeal of these movies, that we always place ourselves in the role of survivor who dominates nature?