I don’t know much about Remarkably Bright Creatures, the book-to-screen adaptation that hits the Netflix schedule later this week. I know it looks great from the trailer, and from what friends have said about the book, I’ll probably really like it. One thing I do know from the trailer alone is that it will affect my dietary choices in the future. I don’t think it’ll make me a full vegetarian, but it's time to cut one type of seafood out of my diet.
This Isn’t Happening Just Because Of The Movie
If you have seen the trailer or read the book, you probably see where this is going. I think I’m going to be cutting octopus out of my life as a food. I love octopus, but a few months ago, I really started to think about whether I should eat them or not. It seems a little hypocritical to choose to stop eating one animal but not others, but hey, I’m a complicated person, and life is full of contradictions. One step at a time.
This inner monologue with myself started after a conversation I had while on vacation in Mexico a couple of months ago. As my friends and I ordered tacos for lunch one day, including one with octopus, one of my friends simply mentioned he wouldn’t be having one. He didn’t make a big deal of it, but I still chided him and wondered aloud how anyone could turn down some tasty octopus. He said it wasn’t that, it was because of the recent research that determined the molluscs may, in fact, be sentient. That got me thinking, too.
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The Movie Is About An Intelligent Octopus
I can’t spoil anything that isn’t in the trailer, because as I said, I’ve never read the book and haven’t seen the movie yet (though I will soon with my Netflix subscription), but obviously it’s a story from the point of view of an intelligent, sentient octopus. This is going to mess with my head. Or rather, I think it’s going to settle the argument I’ve been having with myself since that conversation over tacos. I shouldn’t eat octopi. Let’s be honest, it’s probably best that I don’t eat any animals, but again, one step at a time.
Lately, I’ve been bombarded with reasons to give up eating meat. As I get older and encounter the issues that we all face with aging, especially heart issues that I’ve developed, it seems obvious that the best diet for me would be plant-based. Another friend, a cardiologist who, like me, loves barbecue, pretty much told me straight up that we should all be vegetarians. I don’t think I’m ready to take that big of a leap, but I’m getting closer.
I realize the hypocrisy in this. Choosing some animals over others because of their intelligence or sentience doesn’t seem like the best way to determine what I eat and what I don’t, but I’m talking baby steps here. Who knows, maybe a year from now, I’ll write a follow-up about how another movie on the 2026 movie schedule got me to give up meat forever. It probably won’t be The Odyssey or Dune III, but who knows?
