The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course
Crocodiles aren’t evil, ugly monsters just waiting to kill people. No way! They deserve respect and conservation.
About a week ago, I finished reading my first book of 2024. Steve & Me (titled My Steve in Australia) by Terri Irwin tells the story of her life with Steve Irwin from the day she met him in 1991 until his death in 2006. I’ve had an admiration for the Irwin family for a while, but Terri’s book made me appreciate them even more. Terri told the beautiful story of how she met Steve at the Australia Zoo while she was on vacation. She then returned to Oregon to continue her own conservation work, but about two months after meeting Steve, he called her and told her he’d be coming to Oregon to see her. From that moment on, she knew Steve was the one for her.
She moved to Australia and married Steve shortly after. Soon, they would build a legacy together, turning the Australian Zoo into a major tourist attraction and transforming Steve from an unknown conservationist to the Crocodile Hunter. I remember watching his show regularly as a child, and I remember going to see The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course in theaters. I also remember being deeply saddened by Steve’s death, and it was even more heartbreaking to read every detail in Terri’s book. I can’t imagine having to tell two young children that their dad had passed away after a freak accident. Steve put his life at risk countless times, and it’s incomprehensible how he made it through several crocodile attacks and run-ins with venomous snakes, but one incident with a sting ray ended his life.
These days, his family keeps his legacy alive and is constantly advertising their efforts on social media. Sometimes, when it feels like the world is falling apart, I enjoy watching Steve and Terri’s son Robert play with snakes and other Australian creatures on his TikTok. The family seems to exist in their own world, always full of joy and optimism, and whether they know it or not, they emulate their positive energy through the screen to everyone who watches them. When deciding which movie to cover this week, it seemed obvious after finishing Terri’s book that I had to write about Steve Irwin’s first feature film and how much his conservation work changed the world.
Steve & Terri
The film follows Steve and Terri’s efforts to rescue a crocodile from the water where people are trying to swim and bring it to a place where it will be free and safe. This is seemingly based on a real event that Terri wrote about in her book. Meanwhile, the US government is trying to find a beacon from a US satellite that has landed in Australia, and they start questioning if the Irwins are after it in order to pay for an expansion of the Australia Zoo.
However, what stands out more than the plot is the way Steve and Terri work together to save the crocodile and several other animals in the film, which is very reminiscent of how they worked together in real life. While Steve may be the star of the film, it’s clear Terri knows just as much about animals as he does. She might not be as skilled in crocodile hunting and needs Steve by her side to guide her, but she’s incredibly intelligent. She even educated audiences on saving a baby, Joey, from the pouch of a kangaroo who was sadly killed on the side of the road. Terri is not simply Steve’s right-hand woman, but the two are a true team.
The Villains
What I loved about The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course is that unlike films like Jaws, which painted the shark Bruce as the villain, the film doesn’t villanize the crocodile, which is all thanks to Steve Irwin. Steve never wanted anyone to view wild animals as dangerous but for others to feel one with the animals. Steve wanted others to understand that animals act violently out of fear and to protect themselves, not because they want to hurt others.
Instead, the main villain of the film is a woman named Brozzie who wants to kill the crocodile because it is attacking her cattle. The woman walks around her property with a gun, shooting at the crocodile and hoping to kill it. In Jaws, Martin is viewed as a hero at the end of the film when he kills the shark, but in The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, the film makes it clear that Brozzie is in the wrong.
One scene I particularly love is when Brozzie tries to shoot at the crocodile only to realize she has no more bullets in her gun. She’s then face to face with the crocodile, and it’s clear she’s scared for her life. I love this so much because there’s a complete switch in the power dynamic. Brozzie thinks she has power over the crocodile until her weapon is useless, and she realizes the power that the crocodile has over her. Humans tend to think they have power over animals, underestimating how intelligent and capable they are. This scene is the epitome of Steve’s message.
While the Irwins are clearly not the villains in the film, the US government officials start to paint them as villains, which is pretty true to what the media started to do to the family throughout the years. Sadly, society has a hard time believing there are good people in the world and will always try to tear others down and prove their kindness is actually a facade. About two years after the movie came out, Steve Irwin found himself at the center of a scandal when he brought Baby Robert out to feed the crocodiles, and the media twisted the story to make it seem as if he had put his son in danger.
As Terri described the incident in her book, it was not long after Michael Jackson dangled his son over a balcony in Berlin, so the media had a field day painting both men as irresponsible fathers. The truth is, Steve was so excited and proud to welcome his son into the world and to raise him to become a conservationist that he wanted to show him off to everyone at the zoo.
Steve Irwin & His Legacy
According to director John Stainton, none of Steve and Terri’s scenes in the film were scripted. The two filmed their parts in the style of their usual documentaries, which made it feel much more authentic. Steve was a character in himself, with his animated personality and passion for crocodiles, making a script unnecessary to begin with. Throughout the film, Steve has a childlike excitement when he talks about animals, and this is present in his son Robert today. I believe this is what made Steve so popular amongst children when his show was on TV. It was refreshing to see an adult who never lost touch with his childlike wonder.
In the film and in real life, Steve put his life in danger for these animals because that’s how much love and respect he had for them. In a scene where he’s talking about capturing a poisonous snake, which he captured so he could move it to a safer location, Steve never acts superior to it. He doesn’t villainize it but simply explains that when you become one with the snake and let it know that it isn’t in harm, it won’t want to hurt you. Steve didn’t do his job to try to dominate animals or show how powerful and strong he was but to genuinely teach his audience about the animals.
This is what the Irwin family continues to do today. They keep Steve’s legacy alive because he still had so many more dreams in terms of animal conservation and because the world deserves to hear his message. After Steve’s death, his family became as beloved as he was, with his daughter Bindi Sue Irwin winning Dancing With The Stars in 2015 and Robert becoming a TikTok sensation. The family still has countless visitors at the Australia Zoo on a regular basis and continued their animal education on TV with Crikey! It’s The Irwins on Animal Planet and later Discovery+. While it’s been over a decade since Steve’s death, what he did for animal conservation will never be forgotten.
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