An Honest Review of a Poor Documentary

A documentary with good intentions and excellent resources eventually falls flat due to a poorly thought out concept and the habit of driving at full speed into every cliche pothole available for a documentary of this type.

If one has the intention of producing a documentary in this field, god help them. For a genre so saturated and ridiculed, content never slows to enter the market. One might think this a good thing, but it isn't. Unfortunately the bar is set so low for such a promising concept that we always end up with reiterated shit that does nothing but entertain. Aren't documentaries supposed to educate as well?

I had high hopes for this documentary; it had a lot of views but I fell for the oldest trick in the book. Exactly what brought me in. Views. The clickbait title should have been a warning — because if it were really that revolutionary, it would've garnered more professional attention. Regardless, I fettered my preconceptions and sallied forth for I was to remain objective and hopefully see something worth experiencing. I was sadly mistaken.

First of all, if you're going to do this, do it properly. If you give it the half arsed effort we see here, you're doing nobody favours. It might seem like you're revealing revolutionary material, but if you're going to do it with boring interviews, a monotone narration, and cheesy CGI then you're sugar coating shit and hoping for the best, at most. We've seen enough of that already, don't waste your time and don't waste mine. It's not hard to polish something is it?

Alas, I thought to myself "with a bit of dusting, this could be something, there seems to be a mound of good resources here. Something worth paying attention to." The final straw, however, came halfway through and lifted the biased veil placed upon my optimistic ginger head.

It all came down to a simple speculation...

"I saw this light, it must have been scanning the warhead."

Well, there we have it folks. An advanced civilization that can travel faster than light, (and unless these guys are from planet x, you'd have to reach us) detect and disarm missiles in motion, a civilization that can remain undetected for a majority of the time... a civilization like that apparently has scanners that are visible. Visible scanners. Let that sink in, something that is inherently invisible is visible to our witness with a cause more probable to what they were watching on TV as opposed to the sentiment of our mysterious guest.

Now, whether the guest wanted us to see the scan isn't part of this discussion, because it only highlights my point that this is a half-arsed documentary once again. Is it that hard to edit speculation from the documentary? Were the producers that naive that they expected themselves to be taken seriously without cutting off the fat? Even the most seasoned documentary doesn't reveal everything, because not everything is relevant. It's akin to a 10-year-old who's been told to 'mark the important stuff' and returned with a full page of color because 'everything was important.'

Anyway, to end my digression, I'll conclude that this had potential. It could have been something special, something worth watching. We opened our arms to something that could have educated us, but got something that would only educate those from 100 years prior.

The narration could have had a bit more emotion, we could have watched the narrator as he traveled to talk to our guests. We could have had a proper interview of our guests instead of this bland monologue in front of a black background. No CGI is better than shit CGI, I would have rather watched an endearing conversation between two humans. But most importantly...

The documentary should have had a point. It should have had some sort of goal. I wasn't educated, because I didn't learn anything worth learning. A plethora of points could have been put across.

What are the implications of this so called 'discovery'? Why exactly did the government cover this up at the time? Was it denial or was it a way to ease a populace into its inevitable new world? Did this portray the government's distrust of its populace and the anticipated hysteria that was to follow? Or perhaps, are there beings out there that look after us and guide us to peace and happiness? What are the social implications of this? Viewing this objectively, could this have highlighted a bias that people will take information for granted if presented by people of high military rank?

So many questions could have been answered. So many questions could have been raised. A talking point could have been created, propelling the directors and producers to notary fame. But none of that happened... it was a waste and just went to show the inexperience of the people behind this.

Final verdict: 5/10 — To the people behind this, please take a step back and look at yourselves. As documentary creators, you have a responsibility. One that doesn't include pushing out shit and selling it to the highest bidder or the most willing buyer. You should take the information and portray it objectively and to the standards that have been set for a good reason, because they work. Upon the creation of your next documentary, please set a goal and through your fullest intentions achieve it. Otherwise, don't bother.

My Kindest Regards