Change Your Image
spanatko
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
DamNation (2014)
horrible
the movie is great in how it's made, and in how it looks, I give you guys credit for that. But there is so much that Ben "your narrator" simply does not know, or does not speak about to his audience. Let me give you an example - showing wind-turbines and promoting these as an alternative to hydro-power might seem like a great idea - but in fact it is not, and it ruins the movie for any educated viewer. Here's why. Energy production is not that simple, you can not simply take one energy source out from the grid, and simply replace it with another one, as these operate in layers and each layer relies on the preceding layer of technology - both historically & because of the physics involved. Energy produced by kinetic energy from flowing water is the basis for all other energy producing technology - it is a crucial technology for all other technologies involved in energy production within the grid. First of all hydro-power provides the fastest energy source in the grid - we are talking about minutes required to start/stop a turbine, produce and deliver hydro-power generated energy anywhere within the grid when required and necessary. And you cannot do this using any other energy source. If there is an outage somewhere in the grid - hydro-power turbines are started and energy is delivered. And this happens a lot, everywhere due to various reasons. Take nuclear, coal, gas, syngas anything - the cycles required for start, generation, and delivery are weeks, in some cases even months. Because hydro-power is the fastest in the grid, it balances all disparities in the grid, and the whole system /other technology/ totally relies on it all the time. Hydro-power is fast and reliable, because you can anticipate, calculate and manage the energy production by altering the water flow. You can not do that with wind, nor solar energy - as you cannot simply control winds, or sunshine. That is the reason why hydro-power is used worldwide as a basis for all green energy - it's because it provides the balance between manageable energy sources, and the one's that are totally adhoc such as wind or solar. Long story short - thanks to hydro-power generation units in the grid, the grid has become flexible enough to being able to welcome unreliable energy producing technology. There would not be any wind or solar energy without hydro-power, as the only technology fast and reliable enough to step in when imbalances occur within the grid - is hydro-power. If hydro-power is taken out of the grid, the other energy sources lose the flexibility to employ wind & solar systems. Factories and businesses around the world are buying & paying for stable & reliable energy - not for unreliable power when the sun is shining or when the wind is blowing. Hydro-power compensates for all grid imbalances worldwide, and this is why I think that Ben needs to do a bit more research. I totally agree with the concept of proposing hydro-electric dams and power-plants with regard to the environment, passageways for fish etc. and this is happening, and I am grateful for that & totally welcome it. But revolting against the big energy producing machine targeting the least harmful technology in use today is preposterous. The next big problem I have with this film is that, however unsettling it might be to see how dams invade the ecosystem, it is still less damaging than nuclear, coal, gas, even solar or any other energy producing technology widely used today. For the interested viewer I strongly advise on studying the physics behind energy production, learning about all the technologies in use today. There is a reason why all areas regarded as ecologic hot-spots of this earth employ and rely solely and fully on hydro-power. I'm sorry for Ben but he is literally trying to bite his only allies in the world of energy production. It almost seems to me as if he is on a payroll of big coal & big nuclear. Question everything right?
Zeitgeist: Addendum (2008)
interesting but weak
First of all, five because you do not actually have to pay to see this movie and can watch it online for free. If I had to pay to see this I would go for a three or less.
First of all it all seems as if the authors of this had the intention to start a serious discussion, however it turned to a: "buy and read my book/donate to people who think how things should be run" promotion video.
I have a problem with someone claiming that everything that simply does not work in our society today and has not worked in the past is a carefully orchestrated secret action plan of a few "super evil individuals" either in the governments or in the corporate world.
Once you analyze things deeply enough and actually speak to people who you claim are doing some evil deliberately, you will find out most of the time that the actions of all individuals result in positive as well as in negative outcomes and focusing and thus shouting only the negative side of the picture and claiming these side-effects to be intentional is simply primitive to say at least. I am not implying that some people just have fun plotting traps and difficult situations for others, but then the movie should have focused on mass murderers and not on the political system or governance, corporations or groups of people conducting business.
I do not believe that the maker of the movie does not realize that all human activities have positive and negative impacts. So does making a movie like this - it makes a lot of people think and discuss, which might be a good thing, however on the other hand it shuts the door for people who are deeply connected to the system, have the ability and capacity and network and social status to influence things across societies because it just offends them simply implying that they are all evil and that they intentionally plot against the rest of us.
So a truly reasonable discussion is out of question and what remains is just a "buy my book" advert.
Just for a while you can ignore and swallow a lot of misconceptions in this movie starting with how the economy as we know it today as it is was designed and is supposed to work and as it is working in reality - which is not the ideal state of things. But then suddenly there are solutions presented which just make your patience implode and you find yourself thinking - are these people sane? Now all the technologies which are presented in the movie have potential but it just is not so easy to drop all currently running technologies upon which billions of people are dependent every day and simply say - now lets do this!!! It takes time, it always did, solutions and the right ways of doing things at the end of the day do not come immediately to all of us. Most of the issues this movie tries to discuss are complex and far far beyond of the understanding of the average person. And thousands of scientific teams worldwide are working on these and many more technologies and projects right now just to push the ideas into reality.
After hearing how the world would be a great place today if physicists in the the 1940's had developed something more of use for humanity as nuclear weapons of mass destruction. This is all true in a wishful thinking state of mind but we all know what would have happened during the second world war if the allied forces would not have used the nuclear weapons to stop the Japanese and German raging offensives. It draws a picture of beautiful planet without wars, with people in love, giving unconditional love and sharing - yes all this is possible but only for those who experience connectedness and choose to live it out and not to forget about it once they stumble upon what they truly are - and the majority today simply decides to go with the flow because it is just so much easier to stop fighting the outside all the time. Without nuclear weapons in the world today it would be not connectedness nor compassion nor unconditional love, but it would be a violent bloody war raging among all of us as just the fear of absolute annihilation of all life on the planet has made nations and groups of people to behave and not to eradicate each other for good.
And this is the problem with the whole movie - it is all about wishful thinking ignoring how people in the real world have to behave simply to survive everyday.
Now I see that the authors of the movie probably try to make some money by selling some ideas in books or whatever which is fine to promote their views on the market. My suggestion to improve for the future would be to actually go out and to talk to the people whose actions they actually claim to be destructive, negative or evil to find out the reasons behind, thus inviting them to a truly constructive discussion and actually bring them closer to putting their visions and ideals into reality. Because you have to become the change you wish to see in the world and not just blabber utter nonsense offending thousands of critical allies in the connectedness...