Aftermath: Population Zero

In the middle of this show there could be a fairly interesting documentary. There are some well researched facts such as those about nuclear facilities and the way concrete buildings collapse. There's also a lot of repetition and a lot of *DUNK*DUNK* very obvious statements. Still, it might have been an ok doc IF they had got rid of whatever idiot made the decisions about music and foley (sound effects). In film, the number one thing music and foley have to do it NOT intrude on the narrative, but they do the opposite in this one. Every five seconds there's a different godawful breakbeat sample or over-dramatic sound effect that totally drowns out the voiceover. It seems as if it was edited to the lowest common denominator, that is IF WE DON'T CONSTANTLY SCREAM AT THE ATTENTION DEFICIENT FOUR YEAR OLD WHO WE THINK IS OUR AUDIENCE THEY'LL TURN THE CHANNEL!! Take the narration, cut out the repetition, use subtle music and foley, cut the weird obsession about what will happen to first world landmarks and you could have had an ok documentary.

Instead of using actual science to extrapolate very interesting and political-absent educational decay rates of modern society if people vanished, we get to hear a slanted narrative. It is all man-made pollution-based interruption of the planet's will to reset us back to ground zero, that we so desperately need. The fish just want to swim back upstream and spawn, after-all, and they have to wait until the evil human dams suddenly "burst" from slow gradual erosion of spillways. Sigh... This really could have been neat if it wasn't an extension of the green movement, or if it didn't take up so many eye-rolling assertions. For Example: At about the 25K AH year mark, the earth's orbit has drifted further away from the sun (no reason given) to where there will be an ice age that will last for 100K years. Are we supposed to connect the dots, that this is somehow because humans are no longer on the planet? Some parts are interesting/entertaining though, in an assertive-accepted point of view, but I was really quite stupefied that there was no mention of natural fire to help reset nature's balance. Really? It's all we can do to keep the earth from going up in flames as it is today. A single lightning strike rages hardcore fires across thousands of acres on a regular basis, except now there will be no humans to put it out. By regular basis, I mean more than 17,000 lightning caused fires per year. Seems like that is a factor worth mentioning on what happens when humans are gone.

Being aired on NATGEO, "Aftermath Population Zero" it must be factual, right???. Wrong!!! I first noticed that there was no mention of water expanding when frozen, causing concrete cracks to expand. Then they said that the cracks exposed the re-bar in the concrete to carbon dioxide, causing the re-bar to rust. ??? Excuse me, but air consists of only 0.038% carbon dioxide, but oxygen is about 20.95%. Rust is ferrous oxide. The oxygen in the air is going to contribute 500 times more to the rusting process than carbon dioxide. Then I remembered having heard "carbon dioxide" several times before the concrete part, and noticed "carbon dioxide" continuing to be mentioned again and again. It was then that I suspected that this was more an example of poor science and propaganda than factual. I lost interest, but do not recall any mention of plant-life absorbing carbon dioxide and giving off oxygen.

There is no doubt, from the beginning of this "documentary" that there is a definite bias here. The film claims to be about man's impact on the world but it is really just a film about how man has damaged it, and despite our constant chaos, the Earth will thrive if it weren't for us. This was obviously written by a Green Freak and me, being a man who refuses to buy into the corporate and political lie that is the Green Movement, finds this film condescending, ugly, and unremarkable. It has hard to show an impact when the film continues to show recycled stock footage of the same forests and fields over and over. They overgrown landmarks of man look like late 90s video game graphics and the overall look of the film is just ugly. It tries to persuade its viewers into thinking it's a smart hypothetical by showing the chaos that will ensue immediately after man disappears. However, this is quickly drowned out by the narrator's condescending tone and downbeat morality. I hated this doc. It is certainly no Planet Earth.

Seriously, folks - I think that this documentary should be required viewing for any aliens ("green-minded" aliens, that is) who might be planning to invade Earth with the sole purpose of wiping out the entire human race.... 'Cause, if you ask me, I'm sure that after watching this documentary those aliens would be quite convinced that by annihilating the whole lot of us they'd be doing this planet a humongous favour. Indeed.

And, with all of that in mind - This documentary (about the survival of the planet Earth, sans humans) certainly did lay it on extra-Extra-EXTRA thick when it came to telling us just how much man (and everything he's done) has totally fukked this planet beyond anything imaginable (outside that, of course, of a real-life, Sci-Fi/Horror show).

Unfortunately, what the producers of "Aftermath" forgot to do was to offer us "disillusioned ones" some real hope that man just may turn his destructive ways around and finally get himself in tune with good, old Mother Nature (who has sure taken one helluva beating) and, thus, live happily ever after(math).

Anyway - Regardless of all of the impending gloom and doom that seemed to prevail in "Aftermath", I still thought that it was well-worth a view (even though it was an extremely sobering view, at that).