Stars in the Sky: A Hunting Story

Like any modern moral dilemma, the subject could be talked about and debated for hours, if not days. Of course this short film isn't going to cover everything. My favorite part about this film is that you have two sides to the coin. You have perspectives given both for and against hunting. The creators of this film didn't portray the advocate against hunting in some negative way, nor did they try to "shut him down".

They presented both sides of the argument, albeit much more towards their side, but gave you the option to judge. I commend that type of "respect for the enemy", if you want to call it that. Giving your opposition a voice.

I challenge anyone to try to explain hunting better. Steve provokes all the main debates about hunting while explaining in the most thoughtful way, why we hunt.

I'm neither a hunter nor opposed to hunting, so I feel like as a neutral party I can watch this as a truly objective participant. Anyone who gives this a 10/10 is presumably an avid hunter themselves and, alternatively, anyone who rates it 1/10 is most likely just pushing their anti-hunting views, possibly without even watching the film. (There are literally only 10s and 1s up to this review)

Having said that, Steven Rinella seems an honest and legitimate source, who is both hunter and conservationist. This doc, while obviously pro-hunting, gives an eloquent summation of the many points of view regarding the act of hunting. It gives those who span a wide spectrum their chance to speak their peace, touching on the purity of hunting solely for food to the evils of mass killing of indigenous animals. Not the most entertaining of films but steadily informative and entirely unpretentious.

Hunting is as natural as breathing, sleeping and eating and used to be the only way humans were able to eat to survive. Conquering, surviving and feeding from nature is the only way a species can exist. This movie is a good examination of why hunting still exists even if some are skeptical of its morality.

As with Meat Eater and Steven Rinella's fantastically addictive library works, Stars In the Sky is visually stunning with captivaing story-telling. It provides morsels of information that feeds the viewer just enough to look further while being a good introduction to Rinella's entire body of work.

The only complaint I have is that the sheer amount of subject matter the film tries to cover restricts what it could have been. I believe that a limited series with each episode covering one aspect that was mentioned in this film would have been a better vehicle, or set of vehicles, to express what it was trying to say. And that's the only reason I didn't rate this higher.