Unknown: La grotta della scoperta

I think the subject matter is super interesting and the cinematography is really great.

However, I feel like the Scientists have done the classic poker term of "falling in love with your hand" meaning, they are making very bold statements, leaning towards calling them facts about something that is purely speculative.

I would love to see or hear from another team of Scientists that have little or no knowledge of this subject matter and to hear what their conclusions are.

I personally think there are some other obvious ways and methods that these remains could have made it to their final resting spots.

None the less, if you're into science, dawn of human and cave exploration, you'll enjoy this. I did.

I respect the dedication and years that the Scientists have put in here. Their passion is palpable, albeit possibly a bit one sided.

Very interesting movie, but take the opinions of the scientists shown in the movie with a grain of salt, since they are everything but objective. Burying a dead body with a tool is far from being evidence of belief in the afterlife, or any belief at all. It's just a sign of respecting the personal property of the deceased and shows, that Homo Naledi was capable of feeling emotionally attached to things, not only showing emotions for other members of their species. Scientists projecting their personal beliefs and views instead of interpreting the facts, sadly that more common than it should be.

I did enjoy this because I was interested in the subject. I wanted to see the bones, hear what the actual physical discoveries were, etc.

What I got instead was an attempt to tell a story that seemed more for entertainment than actual scientific hypothesis.

There were also some truly concerning moments like when the supposed head of archeology for the project suddenly asks (in the middle of doing measurements) "are we measuring in centimeters or millimeters?" Shouldn't that be well established at that point?

The animations were completely unnecessary and much too speculative. Generally there was way too much romanticizing of these ancient creatures. I don't like the tendency to project a spiritual or religious meaning onto everything they did.

It almost feels condescending. Like they thought the viewers would be bored with pure science so they had to embellish it like a Disney movie to get people interested.

It starts off pretty good, but quickly descents into a very speculative realm. At one point they claim that these creatures had to use fire in the cave, otherwise they couldn't find their ways. Right, is this what rodents do when navigating caves? I haven't seen many torch carrying mice lately. Or, who knows, perhaps the cave layout changed in 250k years and used to be light coming from somewhere. All questions that popped in my head, none of which were answered.

There are no counter arguments whatsoever. These people love their jobs, that's obvious, but I'm missing a different perspective. A different take on their theories that could explain the observed as well. Now everything is presented as fact, which it clearly is not.

Not really worth a 600 word review unfortunately. But fine. This could have might have been an interesting or even fascinating anthropology discovery story as implied and stated by the producers in the trailer and description. But in reality there is very little science here. About 20 minutes in total - and that's generous - of the doc has science in it - about ostensibly a possible new genus Homo species these paleoanthropologists call Homo Naledi. The problem is it's just a small team from nowhere USA who haven't as of yet gained any national or international scientific corroboration of their find. They imagine a ton of wild theories about their discovery, all interesting but unfounded. So instead they spend a good hour or more filming things like "can this heavy-set man fit through a small cave opening?" Just not science.