I thought this documentary would be about the flat earth theory, and what they believe, and why they believe it. And it was that a little bit. But not much. So I was a bit disappointed at first.
But the documentary turned out to be about the flat-earthers themselves, and what makes them believe it; or what makes them not not-believe it. And that was fascinating.
In addition to showing a very-respectful portrait of flat-earthers, it also interjected commentary from physicists and psychologists, who offered their take on the phenomenon (which is actually quite large).
One of the important points that the physicists in the documentary made was that, it's easy to just dismiss the flat earth movement as silly nonsense. The problem is, though, that once people start adjusting their reality to fit a nonsensical theory, then it affects other parts of their reality, as well, and also affects the people around them whom they affect with the theory.
And so you have things like the anti-vaxxer movement, pizzagate, the deep-state theory, and many other things. It's all similar.
So this is a facinating study, not just on the flat-earth movement, but on fringe movements in general, and how they affect us all. And the more the anti-science fringe theories spread, the more they affect us, especially when people who believe them go into government, etc.
There are also a lot of other good points the documentary makes, especially from some of the psychologists they interviewed.
Definitely recommended.
Oh, and about some of the reviews here on IMDB, it's kind of funny that, while most people gave the documentary positive reviews, there were a lot of 1-star reviews. Some of the 1-star reviews were like, "They didn't provide any evidence for or against the flat-earth theory" -- missing the point that that's not what the documentary was about.
But the funniest ones were the ones who claimed that the filmmakers were "really stupid," because they set out to prove the flat earth theory, but only showed how wrong it was.
I guess there's a bit of irony there in the wrong-headed analysis about a documentary about wrong-headed analysis of science. :-)
