Chariots of the Gods

Now being a man of no religious faith at all, I was curious to see just how far this ultimate in conspiracy theories could be strung out by Harald Reinl and you know what, I think he makes a decent fist of asking some questions and suggesting some plausibly alternative answers to some long-held imponderables. Hollywood has long shown us bamboo scaffolding being use by willing (or not) labourers to build the pyramids at Giza or in Mexico, or to sculpt the effigies and tombs at the likes of (the original) Abu Simbel or at dozens of sites across Mesoamerica. Ok, so he does quote some highly spurious statistics and source a few Soviet-style scientific sceptics of all things deific, but a lot of the questions it raises about engineering, construction and man-hours do merit a bit of thought. Just how long did it take to build the tomb of Khufu at 2 tons per stone multiplied by one million stones that they had to raise up to four hundred feet off the sand? Why are all the stone heads on Easter Island so exact, and similar? Why was the obsession about the sun and the moon and stars so prevalent across the globe when contact between peoples was impossible? Could there really have been visitors from outer space who founded every religion on earth? Who gave us architecture or geometry or even fire and the wheel? Of course it's all highly speculative stuff, this, and is very easy to cynically dismiss as nonsense, but looked at with an open-mind it is no less believable or unsubstantiated at times than claims that there is an an almighty deity out there somewhere taking credit for our glories whilst blaming humanity when it goes horribly wrong. Regardless of it's flawed philosophy, it's still a good excuse to go on a trawl to some amazing archeological locations across the world and admire some astonishing and enduring artistry that symbolises and chronicles much of the early evolution of the human race. The rest of it? Now where did I put the salt?

This lively production loosely based on von Daniken's first work, 'Chariots of the Gods?' brought his theories of alien visitations in the past to the attention of the movie going audience. At that time it was a break-through in thinking. Since then von Daniken has presented dozens of more books of proofs, many of them more scientific and hard-nosed than this. As a result, there have been bookshelves full of other books on this subject, including those written by scientists, professors and other notable experts. Meanwhile, a campaign of debunking this whole theory is maintained by a clique of limited thinkers, believing in their arrogance, that this is the only world in the entire universe on which intelligent life arose - gimme a break! Watch it again for the joy of discovery. A tremendous soundtrack is a bonus

I was 11 years old in 1973 when I read some of "Chariots of the Gods?" and saw "In Search of Ancient Astronauts," a condensed version of this 1972 documentary. As a kid, you are impressible and can be enthralled by these new ideas, that maybe aliens helped humankind along the way to advanced civilization.

As an adult seeing "Chariots of the Gods" 35 years later, I was amazed at the claims the narrator sometimes makes, leaving out significant background details and being excessively one sided. There are several specific examples. In the first, a visit is made to the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, where a set of curved tubes is said to be the exhaust port on the bottom of the rocket (and the base of a Saturn one is shown for comparison). However, no details are given of where the artifact was found, how old it was or what mainstream archaeologists thought it was.

In the second, there were statues in Mexico, who were claimed to be wearing odd hats, communication or utility devices on their chests and perhaps weapons or communicators on their belts. No alternative opinion was presented, such as the "communicators" might just be ordinary breastplates, and the hats some kind of ornamental warrior headgear. Additionally in Pelenque, Mexico, a sarcophagus lid for the Mayan leader Pacal is supposed to be a rocket ship, with no additional explanation given that his "rocket" might actually be a collection of Mayan symbols representing the king's passage to the underworld, and the meaning of these symbols unknown to few modern people except archaeologists specializing in pre-Columbian history.

I liked the crazy, spacey soundtrack, which ranged from early '70s electronica to New Ageish acoustic, and the cinematography, much shot from the skies -- the way these alleged "ancient astronauts" might have seen the earth! There just wasn't enough evidence presented that aliens created all these mysteries, which certainly are unexplainable.

Spacemen? I don't know. The theory that humans, not aliens, reached a high level of civilization thousands of years ago -- say more like late 21st century -- only to have it destroyed by a natural disaster, such as an ice age, seems like a more probable explanation for the supposedly advanced technologies in ancient artifacts and even the strange costumes. People knocked back to the stone age by a disaster over generations could have forgotten their heritage, old costuming and technology and have only traces, which to them might become religious legends. They might record them on cave or cliff walls in images that look more familiar to us because we are advanced, just like their distant ancestors. And artifacts that were fabricated with technology similar to ours thousands of years ago also could have come from these very ancient humans, not a bunch of extraterrestrials!

I would imagine anyone who gone though the trouble of obtaining this film already knows about premise of Chariots of the Gods so I will save you the trouble. I am a fan of Leonard Nimoy's In Search of TV series and its pilot shows. In the shows the name Von Daniken and the book Chariots of the Gods were mentioned, and I remembered there is a documentary film from the book. So, I looked it up and watched it. While Chariots of the Gods is not as dramatic as the In search of: Ancient Astronauts narrated by the great Rod Serling, but it has that snazzy 70's Euro pop jazz going for it. The kind of music that reminds you that you are watching a low budget 1970 film from West Germany. Also, if you had watched Rod Serling's Ancient Astronauts or Outerspace Connection, you will noticed most of the footages from those films are from the Chariots of the Gods. The images of the film is quite good on the VCI Entertainment release DVD. Like other reviewers have said, if you turn the volume down this movie could make a good travelogue.

Also, like so many other reviewer have wrote, the narrator is no Rod Serling. As a matter of fact, I think he is about as dry as a glass of martini, with no olive. This film consists of him reading from the book with no sound bites of people who were interviewed. If you want answers of strange going on with those little green aliens then this film is not for you, because this movie offers questions, a lot of questions, but no answers. With rhetorical questions like: "Could the ancient Egyptian mummifies body to copy alien's hyper-sleep during space travel?" or "Could the stone drawing in the middle of Sahara desert thousand of years ago be that of UFOs?" or "Could that 5,000 years old Japanese figurine be that of an alien in a space suit?" make me want to put my finger to my cheek and go "Hmmmmmm....Is that so?" Even though most of the questions posed doesn't pass go on my mumbo jumbo filter, it is still good a fun watch on a boring summer afternoon. What can I say, I'm a sucker for this kind of stuff.

Seriously, this is easily one of the most lunkheaded, stupid, poorly informed and yet enjoyable "documentaries" ever made. Very relaxing viewing. I read the book as a kid and adore the film as an adult, but please. It is an entertainment, not science, and can be fun provided you're stoned enough. What is so remarkable is that the book + film literally changed and influenced our popular culture in a manner that continues to this day; "Battlestar: Galactica", "Stargate", Jack Kirby's "The Eternals", several post-60s installments of "Star Trek", the list of pop culture forms that harvested Erich Von Daniken's fanciful ramblings goes on & on, and some are quite good.

See, the problem with this film is that it tries to teach its viewers to be lazy observers & simple-Simon thinkers. For example: You see lines scratched on a desert highland which resembles the patterns of an airport viewed from above. To conclude therefore that the lines *must* be the remnants of an ancient airport to the exclusion of all other possible conclusions just because that's what it looks like suggests a grave limitation in comparative reasoning.

It also presumes that ancient alien astronauts would need an airport to land their space ships with extended diagonal runways stretching across the desert soil as far as the eyes can see. That means you are limiting the technology available to the aliens to that which would require an airport -- You are creating a foregone conclusion with only one possible explanation fitting the lazily observed data. Von Daniken even says in his book that it cannot possibly be anything else. Oh really?

Which is the basis of all conspiratorial reasoning. You conclude beforehand that the building was blown up by a controlled demolition and then you cherry pick only those clues which support that conclusion & jettison those which suggest anything else. Need spaceships? Look for depictions of angels in flight. Need space suited aliens? Any cave drawing with a stylized human figure will do, the more sloppily executed the better. Just make sure it's enigmatic enough to defy a literal interpretation and you're home free. Anything can be the result of contact with ancient alien astronauts once you let your mind wander far enough afield.

Then you start churning through the funny looking cultural artifacts, the bizarre statuettes and other cultural forms which do not resemble classically executed images of representation we are accustomed to. Bulbous head? Space alien. Stringy looking arms? Space alien. Seated or crouched position? Space alien. Non-human head attached to stylized form? Space alien. Imprecise written account from historical documents? Space alien. One would think we were passive observers in our own pre-history. I am sure the Mayans would have been amused to learn that their gods required oxygen helmets.

Then you muddle it all down with doublethink employing terms that sound scientific & reasonable, peppered with a tad of ridicule to put anyone who won't go along with your conclusion on the outside. Now it's you & a select few against the world with your secret insights and private knowledge. Everybody else becomes a bumpkin for following the "mainstream" thinking, which is usually remarkably boring in comparison to the idea of space aliens sweeping down from the heavens to teach our ancestors how to levitate railroad car sized blocks of stone. And then you pose these conclusions in the form of "questions" so that you can deny being dumb enough to have said so. You were just asking questions ... sound familiar?

But it's a fascinating movie with superb music, made by German film craftsman Harald Reinl with a visual power that is difficult to deny. One aspect of which is capturing the ancient monuments on film as they appeared in the late 1960s, before most of them were restored to their present day tourist-friendly look complete with snack stands & souvenir shops. You can really get a feel for how those Mayan cities were swallowed by the jungle, and what a jumbled mess Easter Island was before we figured out what the deal was with the statues, how they were supposed to be lined up, who made them, and why they probably did it. If the film served a useful purpose it may have been to inspire a generation or three of young scientists to figure out some of the riddles being posed.

For that matter the film represents a more innocent era for modern man, when we could gaze at mysteries like the Easter Island statues and just marvel at them in awe. Nowadays Easter Island speaks for a tragedy where a whole people were wiped out by outside invasion, famine, and eventually disease spread by contact with the Western world. Kind of a bummer compared to heroic alien cosmonauts descending in their rocket ships to immortalize themselves in stone for us to ponder over so many eons later.

If only it were. Also were I to criticize the film stylistically it is for being too one-sided. There's no voice of "the other" suggesting any contrary conclusions just like all good conspiracy theory entertainments. After all, that would distract from the stunning conclusions that all of our pre-history was shaped by contact with space aliens, since those blocks of stone are too big for even a modern day crane to move, etc etc etc. It's a marvelously stacked deck, though just as long as you are aware of that going in it can be fun to follow along at home. Just don't take any of it too seriously, the photography is great, enjoy the music, and pass the munchies dude.

4/10