Lost on Everest

Rating of pictures about climbing Everest automatically starts from 5, simply the view is gripping enough. But as a documentary, the story is not new, shooting is not any special, does not shed any new light.

This program seems promising at first but then Mark Synnott opens his mouth. I was expecting a little more substance from National Geographic. Then again, perhaps they were disappointed, too. Synnott comes off as a rather self indulgent man-child who's been given a camera crew and lots of climbing gear. His commentary is so self-serving, it's ridiculous.

Comparing the unbelievably long line of summit seekers to Malory's and Irvine's experience (I mean, it's basically the same thing, right? And he just wishes he could be up there with them...) in a whiny voice tells you everything you need to know about this "documentary." My advice: give it a miss.

A very disappointing documentary. The weak theme throughout this film was searching for Andrew Irvine, but it became glaringly obvious it's a facade to summit Mt Everest. I found the entire crew to be very selfish and disrespectful to the Sherpas, who received no acknowledgement for carrying and guiding them up the mountain. Wouldn't recommend, unless you're interested in watching a bunch of old men bathe in their own self righteousness and describe dead climbers as "spooky"

Before watching this I thought the reviews about them not searching only summitting were relatively harsh. After watching this, I don't know what to say.

This isn't a documentary and I'm really embarrassed for the crew. How come they published this? Are they not ashamed?

I have read The Third Pole by Mark Synnott. It's the book about this expedition and I liked it a lot. If I remember correctly, he describes that they had problems with the sherpas because they wouldn't allow them to search or go off rope and they would only help them go up the mountain, if they summitted. So they had to change their mission, they had to make it look like they want to summit. This made sense to me, especially because there was a notion of the Chinese removing Mallory's and Irvine's bodys etc. But actually summitting wasn't necessary I think, they could've blown their cover the moment they were at the search site and this film makes this as obvious as it can get. Sure, they may had to descend on their own, but who knows if the sherpas would actually left them there on their own.

And why is this whole thing about not being allowed to search for the bodies not covered in this so called documentary? Is it even true? After watching this, I don't know anymore.

The photography is remarkable. The talent and determination of the climbers and crew was also admirable. But it's about 15 minutes too long. We got the message very quickly that we are watching an heroic search for a dead explorer. So don't keep hammering that into us every few minutes. It's also redundant to keep telling us what difficulties the crew had to endure. It sounds like a rationalization to make us feel better about what turned out to be just a massive ego trip.