The Neutron Bomb

Peter Kuran really knows how to tell a story! Trinity and Beyond is an excellent documentary that capitalized on much of the declassified Cold War-era nuclear testing footage as well as interviews with the people who worked firsthand in those programs. Neutron Bomb is an excellent addition to T&B and his other films about the history of nuclear weapons development in the US and around the world. They've gone through years of footage and data to tell the stories of these terrible weapons that continue to shape the world we live in. I highly recommend watching both films, as they are time capsules in their footage and interviews about the thinking behind the decisions to develop them and provide insights into their role in the world today.

This is a very poor documentary.

I hate reality tv and that's what this is. I watched the documentary to learn about militaristic, political, and moral aspects of the neutron bomb. There's been some fake footage. I didn't take notes about all of it but I'll mention two cases.

Have a look at the "Photos" section of the Imdb page. In there you'll see WW II military guy with medals on his chest. But he's not actually a guy who lived through WW II. He's a modern day actor. The screenshot is from fake footage in the documentary created by the documentarian to seem like period era footage. The second example is fake footage of the bombers dropping their ordnance on Korea in the Korean War. It was clearly CGI stuff masquerading as actual period footage.

I stopped watching at 28:53. I had had more than enough. The vast majority of American "documentaries" are sensationalistic rubbish. I expected this to be different due to the subject matter. I'm greatly annoyed. Now I have to find something else. I'm going to focus on public broadcasting - PBS, BBC, CBC, and the like. I suggest that you do the same.

Whatever you do - avoid this thing.