Black Holes: The Edge of All We Know

A disjointed documentary that used confusing graphics and failed to link the two storylines. The subject is interesting, but the science wasn't explained so it was hard to tell who is the intended audience. Overall, this doc felt aimless and without a point.

If you're as fascinated by the universe as I am, you'll like it, just because.. Well, it's about seeing a black hole for the first time. But it's a poorly produced film that's actually almost impressively boring in its form. The story here is mind blowing - too bad the movie producers couldn't encapsulate that in a better way.

It's uber frustrating because this kind of documentary, which I love to seek out, is rarely made well. The show suffers from what I call a "wedding slideshow" - it's meaningful only to those working in the inner circle.. those who get the inside jokes. But I believe one of the main reasons this show is made is to elucidate certain things to the public? Otherwise, there won't be interviews and feeble attempts at explaining?

It's horrible because 25% of the content is mindlessly repeated assertions of how terrifying/magnificent an object/phenomenon is, 25% is interviews in which the experts rehash the same terminologies with some self-gratifying anecdotes thrown in, 25% is showing - often without a context - the experts "in action" (for goodness sake, many of these are theoretical physicists, theoretically all they need is pencil and paper, some others are programmers/ engineers who build intricate things, so there's no point trying to portray them like astronauts walking on the moon, really), 20% is inane and literal graphics that not only fail to demonstrate anything, but also reinforce any misconception that people might have, and 5% or less is the much needed context to whatever people are talking about.

But it could've been so much better. For example, why should information always be conserved? What's the information paradox? Why is it a paradox? Why many papers have been written about it, and what's problematic with some of these? It doesn't need to explain anything in-depth, it's impossible to do so in a show anyway, it could be just a glimpse into the important questions/answers. See, when multiple telescopes can work as one is explained using the mirror shards analogy, it's super succinct and clear even to laymen. That's what we need more. Is the explanation in any way comprehensive? No, of course not, but it will suffice for the viewers to move on to the next terminology or discussion, and if they're interested in it, they can go on to devote their lives to getting a much more complete picture of it. I had some understanding of some of the concepts prior to watching this, but still it's not meant for either beginners or advanced learners or... anybody. I mean, you have some of the greatest scientists in the world at your disposal, and you spend time showing the first page of some papers? Does the director even care about the subject?

Some efforts are desperately needed to give a proper context to all the terms/remarks/concepts/stories/challenges thrown into the kitchen sink that is the show. Otherwise, it's just a wedding slideshow for the experts to pull up from time to time to enjoy over a glass of wine - which I doubt they'll do, and I think isn't the intention of the documentary.

On the very year the documentary was released, the Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Roger Penrose "for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity".

Yet the name of Penrose is not to be heard once in that movie. And the director (Peter Galison) is not the type to be ill-informed.

On the other side, it also struck me that the Nobel committee waited until the death of Hawking to award a prize for black holes.

Anyone has an insider's view on that?

I don't know about other reviewers, but for me the theoretical physicists seemed like a bunch of groupies, fawning over Hawkins and belittling their own work. Meanwhile, the lead project astronomer comes off looking a lot like a bully with some of his comments to his colleagues. Yeah, it's high-stakes, I get it, but the guy just didn't seem like he had leadership quality.

Is this a true depiction of science? Maybe it is. I have no idea.

But what's clear to me is that this documentary really dumbs it down, to the point that you have ask the question: why bother doing this kind of documentary if you're going to assume that your audience are idiots? Despite all this, I still give it a 7 overall just because there's a dearth of good documentaries about black holes.

Too bad this one wasn't a bit better.