I get what people are saying here... Let's set that aside for a minute however. The visuals are absolutely stunning first off... I imagine many 4k screensavers will become intertwined into the "deep web" of people's PC's in due time... This alone makes the "documentary," as it were, worth your time...
I think what people are missing out on is just how vital to the ecosystem mushrooms are... Not many people in this day and age that I've met seem to be getting the same kind of education that was given out in classrooms during the 70's and 80's. To reach people you have to give them a sense of hope, positivity and something worth reaching for. This documentary does that WELL...
First off, a little background: my son's mother is heavily into herbal medicine and I've learned and SEEN firsthand the dramatic healing effects of herbs and plant (and mushroom based) medicines... Someone I know contracted spinal meningitis which, if you know ANYTHING about this, has a less than 5% survival rate. Not only did she survive, but what she carried into this made all but certain she would be one of the less than 5%... It is a dramatic story that STILL has the doctors baffled to this day, and something she knew and took for granted.
The stories in this "documentary" are TRUE... I have read the reports of mushrooms that cleaned up oil spills in the Gulf. The utilization of mycelium threads to create batteries could have a revolutionary and profound change in the microchip industry, something that technological companies are having troubles with at this moment (I am an amateur stock trader as well, so I read the news reports every day). And the altered states of consciousness? Well, some of these guys might seem like "old druggie hippies," but what would have given this documentary even MORE credibility would have been to mention the Native American Indians who utilized mushroom teas for clarity and insight.
It's a biased slant to be sure on the part of some of these reviewers, but they seem to be poo-poo'ing decades of quality scientific research. Research papers that I personally have read and studied... In an era where we allow presidents to call scientists with 10 and 15 year studies and masters and bachelor's degrees "stupid," sadly it speaks to just how far gone we as a species have gone. When we celebrate stupidity rather than enlightened, knowledgeable learning and scientific discovery.
Mushrooms are amazing pieces of creation. They help keep life going and have for millions, maybe even billions, of years. Yes, cutting down endless amounts of trees is not going to help this planet, but at least we can seemingly be assured in the knowledge that long after we're gone, the 'shrooms will still be here.
Movies like this are designed to get you to "do more research..." I stopped the movie several times to research and look up the various mushrooms talked about, just to see and learn more for myself. You could ironically consider this movie a "gateway" into a LITERAL underground world that most people walk by and never even consider.
And to those claiming this movie is "political?" The movie did an EXCELLENT job of showing how politics kills off scientific innovation and discovery. This has happened MANY times in our past, and keeps humanity stuck in the dark ages. Let us not forget what happened to the mathematicians like Hypatia who discovered long ago that earth moves in an elliptical orbit around the sun, challenging rigid and unnecessary religious dogma saying the sun revolves around the Earth (hint, Hypatia was murdered by the church). Or more recently, how the Bush administration outlawed stem cell research when it had the potential to save millions of lives and impact humanity in a meaningful way.
