L'antica apocalisse

'Ancient Apocalypse' is an often confused, and generally arrogant, attempt to sensationalize history through one person's insistence of a rather ridiculous idea, and his desire to pick a fight with archaeologists, historians, and scientists.

Graham Hancock insists, on the one hand, how archaeologists and scientists all around the world have locked themselves into this one idea of human history, and are unwilling to change their perspective in light of new archaeological evidence.

On the other hand, he takes all the evidence, the myths and legends of diverse cultures, and any facts, hints, and suggestions he can find, and twists them all to fit into his own idea of an incredibly advanced, forgotten ancient civilization while doing exactly what he constantly accuses academics of doing: not being willing to accept anything which defies their own perception.

He has visited some amazing places, found some fascinating links between separate cultures across history, and maybe even come up with a few half-decent ideas about why we need to continue extensive research into our past to better understand our ancient ancestors.

However, the biggest conclusion he has drawn is largely nonsensical. The way he keeps implying ancient humans could not have progressed as they did, to discover agriculture and build large monuments and structures, without the help of some advanced civilization forgotten by history is plain arrogant, insulting, extremely annoying, and rather hypocritical given he accuses archaeologists of the very same arrogance he displays himself.

An old conspiracy theories believes he knows more than actual archaeologists and is so I'll researched that he can't even get basic dates for the sites he uses correctly. Netflix really just sunk their money into this oil spill of a ship for people to pretend they know what they're talking about.

How about making an actual documentary series with established real archaeologists who have actual credentials and experience instead of letting this wrinkled legume get off on his own ego and drag every pseudoscience loving freak with him. If you have an interest in history just do some research but don't take the steps back that watching this mess would take you.

Hancock leads us on a nice and tidy path of his research and field of interest during the past decades, and gives us an compelling theory of lost civilizations due to global cataclysm.

Critics of this documentary series seem to dislike Hancock for his rejection of consensus in fields like archeology and geology, or dislike Hancock for being arrogant and bitter (in rather arrogant and bitter wording themselves).

Personally I find the theory well substantiated, enough to warrant more interest and research. I'm filled with a burning desire to see more of the submerged structures, and to excavate areas that have only been found via LiDAR scanning.

If you'd like to dip your toe into some groundbreaking theories relating to ancient civilizations, and the possible reasons for so little remaining for us to find, this is an excellent start.

This isn't a very well made show at all. It feels like something they made for a NatGeo show back in the 2000s but much less factual. The amount of slow-motion, pan-over drone shots of the worksite and Graham Hancock power-posing seem to outnumber the frames that actually meaningfully push the content forward.

Essentially the show continuously presents archaeological evidence that refutes the typical timeline of human history, which Hancock insists must be because of this advanced ancient civilization we've lost contact with. There's no evidence though of these mystical capabilities.

It genuinely feels like Graham Hancock is just showing up to various active archeological sites with a film crew, asking the workers questions, and then splicing out the parts of the interview that may further the ongoing narrative. I'm not convinced that the archaeologists presenting their findings are doing so in support of his theory, they're just having individual frames of content being mined out of interviews and interaction.

Why is this concerning? It's a film that has been made professionally enough to be called documentary even though it's not factual. Someone who doesn't really have a whole lot of attachment to the issue would probably entertain this as a factual documentary without looking too critically at it. And someone who is a genuine conspiracy theorist would allow this to feedback into their disbelief in genuine science anyway.

Could go on on, but I'll stop here.

Okay, so I watched this cause I'm an archaeology buff and I have to say I'm divided. On the one hand, this guy has a perfectly believable point which is that History as we know it is basically incomplete because we are missing large parts of time in our records due to war and cataclysm. That's a theory I can absolutely get behind. He essentially states that we have forgotten more ancient, advanced civilisations than we currently know. So in this theory Sumeria is not the oldest by far and human "civilised" history is actually several millenia older. Again I might be inclined to get behind that. He chalks up this amnesia to the ice age and willing ignorance from the academia. Having been in the academia myself I cam confirm that it can be stifling place full of people who are extremely reluctant to admit they might not hold the absolute, final truth so again far enough. But then it takes a turn into crazy Mulder conspiracy land. Not only is academia narrow-minded and humankind amnesiac, no. The truth is that all ancient civilisations are descended from a single super ancient, super advanced forgotten civilisation. And the evidence for this is that a bunch of them have kind of similar legends about their origins. So basically I sorta of agree with his premise but his conclusion is banana pants. He completely throws out the scientific method and he absolutely does cherry pick his legends and his facts. Being from one of the countries he visits and talks about I can confirm that the legends of my country he chose isn't even the most common one. This guy uses a very effective method to try and convince people which is he mixes up facts with the unknown and people's inherent desire for the mysterious to have meaning and then leads you down a very odd rabbit hole. I'm giving it 6 stars cause some of the things he says and presents are interesting enough that I'll read about them later on but also because he kinda goes down a cray cray path there. Oh and one star down because he talked to Joe Rogan.