A Terra É Plana

I was thoroughly entertained, this doc allowed the Flat Earth folks to completely explain away their theories and let you decide just how MISLED they are. Getting Scott Kelly to add his two cents was icing on the cake. Seeing flat earthers prove themselves wrong then still deny the truth was an amazing thing to watch, which was also expertly explained by actual psychiatrists of why it happens. Anything without sufficient proof (FE, religion, ghosts, etc) there has to be some true mental gymnastics performed for these things to stay true to believers, and that is also expertly explained in a "loving" way. Highly recommend

It's a really good documentary about the insanity or in my view the self loving promotion of the main characters who seem to only jump onboard this "flat earth" belief because they couldn't find another way to promote how important they want to believe they are and it's shameful that these so-called leaders of this cultish flat earth movement use this platform to make themselves feel relevant which leads people who are looking for acceptance to latch on to something that they can relate to and feel included.. At one point in the documentary a guy has someone purchase a $20,000.00 laser gyroscope so he can prove the earth is flat which totally backfires when the test that he runs proves that the earth has the exact curvature it should have if the earth is indeed round and once he sees the results he wasn't expecting he refuses to share his results with his fellow flat earthers at this conference that was put together but if that's not enough another guy runs a test trying to use lasers but it fails because the laser wouldn't shoot narrow enough to record the measurement needed but he tries again and uses a light and that experiment blows up in his face when the curvature of the earth doesn't allow him to see the light needed to prove the earth is flat.. So I guess it's back to the drawing board to find some other way to debunk the FACT that the earth is a huge ball... Also these flat earthers believe NASA has been lying this whole time and that we've never been to the moon nor have we ever put anyone into space and that other private space exploration companies are actually government backed to help sell the lie.. My neck hurts from shaking my head so much at the idiocies that these poor souls wanna believe in.. All I can say is stop it your embarrassing your mother!!

I have mixed feelings about his documentary. On the one hand, it is pretty clear that these folks are being presented as what they are - well meaning but maladjusted individuals who have bought into a down the rabbit hole idea with zero scientific support.

OTOH, it is also unfortunate to give exposure to such utterly bogus ideas. That is probably a disservice to the the rest of humanity.

As for me, I have been an amateur astronomer for over 30 years and can think of at least a half dozen simple tests that prove that the earth is indeed very round. Of course, presenting these to flat earthers would be a wast of time - if they cared about evidence, they would not be what they are.

In the end, the whole idea that such folks with such ideas even exist just made me sad.

Through the subject of "flat earthers" this documentary illustrates how otherwise normal people get caught up in nonsense and continue to delude themselves.

I thought this documentary would be about the flat earth theory, and what they believe, and why they believe it. And it was that a little bit. But not much. So I was a bit disappointed at first.

But the documentary turned out to be about the flat-earthers themselves, and what makes them believe it; or what makes them not not-believe it. And that was fascinating.

In addition to showing a very-respectful portrait of flat-earthers, it also interjected commentary from physicists and psychologists, who offered their take on the phenomenon (which is actually quite large).

One of the important points that the physicists in the documentary made was that, it's easy to just dismiss the flat earth movement as silly nonsense. The problem is, though, that once people start adjusting their reality to fit a nonsensical theory, then it affects other parts of their reality, as well, and also affects the people around them whom they affect with the theory.

And so you have things like the anti-vaxxer movement, pizzagate, the deep-state theory, and many other things. It's all similar.

So this is a facinating study, not just on the flat-earth movement, but on fringe movements in general, and how they affect us all. And the more the anti-science fringe theories spread, the more they affect us, especially when people who believe them go into government, etc.

There are also a lot of other good points the documentary makes, especially from some of the psychologists they interviewed.

Definitely recommended.

Oh, and about some of the reviews here on IMDB, it's kind of funny that, while most people gave the documentary positive reviews, there were a lot of 1-star reviews. Some of the 1-star reviews were like, "They didn't provide any evidence for or against the flat-earth theory" -- missing the point that that's not what the documentary was about.

But the funniest ones were the ones who claimed that the filmmakers were "really stupid," because they set out to prove the flat earth theory, but only showed how wrong it was.

I guess there's a bit of irony there in the wrong-headed analysis about a documentary about wrong-headed analysis of science. :-)