Icons Unearthed

"The Vice Channel" has once again made another excellent gem type series as this one "Icons Unearthed" is fantastic and all pro like as it looks at the behind the scenes making of some of Hollywood's biggest movie franchises. Each episode is so revealing and informative as it features vintage historic behind the scenes footage(some even early movie making moments!) and interviews with cast and crew are given where they give their own takes and thoughts. And the many pop culture experts tell about the secret history of each franchise and how it impacted movie cinema and American pop culture. So far the series has had many seasons as it most popular and most watched and well like one's by me have been the seasons of "Star Wars,", "Batman", and "Marvel". Overall this is one series that film buffs and film and pop culture historians should not miss.

I've been watching the one on Batman since I've been a big Batman fan since I was a young child. It starts with the Batman movie series before Adam West. Then movies into the Batman tv series featuring Adam West. Then goes into Batman from 1989. It makes absolutely no mention of the Batman movie from 1966 staring Adam West. Makes no reference to the Justice Friends, which is not technically Batman but does had Batman in it. The series devotes an entire show to Batman from 1989 and then another episode to Batman Returns. The show then completely skips Batman the animated series and all the movies that stem from it, which chronically would be the next part of Batman, but goes to Batman Forever along with Batman and Robin which is mashed into one episode. It says Tim Burton was not involved in Batman Forever, yet he is listed as the producer. It is called Icons Unearthed and yet there seems to be a lot missing. The show professes to The Dark Knight trilogy, which surprisingly lacks detail about a lot of things like character selection, why they did not do the Robin/Nightwing spin off they seemed to set up in The Dark Knight Rises. As the show discusses The Dark Knight Rises they say Anne Hathaway silenced her critics, quickly followed by the fact that the movie had the lowest review scores of the trilogy. I don't like Hathaway's portrayal of catwoman and have heard many say the same. It makes a brief mention of The Joker and The Batman but ends with discussing them or Justice League, Batman vs Superman or even Flash which has 3 different Batman(s) in it. It's called Icons Unearthed and yet there is a lot they did not even mention.

I just can't take anything from Vice seriously.

Everything they produce is done with either a sensationalist view or from the view of their political ideology. I don't believe anything they produce can be trusted to be accurate or compete.

There are more than a few comments that back up my pint of view with detailed information about the failures of more than one of their productions. From incomplete telling of the History of Batman, to a complete failure of the recounting of the making of Star Wars. Both subjects have literally mountains of source information, and it should be a no-brained to be able to compile that information into complete and accurate histories. Yet Vice failed miserably on both those accounts, therefore there is no possible way to be confident in anything else they produce.

Watched the ones on The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter which were fascinating... then started the on on James Bond but had to cease half way through the first episode as the narrator was seriously the most irritating presenter you could (never) want to listen to.

I had to see if she was anyone famous as I thought I recognised her voice... and can't for the life of me imagine why she was selected... A big fat no from me.

Besides the ones I've already mentioned that I enjoyed are there any others worth my time and attention? Definitley give the James Bond one a very wide berth is my recommendation.

I love almost all the content regarding the making of star wars. I have read the books on it and have seen multiple documentaries, interviews, and more regarding it.

So when I saw a new series came out on the making of star wars, I watched it immediately! I was so excited!

Instead, I could barely get through the 2nd episode. The documentary is a disjointed biased mess. They have random writers and people describing things that happened while making of star wars, even though these people weren't even involved with it. There are a couple people interviewed that were actually involved in the making of Star Wars, with the big one being Marcia Lucas, which the documentary seems to be heavily biased towards, as if to appease her cooperation. I also felt like the documentary is trying to force a bunch of drama on the viewer that wasn't necessarily there.

I couldn't help but feel that this documentary is telling me a much worse version about the making of Star Wars than the more official documentary - Empire of Dreams. Instead of a random writer telling you George Lucas felt ill from the stress of making star wars, you can hear George Lucas say it himself in Empire of Dreams. Instead of random people telling you what Fox thought, you can hear Alan Ladd Jr. And a board member themselves tell you what the situation was. This occurs throughout the whole thing! Empire of dreams has interviews with Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Gary Kurtz, and much more! To put the icing on the cake, in episode 2 they even take a clip from Empire of Dreams where Steven Spielberg is interviewed and they use it here! I'm just baffled that Vice thought it was worth their time and the viewers time to retell a story that's already been told in a much better way.

If you want to watch the making of star wars, skip this show/documentary and watch Empire of Dreams instead.