Michael Moore produced film pulled from one distributor

[Ya' Cousin Cleon]

 

[ADevilYouKhow]

Wat?

 

[HellRell804]

 

[Professor Emeritus]

I'm of two minds about this.

On one hand, the reason I'm not a Michael Moore fan is because he DOES often use disinformation in his films. He is misleading, he edits deceptively, he purposely fails to give the whole picture. I loved "Roger and Me" and only much later found out that it was presented out of chronological order in a manner that was somewhat misleading. Then Farenheit 9/11 is full of all sorts of bullshyt.

On the other hand....the people who are claiming "misinformation!" are the exact ones he's criticizing in his films. The ones who think we can solve this shyt just by trading technologies, who end up serving a machine that is as profits-focused as the one before it and ignores the substantial impacts of the new tech and the failure to stop the actual trends of destruction.

Here are some of the critiques pulled from a very negative review published by the distributor in the OP:

Film Review: Forget About Planet of the Humans

SHAME on these filmmakers for making a film like this, full of misinformation and disinformation, to intentionally depress audiences, and make them think there are no alternatives.

I am an award-winning documentary filmmaker making films on environmental issues and renewable energy for over 40 years, and from making these films became a leading activist in Nova Scotia on environmental issues, and also a renewable energy developer and advocate.

Let me make it absolutely clear that the new documentary, Planet of the Humans, by Jeff Gibbs — with executive producer Michael Moore, is inaccurate, misleading and designed to depress you into doing nothing.

I mean, I'm sure Neal is a great guy, but the fact that the critique is written by a renewable energy developer, the exact target of Moore's film, is enough reason to take it with a grain of salt. The guy owns a hydro-electric plant and a small commercial wind plant. And claiming the film is "designed to depress you into doing nothing" seems ridiculously false - the first Coli breh who reviewed it said that the message was to reduce overconsumption, and didn't give the slightest hint that it's some sort of trojan horse for anti-environmentalism.

Planet of the Humans uses the most worn-out editing techniques to emotionally manipulate the viewer. We see windmills from the early 1970’s, the early days of wind power, which are long gone. We see on the street facile interviews, with film editing techniques to make environmental leaders look dumb. We see a dying orangutang as the film ends to make you cry. But nowhere does the film show us how to get off fossil fuels, by showing us where renewables are working. Nor does the film help us to stop forest destruction, by showing us places that have taken steps to protect nature, and there are many places that have done so.

It's a Michael Moore film, I'm sure it's emotionally manipulative. But the point of the film isn't to "show us how to get off fossil fuels, by showing us where renewables are working". The point of the film was to show that renewables have their own problems and renewables without reducing overconsumption isn't a solution. He simply wants the film to reflect his message rather than Moore's message, but nowhere in the review does he show that overconsumption isn't a problem in itself.

And saying, "showing us places that have taken steps to protect nature" might be a nice thing, but if overconsumption is the issue then "showing us places that have taken steps to protect nature" is a waste of time. If one place protects nature then our continued overconsumption will simply shift the destruction to a different place. Unless we address the GLOBAL issue of overconsumption, how will protecting one bit of local nature not just shift the problem?

I have nothing against green energy. I think we should definitely switch from fossil fuels to green energy. But by itself it is not enough.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Another set of tweets.

He adds, "The film irresponsibly ignores the decades of peer-reviewed climate & energy science that goes into the current environmental movement," and goes on to say, "The film disregards the #GreenNewDeal, the 100% renewable energy plans of Stanford University and others, the @BernieSanders campaign and the basic foundations of science upon which renewable energy policy."

Yeah, um, when the country actually gets behind the #GreenNewDeal and the @BernieSanders campaign rather than #WhiteOldBiden @BusinessAsUsual, then maybe I might give a fukk. But the whole point of the movie is that those in power are transitioning from fossil fuel profiteering to green energy profiteering while maintaining the same problematic assumptions - that the market will save us and we don't actually need to change our lifestyles.

One tweeted, "Wasted 2 hours of my life that I’ll never get back watching this lazily-researched misleading tossed salad of NIMBYism and debunked garbage science. We’re lowering energy prices and GHG emissions while growing economy. Apparently [the] film’s creators prefer smaller economy/population."

I mean, lowering GHG emissions is good, lowering energy prices and growing economy not necessarily so, for the reasons mentioned in the film. Many of us WOULD prefer a smaller economy for very legitimate reasons, a huge amount of the output of our economy is wasteful bullshyt that doesn't contribute to human thriving, but is only the result of an insane drive for profits and debt payments that forces everyone to constantly strive to "grow the economy".

Nuccitelli then wrote, "My favorite part was when they looked at a former solar farm location in Daggett, CA, now just sand, and declared the revelation that it's become a "solar wasteland." I pulled up Google Maps and found Daggett in the Mojave Desert. It's all sand out there!!! WTF?!"

That's just fukking ignorance. There's live desert and there's dead desert. Live desert is full of plants and animals, it's an amazing ecosystem. Dead desert is....just sand. I know multiple ecologists who tell me that giant renewable projects in SoCal are killing the desert there. This deserves to be taken into consideration. There certainly may be ways to do it right with minimal impact, but at least in some cases it is having a big impact.



Now, they might have valid critiques too. Like I said, I wouldn't be surprised at a Michael Moore film failing to give the whole picture or portraying things in a deceptive manner. But the film could be imperfect AND they may also be failing to take the valid criticisms seriously.