Love Alex Honnold. Love climbing documentaries. Love wildlife and exploration of never before seen places. Love conservation and discovering new species. So when all of these combine, you know you are in for a treat. I felt the same, but this documentary seems a bit off.
First, you don't see the need to lug an 80 year old man with a team of helpers through virgin Venezuelan rain forests, trampling through tons of vegetation, destroying habitats, all to get to a tepui and climb it up when you can helicopter him there or even use drones.
Then, you show the biologist capture live specimen and put them in plastic bags to suffocate and die, for him to carry on his research. Surely we must have progressed to better ways of researching species.
Halfway in the hike they realise the dude won't be able to go up the mountain, so they send Alex and his sidekick up, to collect an never before seen frog. They go halfway up the tepui, trample on some more printine vegetation, stick their hands in a puddle and grab a tadpole and bring it down.
Everyone seems happy by the end, except perhaps the viewer. Because we didn't get a proper hike, nor a proper climb, and even didn't get to see if the tadpole they retrieved was a new species. Looks like everyone was tired and wanted to wrap up this documentary. And the documentary itself felt like an excuse to climb up an unclimbed tepui but needing a biologist to finance it.
Gave 4 stars for Alex Honnold and the Venezuelan rain forests.
First, you don't see the need to lug an 80 year old man with a team of helpers through virgin Venezuelan rain forests, trampling through tons of vegetation, destroying habitats, all to get to a tepui and climb it up when you can helicopter him there or even use drones.
Then, you show the biologist capture live specimen and put them in plastic bags to suffocate and die, for him to carry on his research. Surely we must have progressed to better ways of researching species.
Halfway in the hike they realise the dude won't be able to go up the mountain, so they send Alex and his sidekick up, to collect an never before seen frog. They go halfway up the tepui, trample on some more printine vegetation, stick their hands in a puddle and grab a tadpole and bring it down.
Everyone seems happy by the end, except perhaps the viewer. Because we didn't get a proper hike, nor a proper climb, and even didn't get to see if the tadpole they retrieved was a new species. Looks like everyone was tired and wanted to wrap up this documentary. And the documentary itself felt like an excuse to climb up an unclimbed tepui but needing a biologist to finance it.
Gave 4 stars for Alex Honnold and the Venezuelan rain forests.