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Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Fulke Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

alex (doorsscorpywag) If an alien race ever was unfortunate to visit Earth they would have my sympathy and full understanding if they got back in their craft travelled back into space and blew us to oblivion as a precaution against ever meeting such a sanctimonious bunch of self important so called experts again.Starting with the idea that an extra-terrestrial craft has landed somewhere we find that our governments would not want us to know about it as we would of course all panic and start stealing stuff and killing each other.They of course would address this calmly and considerately and assemble an elite team led by David Attenborough as his face is so instantly recognisable. Unless of course you are an alien who has travelled billions of miles and did not have Dave or Discovery channel. Imagine the conversation as the team arrive. Alien. 'who's that?' other Alien 'That's David Attenborough they brought him as his face is so well known.' First Alien 'Oh yeah I loved him in Fools & Horses'.David's team would approach the craft which would by now be surrounded by tanks and missiles and rather scared soldiers who remember how this turned out in Independence Day. Jeff Goldblum may have been drafted as he did well in ID1 and also knows some good stuff about dinosaurs and Math. Bruce Willis and Arnold would be on stand by just in case this goes t#ts up. Also Rodney Trotter for some strange reason may have been alerted.After being allowed an audience our elite team will assault the visitors with a whole range of patronising questions and try to assure the aliens that we came in peace. Which having the History channel would have assured them that this was a lie. We never go anywhere in peace.Do they come in peace? And if so how can we kill them and steal their stuff. Just like we did with the Dodo and the American Indians. The team would have to be careful as words matter. They may ask 'how do you think?' The aliens would reply suspiciously.... 'what do you mean?'. The team would respond 'we want to know how your brains work?'. By this time the aliens would be in full panic..... 'They want our brains....flee'By this time the secret will be out and we will be running around like panicked hens after a well endowed rooster had arrived in the pen.I think it would be wonderful if an alien race came here. Perhaps one day we will see that but if our reaction is along the lines of this nonsense then I would foresee ID2.There would be 3 reasons why they came. 1 to scout our planet. 2 to land and learn about our civilisation or 3 to fix a breakdown. Obviously they did not want to mention 4 to conquer us and use us for food.Whatever happens 4 will always be our default setting and the scientists will not get a look in after the military have surrounded the craft and targeted it with anything that makes an explosion.We even shot Klaatu and he only wanted to give the US President some kind of weird anal probe.Throughout our short History we have never done well with alien visitors. According to many they are already here slipping implants into our necks and probing us anally.So the only sensible action would be for us all to head for the hills. As no matter whether they come in peace or war 5 minutes listening to our elite team would cause them to say (in their alien language that the elite team do not know) Klaatu Barada Nickto which as we all know means 'break out the destructor rays these people are idiots'.

Mikko Aarnio Very interesting documentary, not much about how aliens are going to look, how would they act, but a reflection of humans in a face of visitors.We view ourselves as "moral beings" who still have war against each others, we're corrupt, we are afraid of the unknown. We are afraid of something that we cannot control.In a face of alien visitors, a race that has technology maybe billions of years more advanced than us, intelligence far greater than anything we can produce in centuries.. a being of almost magical properties and with a technology that will seem like magic to us... How can we deal with this "God" himself descending on us humanity. We feel already, with just few signs of "god" appearing to us resulting massive panic and need to form some sort of control of the unknown. We are a race that fears the unknown, and yet we appear to ourselves as capable of making judgment on things that are beyond our understanding. Will we bow to our knees and beg for forgiveness or will we say to these visitors same thing that DC universe movie said to alien visitor: "Tell me... do you bleed?"With such strength of billions of years of advancement in technology, they can wipe us out with just a snap of a finger, create a super virus that can destroy any biological life on instant, they can conjure up black holes in the centers of the planets to consume us all. We feel powerless... and for a good reason.Indeed an alien visitor might share a bright light to us as a species when we recognize that gods that we worship are nothing but an imagery of how we see us... but the real gods might not have such meanings or ethics as we share.Are we really more than a physical beings that really are worthy of saving, are the morals the same as humans, or do they see us like we see cows and pigs, nothing more than soulless selfish beings walking in the dark with no purpose, eating what is presented in front of us... or are we really something of... perhaps divine. Perhaps something that needs to be valued. Is our intelligence enough to give us respect, to give us a reason for our existence?If alien were to visit us, would it be friendly? Would it not just come here to establish a mining colony for their planet, to employ mindless robots to gather minerals and just harvest the planet?Maybe why we haven't been visited is that there's really nothing in our planet that's worth visiting... maybe it's a good thing that we are left alone... for now. Giving a spark of lightning to a monkey in cage would shock it for a lifetime, it would never recover, it would go into panic...As long as our need to control everything is a center of us, it makes impossible for friendly contact lead to something prosperous rather than something that will eventually lead to more misery.Maybe we indeed have been visited, or scanned, but we are seen what we are, a pack of frightened monkeys trying to put sticks together to control everything, and we've been deemed for not worthy of a second visit for thousands of years.The documentary makes very good points on many places but it leaves out the most interesting aspect of the visit, which is our connection to our need for gods, needs for something greater than us to exist... and how it would impact our spiritual ways of thinking.The document is dark themed, but so is life, so are the conflicts between humans. Nothing is what we make it out to be, and that leaves us to hope for a better tomorrow, to seek something of a divine... something lasting, something that is solid. Perhaps our need for god ultimately is a tool for prepare us for the encounter... or perhaps the religion will ultimately make us fear the unknown even more...

doktorwho I wasn't exactly expecting a Carl Sagan or Bill Nye experience here. But a well done documentary about our views , expectations and fear about possible first contact with an alien civilization on a scientific and philosophical level seemed like a great idea.I'm a long time fan of science fiction and scientific documentaries in connection with such controversial themes can be incredibly interesting What I got was over an hour of bureaucrats, scientists and officials spouting very generic one-line sentences about a possible meeting with aliens and having fake monologue with the viewers like they were aliens. A monologue can be a very efficient way to transmit a message to the audience , I understand what the director was trying to do, but you must have some skills in acting and none of the persons in the movie were actors. So as a result it seemed increasingly forced and fake, actually it was downright embarrassing.Most of the people in the interviews seem to be bored, uninterested or unsurprisingly somewhat embarrassed. Worse nothing they said was interesting and you have heard it all before in more entertaining and educational settings. Yes the director managed to make an noneducational and boring documentary focusing mainly on confused officials discussing the fine points of diplomatic protocols when encountering aliens, double whammy.The whole thing lasted one hour and a half but felt like four, people around us were sighing loudly (And rightly so), some even smarter left as I should have.Stay away from this travesty , and if you're interested in the subject I would recommend the excellent "Through the wormhole, How aliens think" (s4ep5) with Morgan Freeman.Even a descent episode of X-file will leave you feel more enlightened than "the Visit" with the added advantage of providing a bit of entertainment

SLUGMagazineFilms The concept behind Michael Madsen's documentary is its greatest asset. Rather than interviewing scholars on events that occurred in the past, Madsen gathers a slew of interviewees to discuss a scenario that has never happened. How would mankind react with our first encounter with an alien life form? While it may sound absurd, Madsen introduces audiences to college professors, scientists, government officials and military personnel who have all had these types of conversations before an event like this has manifested. The majority of the project consist of questions being delivered such as, "Why are you here?" "Do you know good vs. evil?" and "Are we mentally prepared?" As a fan of science-fiction cinema, the thought of alien life on Earth has crossed my mind countless times, but to actually witness plans being formulated for such an event is like nothing I have ever witnessed. Would we reveal our own violent nature to our visitors or keep it a secret for as long as possible? Madsen takes a simple idea and makes us all want to believe something could be out there and, if it ever decides to pay a visit, makes us question our preparation skills. -Jimmy Martin