SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Celia A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

indiepoppedhearts-174-356068 Quite a few reviewers are being far too harsh and expecting this to be something else that they watched. This does a good job of answering the question presented in regards to who asked the question, someone from New Guinea. It explains the limiting factors that keep a population from being able to free up enough of their individuals in order to allow them to focus on objectives not to do with getting food. There are more answers to the question if you change who asks it but in pertaining to the people that asked the question it does a good job of covering the basics of some of the bases.Yes, there are scenes of him failing at using some tools. It seemed to me like a demonstration that westernization means nothing to ability and intelligence.I would suggest showing this to just about anyone. While it doesn't cover all of the bases it puts the information it does cover in an easily understandable format and explains factors as simply as possible.

rsignal I get that Prof. Diamond is trying to answer the big questions of "why?" some civilizations invented "cargo" (material goods) and others didn't. I have not read the book, and just watched the first episode of this miniseries.A lot of the details of the argument ring true to me. The worldwide distribution of beasts of burden, types of farm crops and weather patterns all certainly have an effect of the rise of civilizations. But this can't be the whole story, or even the major part.When showing Diamond interacting wit the New Guinea folks, the emphasis was on the New Guinea struggles to get food. Hunting is inefficient, and farming is difficult labor due to the crops and lack of domesticated animals. Okay - but what was really striking is what was the lack of a written language. At the end of the episode, Diamond says something to the effect that if only geography had been different, then the New Guineans would have invented the helicopter, and not Westerners.The problem with this argument, is that in order to invent a helicopter, you must first understand fuel, energy, materials, densities, air molecules, physics, weather, and hydraulics, just to name a few things. I agree with Diamond that the New Guineans are plenty smart to understand all those things, but in order to generate knowledge, a society must have a physical way to disseminate knowledge (scrolls, printing presses, paper, etc) and culture of acceptance of new ideas (criticism of new ideas is fine, indeed necessary to refine knowledge). Diamond didn't discuss the role of culture at all, and this is a huge omission.Ultimately any theory of the rise of civilizations can be supported by cherry-picking data. This is a historians job, not a scientific endeavor. Diamond has his theory, and any number of people have their own theories. I personally don't find Diamond's theory to be very compelling.

dimplet If you are in an anthropology class and get an essay question on the final, and you don't answer the question, what sort of grade will you get?The question "Guns, Germs and Steel" purportedly set out to answer was: "Why do white people have so much cargo, but we New Guineans have so little?""Cargo" originally referred to the manufactured goods brought in on cargo planes, and became a general term to describe all sorts of stuff, including pens, paper, radios, factory made clothes, books, boxes of cornflakes, fertilizer, cars, etc. So the question is why Western countries make more manufactured products than under-developed countries like New Guinea. GG&S instead talks about how, beginning some 10,000 years ago, various agricultural techniques, crops and animals contributed to the development of more advanced, complex civilizations. Diamond doesn't say whether he took an introductory cultural anthropology course, but if he had, he would have probably learned about this; the theory has been around for at least 40 years. He then talks about why Western countries were able to conquer and colonize the Americas and much of Asia: Because of superior weapons and, incidentally, germs that killed people in these new regions by the millions. OK, got it. But when the Europeans arrived, they weren't bringing tons of cargo in their small sailing ships, beyond that needed to do a little bartering. The "cargo" comes much later, in the 18th and 19th centuries, and has little to do with agrarian practices, and much to do with the industrial and scientific revolution that was born in Europe. So to answer the New Guinean's question, Diamond should have explained the origins of science and technology, and its applications in industrial and factory production, including the assembly line. But why did this scientific and technological revolution occur in Europe, when the Middle East, China, and ancient Greece and Rome had at least some science and technology that just sort of petered out?Diamond doesn't say.He does say that he thinks the New Guineans and the people of other under developed countries are as intelligent as people in developed countries. I agree with this; there is absolutely no link between genetics of groups and IQ. What you do have is a vast difference in education and knowledge. Europeans found a way to, in a sense, pool individual intelligence and knowledge. A vital step was the creation by Queen Elizabeth at the suggestion of Sir Francis Bacon of the first government supported and funded scientific societies. These societies enabled scientists to share and critique each others' work, and to publish these findings for anyone to read, a truly revolutionary idea. This not only spurred further scientific research that spanned generations, but made it possible for any common person with common sense to apply these scientific principles to technological innovation and produce a product that could make them rich. Throw in mass produced books, newspapers and journals by movable type printing presses, patent protection, and a free market with economic mobility, and you got "progress," a self-propelling growth of new ideas, new technology and commerce. This is where the "cargo" comes from. Why didn't regions like China, India or the Muslim Middle East create "progress"? In part, because they valued tradition and stability more highly. Another reason is because they value the social group more highly than the individual; Europe placed more value on individual non- conformity. This is why these regions still lack self-generating progress (much of China's "progress" comes from industrial espionage, theft of intellectual property and general plagiarism).If you want to learn where the "cargo" came from, what you really need to watch (and read - the documentary is the key work, but he talks very fast) is James Burke's "Connections," a true work of genius. I have read a fair amount about the history of science, and I can tell you that I have never seen anything like what Burke's account. Sure, he relies on the historical work of others, but he shows the chance, non-linear connections between science and technology, step by step, and why they occurred. (It's available on Youtube.)For these connections to occur, there needed to be a culture that encouraged the sharing and expansion of knowledge. That's what was different about Europe over the past 500 years from every other region of the world in all other eras of history. You can't explain that by guns, germs and steel.So if this were Jared Diamond's essay test in cultural anthropology, he would deserve a C minus, for not answering the question. There is far too much redundancy, with the second and third episodes spending far too much time recapitulating the previous episodes -- padding the program. It is also short on originality over what social scientists already knew, though there do appear to be some original ideas. But it is still worth watching, puts those ideas together in a novel way, and provides a perspective on the history of the world that many people will find interesting, especially high school students.

dheald This film is an attempt to present Jared Diamonds theory of "Guns, Germs and Steel", explaining how Europeans have dominated much of the globe.The version I saw of this documentary came on 2 discs covering 3 hours. I think the information could have been presented in 20 minutes. There are completely useless scenes of: Professor Jared Diamond watching birds through binoculars, Professor Jared Diamond failing to use a bow and arrow properly, Professor Jared Diamond firing a muzzle-loader badly. Was this documentary supposed to make a hero out of "Professor Jared diamond?". This part of the documentary was so bad, it could have been a spoof. The worst was when Diamond is shown breaking down and weeping when touring the malaria ward in an African hospital. None of this helps me understand his theory of "Guns, Germs and Steel." BTW, "Guns, Germs and Steel" is said about 100 times. "Can the Europeans guns, germs and steel get them out of this dire situation? Stay tuned and find out!" When he finally gets down to business, his theory is equal parts interesting and utterly boring. Europeans conquered the natives peoples of other lands, because they had guns and fine blades against stone and wooden weapons. Do I really need a professor to convince me of this? The parts of his theory that explain how the Europeans came to have the advantages that allow the conquest are interesting, but the coverage is paper-thin.In the end, I think the documentary was only trying to convince me that non-Europeans are as capable as Europeans. If I'm not a racist, I already know this. If I'm a racist, Jared Diamond is not going to convince me with his bumbling use of native implements.I don't think adults are the intended audience for this documentary. Kids may enjoy this more than I, though. I have read that the book from which this documentary is much better than the documentary.