Why is the negative review displayed by default?


First, I'm biased. I loved this documentary and learned a lot from it. IMHO, it should be required viewing for all sentient people. But ignoring that, let's look at numbers:

This flick has 8.3 rating based on 32 people rating the film.

Only 1 person gave the film each a "1" and a "5". The other 30 people gave the film either an "8", "9", or "10" rating.

The film presently has 4 text reviews. 3 of those reviews are glowing, showering the BBC's work with praise. 1 review is highly critical and basically dismisses the film as a conspiracy theory.

Yet the 1 critical review is the one that is displayed by default when you view information about this flick.

Does anyone know why that is?

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I find it perplexing how s/he admits to only watching part of the first one, and yet manages to come up with such a strong (and inaccurate) opinion of the documentary.

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[deleted]

[deleted]

I think you should see the entire first episode. The first episode is easily the best of the three, and lays all the groundwork. The first episode is groundbreaking in its investigation of the ideological roots; the second and third installments are just filling.

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As far as inaccuracy goes I don't know how you got this idea from watching it

"It insinuates that Osama Bin Laden was a war lord in the conflict when he was only a visiting fighter.."

I did not get that out of the 1st programme at all, and thought that overall it said Osama's position was as you describe. As to your point about Osama's interview with Robert Fisk, does it occur to you that he has an agenda too, and might perhaps not be entirely truthful as to the extent of his US assistance? I also think you were unfair in comparing the style of these programmes to Michael Moore's highly personal, but emotionally overwrought and manipulative films. The Power of Nightmares by contrast is rational in tone, and asks many more questions than it answers. In particular you do not have to buy his whole argument to find much that is thought provoking. As such I think your charge that we who found the film interesting are being "spoon fed garbage" by the BBC is also ridiculous.

Before watching this, I found the right wing assertion that terrorists were simply bad people doing bad things over simplistic, but now I have a more fundamental question. If as the programme asserts there is no international network of terror, which interestingly you seem to accept too, what is the "war" on terror about? How do you wage a conventional war on an idea? I also thought the films were very illuminating in their exploration of some of the ideas of Leo Strauss that underlie the neocon's pernicious ideology. It explained to me something I had previously found utterly mysterious, namely how such intelligent men could talk such simplistic nonsense.

Overall I get the impression that you had already decided what the films were saying before watching them.

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[deleted]

Hi

For its faults I do not believe the BBC is lying to us in the sense that is tells untruths, I believe like all media out lets its tells the government line, as to say the they lied, one u have to prove it and too its ur opinon.

As for sky news being a really good news service, are u nuts, its a load of rubbish, now the slur u gave on the bbc is indeed spot on with sky, but then thats my opinion.

All news networks pander to the establishment, and toe the line, bbc tried to break away but was reminded by the powers that be who their masters were.

As for th doucmentary, i found it intersting and refreshing and a good balance to the dirty bomb drama doc of which i wsa not too pleased about. I did not believe in the docs premiss that obl did not 9/11. It seem to accept this without the really questioning the offical version, while when it comes to iraq, and afghnistan it did try to do that. If osma did not do 911 then the wars logic would collapse. They should of pursued that line and lightened the world to a new rational for osma's non capture. It is clear that obl and co are working for the americans/british, but it not clear what the context is.

All over good.

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You want it, you'll get it.

"I only caught some of the first part but the programme makes the very subjective point that the rise of Islam came about when a young Egyptian student studied in America and came to the conclusion that Western society was decadent, corrupt and meaningless and it was this that caused the culture clash."

Never judge a book by its cover. You're not able to know what has been shown what you haven't seen. It could be anything. Hence you're not able to write a review about the documentary because you haven't seen the< documentary. If you reply, i'll deliberitaly ignore any comments from you regarding Part 1 unless you specifiy you've seen it as a whole. Futhermore, its lowers your credibility over the whole documentary simply because you haven't seen the whole documentary.

"The fact that I can't recall the name of this student from Egypt shows how how important he is in the scheme of things."

Perhaps there's something wrong with your memory? Perhaps you didn't care for it? The fact a murderer cannot recall what he did means it wasn't important, didn't happen? Ugh. You assume the reader sees your memory as credible, humble and accurate; I, by default, would not touch such assumption from an unknown person with a 10 ft pole unless he or she is known to me for having an excellent memory and being humble.

"You might be shocked to know that that ALL ideaology is based upon the notion that the society we live in has no moral worth and needs to be changed."

1) Its written 'ideology'
2) Where do you argue this point?
3) No moral worth? Why no?

"Who are you inclined to believe? This subjective pseudo documentary or Bin Laden himself?"

A good question which you don't answer at all. You first argue this documentary has it wrong because OBL said something different. Then you push your own opinion via 'subjective pseudo documentary' while you don't push such about OBL whereas you don't question OBL's credibility.

"But does this mean Islamic terrorism is not a threat to the West?"

The author did not argue otherise this with a 'yes'.

"Does this mean for example the Israelis should stop searching Arabs at check points?"

Israel was left out of the movie. I bless the author, for that subject is both heavily loaded and blurred that an independent documentary would be needed to flesh it out. James Miller tried to make one of how life goes there (which is not about history), with his own footage, but unfortunately he got shot.

"Does this mean people should be allowed to carry knives onto jumbo jets?"

Does it mean Americans should be allowed to carry guns? You see, i'm able to produce unrelated rhetoric the movie doesn't docu as well.

"Again it's a ridiculous notion that because Islamic terrorism is aphallic in structure we've not to worry about terrorist atrocities."

That wasn't the point of the author. I think you misunderstood it and that based on your own beliefs you oppose the theory you're confronted with. After all, Curtis his theory is a Nightmare :)

"You might like to remember the BBC made a docudrama a couple of months ago called DIRTY WAR which had the scenario of a dirty bomb exploding in London , and let's not forget the BBc co-production called THE CELL"

Moot point. Its simple actually: Adam Curtis != BBC; BBC != Adam Curtis.

As for your comment questioning BBC's neutrality: I'm well aware no news station is neutral and those who took BBC for granted were and are wrong; however some networks are taking it to the extreme for their agenda which is far from objective and fact-based. Compared to these, BBC is an utopia. What's that sound, did i hear someone mentioning Fox News somewhere? Must have been a nightmare...

I've been loving too much, caring too little -- TormentoR.

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"First, I'm biased."

Every human is. Its no shame to be biased, but by only saying you're biased you don't show why you're biased. Just tell us why you're biased or don't tell it at all; we already know you're biased, but most likely (without looking you up) we don't know why you're biased. It also has to be applicable (for example because of commercial interests or competition) but thats ultimately up to you to decide wether it makes sense or not.

<removed other part of comment because of factual incorrectness>

I've been loving too much, caring too little -- TormentoR.

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