Chasing Ice : Beautiful but flawed

Beautiful but flawed

The photography was amazing. The major calving event, the night shots and the cavedive especially. However, I saw two major flaws.

1) The movie spends too much time on Balog. In my opinion, he shouldn't have been in the movie at all. Definitely smells like a vanity project.

2) It doesn't address the new conservative scepticism enough. Basically, "OK, it's happening; but it isn't man made."

Re: Beautiful but flawed

1) Are you kidding me? It does not. The project this film was based on was Balogs vision, and he was doing a lot of the dirty work himself. Not a vanity project what so ever.

2) Maybe it wasn't supposed to. Maybe the film isn't supposed to be as political as everyone else wants it to be. Personally, it's stupid that massive detrimental changes to our planet is seen as "politics as usual".


Shine sweet freedom, shine your light on me.

Re: Beautiful but flawed

1) I would have preferred a version of the movie that did not include Balog AT ALL. Why did we have to see his trip to the doctor except that he wanted us to see how committed to the project he is? Who cares? Let the science and the images tell the story.

2) The movie set the politcal tone when it used all the clips of Fox News talking heads saying that global warming is a hoax. They have since switched off that position to it is real but not man made.

Re: Beautiful but flawed

Yes, but they have switched again since Rubio gave the state-of-the-union-rebuttal: the official line now is "yes, yes and yes, but we can't do anything about it because of China!"
You have got to keep up!

Re: Beautiful but flawed

The five cyclic stages of a global warming sceptic:

1) There is no such thing as global warming, the earth is in fact cooling!

2) So the earth is in fact getting warmer. So what? Humans have nothing to do with it!

3) So there might in fact be a connection to human activity, but a degree or two more sounds quite nice!

4) So there might in fact be catastrophic consequences of such an increase in temperature, but we can't do anything about it because of China!

5) So China might actually be able to do something about this, despite their massive challenges, but there is no such thing as global warming, the earth is in fact cooling!

Re: Beautiful but flawed

Great summary! Don't forget "It's not us, it's the sun", "plants take up all excess CO2", "it is volcanos", "global warming has stopped", "CO2 is just a trace gas", "there is no concesus", "we are like Galileo", "didn't you see that big snowstorm we just had", "water vapor is more important than CO2", "model are always wrong", "what about the medieval warm period?", "what about the little idce age?", "Al Gore is getting rich off of this", "liberals are trying to create a new world order", "fixing it will kill the economy", "insurance companies are inflating their costs", "scientists are in it for the money", "ice is increasing everywhere", "in the 1970s scientists warned of cooling", "other planets are warming too", "climate has always changed"

Re: Beautiful but flawed

Of course there was a bit of vanity involved, the man spent a lot of money and a lot of time and sacrificed his health to complete the project. So, I can't hold it against him for throwing that in. Plus, it shows what kind of hardships come with going after a dream or a big, ambitious project; it's not going to go as smoothly as you'd hope, it may even hurt, but if you want it badly enough you'll see it through to realization.


The rest of the film pretty much speaks for itself.


Life! Don't talk to me about life.

Re: Beautiful but flawed

Yes, because the scenes of him at the doctor took up perhaps 10 minutes. By the way, the science and images did tell the story.

This was his project and he was involved in it. Like it or not.


"Old Man look at my life, I'm a lot like you were."

Re: Beautiful but flawed

Of course he was involved, but so were a lot of other people designing and building custom circuits, dealing with all the gear, logistics, funding, etc. The question is about the choice to make the movie also about him. I'm guessing that most documentaries I see don't do that.

Personally I found the human story to be interesting as well but I certainly didn't need it. I also didn't need the emotional soundtrack, but it was lovely as well. One good reason for including the teem footage is because they were often the only objects giving the viewer a sense of scale. It's then natural to wonder "Who are these people?", so they get dragged in.

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Re: Beautiful but flawed

Mr. Balog is quite pleased with himself. Some would say he is smug. I bet he drives a Prius.

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Re: Beautiful but flawed

@threeschs, I agree with you but I saw elements of reality TV in this documentary which is what you're calling a "vanity project". Reality TV is one of the worst things to happen to entertainment ever! And hearing about Balog's struggles with his knee, then accompanying him to the doctor was the totally unnecessary, vanity/drama/realityTV aspect that I found most annoying.

Re: Beautiful but flawed

I agree with your first point, I felt the movie was more like his auto-biography and not just about climate change.

Why would I save a world I no longer have any stake in?

Re: Beautiful but flawed

I think this was addressed at the very end of the film. When he makes the comment about answering to his daughters. The knee stuff and the focus on him in general is supposed to be a call to the rest of us.

"Yes, his knees are shot and he has two girls at home who are growing up too fast, but this story needs to be told and anything less 100% of our efforts is not going to cut it. What's your excuse?"

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