• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Documentaries that are brazenly inaccurate/accurate that you'd recommend

Status
Not open for further replies.
T

TheOfficeMut

Unconfirmed Member
I'm finishing up The People v. OJ Simpson and researching what the series exaggerated. So far it doesn't seem that much of what the series showed is too bad, but it made me wonder what other series or documentaries really fabricated what happened.

I'm more interested in documentaries that are true to the story because I won't mind watching those, but I'd still like to hear about the more inaccurate ones.

Any examples?

P.S. I was only five years old when this case happened and wow, this shit was wild.
 
QuantumZebra

QuantumZebra

Member
Lol... inaccurate? Check out Dinesh D'Souza, or any right wing documentarian, really.

Good ones - Super High Me, Super Size Me, Food, Inc.
 
L

lightskintwin

Banned
TheOfficeMut said:
I'm finishing up The People v. OJ Simpson and researching what the series exaggerated. So far it doesn't seem that much of what the series showed is too bad, but it made me wonder what other series or documentaries really fabricated what happened.

I'm more interested in documentaries that are true to the story because I won't mind watching those, but I'd still like to hear about the more inaccurate ones.

Any examples?

P.S. I was only five years old when this case happened and wow, this shit was wild.
Click to expand...

Why not watch OJ: Made in America documentary? It's a good companion piece to the miniseries.
 
G

Guevara

Member
Chariots_Of_The_Gods.jpg


Chariots of the Gods?

Very inaccurate, but also very charming. The original of stuff like In Search Of..., Ancient Aliens, and more.
 
Trojita

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
QuantumZebra said:
Lol... inaccurate? Check out Dinesh D'Souza, or any right wing documentarian, really.

Good ones - Super High Me, Super Size Me, Food, Inc.
Click to expand...

Super Size Me was a bit bullshit with and the premise is pretty dumb. He wouldn't share his food log. Would be more interesting seeing a healthy person that eats nothing but healthy food start eating McDonald's every night for dinner. No shoot Spurlock wasn't doing healthy, McDonald's and most other fast food standard items don't have a lot of vitamins or minerals.
 
DOWN

DOWN

Banned
QuantumZebra said:
Lol... inaccurate? Check out Dinesh D'Souza, or any right wing documentarian, really.

Good ones - Super High Me, Super Size Me, Food, Inc.
Click to expand...
Super Size Me is bs but fun. Absolutely not a strongly executed experiment and easily countered by response projects.
 
S

SillyEskimo

Member
"White Wlderness" from Walt Disney, 1958.

The crew threw lemmings off of cliffs and filmed it, creating the myth that persists to this day that lemmings actually do that.
 
W

WhiteRabbitEXE

Member
SillyEskimo said:
"White Wlderness" from Walt Disney, 1958.

The crew threw lemmings off of cliffs and filmed it, creating the myth that persists to this day that lemmings actually do that.
Click to expand...
What I was going to post, haha.

It was actually a misconception long before then, but the documentary cemented it as "fact".

Bonus: they actually flew the Lemmings out for that shoot, lol
 
B

balohna

Member
I've gotten two very conflicting looks at Twin Galaxies and the general classic gaming scene via King of Kong and Man vs. Snake.

The consistent part seems to be that TG has friends and they favour those friends when it comes to records. It seems like if you have a record and they don't already know and like you, it's an uphill battle.
 
T

The Albatross

Member
Not a documentary, but the Oliver Stone movie JFK is completely wrong and it's shaped many people's perception of the JFK assassination. It's still a pretty good movie, it's just all historically inaccurate.

For documentaries, The King of Kong is one of my favorite movies, and it's considered pretty inaccurate. Most of the people involved with the movie have admitted that things didn't play out like that in real life, and that the antagonism between the favorable guy (Steve Wiebe) and the bad guy (Billy Mitchell) was not really like that at all, as well as questionable things about the records being broken. But, it makes for a better movie.
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
Snowybreak said:
Fat Head was pretty fun to watch. And is a great rebuttal to Super Size Me.

I don't know why Super Size Me always made me so uneasy. It might've been because Morgan Spurlock is a huge prick.
Click to expand...

Super Size Me is full of shit, but Fat Head is full of shit as well. For instance, the aforementioned link says "if the obesity epidemic is such a big deal, where are all the fat people?" as if looking around a city square actually explains the serious disparities in nutrition and healthful activities across the country (there are next to no fat people in the world, if I go by Williamsburg, Brooklyn as my sample.)

It takes five minutes of watching the video to see he's got a "guvmint hands off my fries! If I wanna be fat get out of my way" political perspective.
 
H

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
Pumping Iron wasn't so much brazenly inaccurate as it was very staged in several parts though I guess there is some argument as to just how staged certain parts were depending who you ask.

Also The King of Kong A Fistfull of Quarters was definitely made to portray Billy Mitchell as a giant creep and jack ass. Not that it might be totally inaccurate but most people will say that he is nowhere near as bad as the movie portrayed him out to be. In other documentaries that he has appeared in he is usually seen to be acting friendly and helpful to a lot of the other gamers he meets and interacts with.
 
C

crackhead_bob

Member
I would say the King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. Not that I hated that movie, but it's accuracy has been disputed by certain individuals who were in it.
 
A

ACE 1991

Member
I'm a huge fan of Adam Curtis, his worldview resonates with me pretty deeply. However, his documentaries won't be for everyone, and he does sometimes overextend his arguments about technology and politics. Check out the three part documentary series by Curtis called "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace." Be warned though that all of his movies are distressingly bleak/depressing.
 
L

LookAtMeGo

Member
"I Know What I Saw"

A documentary about the mass UFO sighting in Phoenix, Arizona dubbed "The Phoenix Lights."


It's pretty interesting. Former governer Fife Symington saw that shit, he came out after stepping down as governor and didnt have to keep quiet. He knows what he saw guys. Aliems.
 
M

maxcriden

Member
balohna said:
I've gotten two very conflicting looks at Twin Galaxies and the general classic gaming scene via King of Kong and Man vs. Snake.

The consistent part seems to be that TG has friends and they favour those friends when it comes to records. It seems like if you have a record and they don't already know and like you, it's an uphill battle.
Click to expand...

I loved King of Kong but never heard of MVS till now. How was it? It looks like parts of it are animated?
 
H

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
Also most documentaries about finding big foot or the Loch Ness monster or such tend to be... highly inaccurate.
 
H

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
maxcriden said:
I loved King of Kong but never heard of MVS till now. How was it? It looks like parts of it are animated?
Click to expand...

There are actually several documentaries that involve Twin Galaxies outside the King of Kong. There is also Man Vs Snake about a man's years long quest to claim the Nibbler crown as well as Chasing Ghosts which is more of a look back at the 1982 arcade scene. As to Twin Galaxies its a pretty small place focused on a pretty niche section of gaming and gamers so its pretty close knit community and somewhat insular community.
 
M

maxcriden

Member
HStallion said:
There are actually several documentaries that involve Twin Galaxies outside the King of Kong. There is also Man Vs Snake about a man's years long quest to claim the Nibbler crown as well as Chasing Ghosts which is more of a look back at the 1982 arcade scene. As to Twin Galaxies its a pretty small place focused on a pretty niche section of gaming and gamers so its pretty close knit community and somewhat insular community.
Click to expand...

Sweet, thanks HStallion. Did you like both MVS and Chasing Ghosts?
 
H

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
maxcriden said:
Sweet, thanks HStallion. Did you like both MVS and Chasing Ghosts?
Click to expand...

They are both docs on similar subjects but very different focuses. Chasing Ghosts was like a history lessen and Man Vs Snake almost felt like a character study at times. I enjoy them all but I love nerdy subjects, especially gaming related ones. The King of Kong was definitely the most ridiculous but also the most "entertaining" one. Billy Mitchell isn't a huge dick in the other docs even if he does have a big head.
 
P

Poppy

Member
The Albatross said:
Not a documentary, but the Oliver Stone movie JFK is completely wrong and it's shaped many people's perception of the JFK assassination. It's still a pretty good movie, it's just all historically inaccurate.

For documentaries, The King of Kong is one of my favorite movies, and it's considered pretty inaccurate. Most of the people involved with the movie have admitted that things didn't play out like that in real life, and that the antagonism between the favorable guy (Steve Wiebe) and the bad guy (Billy Mitchell) was not really like that at all, as well as questionable things about the records being broken. But, it makes for a better movie.
Click to expand...

as long as that billy mitchell secret tape part is true then thats all i really need, because that was some classic nefariousness

if not then curses! i still like the movie though, no matter how fake it is. it is a fun story
 
B

backflip10019

Member
Making a Murderer was biased as fuck and excluded some key evidence to paint Steven Avery as innocent of the crime he was convicted of.
 
H

hobblygobbly

Member
The PBS Empires series has some fantastic material and all have great narration, for example Liam Neeson narrates the Greek series. Most were made late 90s and early 2000s. http://www.pbs.org/empires/

Most are about 4 episodes, an hour each. The Martin Luther series is my favourite if you're interested in that time of reformation and Martin Luther as a person.

The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization
Napoleon
Islam: Empire of Faith
Queen Victoria's Empire
The Roman Empire in the First Century
Egypt's Golden Empire
Peter & Paul and the Christian Revolution
Martin Luther: The Reluctant Revolutionary
Japan: Memoirs of a Secret Empire
The Medici: Godfathers of Renaissance
 
J

JZA

Member
I'm a fan of the Untold History of the US (now on Netflix), I'm curious what others have to say about it. Secrets of War is also pretty entertaining.
 
P

ProfessorLobo

Banned
I thought the people vs OJ was one of the most amazingly accurate documentaries I'd seen. They'd literally take dialogue from things that were actually said. Awesome series.

Least accurate goes to The Imitation Game. Just friggin awful Oscar bait.

EDIT: I guess you were asking about documentaries and I was just thinking "based on a true story". I wouldn't call OJ a documentary.
 
M

maxcriden

Member
HStallion said:
They are both docs on similar subjects but very different focuses. Chasing Ghosts was like a history lessen and Man Vs Snake almost felt like a character study at times. I enjoy them all but I love nerdy subjects, especially gaming related ones. The King of Kong was definitely the most ridiculous but also the most "entertaining" one. Billy Mitchell isn't a huge dick in the other docs even if he does have a big head.
Click to expand...

Good deal. We'll have to check them out. Thanks so much for the info!
 
A

A Fish Aficionado

I am going to make it through this year if it kills me
Unless it's backed by journalist style fact checking as like, say Frontline, all may be manipulative.

I went through two years in high school in a documentary class, sponsered by the IDA and the teacher would always drill that documentary films are all manipulation.
Fuchsdh said:
Super Size Me is full of shit, but Fat Head is full of shit as well. For instance, the aforementioned link says "if the obesity epidemic is such a big deal, where are all the fat people?" as if looking around a city square actually explains the serious disparities in nutrition and healthful activities across the country (there are next to no fat people in the world, if I go by Williamsburg, Brooklyn as my sample.)

It takes five minutes of watching the video to see he's got a "guvmint hands off my fries! If I wanna be fat get out of my way" political perspective.
Click to expand...

Diet ones always have sketchy "experts" on. Pollan, Taubes, Perlmutter etc. They're selling a product not research.
 
T

TheOfficeMut

Unconfirmed Member
hobblygobbly said:
The PBS Empires series has some fantastic material and all have great narration, for example Liam Neeson narrates the Greek series. Most were made late 90s and early 2000s. http://www.pbs.org/empires/

Most are about 4 episodes, an hour each. The Martin Luther series is my favourite if you're interested in that time of reformation and Martin Luther as a person.

The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization
Napoleon
Islam: Empire of Faith
Queen Victoria's Empire
The Roman Empire in the First Century
Egypt's Golden Empire
Peter & Paul and the Christian Revolution
Martin Luther: The Reluctant Revolutionary
Japan: Memoirs of a Secret Empire
The Medici: Godfathers of Renaissance
Click to expand...

I'm not seeing videos for any of those.
 
M

Mineshaft_Gap

4077th
The Day the Universe Changed and Series 1 of Connections by James Burke. Two of the greatest historical documentary series of all time.

Carl Sagen's Cosmos is absolutely essential viewing.

Ken Burns' Civil War, The Dust Bowl, Prohibition, The West for excellent comprehensive and relaxing coverage of us history. Almost all Ken Burns docs are worth watching.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

  • Poll
Why Dino Crisis remake simply doesn't make sense and what Capcom needs to remake instead.
Opinion Poll Analysis 2
97
5K
ThatPolishGuy replied
Recommend the greatest novel to ever graced your eyes.
2
78
3K
Artoris replied
Phil Spencer interview - Says that their intent is for all Xbox games, including Call of Duty, to be available on Xbox Game Pass Day One
2 3
102
6K
Kenneth Haight replied
  • Locked
  • Poll
Exploring The Complications Of Series X's Memory Configuration & Performance
Opinion Analysis Hardware 2 3 4 5
218
16K
Corndog replied
Dragon's Dogma 2 only had 1/4 of the people credited for working on the game compared to the last few titles by Capcom
2
56
3K
KyoZz replied
Top Bottom