The first I'd heard of 1977 UK hoax film Alternative 3 - broadcast on British television as part of the very real documentary series Science Report - was when it was reviewed on this pages by our own Collin Armstrong as part of his regular Seldom Seen feature. Well, shortly after Collin's review went live we got wind that UK distributor Soda Pictures had a DVD release of the film in the works and that disc has just arrived in our grubby hands. The film itself is remarkably well preserved for a thirty year old television production, the style absolutely dead on for the 70's doc style that provided its cover and led to millions of Brits falling for the hoax story about scientists moving to Mars to plant a fresh civilization in advance of the earth's ecosystem collapsing under the weight of human abuse and neglect. The film itself is strikingly bold but what really makes this a worthwhile disc is the primary bonus feature, a half-hour documentary that reunites the three principals behind the hoax almost thirty years to the day after the film first aired. It's labeled a making of but it's more of an ongoing discussion and dialog between the trio about what drove the initial creation of the piece and just how frighteningly accurate it has proven to be - if not in terms of humanity fleeing to Mars then certainly in terms of humanity choking itself on its own refuse.
I'll defer to Collin's very thorough and accurate review but let me just say that this is one compelling piece of work and Soda deserve full credit for preserving this little oddity and releasing it in a way that proves its relevance.
Cool Release. Have to check this out!
OK SODA, time to step up and put out THE CANADIAN CONSPIRACY (another classic hoax documentary) onto DVD. City-TV in Toronto used to air it all the time, I'm sure there is a copy in Moses Znaimer's attic somewheres.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285470/
I've been reading quite a few books on conspiracy theory lately (purely for occupational reasons of course...) and it seems people refuse to believe this is a hoax. Or that it is a hoax but it's actually the truth that's been made to look like a hoax so nobody would know it's the truth and that proves that it's true. If that previous sentence didn't make any sence then it managed to represent their theories perfectly.
Apparently there has been whole books wirtten about the "truths" presented in this documentary.
Wow. Can't believe I squinted through that copy of mine all these years. The whole disc looks great - love the packaging, with all the response headlines on the inside of the sleeve.
It's a good day for the televisual arcane :)