Reviews

I am a geoscientist not specialized anywhere around the topic of Neanderthals, but interested enough to follow publications and progress in this field of science for over three decades. Concerning TV-documentaries, this is among the best I have seen to date on Neanderthals, because it covers in two hours the broad range of life, demise, and continued genetic presence in modern humans with clear examples and convincing conlusions. The facts are well presented and commented by world-wide acknowledged experts in this field.

A must-see for those who wish to better understand the past of our planet, the nature of this fascinating hominid, and his traces in our genome.

Goodness! 'Blade Runner' (1982) scores 8.2/10 out of over 600,000 IMDb-users. When that movie appeared, I was just finishing school and loved Ridley Scotts 'Alien' (1979), one of the greatest SF-movies ever made. Like so many others, I was eager to see Scott's next strike, but the disappointment was all over the place - most who went to see it uttered explicit warnings. It was perceived as extremely boring, with a thin narrative plot stretched to the limits, so that the entire movie seems to be in slow motion. No thrill at all, no tension. The only appreciated point was its dystopic, sinister style, making this a showcase for style-over-substance-movies, which it still is today. But part of the community apparently loves this style and gets fascinated with the dark expression of the movie's content, irrespective of how thin and stretched it may be. While these people dominate internet platforms and movie magazines, they still make only a tiny fraction of the audience out there. Public numbers indicate that about 83 million people paid to see 'Alien' but only about 8 million came to 'Blade Runner' in 1982. Yet, 'Blade Runner' was the long expected successor, meaning that over 70 million potential cinema-visitors stayed away because most of those watching 'Blade Runner' where disappointed, which spread by word of mouth. Without 'Alien', 'Blade Runner' would have probably even gone unnoticed. The number of this audience is two orders of magitude higher than the users voting 'Blade Runner' to a top-rated legendary classic. Therefore, in reality, the audience has voted this movie (by simply ignoring it) as one of the most overrated bores in SF-history.