alt Hacker NewsThe late 1970's were the golden age of documentaries: Connections, Cosmos, Civilization, The Ascent of Man and Attenborough's Life on Earth.
Perhaps it's just me, but modern documentaries are rather dumbed down?
As a side note: Quite ironic that he ends up pointing to a rocket propelled mostly by solid fuels.
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Yes, but the YouTube ed channels are such a treasure in and of itself. We had the “tech” to produce content like this for almost a century, but it took the Internet and democratization of content creation to come up with gems like smarter every day, veritasium, extra history, etc
My fear is that this is also being reshaped with ai, mostly for good now but I feel like the personal touch and passion of these creators is being diluted with the advent of generated content.
Maybe we are in a valley of the uncanny valley and the ai tools will become so good that they can successfully translate someone’s passionate vision faithfully, then it could be another renaissance.
I also feel most of the documentaries are awful these days. There are a feww that are pretty good but I miss the older stuff.
> Perhaps it's just me, but modern documentaries are rather dumbed down?
It's not just you. Most modern TV documentaries, especially series, are dumbed down and sped up. Fast cuts, lots of woo, not too much to challenge your brain, don't want it to get strained.
Gone are the days where someone conveyed the information calmly while not driving a car somewhere irrelevant. No more lingering shots allowing you to process what you just saw and heard.
It was the golden age of the US at least also. Times that belittle, defund, or destroy science or art are dark ages.
>Perhaps it's just me, but modern documentaries are rather dumbed down?
A pet peeve of mine is the sound effects added to nature documentaries. I had to explain, once, that the ants do not actually sound like robots no matter how far you zoom in, despite the whirring of servos that the editors decided to add in.