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(More customer reviews)Super Comet - After the Impact is a Discovery Channel special that basically takes the comet that wiped out the dinosaurs and puts into modern times. They used the same type of cometary body assumed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, the same size, same impact location, and utilized all the computer modeling they have done on this past event to try to show what might happen (and to show what they think happened then). Not terribly creative and suggests that they really don't know all the effects of such an impact and are just putting things together from what little they have been able to figure out about that one impact, some (or much) of which may be just speculation, though I'm sure that there is some good science going on there.
The cheesiest part of this "docu-drama" was, of course, the depicted foibles of the humans experiencing the event. The show included some cheesy drama, following the struggles of several individuals or groups, before, during, and after the impact, to show how people would react to such a global cataclysm. Even though cheesy, maybe those depictions were useful. The one guy who simply couldn't grasp the nature of the event, kept traveling "home" (which happened to be the site of the impact) even when it was clear that there was no home left. His emotions and his ignorance basically drove him to his own death.
Other people continued to act as if the world was still the same place and suffered thereby, though they learned to cope. There's the typical dumb teenager whose inability to grasp the nature of what is happening (not to mention that her parents weren't very forthcoming with information), who goes running off after a dog. Her parents go after her, eventually find a car, and then the father and teen run off and leave the mother sitting in a running car like it was double parked at the bank! Like desperate people weren't going to steal it immediately with the sleeping mother inside?! Sheesh. Mainly, the characters all acted like they fell out of the stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down! What was clearly evident was that it was lack of knowledge about such events that was the chief problem for all of them.
There were a number of experts trotted out for the "docu" part of the docu-drama. I think I would rather have seen a show that was just about the science with the experts and special effects than the silly way this thing was put together.
One interesting item: at one point, one of the experts made the remark "WHEN it happens," as though he - and the rest of them - knew for a fact that this was on the agenda for our near future. The very fact that so many scientists are working on these problems, including a large number of them studying the possible human reactions and behaviors and how to deal with masses of people, should warn us that there IS something they aren't telling the masses in the headlines of our daily newspapers, though certainly they are "testing" public reactions with shows such as Super Comet - After the Impact.
If you want to know what is really in the future, read Victor Clube's The Cosmic Winter and Comet/Asteroid Impacts and Human Society: An Interdisciplinary Approach.
I had to make myself continue watching this one since I wanted to get up and leave several times. I kept thinking "I could be reading a good book..." But I stuck with it just to see if they had anything new to say. They didn't. It was weak and unsatisfying... cheese with no bread.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Super Comet (2007)
Imagine a world cloaked in complete darkness. Food and water supplies disappear, tsunamis and fires rage, and scorching temperatures plummet to an Ice Age cold within months. Many scientists believe these cataclysmic environmental changes wiped out the dinosaurs after a gigantic asteroid struck the planet millions of years ago...and some say humans could be the next species to face extinction. SUPER COMET: AFTER THE IMPACT dares to bring the unthinkable to life in a fascinating look at how humans could adapt to a new world plagued by devastation on a global scale. You'll be riveted as you watch this unfolding of ultimate destruction that also celebrates the will of our species to survive despite incredible odds.
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