Racing Extinction (2015)

Director: Louie Psihoyos

Writer: Mark Monroe

Stars: Elon Musk, Joel Sartore, Louie Psihoyos

Storyline:

Scientists predict we may lose half the species on the planet by the end of the century. They believe we have entered the sixth major extinction event in Earth's history. Number five took out the dinosaurs. This era is called the Anthropocene, or 'Age of Man', because the evidence shows that humanity has sparked this catastrophic loss. We are the only ones who can stop it as well. The Oceanic Preservation Society, the group behind the Academy Award® winning film THE COVE, is back for "Racing Extinction". Along with some new innovators, OPS will bring a voice to the thousands of species on the very edge of life. An unlikely team of activists is out to expose the two worlds endangering species across the globe. The first threat to the wild comes from the international trade of wildlife. Bogus markets are being created at the expense of creatures who have survived on this planet for millions of years. The other threat is all around us, hiding in plain sight. There's a hidden world that….

Details:

Official Sites: Official Facebook | Official Facebook

Country: USA | China | Hong Kong | Indonesia | Mexico | UK

Language: English

Release Date: 18 September 2015 (USA)

Also Known As: 6

Racing Extinction Reviews:

I found harlemblues review to be a terrible misrepresentation. They are prepared to call the documentary dishonest, but have many misrepresentations in their review. Where to start?

Is a documentary required to 'focus(ing) on one aspect?' No. Why? This documentary showed the top to the bottom of the problem we are facing - from climate change, to overfishing, and many others. Focusing on one aspect would have been incomplete.

Yes, I am sure that many of the issues have been covered in other documentaries. This is an important topic. Not everyone has seen those other documentaries.

No, this documentary isn't essentially racist - which is the implication of this review. Some bad things happen in China and Indonesia. These are illustrative problems, and not an attempt to paint these people as all bad or criminals. Some people have been sold a lie about a product making them feel better. The demand for this product leads to absurd outcomes. The outcomes serve as a representation of how people (almost all of us) are damaging the planet. They mention the terrible contribution of CO2. The damage done my farming. The cost of our transport and industrial production. Yet because they went after a few (Asian) people who were doing either bad things or pointlessly damaging (but financially beneficial), the whole thing should be written off?

This wasn't a documentary about poor people. That's for another documentary. It should be noted that they tried to help them see another route to the money - money that will be gone when they've killed all the mantarays for that pointless trade. Sure, we don't want those people to starve, but to suggest that they continue that practice because it makes some money is absurd. Presumably those same people were doing something to live before the Chinese were sold some bunkum about mantaray gills.

This review is filled with insecure hate about 'hero white guys' and telling the filmmakers where to go to get their footage. Some of these things happened in Asia. We know they happen in other places, but at the moment there is a problem with exotic species in China. Would it help to understand the problem if we do the opposite and have Asian people busting 'white guys' in Alaska?

About the time the director cried, I was crying as well. This is an immensely important documentary, that isn't perfect. The footage is stunning, the problem is overwhelming and urgent, and the message is - in the end - just the slightest bit hopeful. It is a shame that when a documentary is so well crafted to show so many aspects of the problem as this one does, that someone could take from it the message that I read from harlemblues. Just another sign of the uphill struggle.