Were human beings visited by alien beings in ancient times, did they give us much of our current knowledge and help to erect the fabulous monuments that exist and create wonder, awe and a sense of mystery to this very day be it the stone head statues on Easter Island or the wonderous pyramids of Egypt? This documentary explores Erich von Däniken's controversial theory that aliens visited and affected humanity in ancient times.
Unfortunately CHARIOTS OF THE GODS makes for a rather dull, dry viewing experience as it blandly goes about stating its theories about aliens but offers very little true support and evidence for its claims beyond the mysterious ancient artifacts it examines for the most part all too briefly. The best thing about the documentary is it acts as sort of a travelogue for many of the world's most fascinating mysterious places giving us all too brief glimpses at some of the world's most astonishing monuments from the past. Get someone else with a true fascination for these places to have provided the narration and this might not have been so uninspiring to the viewer. The worst element here however is how the documentary never ever looks at all the other potential explanations for said items. Maybe humanity was simply more advanced than realized? Maybe those in ancient times had fanciful, imaginative ideas they wanted to find some means to express? Maybe it was simply connected to their religious beliefs?
A more balanced look at all the potential explanations for these many mysterious places and their unusual, startling monuments might have proved far more interesting. As this is, really there's little to recommend it beyond its footage of some of the world's most mysterious places (one does wonder why and how they could have forgotten Stonehege?!).
** out of *****
As a kid watching this in the 70's I loved it. It was fasinating, but with todays anicent TV producitons CHARIOTS OF THE GODS as a film documentary may have become rather dull by todays standards and full of what is now common UFO lore.
Here's part 1 of 10 of CHARIOTS OF THE GODS.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9N6Drxzst6I&feature=related
Its strongest element was probably its exploration of the pyramids and the statues on Easter Island. Some really good footage taken there.
I remember reading the book by Erich Von Daniken's also.
Wasn't this put out by a company called Sun Classics, who put out a number of other films about this time? I think they spent most of the film budget on the TV ads advertising their films. As they certainly didn't put their money into the film itself.
Quote from: BoyScoutKevin on April 14, 2008, 07:15:44 PM
Wasn't this put out by a company called Sun Classics, who put out a number of other films about this time? I think they spent most of the film budget on the TV ads advertising their films. As they certainly didn't put their money into the film itself.
Sun Classics....hehheh. Yeah. They did documentaries on All sortsa things....Big foot,Jesus,and psychic phenomenom. I remember seeing one at the theater called IN SEARCH of NOAH's ARK. They would also do family films to. Remember THE LIFE AND TIMES of GRIZZLY ADAMS,with minor biker actor Dan Haggeredy? Boy....I used to love the TV show.