[Cerek]

Originally Posted by SpiritWarrior But here we get to the root issue. If the movie was flawless you still could not get behind it, and would always disagree with the overall message because you don't believe in it to begin with.

That's where you are wrong.

My disdain for Michael Moore has been well documented on IW over the years. I honostly cannot think of enough deragotory comments to describe my feelings for him and the crap-films he touts as "documentaries". However, despite my absolute disgust for Moore and his work, I accepted the challenge years ago to actually watch Bowling for Columbine. I discovered two things when I did. One was that ALL the criticisms I had read about the film were TRUE. He used half-truths, misleading dialogue and spliced film in a deliberate attempt to FORCE the viewer to accept HIS vision of the issue. You chastise me for not watching Al Gore's film? I don't have to. Despite any spin added to the smears, the fact remains that his film DOES contain at least 9 documented material innaccuracies. Add to that the fact that Al Gore has admitted it is common and accepted practice for environmentalist to exaggerate the data and it's impact in order to create "alarm" about environmental issues. He also admitted he, himself, had exaggerated claims of the global warming impact in order to "heighten awareness" of the situation. I watched Moore's film and found out all the flaws he denied actually DID exist in his films. So why do I need to watch Al Gore's film when it has been proven to contain inaccuracies and is narrated by a man who has admitted he has exaggerated data in the past to create extra alarm. The answer is, I don't.

Now then, the second discovery I made while watching BfC surprised me. Despite my personal feelings towards Michael Moore and his mockumentary style of filming, I had to admit he did raise a few valid points in his movie. The sad thing is, the movie would have had a much larger impact if Moore would simply have let the data speak for itself instead of intentionally manipulating it in order to make his viewpoint appear stronger. In fact, his tampering had the opposite effect. A decent message was tainted because the data was very obviously manipulated, so the overall message is denigrated by his actions. The same applies to Al Gore's film and the global warmers consistent cries of "Doom and Gloom! The sky is falling." By routinely exaggerating the data, they impair the message. It's a real life version of the boy who cried "Wolf". Is the danger real? Perhaps. But how can we know the true extent and impact the danger may have when we are constantly fed "alarmingly exaggerated" data? The answer is, we can't.

When you taint the data, you DO taint your overall message.