Tag Archives: Adam Siegel

No, Michael Moore did not make a documentary called “Planet of the Humans”

That was some other guy. The recently released documentary “Planet of the Humas” was written by Jeff Gibbs and Directed by Jeff Gibbs. See?

No mention of Michael Moore there. This is a Jeff Gibbs documentary.

Michael Moore does have a lot to do with this production, though. He is the executive producer, and he seems to be promoting it. But it is not his baby. It is Jeff Gibbs’ baby. We don’t know how much Moore was involved, or if he’s even seen it. (Well, he’s probably seen it, but did he only see it after it was done?)

Why is this important? For a rather sad pair of reasons. Here they are:

1) Trusted, sincere, carefully done analysis from several different individuals shows us that Planet of the Humans is not a good documentary at all. It borders on dishonest (if not charging across that border several times) and while here and there in the film there is surely an important message or two, the messages are supported with information that is mostly bogus, biased, some kind of balderdash.

2) Many people love and respect Michael Moore and his work, and a large number of individuals have, in my experience, decided that since this is a Michael Moore joint, it must be fabulous, and it must be true.

So, I say this to you, Michael Moore fan: This documentary sucks, but it is OK that it sucks. This is a documentary by Jeff Gibbs, not by Michael Moore. So, it is OK to pay attention to the many voices of critique. Indeed, as my friend Adam Siegel asked me earlier today: “Who is the real victim here? Is Michael Moore a victim of his friend Gibbs’ poor work? Does he know how bad this is? Poor man,” or words to that effect.

Speaking of Siegel, he is the one on-line expert who has gone all meta over Moore. He has assembled a series of posts, the most recent (on top of the list below) being the most comprehensive but all are worth a look, that put together the panoply of critiques of Planet of the Humans. Go read:

Moore’s Boorish Planet of The Humans: An Annotated Collection

Planet Of The Humans: Moore Trouble Than It’s Worth

Distributor pulls Michael Moore’s (@MMFlint’s) #PlanetOfTheHumans due to truthiness & errors

For #EarthDay, Michael Moore (@MMFlint) releases fundamentally misleading film

Sometimes less is more. In this case, Moore is less.