Fans of human evolution have always had a thin time at the movies. Back in the 1960s, the standard fare was stuff like One Million Years BC in which photogenic actresses in exiguous fur bikinis ran the gamut of pterosaurs, tyrannosaurs and beefcake co-stars sporting equally unlikely get ups and attitudes. Entertaining for some, but scientific nonsense. It felt like someone had tried to make Apocalypse Now using the cast and sets of The Sound of Music.
In our view, only two serious movies tried to paint an authentic picture of what everyday life might have been like for our ancestors. 2001: A Space Odyssey(1968) gave us 15 minutes at best of some pretty authentic australopithecines. Quest for Fire (1982) tried to pitch a later time, among the various human types of the late Paleolithic. And that was more or less that. Now some brave new filmmakers have tried again with Out of Darkness, here reviewed by Penny Spikins for The Conversation. We won’t spoil the review, which you should read for yourselves. [1] But we will note that Penny is an expert in the field, so approval from her is approval indeed. And the central idea of the film-who is “us”, and if they’re not, ought we to kill them?” is not without resonance today. So you don’t have to be a big caveman fan per se in order to go along and check this out.
Declaration of interest: at the time of writing, we have not yet seen this movie. But we sure as hell are going to, even if it means going alone. So there.
#science fiction #horror #film #stone age #human origins
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