The worst documentary you have ever seen

[Vivi22]

uses one-sided editing techniques to make a false narrative much like the guy from Super-Size Me did except y'know eating McD's isn't necessarily healthy for you which he was correct on, it just doesn't destroy your health as fast as he made it seem.

Not to mention it's been pretty well established that he lied about his dietary intake from McDonald's, did not stick to the rules he set out for himself in the beginning in an attempt to get the results he wanted, and has refused to make his food logs (if they exist) available to anyone last I checked.

Sure, eating McDonald's can be unhealthy, and will especially seem so if you lie about what you're eating and in what quantities, but you could also eat a pretty reasonably healthy diet and even lose weight while eating nothing but McDonald's as long as the guidelines you set out for your meals aren't completely moronic and you actually stick to them. It still won't be ideal most likely, but significantly better than what most people do when eating there.

 

[Queen Michael]

uses one-sided editing techniques to make a false narrative much like the guy from Super-Size Me did except y'know eating McD's isn't necessarily healthy for you which he was correct on, it just doesn't destroy your health as fast as he made it seem.

Not to mention it's been pretty well established that he lied about his dietary intake from McDonald's, did not stick to the rules he set out for himself in the beginning in an attempt to get the results he wanted, and has refused to make his food logs (if they exist) available to anyone last I checked.

Sure, eating McDonald's can be unhealthy, and will especially seem so if you lie about what you're eating and in what quantities, but you could also eat a pretty reasonably healthy diet and even lose weight while eating nothing but McDonald's as long as the guidelines you set out for your meals aren't completely moronic and you actually stick to them. It still won't be ideal most likely, but significantly better than what most people do when eating there.

Preach, friendo.

The most idiotic thing about that "documentary" is the way that he acts as if eating at McDonald's means you have to eat unhealthy levels. If he chooses to compose a daily menu that contains twice as many calories as is healthy, that doesn't mean that McDonald's is unhealthy. All food is bad for you if you eat more than what's recommended for your lifestyle and body type.

McDonald's has nutrition information, pal. If you choose to exceed the healthy levels of fat, sugar and so on, that's because you wanted to.

 

[GabeZhul]

And while I'm talking about documentaries- what the fuck happened to the Discovery Channel and the History Channel? Last time I tried to learn something from the Discovery Channel I tuned in to find a "documentary" about a group of rednecks trying to hunt the Loch Ness Monster. It was just about the most aggressively unintellectual thing since the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. And at this point they may as well rename the History Channel to the Conspiracy Theory Network.

They became what they are because that's what sells. They didn't consciously decide to become a parody of themselves, they just put some experimental bullshit shows on their lineup to see the audience reaction, and the average viewer lapped up their ancient aliens and ninjas VS pirates and cryptid/ghost/alien/whatever-hunters like there was no tomorrow. After that point it just came down to hard economics: stick to decent documentaries with high production values and low returns or jump onto the bandwagon of the crazy-train and rake in the ratings and advertisement money?

If you want to blame anyone for the fall of documentary channels, blame the unwashed masses and their taste for quackery and insanity dressed up as science.

Now if you excuse me, I have to put on my monocle and loudly harrumph at the world for a while. Be right back.

 

[baddude1337]

This isn't a bad documentary, but Restrepo, it's a documentary following a US army batallion's deployment in Afghanistan. It's a good documentry, but there is a horrific part that shows a soldier break down when he see's his friends dead body. It's pretty horrific stuff to watch.

I also concur with someone who said Ghost Stories, pretty much any ghost footage stuff is complete bullshit. I find it hilarious when you can tell how obviously scripted it is. There is also a British one that can be funny at times as they always try to scare the crap out one of the women who present it.

 

[Dizchu]

This isn't a bad documentary, but Restrepo, it's a documentary following a US army batallion's deployment in Afghanistan. It's a good documentry, but there is a horrific part that shows a soldier break down when he see's his friends dead body. It's pretty horrific stuff to watch.

In terms of documentaries that aren't "bad" but are extremely hard to watch, I found Earthlings to be pretty traumatising. It's basically an hour and a half of slaughterhouse footage which can either be seen as excessive or a necessary portrayal of how animals are treated in battery farms. I haven't talked to many people about that film, but it's something I'd imagine would be polarising.

I would not recommend watching it. Not because it's bad, as I said. But because ignorance is bliss.

 

[Elidibus]

So, I did a quick glance through this thread and I'm shocked that no one mentioned one of the worst documentaries I've ever had the misfortune of seeing for a few minutes.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you: Adolf Hitler: The Greatest Story Never Told. https://archive.org/details/AdolfHitlerTheGreatestStoryNeverToldFull6HoursDocumentary

Now, not only does this BS stand firm in the Holocaust denial backroom of the Internet, but it goes much further than that. It turns out, Hitler LOVED the Jews and felt sorry for them. Camps like Treblinka and Auschwitz were fully furnished and included amenities such as swimming pools, theater halls and brothels. (And no, these were intended for the Jewish prisoners to use. There's already evidence that Auschwitz had a brothel for German Officers) And this "documentary" is six freakin' hours long. Ain't no one got time for that!

Being the armchair historian of World War II that I am, I decided to watch a little of it. It started with Hitler's divine survival at the hands of Henry Tandy during the First World War and it just gets worse from there. And one of the worst parts was that for the closing credits, they had the nerve...and audacity...to play a cover of Behind Blue Eyes, by The Who.

How DARE they ruin such an awesome song like that! Granted, the cover is pretty lousy, but it still doesn't make up for it.

Wanna see how awesome a guy like Hitler was and how the modern media totally made up all the stuff about him killing 20 million Jews, despite the fact that former SS officials have stepped forward and CONFIRMED that's exactly what happened? Give it a watch and laugh in the face of things like "historical proof" "eye-witness accounts" and "survivor testimony."

 

[TakerFoxx]

So, I did a quick glance through this thread and I'm shocked that no one mentioned one of the worst documentaries I've ever had the misfortune of seeing for a few minutes.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you: Adolf Hitler: The Greatest Story Never Told. https://archive.org/details/AdolfHitlerTheGreatestStoryNeverToldFull6HoursDocumentary

Now, not only does this BS stand firm in the Holocaust denial backroom of the Internet, but it goes much further than that. It turns out, Hitler LOVED the Jews and felt sorry for them. Camps like Treblinka and Auschwitz were fully furnished and included amenities such as swimming pools, theater halls and brothels. (And no, these were intended for the Jewish prisoners to use. There's already evidence that Auschwitz had a brothel for German Officers) And this "documentary" is six freakin' hours long. Ain't no one got time for that!

Being the armchair historian of World War II that I am, I decided to watch a little of it. It started with Hitler's divine survival at the hands of Henry Tandy during the First World War and it just gets worse from there. And one of the worst parts was that for the closing credits, they had the nerve...and audacity...to play a cover of Behind Blue Eyes, by The Who.

How DARE they ruin such an awesome song like that! Granted, the cover is pretty lousy, but it still doesn't make up for it.

Wanna see how awesome a guy like Hitler was and how the modern media totally made up all the stuff about him killing 20 million Jews, despite the fact that former SS officials have stepped forward and CONFIRMED that's exactly what happened? Give it a watch and laugh in the face of things like "historical proof" "eye-witness accounts" and "survivor testimony."

Man, just reading the comments was painful. Why oh why are there people who still think like that?

 

[RaikuFA]

Indie Game the Movie was pretty bad. 2/3 of it was just a bunch of hipsters whining and crying and 1/3 was Team Meat getting screwed over (which everyone knew by the time it was released).

There was one I saw as a kid where they were looking for a giant squid. Never found it.

 

[flying_whimsy]

Everything and anything produced by Michael Moore is the worst documentary I've ever seen.

I've seen quite a few contenders in this thread, but I think Kyuubi has probably the best answer right here.

There aren't many people I would punch in the face upon meeting, but Michael Moore is definitely one of them. Granted, there are a lot of terrible documentaries out there that do nothing but spread misinformation and ignorance: I'm not a fan of the whole genre for that reason. I'm especially not a fan of stuff that's pretty blatant propaganda or exploitation (holocaust-denials and any TLC shows as respective examples).

 

[Grumpy Ginger]

That's a tricky choice, my litmus test is the "how much I want to punch out the tv screen/ monitor" which was won by both zeitgeist and ancient aliens. I would give special mention to the first bad documentary I saw which I can't remember its name. It was a fox special when they were going to open a chamber in Giza live. While they were waiting they went on all kinds of bullshit the face of mars, martian pyramids, radioactive mummies and Orion belts vs the Giza pyramids bs.

Also any old documentary with a sword fight where the actors look like two little kids playing with sticks

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Ross Kemp did one where he came to Northern Ireland to watch the parades on the 12th July, hung around the flashpoint areas so they'd be guaranteed to see a few drunken idiots acting like hooligans and generally spoke like he was reporting from the Vietnam War.

It was so hilariously 1 sided and just generally bollocks. You'd have thought the whole city was in riot from the way they described it, when you knew two or three streets away there were a bunch of kids eating ice creams watching the bands with their families and not a care in the world.

In Ross Kemps defence, the guy is pretty fuckin hardcore when it comes to getting into the shit for documentaries. More than once he's been in a position where he could of easily been killed. From Malayasian pirates to coked up murderers in drug dens in Detroit. Even the frontlines in Afghan. The man isn't afraid of getting in the down in dirty.

You're right, he has done some really good documentaries, - The one on Detroit gangs was really eye-opening, which kind of made it worse when I watched the Northern Ireland episode and he totally threw the country under a bus.

A similar thing happened when I was watching River Monsters. Normally it is really really sound stuff. Completely scientific and factual, with minimal beating around the bush, but they did a special on the Loch Ness Monster and...
-Well, to be fair the episode was probably the most down to earth documentary I've ever seen on the Loch Ness Monster, and they did stick to strictly scientific and historical stuff, but there was a constant drive to up the tension to unnatural levels that the other episodes didn't have, which attempted to keep the adrenaline flowing at all times, which really encroached on the genuine scientific bits.

There was a part where he went out on a small fishing boat into the Loch, threw his line over and said "I have no idea what I'll catch" Like he might snag the Little Mermaid or the Flying Dutchman or Aquaman or something. A freshwater lake in the British Isles with a river outlet to the sea has half a dozen common species that are pretty much certain to be in there, and another half a dozen slightly rarer. He's a veteran fisherman and he knew fine rightly exactly what was going to nibble on the end of that hook, but played it like the first eel he reeled in was the second coming of the messiah.

There was another bit where they act like a rare and strange species of shark (The Greenland Shark) was some sort of mystical phantom that no one knew anything about. It does have a few unusual traits, but zoologists are well aware of them, yet again they sort of played it as a crazy scientific mystery animal of myth.

The episode was still really good, it just would have been better if they'd spent less time creating useless tension.

 

[dragoongfa]

So, no one here pointed out the obvious one...

How about 'The Secret'?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0846789/

Just wish for something hard enough and the universe will bend over itself and make it happen; that's the law of attraction.

 

[dragoongfa]

In my defense, speed reading has its own downfalls