This is why I can't watch National Geographic. The sound effects are obviously fake, the "whoosh" noises add nothing but annoyance, the music is, besides being redundant, also hackneyed "suspense" rubbish suited to a shoot-em-up computer game, not a nature documentary. The commentator's narration style is horrible, it sounds as though he's talking to a three-year-old child. "Tonight's well-earned meal has been delicious!". Oh, please. They make what could be fascinating watching worse, by producing it in the style of a B-grade action movie, and adding narration in the style of an overzealous elementary schoolteacher trying to forcibly make it seem dramatic and interesting. It's already dramatic and interesting without ridiculous sound effects and absurdly corny commentary, which make it at best patronising, at worst insulting. (The camera work was good, as was the animation, so it wasn't all bad).
With regret I must say that almost every American documentary I have ever seen, on any subject, follows a similar theme of jazzed-up absurdity. There are exceptions of course, but the generalisation "I don't like American documentaries" is frightfully close to being true, for me.
Forgive the whining, this is one of my bugbears, and I must be getting old!
When you swim 'cross the creek, and an eel bites your cheek, that's a-morey...
ReplyDeleteEveryone, sing along!!
There's an eel on the reef, with large nasty teeth, that's a-morey...
ReplyDeleteIf he takes a bite of your thigh, as you're just swimming by, that's a-morey.
Okay, I've sat on this joke for more than a year, now, waiting for an appropriate spot to place it:
ReplyDelete"If the eel has a grin that gets under your skin, that's a moray ..."
Lurker111
This is why I can't watch National Geographic. The sound effects are obviously fake, the "whoosh" noises add nothing but annoyance, the music is, besides being redundant, also hackneyed "suspense" rubbish suited to a shoot-em-up computer game, not a nature documentary. The commentator's narration style is horrible, it sounds as though he's talking to a three-year-old child. "Tonight's well-earned meal has been delicious!". Oh, please. They make what could be fascinating watching worse, by producing it in the style of a B-grade action movie, and adding narration in the style of an overzealous elementary schoolteacher trying to forcibly make it seem dramatic and interesting. It's already dramatic and interesting without ridiculous sound effects and absurdly corny commentary, which make it at best patronising, at worst insulting. (The camera work was good, as was the animation, so it wasn't all bad).
ReplyDeleteWith regret I must say that almost every American documentary I have ever seen, on any subject, follows a similar theme of jazzed-up absurdity. There are exceptions of course, but the generalisation "I don't like American documentaries" is frightfully close to being true, for me.
Forgive the whining, this is one of my bugbears, and I must be getting old!
Apparently the claim that the Moray eel is the only sea creature with a second set of jaws is inaccurate also.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilapia#Characteristics
Oh, that's a freshwater fish. Disregard. (In fact Stan, if you see this, feel free to delete the above and this post =)
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oWDejlVCOw
ReplyDelete