Ancient Aliens: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

Ancient Aliens: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

Look, up in the sky!

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 6, 2010

Long before the ability to fly became technologically possible, Mankind has gazed skyward and dreamt of miraculous beings with whom some sort of communion was possible, a communion which could bring answers to fundamental questions of being and meaning. As Man progressed, ultimately becoming able to soar heavenward, suddenly that desire to reach beyond our planet was mirrored in a rather odd way in books such as Erich von Däniken’s huge 1968 bestseller Chariots of the Gods. What if in fact our tendencies to gaze toward the stars to divine (no pun intended) ultimate answers came from an actual experience of Early Man having interacted with visiting aliens? It sounds patently ridiculous, of course, but von Däniken trotted out a whole host of earthly phenomena that at least hinted at long ago visitors from outer space, everything from the miraculously positioned pyramids at Giza and rock behemoths at Stonehenge to Biblical passages such as Ezekiel’s supposed “spacecraft.” While a certain class of scientist pooh-poohed von Däniken’s thesis from the get go, the author’s assertions caught the fancy of the public and initiated a whole new class of scientist (some would argue quasi-scientist) who began to more rigorously explore this bizarre yet fascinating niche of anthropology and, in a way, archeology. Now over 40 years after von Däniken published his theories, the History Channel has jumped into the fray with Ancient Aliens, a rather surprisingly interesting and informative journey through various cultures’ artifacts which some people think at least allude to long ago visitors from outer space. This new Season One Blu-ray set spreads five almost 90 minute episodes out over 3 discs (the slightly longer pilot is included as a bonus).

The Evidence. This initial episode of the series proper lays out the groundwork for what is to follow over the subsequent outings of Ancient Aliens. We meet a wide variety of scholars and experts, many with the requisite PhD after their names but few if any that rise to the level of a Carl Sagan or Stephen Hawking, as might be expected given the subject matter. The Evidence is actually a quite compelling journey around the globe as the show looks at a huge variety of ancient culture’s depictions of various flying craft, including the ancient Hindu Vimanas. The Evidence also postulates that the famous Nazca line drawings may in fact be runways or landing strips. The episode also “interprets” various ancient texts to at least raise the possibility that ancient folktales are hinting at air travel. We get some more modern science with a sidebar dealing with Tesla and transmissions of electricity through a wireless grid which utilized obelisks.

The Visitors. This episode deals more with actual reported sightings, whether relatively recent, as in the Roswell, New Mexico occurrence, or more ancient, as in legends which still surround such long ago peoples as the Egyptians and Dogon tribe of Mali. As in a lot of Ancient Aliens, we’re introduced to discrete elements from various religious texts from around the globe and then given this series’ experts’ opinions that these ancient tales are actually about historical visits from planetary guests. The Visitors does do a nice job of introducing a wide variety of ancient scripture and legend and pointing out that virtually every ancient culture looked skyward, insisting that ultimate answers came from that direction.

The Mission. Possibly the single most compelling episode of Ancient Aliens, The Mission asks the deceptively simple question, “Why?” If indeed we have been (and may continue to be) visited by aliens, why exactly have they come? This episode starts with Mankind’s own mission, in this case to the Moon, and then wonders if aliens have been on a similar exploratory quest to “seek out new life.” The episode then gets into some more sinister, or at least semi-sinister, hypotheses, as it deals with some people’s insistence that humans are the result of genetic mutations caused by aliens, or in fact are the result of cross-breeding with aliens. The episode has some fairly gruesome footage surrounding animal mutilation, including Snippy, the poor horse whose carcass started the modern idea of cattle tampering by aliens. There’s some interesting data on the area of Wiltshire in England, where such redolent structures as Stonehenge, Avebury and Silbury Hill reside. There’s also a nice segment on the “Fermi Paradox,” wherein the iconic physicist asked another deceptively simple question: “Where are they?”

Closer Encounters. Were you aware that everyone from Thomas Jefferson to Christopher Columbus had seen aliens? Well, that’s what this episode wants you to believe, anyway. This is the episodic television equivalent of one of those old Time-Life books on the occult, which goes through a historic panoply of events, usually related by second or third hand sources, and then draws some patently silly conclusions from them. It’s interesting, make no mistake, but this is one episode that should be taken with a grain of salt (not to mention a Pillar of Salt, as Lot’s wife evidently also encountered little green men, or something like that). There actually are some really fascinating anecdotes here, including the first sighting of a UFO early in the “American Experiment,” from Governor John Winthrop in 1639, who saw something strange and unusual in 1639. There’s also some interesting information about how “waves” of sightings often occur, including a whole plethora of them around 1896, bringing up the question as to whether we’re being watched and when we make a technological breakthrough, our watchers descend a little to get a closer look.

The Return. My reaction to this episode may well have been influenced, for better or worse, by my recent re-viewing of Tim Burton’s wonderfully daffy Mars Attacks!. This episode is a nutshell reenactment of the debate which starts out that often hilarious satire, namely, if aliens descended on us today, would they be coming in peace or to blast us to pieces? The Return looks at how modern societal institutions, from government to religion, might react to the fact that “we’re not alone.” This is an interesting sociological take on the whole alien question, but it also points out how humans have reacted when they’ve only thought aliens were here, as in Orson Welles’ famous 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds. Needless to say, that was one small stumble for man.

Ancient Aliens: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Ancient Aliens looks very good indeed the vast majority of the time due to an excellent AVC encode delivered in full 1080p (something unusual for A&E series on BD) and 1.78:1. This is one of the more colorful and lush looking History Channel series to come down the pike in quite a while, and this Blu-ray benefits from an above average production quality. Though there are the expected archival footage issues, with blown up 16mm stock shots not looking too good, by and large Ancient Aliens looks terrific, from the contemporary interview segments to the judicious use of CGI to the often excellent historic illustrations from sacred texts and secular journals which are utilized. Colors are very well saturated, fine detail is great, and artifacting is largely limited to very transitory issues like moiré on some lithographs.

Ancient Aliens: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Ancient Aliens is presented with a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix which is fine if you don't mind the History and A&E penchant for nonstop LFE. I personally just don't get what the sound designers for these series hope to accomplish by bombarding our ears with nonstop low frequencies thuds, thunks and whooshes. While I guess that's to be expected when we're watching footage of flying saucers whiz by, to be assaulted by it for 90 minutes at a time just seems like overkill. Aside from that caveat, this is a clear and well defined soundtrack, with narration up front and mixed to the foreground as it should be, and the incessant sound effects mixed at least partially down. This, like so many other recent A&E releases, really could have benefited from a quieter approach. Viewers (and listeners) are smart enough to pay attention to a series, especially one as interesting as this one, without the aural "reminders" that something's happening all the time.

Ancient Aliens: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The pilot for this series, Ancient Aliens: Chariots, Gods and Beyond (HD; 1:28:58) is repurposed here as a putative sixth episode of the series. It really would have made more sense to place this "bonus" first on the set, as it's by and large a sterling overview of what the series itself is going to delve into, albeit focusing more squarely on Erich von Däniken and his work. This is a far reaching and freewheeling tour through von Däniken's theories, including copious interviews with the author himself, and it gives a good solid footing for the ideas the series explores in more depth.

Ancient Aliens: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I'll admit it—I approached watching Ancient Aliens with a certain trepidation, the same sort of reluctance with which I greet the usual History Nostradamus "Apocalypse of the Week" special. Imagine my surprise, then, when Ancient Aliens turned out to be amazingly interesting, even if you take its central thesis with more than a grain of salt. This is a wonderful tour through ancient cultures and beliefs, and, frankly, by the end of the series you may find yourself an adherent of von Däniken's theories. Highly recommended.