Crude by Richard Smith (2007) Australia

“Crude” paints a pretty picture but the news is not good. A film made for the Australian Broadcasting Commission; it was expanded to become a feature length movie and will be broadcast on the History Channel here in the US. It is well worth seeing, especially if you are concerned about global warming.

Richard Smith, the producer, director and writer of the movie, said “I had to tell this story. There is so much information to share”. And he shares the story is such a beautiful way, with beautifully recreated dinosaurs rooming the earth and doing their part in the making of crude oil. It is the story of how crude oil is made, how we have extracted it, and now, the consequences of that behavior.

Smith and his crew traveled to 11 countries in telling the story, because crude oil comes from all over the globe, and of course, global warming is occurring all over also but is especially evident in the polar ice caps. Beautiful, stunning cinematography with great natural sound effects. Original music by Matt Drummond drove the scenes in some segments, while in others it fell to the back letting the sound effects be dominant. There are lots of earthy sounds that are familiar to our ears, which adds a depth of character to natural scenes making us feel more attachment to them – the wind, the birds and squirrels, the footprints on the frozen tundra, and so on.

The main premise of the story centers on the theory that what killed the dinosaurs where incidents creating heat in the atmosphere – earthquakes, lack of polar caps, “dead zones” in the ocean, lots of rain and irregular weather patterns. The global warming killed the dinosaurs whose bodies disintegrated into crude oil eventually, over the millennium.

Now, the theory goes, similar conditions are being seen where there is excessive heat in the atmosphere and the occurrence of “dead zones” in the oceans and irregular weather patterns, the ice caps melting – mostly caused from the use of fossil fuels. It may just kill us off like it did the dinosaurs and we would be the next deposit of bodies disintegrating into crude oil.

So wake up people! Let’s get off our duffs and work to make the planet cooler and more suitable to our living in it. There are some examples given on how to do that. I highly recommend this film to you science buffs and those who want more details – more arguments? – About why we should reverse the global warming we already caused.

My only negative criticism of this movie is that I think it could be shorter, which would make it even better. They could cut out some of the examples given and some of the repetition. At least for me – I got the point.

Submitted by Dorothy Littlejohn