01. I have an intense fear of the ocean. It is literally a fear of the unknown. It’s all dark and deep and quite literally unfathomable and you have no idea what is lurking down there and lkajsdf;lkjasdlfj it scares the crap out of me. However, despite my intense fear of the ocean, I’m quite content to let all that ocean life plug along doing its thing without human interference and so this movie was terribly depressing as it illustrated the reality of what kind of ecological impact the waning shark populations will have on the planet.
02. I think if I were to ever become an active animal rights activists, I’d campaign for the ugly and scary animals that no one worries about. Fuck the pandas because they refuse to fuck each other, sharks need your help more.
03. The movie was only 90 minutes long and at the end they said that in the time it took to watch the movie, over 15,000 sharks had been killed.
04. Evidently the illegal shark fin industry (findustry?) is second only to the illegal drug industry in Asia in terms of the amount of money made from it. The footage of sharks being mutilated for their fins was rather appalling; these guys on fishing boats would cut off all their fins and then just dump them back over the side of the boats, leaving the sharks to sink to the bottom of the ocean and die.
05. I have guilt that I ate shark fin soup about fifteen years ago, even though it was completely unintentional. I’m allergic to fish, see, and I thought it was non-fishy soup being served at this party at a Chinese restaurant we were at. It made me sick, though, so I guess I can call it even with the planet’s sharks.
06. The random flesh-eating disease subplot was unexpected and strange. It also provided the random Canadian shout-out that made us realise this was a Canadian production; the narrator was trying to assure someone (probably his mom) that he was more likely to die going to work in Toronto than he was to die of flesh-eating bacteria in South America, hahaha. Then they randomly showed a Canadian flag flying off the back of their boat.
07. I get really unsettled by violent forms of protest. The movie followed the director/writer/narrator/shark enthusiast as he joined forces with this organization that enforces international treaties regarding the protection of various forms of wildlife. This group has a boat and basically they go out and try to catch poachers in the act and turn them over to authorities. If this fails, though, they don’t seem to have any qualms about ramming other boats and trying to sink them; they’ve even got this giant metal thing on the side of the boat that they affectionately refer to as “the can opener” because I guess it basically splices opposing boats open when they run into it.
08. I don’t actually know enough about sharks to know how much of any of this is true and, of course, one should always approach any documentary with a slightly cynical eye because they all have motives and biases trying to win you over, but still… omg poor sharks.
09. The website the flashed at the end of the film is SavingSharks.com, if you’re at all interested.
10. IMDB’s says “If you enjoyed this title, our database also recommends:”
- Thunderball
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
- The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
- Moonraker
- Finding Nemo
Okay, they actually killed sharks to make Thunderball, so that’s an appalling suggestion. I imagine Moonraker is on that list because of the character called Jaws, LMFAO. But… Return of the King? I haven’t worked that one out yet. Right, Saruman goes by “Sharkey” when he returns to the Shire.