Post by tekmac on Dec 23, 2004 13:38:52 GMT -5
Hey Stupid! It's Time for the Nigel Marven and Erich Ritter Show!!!
Review by G. A. Gast
Review of 'Bull Shark: World's Deadliest Shark' (starring Erich Ritter)
Nigel Marven's Bull Shark: World's Deadliest Shark is one of those cynical attempts to entertain a mass audience by focusing on shark attacks via dialogue and actual film footage constantly offset by reassurances that sharks are not really so bad or by Marven doing stunts. The tone is set early on when Marven tells us: '…Of all the shark species in the world, only a tiny percentage kill people. Of those killers, three stand head and shoulders above the rest.'
And so we are presented with the sort of shark film of which Anatomy of a Shark Bite is the infamous prototype. The great white (Marven here calls it a legendary monster) and tiger shark (that has a stomach like a junk yard) are early dismissed so that the focus can shift to the latest villain: the bull shark. In fact I think Marven is sincere in his appreciation of sharks. Unfortunately he is impaled on the horns of a dilemma: the sincerity (and positive comments about sharks) are diluted and corrupted by the requirement to focus on shark 'attack' and accompanying sensationalism.
The genre is rather like making someone walk through a minefield and constantly reassuring them that it is not dangerous unless you tread on a mine and that there are not very many mines anyway. The stunts – hand-feeding bull sharks or swimming outside the cage with white sharks – are entertaining in the sense that most people watch Grand Prix races: hoping for disaster.
Erich Ritter
PADI supports him. DEMA supports him. Stan Waterman supports him: TV stuntman Erich Ritter before he was severely bitten by a bull shark. Ritter went into severe shock after the attack and was medivaced to a Florida hospital where surgeons stood by to save what was left of his mangled leg.
Nigel Marven was standing next to Erich Ritter when a chummed-in bull shark – obviously not a card-carrying member of the I Think Erich Ritter is Infallible Society - decided to eat Ritter's generously proffered and nicely chummed up calf muscle. (Given that the shark decided to eat Ritter's leg just after Erich told Nigel that the sharks couldn't care less that they were there, you have to admire its sense of timing and wonder if it had a sense of humour too.)
Ritter's 'accident' – to use Sharkproject's politically correct term – was, of course, the reason for this film's genesis: to re-use and re-exploit the gory footage for what would have been better titled Son of Anatomy of a Shark Bite or Anatomy of a Shark Bite – The Rehash. And so, there is Erich once again starring in the show and doing his cute grin and making up silly explanations that Marven (if few others) finds convincing. For example we are told that a bull shark close to shore can feel hemmed in by peoples' legs and that it mistakenly thinks legs are competing with it in its hunt for stingrays… Wow! I want to be a world-famous Shark Behaviour Expert too! And I thought Science was too difficult!!!
It is interesting that Ritter, when originally bitten, insisted that the footage of the bite never be shown. We are now on film 2. How many more productions can we expect to be squeezed out of the near-suicidal stunts of someone who claims to have spectacular knowledge of shark behaviour yet – as this incident proves - obviously knows a great deal less than the rest of us (who claim to know very little)?
When Marven interviews Erich in this film about why he got bitten, we get a magnificent demonstration of Erich's breathtaking ability to contradict himself ad nauseam. You should go back to science school Erich and study
logic and that simple tool for theory construction, Occam's Razor. Contradicting yourself and stacking ever more implausible theories on top of other silly theories isn't quite the accepted method.
To refresh memories:
Prior to Anatomy of a Shark Bite we had to endure 'scientist' Erich's telepathic ability to intuit shark behaviour - his ability to read sharks' intentions just by glancing at them and 'know' what they are thinking - and of course let us not forget his world-famous Yogic Heartbeat Control Theory.
In Anatomy of a Shark Bite and associated interviews Erich came up with the following explanations as to why he got bitten:
# A spotter whose task it was to warn Erich if a shark was behind him failed to do so (a lie: Erich never used a spotter)
# The shark was confused
# The shark was stressed
# It was all Nigel Marven's fault because he moved
Notice a pattern here? The only person who didn't screw up was Erich! And now, when interviewed by Nigel Marven face to face, we are offered yet more 'scientific' brilliance. What happened to blaming Nigel Marven now that he is standing in front of you, Erich? The lies about the spotter have also been dropped, the rubbish about the shark being confused and/or stressed has also vanished. And what became of the great Yogic Heartbeat Theory? How I miss that!
Shark feeding
In fact Marven (who presumably knew about many of Erich's excuses) headed him off at the pass by pointing out that neither of them was moving when the shark bit: nice move Nigel – another of Erich's dishonest excuses is nicely exposed. I also liked how Nigel pointed out that the massively strong and powerful shark knocked Erich off balance when it bit. In fact you can see Erich flailing around helplessly as clear as day.
But in Anatomy of a Shark Bite Erich tells us what has to be the most idiotic explanation in the history of western thought ever uttered by a supposed scientist. He tells us that when he was bitten he lifted his leg so that he would get the bull shark's head out of the water, its gills would clamp shut and it would have to let go. Of course this baloney is just another attempt by Erich to make him seem like Dr. Shark, the Superhero.
Now we are given two reasons why Ritter got bitten:
1) 'We [Note the subtle diffusion of blame…] allowed the shark to come in too close.'
Excuse me Erich but YOU have been allowing sharks to come in too close over and over again. Not 'WE'. It is what YOU did whenever YOU had an audience or film cameras pointed at YOU. And your luck ran out.
2) Erich admits that there are food particles in the water wafting around his tasty-looking legs and 'sooner or later the shark wants to know what these people are'.
This is the staggering discovery that Erich presents us with: if you stand among hungry, macro-predatory, chummed-in sharks that are searching for food, sooner or later you will be bitten.
But excuse me Erich: 99.9999999999999 percent of the planet knew that anyway. The fact that you were prepared to sacrifice your calf muscle to demonstrate this astounding fact is something for which we can all be rather less than grateful.
Review by G. A. Gast
Review of 'Bull Shark: World's Deadliest Shark' (starring Erich Ritter)
Nigel Marven's Bull Shark: World's Deadliest Shark is one of those cynical attempts to entertain a mass audience by focusing on shark attacks via dialogue and actual film footage constantly offset by reassurances that sharks are not really so bad or by Marven doing stunts. The tone is set early on when Marven tells us: '…Of all the shark species in the world, only a tiny percentage kill people. Of those killers, three stand head and shoulders above the rest.'
And so we are presented with the sort of shark film of which Anatomy of a Shark Bite is the infamous prototype. The great white (Marven here calls it a legendary monster) and tiger shark (that has a stomach like a junk yard) are early dismissed so that the focus can shift to the latest villain: the bull shark. In fact I think Marven is sincere in his appreciation of sharks. Unfortunately he is impaled on the horns of a dilemma: the sincerity (and positive comments about sharks) are diluted and corrupted by the requirement to focus on shark 'attack' and accompanying sensationalism.
The genre is rather like making someone walk through a minefield and constantly reassuring them that it is not dangerous unless you tread on a mine and that there are not very many mines anyway. The stunts – hand-feeding bull sharks or swimming outside the cage with white sharks – are entertaining in the sense that most people watch Grand Prix races: hoping for disaster.
Erich Ritter
PADI supports him. DEMA supports him. Stan Waterman supports him: TV stuntman Erich Ritter before he was severely bitten by a bull shark. Ritter went into severe shock after the attack and was medivaced to a Florida hospital where surgeons stood by to save what was left of his mangled leg.
Nigel Marven was standing next to Erich Ritter when a chummed-in bull shark – obviously not a card-carrying member of the I Think Erich Ritter is Infallible Society - decided to eat Ritter's generously proffered and nicely chummed up calf muscle. (Given that the shark decided to eat Ritter's leg just after Erich told Nigel that the sharks couldn't care less that they were there, you have to admire its sense of timing and wonder if it had a sense of humour too.)
Ritter's 'accident' – to use Sharkproject's politically correct term – was, of course, the reason for this film's genesis: to re-use and re-exploit the gory footage for what would have been better titled Son of Anatomy of a Shark Bite or Anatomy of a Shark Bite – The Rehash. And so, there is Erich once again starring in the show and doing his cute grin and making up silly explanations that Marven (if few others) finds convincing. For example we are told that a bull shark close to shore can feel hemmed in by peoples' legs and that it mistakenly thinks legs are competing with it in its hunt for stingrays… Wow! I want to be a world-famous Shark Behaviour Expert too! And I thought Science was too difficult!!!
It is interesting that Ritter, when originally bitten, insisted that the footage of the bite never be shown. We are now on film 2. How many more productions can we expect to be squeezed out of the near-suicidal stunts of someone who claims to have spectacular knowledge of shark behaviour yet – as this incident proves - obviously knows a great deal less than the rest of us (who claim to know very little)?
When Marven interviews Erich in this film about why he got bitten, we get a magnificent demonstration of Erich's breathtaking ability to contradict himself ad nauseam. You should go back to science school Erich and study
logic and that simple tool for theory construction, Occam's Razor. Contradicting yourself and stacking ever more implausible theories on top of other silly theories isn't quite the accepted method.
To refresh memories:
Prior to Anatomy of a Shark Bite we had to endure 'scientist' Erich's telepathic ability to intuit shark behaviour - his ability to read sharks' intentions just by glancing at them and 'know' what they are thinking - and of course let us not forget his world-famous Yogic Heartbeat Control Theory.
In Anatomy of a Shark Bite and associated interviews Erich came up with the following explanations as to why he got bitten:
# A spotter whose task it was to warn Erich if a shark was behind him failed to do so (a lie: Erich never used a spotter)
# The shark was confused
# The shark was stressed
# It was all Nigel Marven's fault because he moved
Notice a pattern here? The only person who didn't screw up was Erich! And now, when interviewed by Nigel Marven face to face, we are offered yet more 'scientific' brilliance. What happened to blaming Nigel Marven now that he is standing in front of you, Erich? The lies about the spotter have also been dropped, the rubbish about the shark being confused and/or stressed has also vanished. And what became of the great Yogic Heartbeat Theory? How I miss that!
Shark feeding
In fact Marven (who presumably knew about many of Erich's excuses) headed him off at the pass by pointing out that neither of them was moving when the shark bit: nice move Nigel – another of Erich's dishonest excuses is nicely exposed. I also liked how Nigel pointed out that the massively strong and powerful shark knocked Erich off balance when it bit. In fact you can see Erich flailing around helplessly as clear as day.
But in Anatomy of a Shark Bite Erich tells us what has to be the most idiotic explanation in the history of western thought ever uttered by a supposed scientist. He tells us that when he was bitten he lifted his leg so that he would get the bull shark's head out of the water, its gills would clamp shut and it would have to let go. Of course this baloney is just another attempt by Erich to make him seem like Dr. Shark, the Superhero.
Now we are given two reasons why Ritter got bitten:
1) 'We [Note the subtle diffusion of blame…] allowed the shark to come in too close.'
Excuse me Erich but YOU have been allowing sharks to come in too close over and over again. Not 'WE'. It is what YOU did whenever YOU had an audience or film cameras pointed at YOU. And your luck ran out.
2) Erich admits that there are food particles in the water wafting around his tasty-looking legs and 'sooner or later the shark wants to know what these people are'.
This is the staggering discovery that Erich presents us with: if you stand among hungry, macro-predatory, chummed-in sharks that are searching for food, sooner or later you will be bitten.
But excuse me Erich: 99.9999999999999 percent of the planet knew that anyway. The fact that you were prepared to sacrifice your calf muscle to demonstrate this astounding fact is something for which we can all be rather less than grateful.
Even I don't like him as a person that much, I still respect his work and research. Maybe that is why I didn't like your post tekmac. I'm interested in you personal opinion tekmac!!!!!!!!!!