Treasures from of the Wreck of the Unbelievable (Netflix)

[CT-Rich]

I found this program on Netflix. It is about the discovery of a 2nd century treasure wreck. A documentary crew is following the search for and recovery of the treasures from the waters off Africa. It has Scuba and was moderately entertaining as you slowly realize it is a complete fiction, even more than the underwater Alaskan gold mining show. Even more than those dopes that dug a hundred foot shaft that Canadian Island.

The treasure turns out to be one of the worlds most expensive art fails in history. $50 million invested in a art project that was supposed be 100 wonders of the ancient world. Not quite sure what artist was trying to say. But I am not alone because the whole project was panned by art critics.

The biggest redeeming value was diving filmed in the Indian Ocean.

 

[Youssef ElNahas]

I don't think it's fair to call the project a fail this early. The exhibition was quite popular and if he actually decides to sell the pieces he will definitely make more than $50 million...

I enjoyed the film and while I knew it was a "mockumentary" I managed to suspend my disbelief for almost all the first half

 

[Ankush Mittal]

Damien Hirst's Shipwreck Fantasy Sinks in Venice

Interesting read.

 

[Kharon]

Thanks for the heads up. I added it to my Netflix list thinking it was real (email from Netflix - shows for you). I've seen Bering Sea Gold and The Curse of Oak Island. Don't need to waste time on any more fake shows.

 

[CT-Rich]

The diving is beautiful. It would have been better if it had embraced its fiction and given it a more plot driven storyline. The story was rather mundane. If they were going to fictionalize the story, they should have made it as grand a story. Jessica Alba battling Jacqueline Bisset and a Great white shark to recover alien artifacts while Steve Zissou tries even the score with the killer shark....

 

[txgoose]

I missed the mockumentary notice. And I was fairly annoyed when I saw the behemoth of a gold find at the lower depths and it all clicked for me. My side note to the Netflixes of the world would be that if mockumentaries aren't more readily identified I'll be researching my streaming options more closely. Fiction and non-fiction content needs readily identifiable markers.

Wow, just deleted a rant about fabricated history. As CGI gets better, this is/will become an issue for how we all interact with each other. Skynet won't need robots, it will use fabricated history to get us to kill each other off.

 

[Schwob]

I sure missed the mockumentary warning as well, but something did not sit right when the research part made no sense and more so when artifacts got lifted w/o prior mapping, wiyh grid and whatnot real archeologists would do...

What I also missed was a note about no reef and no coral having been harmed in the making of the mockumentary nor in the making of the sculptures.

Seems like he (Damien Hirsch) has a cameo in his expedition as a sculpture of his likness near the end of the mockumentarry... and then, what is that at the very end? A bronze Mickey Mouse statue in the reef? Or?

I sure have been "mickey moused" for a little while by this one...
Any good documentaries on real UW archeology out there?
Or even real UW treasure hunts?

 

[al248005]

I also noticed the Mickey Mouse statue towards the end

 

[CT-Rich]

Here are a couple of Nova episodes that should be easy to find on the Web. I won't give URLs because, they are pretty fluid and when I have posted direct links to YouTube they disappear almost immediately. Nova is an American Science Documentary from PBS.
"Sunken Ship Rescue" --Follow the epic operation to secure, raise, and salvage the Costa Concordia cruise ship, which ran aground and tragically capsized off the coast of Italy on January 13, 2012, killing 32 people
"D-Day's Sunken Secrets"-- divers exploring military relics lost in shallow waters off the beaches of Normandy.
"Why Sharks Attack"-- take a guess
"Ancient Computer"--A Greek shipwreck holds the remains of an intricate bronze machine that turns out to be the world's first computer. This is the real treasure ship of Antiquity.
"Why Ships Sink"-- Costa Concordia, divers love a good ship wreck and this a great episode about them.
"Extreme Cave Diving"--Follow a fearless team of scientists as they venture into blue holes—underwater caves that formed during the last ice age, when sea level was nearly 400 feet below what it is today.
"Killer Subs in Pearl Harbor"--surprise....
"Hitler’s Sunken Secret"-- a destroyed ferry sunken to prevent Germany from developing a nuclear weapon.