Life After People
The very notion is deliciously ghoulish: What happens to earth if–or when–people suddenly vanished? The History Channel presents a dramatic, fascinating what-if scenario, part science fiction and part true natural science. “Welcome to Earth, Population: 0″ is the catchy tagline, Life After People’s 94 minutes are so gripping you nearly forget while you watch that you, yourself, will be gone too.
It turns out that earth can go along very nicely without us. The hardest part of the special is probably in the first 15 minutes, when pet owners confront what likely will happen to their dogs (thankfully, the show follows those dogs who break out of their houses, and the prognosis for them to survive as scavengers is good). As the fictional days and weeks tick by, the process of nature’s reclaiming the planet becomes less grim and more fascinating.
The impact of the lack of people will be noticed right away, as most power grids shut down around the planet. The one holdout: Hoover Dam, whose hydro power lights up the American Southwest. Scientists say the dam can continue to operate on its own for months, maybe years, keeping the Vegas Strip alight. Only the eventual accumulation of quagga mussels, an invasive species, in the cooling pipes of the power plant–currently being cleaned by humans–will shut down the dam.
Elsewhere, critters and plants will have their run of Manhattan and every other previously “civilized” spot. Inventive photography shows bears clambering out of subway stations, and vines pulling down brownstones, then skyscrapers. It may not be a surprise when the Eiffel Tower and Space Needle meet their eventual fates, but the scenes nonetheless provide a pleasant sting of shock. Life After People is humbling, yet exhilarating. (Excerpt from amazon.com)
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Very educational and fascinating documentary. Thanks Vlatko!
Another great addition to this fantastic website.
Totally enjoyed this one, thanks Vlatko, keep up the great work.
It forgot to mention how long our foot steps on the moon will last.
Very well done! I love the editing both visually and sound. It flowed nicely. I enjoyed watching it.
So evidence of our civilization would disappear in the blink of the geological eye? Yes and rightly so.
Alfons v911t
Pretty showy and sensationalized. Lots of repeated cgi. The Golden Gate and other structures fall several times each. 6th-8th grade level.
Really, really awful narration. Reasons: the narrator’s voice has that danger tone (like the one you hear in movie trailers) and he maintains it for every single sentence for the entire hour and a half. The music also has a danger quality which never ends. In addition, the captions have this electrified noise which accompanies their entrance and removal from the screen. Really irritating.
HOWEVER, Ray Coppinger is amazing. I don’t want to spoil too much about this documentary, but we may have flying cats in the future! Two thumbs way up.
OVERALL: Interesting, but the experience was utterly destroyed by the narrator’s voice.
Go Nature!
Humans will eventually disappear? Why? What will happen to humans? Where will we all go? I can imagine only a nuclear war would cause this.
This was pretty interesting, but I already had considered all of this stuff and more because I read “The World Without Us” by Alan Weisman. If you even remotely liked this doc, you should f’ing read this book. Many contemporary documentaries are trying to attract easily distracted people with ‘intense’ music and ‘threatening’ narrators and flashy graphics. This one is no exception, and I hope you will read “The World Without Us” which will spare you all that.
very entertaining! they even included domesticated dogs in this!