SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Edwin The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

SevenBillionth A fascinating insight into the underlying causes of many of the world's problems. The solution Z proposes is flawed, although a sound basis for further thought.The most powerful flaw with this new society is how people are motivated to strive and improve. If everyone gets their fair share, what is the motivation to toil in difficult jobs that will never be made redundant such as the sciences, computing, or robotics? An individual's life can never be better than his neighbour's. So is societal gain from your endevours enough of an incentive to spend your life toiling in a science lab rather than do less challenging work? Given the choice, most people would choose an easy life.Secondly, the natural conclusion of this new society is Gattaca. The first half hour of Z explains that criminals, addicts, etc are more a product of their environment than genetically predisposed. By removing the bad environment so the argument goes - poverty, poor education, healthcare, inequality, etc, the conditions that create problematic people are removed. Sounds plausible. However would such a society not then place far more emphasis on the quality of your genes? Environment and cause & effect would no longer be factors, everyone would receive good upbringings. The distinguishing factor would be genetic. And that essentially is the dystopia depicted in Gattaca (an excellent film btw).To those who say this solution is communist, which has been tried and failed - this solution is not communist. It is post-communist. With the power of modern computers, the efficient resource-allocation system could be operated on a decent-spec home computer. The reason communism kept failing is that it inevitably led to a corrupt elite who were rightfully deposed by popular uprising. If everyone can duplicate the system on which resources are allocated themselves on their own computers, there can be no accusation of corruption. There would be healthy debate and democratic decision making as to the rules and inputs to the system, but there would be no elitist subversion of the planned economy that people hated so much about communism (nor capitalism's elite 1% owning 40%).So in summary, not the definitive blueprint it wants to be, but food for thought nevertheless.

Radu_A While 'Zeitgeist' delivers a flood of information and observations on the financial system and its apparently imminent collapse, its conclusions seem considerably less convincing to me.There is a tendency here to contradict a generalization, only to present yet another; for example, the 'genetic myth'. The point taken is: social discourse refers to hereditary genes to explain away phenomena of social environment, so that policy makers can ignore their responsibility for change. If it's all in the genes, any group of people can be ostracized as 'incorrigible': a very important statement. To my understanding, it would therefore be imperative to press for an acceptance of choice as a key to identity; choice is equal to the ability of adaptation. However, 'Zeitgeist' follows up with comments suggesting that a majority of (sex) offenders have themselves been (sexually) abused as children, indicating that the social environment is the key factor to what we become; translates to me as 'they can't help being criminals, it's all in the environment'. Such a statement just substitutes one stereotype with another.'Moving Forward' also suffers from Utopian malady. There's something unsettling about the concept of 'resource-based economics' presented here, which is 'nothing more than a set of proved life-supporting understandings, where all decisions are based upon organized human and environmental sustainability'. The context is that the current political system must be replaced by a society run by scientific communes calculating the remaining resources of the world and distributing them equally and in the interest of reducing overpopulation. Criticism that such omnipotent bodies could hardly be called democratic is anticipated in the statement 'Nature is a dictatorship' (in bold on-screen letters). That translates as: 'Since we've already established that our economic system is bad, and that therefore politics supporting it is bad, we do not have to worry about democracy anymore, since we're only acting in the interest of the people'. Hello totalitarianism.The 'Zeitgeist' makers know this invites comparisons with Marxism. They ridicule this allegation by presenting a group of on-screen shadows in the auditorium rising in protest against these communist ideas. That doesn't change the fact that the aforementioned paradigm in 'Moving Forward' is a central argument in Lenin's writings. 'Zeitgeist' anticipates this criticism by mentioning that the observations of Marxism on Capitalism were correct, so you can't blame the facts for the theories based on them. True, but all the more necessary it would seem to me to elaborate how the all-encompassing 'resource-based economics' are to be achieved without the clout to push them through. The crucial problem with 'Zeitgeist Moving Forward' is hence this: even if we were able to substitute the monetary with a resource-based system, a central authority responsible for the calculation and distribution of the world's goods would inevitably lead to corruption, for it is a part of human nature to attempt to be better off than others, and the legislators and executives would still be human. No logical approach, no re-education will ever be able to do away with the desire to elevate oneself, for this instinct has played a crucial role in the survival game; it's still a key factor on why we play games, participate in sports, work against odds: we want to succeed. I'd contradict the 'Zeitgeist' makers in saying that the ideal society is the one with the fewest limits to individualism. Competition is a companion of social cognition, so a more suitable replacement for the monetary system may be service exchange. Yes, the potentially fatal effects of financial exploitation must be checked. But to pile up money rendered useless by inflation in front of banks (as in the film) doesn't strike me as constructive. Judith Butler has devised a more convincing strategy of a 'coalition of bodies' in 'Frames of War' (2009): social bodies (like homosexuals, African-Americans, Muslims) must build public coalitions which agree on an agenda based on mutual interests, and push their communities to live according to these. It's not perfect, but that short chapter is going to give you more than this long film.

fregattt The film which has changed my sights at all life "to" and "after". I urge all of you to watch this film, without putting off. Will watch please all this film and for you too much will clear up in this life! Our earth isn't infinite also global changes will occur only working together. Our financial system of settles all of us conducts to the world crash and war. Therefore yet late it is necessary to reconsider the sights at all round us an event and to take part in the project described in this film. Because only having realized essence of all problem and having gathered, we can improve health of the Earth and our society as a whole.

Lochness_30 I'll admit that I found the first half hour to be a bit boring, but others have told me they've enjoyed that part the most. The people sitting next to me were slumped down in their seats, when it started. They were sitting straight up at the middle of the movie, and were literally on the edge of their seats at the end. This is the effect this movie has on people that really get it. This movie (movement) is something that is possible. It would make the world infinitely better then it is today. I was first exposed to Zeitgeist and the Venus project two years ago. You should be warned. If you get it, you'll never get it out of your mindset!