Cousteau should have hung his head in shame

It was a different time... if you actually watch his documentaries you would see the evolution of his conservation efforts. Without Cousteau's work, the oceans would be in a lot worst shape than they are today.

Please read this:
http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=123118
divers from around the world discuss Cousteau's legacy.

He invented Scuba and his contribution (direct or indirect) to the undersea world's understanding and conservation is incommensurable.
Without him, we would not be able to explore, enjoy, understand the oceans and seas the way we do today. And I wouldn't have a job as a diving instructor...

His movie was acclaimed at his time, and I still enjoy watching it once in a while, with a nostalgic eye, not a judgemental one based on ignorance using anachronistic values and references.

RIP,
Mes Respects Commandant. Et encore merci!

I never saw so many naive comments in one place since . . . ah, what's the use? One never seems to escape the sadly limited perspective of this generation of adults who time and again demonstrate no awareness of any time before that in which they personally grew up. Anyway, the point is, when you see this film, you are looking at the very beginning of modern marine life study work. In the late 1950's such was about at the same place where archeology was in the early 19th century (i.e., the 1800's) when Alan Quartermain (the real one) became the first person of European extraction to find and publicize Mayan ruins which had been hidden in the jungle for centuries, to say nothing of the earliest attempts to look for and study antiquities from Greece, Egypt,or Rome during the same general time frame. If you ever wonder where the Indiana Jones idiom came from, those kinds of early archaeological collections expeditions are the answer - people had no hesitancy about destroying a site just to get to particular artifacts that were considered valuable. An idea of the prevailing attitude of antiquities adventurers of the time lies in the behavior of Quartermain, who after going to all the trouble of finding and even purchasing that seminal Mayan site, famously amused himself by taking potshots with his rifle at a monumental statue he found there, an act in fact no different than that of French soldiers of Napoleon Bonaparte who were in the vicinity of the the emperor's own Egyptology expedition. But just as archeology eventually grew up over time to become a valid scientific discipline, refining techniques and attitudes from the level of the pick and shovel down to that of the artist's paint brush and the dental instrument, so too did marine biological exploration. Cousteau was at the forefront the whole way through, filming and popularizing the development of this field of research in a way that over a period of more than 30 years interested, informed, and eventually inspired the current attitudes of millions of viewers from around the world. What you are seeing in this documentary is the infancy of a field that grew much more sophisticated in but a fraction of a lifetime, an amazing development in and of itself. With Ted Turner eventually signing on to broadcast his work, by the time of his death in the late 1980's Cousteau had matured through his experiences and accumulation of the knowledge of the subject matter from a (mere) adventurer and marine wildlife photographer (basically his original calling) to become what was probably the most well-known conservationist in the world.

At initial glance, I was irritated by what Badge put in the subject that Cousteau should hang his head in shame. I figured he was just going to rant on here like a lot of young people about how The Godfather is overrated and how they couldn't sit through Citizen Kane. The quality was poor and blah blah blah. I haven't seen the movie actually, but if what he says is true, then it sounds like a bunch of drunk idiots went out for a weekend cruise around some islands to kill and torture, for their amusemant, a bunch of animals. All on film no less. I know it was the 50s, but geez, you would think an environmentalist would know better than doing that no matter what contributions he later made to scuba diving and marine biology. I'm a bit shocked.

Anyone claiming that the film shouldn't have won its awards because of Cousteau and his crew's conduct has a poor understanding of film. Obviously, many terrible crimes are committed during the course of filming, but it's still fascinating to watch, and it serves as a wonderful snapshot of the times. The intention may have been to glorify Cousteau, but the camera doesn't lie. We see him and his crew for all their unflattering savagery. Besides just that, the photography is truly marvelous, still some of the best work at and under sea ever. At the time people probably appreciated it for different reasons that we would today, but even if its meaning has changed, it still holds up.

Well, yeah, these were the days... can`t say I disagree with much in the OP here. It`s ridiculous how the first thing these lads could think of doing when they saw these big-ass turtles on the island, was to sit on top of them for a ride... And then the wrath they unleashed upon the sharks for being "bad fish" and stuffing themselves with a whale... bit hypocritical there, aye?



"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

Apparently, this sort of behavior was seen as normal in the 50s.

Unfortunately, animals are still treated like this by the global fishing industry. Human beings are a horribly cruel species.

~ I'm a 21st century man and I don't wanna be here.

After leisurely watching the sharks devour the corpse of the sperm whale calf the crew had just killed, Mr. Cousteau says the following: "Every seaman hates the sharks. After what we have seen, the divers can't be held back. They grab gaffs, hooks, anything they can to avenge the whale." They then proceed to slaughter several sharks, the sole reason for which is because the crew earlier killed a whale calf? Staggering. Ruggero Deodato has a much better track record on animal cruelty. What's next? Am I now going to discover Jane Goodall stabs to death every third gorilla she meets? ---It wants no straps. - Karlhttp://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000024/nest/158601447