Chariots of the Gods?

This is a 1970 documentary which wasn't poorly made yet its content is full of falsehoods and flim-flam: 

Erich von Daniken is probably another person I shouldn’t say “RIP” to. For those unaware, on Saturday this Swiss author passed away at the age of 90. He is renowned for the 1968 book Chariots of the Gods? I’ve never read the book; as the YouTube account that uploaded this proclaimed, the “documentary” based on the “nonfiction” book is the original Ancient Aliens. That’s a show I’ve never watched either and only know it for the meme of that weirdo guy. The book was such a massive success, this German documentary was created, which was also successful.

The book purportedly offers evidence of not only aliens, but that they visited the humans of the ancient past and assisted them with technology they gave early man. Via both the writings of legendary skeptic James Randi and the book’s Wiki page, this evidence is nothing but half-truths at best, if not outright hogwash & poppycock. The proof offered here was also rather flimsy. An early example was how those on remote South Pacific islands thought that Americans in World War II were Gods when they created landings strips to land their airplanes on. The scene showed Black people (instead of Polynesians) praying to an effigy of an airplane… and this is one of the “better” examples of the film “proving” the pseudoscience in the documentary.

My low rating is not due to the filmmaking craft on display. The Peter Thomas score is fine, as is the direction from Harald Reinl. The former created some scores for krimi movies I liked and the latter directed both fun krimi and German Westerns I was a fan of. Furthermore, there’s nice footage of various ancient ruins from across the world.
It’s rather the content that was a turn-off. No offense to those that do believe in ancient aliens but just on the “evidence” provided in the film, nothing was done to prove that thesis to me.

What’s presented omits or ignores already-learned science, examples are cherry-picked, or is just piffle. The most infamous example is of an image on a Mayan sarcophagus is of “an ancient astronaut”… that is baloney! Rather, those ornate details are found on other Mayan art and historians have deciphered what they mean. Examples can be found via a simple online search.

There are reasons to be offended by such conspiracy theories. One is that apparently in the book, von Daniken did not question how such structures as the Parthenon or Stonehenge were created, monuments created by white people; rather, it’s those ancient monuments created by those with more melanin in their skin… yeah, that’s ugly. The movie at least did mention what the Greeks and Romans created. More debatable but still possible is that belief in rather “minor” conspiracy theories like UFO’s begat the horrible theories popular with some about vaccines, COVID, etc. which have harmed plenty of people.

It's a shame that such misinformation is now popular; in comparison, the History Channel devolving into a useless platform full of terrible “reality” shows and programs devoted to pseudoscience is something I can’t object to too strongly. Unless you are a fan of the author and/or programs like Ancient Aliens, no way could I recommend this to anyone.