There's always the problem of "the making of xxxx" in reality being a long extended trailer for the film - and this is no exception. Anyone truly interested in the making of this film would be better served my buying the DVD and listening to the extended commentary of the deleted scenes, and for what reason they were omitted. Some were cut because they were below standard. Some because the limited budget meant that the scenes lacked the scale that the makers felt was appropriate. Others to keep the film within it's running time.
Bearing in mind this was a medium budget film, the extended discussion on the DVD of the result focus groups had on the ending is a real insight into the pressures that are imposed on artists even of the caliber of Boyle and Garland.
All this apart, the main failing of this documentary is the constant attempt to draw a comparison between the fictional "Rage" of the movie, with the real life "threat" of an actual outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease which actually occurred in the UK and resulted in the premature slaughter of around 5 million farm animals, and their subsequent destruction in huge burning pyres across the country.
Although this makes great media news, it ignores some important scientific facts. The most important of which being that a simple alternative to mass slaughter of herds of animals would have been the slightly more expensive alternative of vaccination. Sadly, this proved to be an impossible solution because of the political pressure placed upon the UK by its "partners" in the EU who insisted on immediate elimination of the problem to maintain farm prices across the rest of Europe.
This apart, I can't understand why the maker didn't focus on the airborne transmission of far more scary problems - BSE and AIDS to name but two, both of which would argue their case much better.
And finally, when you cut and cut again to "Medical Experts" in slightly grainy shots, why not use the true exemplars in the field you could have found, rather than people who some would call maverick doomsayers?
Bearing in mind this was a medium budget film, the extended discussion on the DVD of the result focus groups had on the ending is a real insight into the pressures that are imposed on artists even of the caliber of Boyle and Garland.
All this apart, the main failing of this documentary is the constant attempt to draw a comparison between the fictional "Rage" of the movie, with the real life "threat" of an actual outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease which actually occurred in the UK and resulted in the premature slaughter of around 5 million farm animals, and their subsequent destruction in huge burning pyres across the country.
Although this makes great media news, it ignores some important scientific facts. The most important of which being that a simple alternative to mass slaughter of herds of animals would have been the slightly more expensive alternative of vaccination. Sadly, this proved to be an impossible solution because of the political pressure placed upon the UK by its "partners" in the EU who insisted on immediate elimination of the problem to maintain farm prices across the rest of Europe.
This apart, I can't understand why the maker didn't focus on the airborne transmission of far more scary problems - BSE and AIDS to name but two, both of which would argue their case much better.
And finally, when you cut and cut again to "Medical Experts" in slightly grainy shots, why not use the true exemplars in the field you could have found, rather than people who some would call maverick doomsayers?