Product Details

• Actors: Walter Cruttenden, James Earl Jones
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: The Yuga Project
• DVD Release Date: August 1, 2003
• Run Time: 46 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0000YHVMG
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,107 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Great Year" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Just as the Earth’s spin on its axis causes day and night and it’s annual orbit around the Sun is responsible for the ongoing cycle of the seasons, what if there is some greater celestial cycle, lasting thousands of years, slowly influencing the rise and fall of civilization across the globe?

To many ancient cultures, the answers lie in the stars. In their view, time moved in a cyclical pattern, with human civilization and consciousness rising and falling as great ages came and went. Vedic scholars spoke of the Yuga Cycle, a great circular progression of ages; and Plato taught of a large cycle of time which would slowly return us to a "Golden Age". He called this cycle: The Great Year.

The Great Year investigates commonalities in these beliefs and looks back into time seeking answers to questions that still loom over science today. How far back do humankind’s roots really go? What did the ancients know about the stars and their movements and what can we learn from them? How was the Precession of the Equinox, the slow progression of the stars across the sky over thousands of years, used to mark the rise and fall of these great ages by the ancients? Many cultures spoke of an unseen sun driving Precession and causing the cycle of this Great Year. Could there be an unseen companion to our Sun? The Great Year examines this theory and finds that perhaps these ancients were really onto something!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Clock Of The Ages" ~ "A Return To The Golden Age", November 11, 2005

By 

Brian E. Erland "Rainbow Sphinx" (Brea, CA - USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Great Year (DVD)

Did highly advanced civilizations exist on the earth long before conventional history wants us to believe? Civilizations that understood secrets in astronomy, mathematics and many other fields of scientific endeavor that have unfortunately been lost with the passing of time, now buried somewhere in the sands of antiquity.

Are the ancient tales of an antediluvian "Golden Age" populated by beings with miraculous God-like abilities really just nothing more than myth and legend? Or are they in reality the last remaining fragmentary accounts of what mankind once was and may become again in some future age?

Warning, this documentary will challenge everything you've been taught about history, astronomy, religion and the nature and destiny of mankind. Be ready to postulate such concepts as:

1) The discovery of a 24,000 year celestial cycle which determines the rise and fall of civilizations and man's ability to comprehend 'higher wisdom.'
2) A 'second sun' rotating in conjunction with our own.
3) Flying machines and intercontinental travel thousands of years before the pyramids were built.
4) A time when telepathy, levitation and other psychic powers were commonplace.

A very well produced documentary that will make you re-think your belief system. Nothing will ever be the same again. Highly recommended!

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Six Degrees of Civilization, January 21, 2006

By 

Joanneva12a (USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Great Year (DVD)

An engaging documentary that intertwines the phenomena known as precession through the Equinoxes and how, the rise and fall of civilizations may be linked to this on a grander scale. All indications point to the ancients being obsessed with the heavens and having been aware of this cyclical grand cycle. Their knowledge of the cosmos without our current stage of technological advancement defies our ability to explain their insight on such an expansive scale. Yet several ancient cultures utilizing advanced geometry and astronomy all had names for this vast cycle and the effect it played on mankind.

For years the academic community has told us these ancient writings amount to no more than fairly tales.
Now several institutions are examining the possibility that ancient civilizations were more advanced than previously thought... a theory that does not sit well with traditionalists in conservative academic circles.

Does history and civilization move in vast cycles? Was there really a Golden Age when people lived a more profound and exalted existence on a higher plane of enlightenment? An age where wisdom and spirituality won out over illusion and materialism? The "Great Year" delves into seldom charted territory with interviews from those who believe there is a physical celestial force that can cause humanity as a whole to either lapse into collective amnesia, or to advance us beyond our known metaphysical understanding and collective consciousness.

Along with angular momentum, precession through the polar stars, and annual precession rates, the film includes interviews with archaeologists, professors of history and astronomy, all describing various traits of the Great Year. The hypothesis presented in the documentary is a provocative alternative to the widely accepted luni-solar model as the cause of precession replaced with a new model of binary motion. Still, while a very worthwhile watch, this is not a "tell all" documentary, and whether by choice or omission you will need to do a little exploring on your own to discover what all the commotion is about.

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting idea well presented, March 25, 2006

By 

Don Lowry (Hemet, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Great Year (DVD)

I ordered this DVD after reading "Lost Star of Myth and Time" by Walter Cruttenden, which is a sequel to the book this DVD is based on. There was a brief description of the DVD in the back of this book. The movie makes sense even if you haven't read either book, but if you want to see most of the evidence for its ideas, get the books.
The graphics make it much easier to visualize what the books talked about, and the narrative, interviews, and shots of various ancient sites present the idea very well.
In case you don't know, the general idea is that precession of the equinoxes is not caused by a wobble of the Earth's pole, as is assumed by conventional science, but by the Sun being part of a binary star system, and thus following an eliptical path through space and taking the Solar System along with it. (So that it appears to be going backwards in relation to the "fixed" stars half of the time.) It's a logical idea that explains the observed phenomena. So why don't we see the other star in the binary system? Well, either it's too dark to see (for instance, a brown dwarf) or we do see it but its so far away currently that we dont yet recognize the relationship between our sun and the other star.
Much is made in the video, and the books, about the ancient traditions of golden ages having existed in the distant past and the idea in Hindu and other ancient traditions that civilization goes thru a series of ascending and descending eras that coincide with the "Great Year" during which the equinoxes precess thru all 12 constellations of the Zodiac. And that this is caused by some unknown effects of either the companion star or the area of space the Solar System passes thru on its orbit around the dual system's center of gravity. To my mind this is an entirely separate question. There may be something to it, but it is not a necessary part of the binary star theory.
If you are at all interested in archeoastronomy, ancient mysteries, or just astronomy, this DVD is worth getting and watching.