Customer Reviews

National Geographic: Surviving Everest

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2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This DVD was, frankly, a disappointment. Very little of it is about Mt. Everest or Sir Edmund Hillary's climb. A better description of the main feature would be "What Sir Edmund Hillary did AFTER he climbed Everest". It is about the culture of the people who lived around the base of the mountain, and how Sir Edmund has helped them by building schools and teaching them about conservation. VERY LITTLE of the main feature is about his climb of the mountain.

There is an extra featurette called "Surviving Everest: First hand accounts" where individuals who have climbed Mt. Everest talk about their experiences and there is a fair amount of footage on the mountain. However, the quality of this footage is not as good as I had hoped. If you want to see major mountain climbing footage, look elsewhere. The IMAX DVD has gotten mixed reviews, so I don't know what to recommend. You may want to wait for "The Conquest of Everest" the movie made of Sir Edmund Hillary's first ever climb of Everest. I have never seen this, but it must have more climbing footage than this DVD did.

One other bone to pick, the main feature and the "extra" interview with Sir Edmund specifically mention that he had a cameraman with him and they got some amazing pictures on his first climb - BUT, these were sadly left out of the too-small "Photo Gallery".

So far, the other two National Geographic DVDs I have are pretty good: Battle for Midway (incredible battle footage) and Secrets Of The Titanic.

The DVD quality is poor. It feels like an old VHS tape. Most disappointing, considering this is from National Geographic! Collector's Edition my foot.

The title is misleading. This dvd has nothing to do with Everest. It mostly discusses Hillary's social endeavors in Khumbu region-- which is nice, but not what I purchased it for. If you want to see anything about surviving Everest, watch the Nova series: "Everest: The death zone".

The DVD quality is poor. It feels like an old VHS tape. Most disappointing, considering this is from National Geographic! Collector's Edition my foot.

The title is misleading. This dvd has nothing to do with Everest. It mostly discusses Hillary's social endeavors in Khumbu region-- which is nice, but not what I purchased it for. If you want to see anything about surviving Everest, watch the Nova series: "Everest: The death zone".

This movie plays out like a dry cultural movie of the Nepalese people and Edmund Hillary's life. The movie focuses on all that Hillary has done since he first climbed Everest, and how he has dedicated his life to helping the Sherpa people. All this is fine, but the title: "Surviving Everest" implied that the movie has something to do with the climbing of Everest, when in actuality it's just a half-baked biography / cultural lesson.

It is rather slow, and contains no exciting parts. If you're goal is to find out more about the mountain, the other NG movie "50 Years on the Mountain" is actually about the mountain and is a pretty well-produced film. I also thought "Above All Else" was pretty good, especially for its price.

Sherpas of Nepal are the people who live in the mountaineous regions near Everest. Following his successful climb of Everest, Hilary asked the Sherpas how he could thank them. The result: he had bridges, schools and hospitals built throughout their region. Later he also brought other major benefits such as reforestation. Because of this, the Sherpa region began to thrive. Anyone who has climbed or trekked in the Everest region has benefitted from the many well constructed foot bridges across torrent rivers. I met Hilary in the high country during one of my 4 climbing trip to Nepal and saw how honored he was among the Sherpas working with our expedition. This movie is about the rich little known culture of the Sherpas and the tremendous humanitarian work Hilary performed among them before his death.