A Look At The Soda Pictures ALTERNATIVE 3 DVD

The first I'd heard of 1977 UK hoax film Alternative 3 - broadcast on British television as part of the very real documentary series Science Report - was when it was reviewed on this pages by our own Collin Armstrong as part of his regular Seldom Seen feature. Well, shortly after Collin's review went live we got wind that UK distributor Soda Pictures had a DVD release of the film in the works and that disc has just arrived in our grubby hands. The film itself is remarkably well preserved for a thirty year old television production, the style absolutely dead on for the 70's doc style that provided its cover and led to millions of Brits falling for the hoax story about scientists moving to Mars to plant a fresh civilization in advance of the earth's ecosystem collapsing under the weight of human abuse and neglect. The film itself is strikingly bold but what really makes this a worthwhile disc is the primary bonus feature, a half-hour documentary that reunites the three principals behind the hoax almost thirty years to the day after the film first aired. It's labeled a making of but it's more of an ongoing discussion and dialog between the trio about what drove the initial creation of the piece and just how frighteningly accurate it has proven to be - if not in terms of humanity fleeing to Mars then certainly in terms of humanity choking itself on its own refuse.

I'll defer to Collin's very thorough and accurate review but let me just say that this is one compelling piece of work and Soda deserve full credit for preserving this little oddity and releasing it in a way that proves its relevance.